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How public transportation fuels economic development · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:11
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:15
  Jared Fleisher: There's never been more of a clarion call that we need a strategy.
• 0:20
  Jared Fleisher: Right now, our strategy is West Virginia.
• 0:22
  Jared Fleisher: It's not a good strategy.
• 0:24
  Jared Fleisher: That's the why, the how, the how is we need to get out of this either or and we got to do both and we need to attract high wage jobs.
• 0:34
  Jared Fleisher: We need jobs.
• 0:35
  Jared Fleisher: We also need to invest in the kind of vibrant communities and community infrastructure that make people want to live here.
• 0:42
  Jared Fleisher: Stay here, because without talent, you don't have business.
• 0:45
  Jared Fleisher: Without business, there's nowhere for talent to work.
• 0:47
  Jared Fleisher: We need both.
• 0:50
  Jeff Cranson: That opening clip was Jared Fleisher, who leads government affairs and economic development for Rock, Dan Gilbert's family of companies.
• 0:58
  Jeff Cranson: Jared was in Lansing Tuesday to testify before the House Economic Development Committee on a package of bills that would shift some funds from SOAR and traditional economic development models to other community-based things, in this case, specifically transit and he had some very interesting and passionate things to say during that testimony.
• 1:24
  Jeff Cranson: So I spoke with him about it and why he feels so strongly about this and why he thinks this could really be transformative perhaps an overused word, but one that applies here for much of the state of Michigan.
• 1:36
  Jeff Cranson: So I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 1:38
  Jeff Cranson: So once again, as promised, I'm here with Jared Fleisher, who leads government affairs and economic development for Rock, which is Dan Gilbert's family of companies.
• 1:47
  Jeff Cranson: Jared, thanks for taking time to do this.
• 1:49
  Jared Fleisher: It's my pleasure.
• 1:51
  Jeff Cranson: So first talk a little bit about your background and the work that you do and how that dovetails with your passion for public transportation.
• 2:00
  Jared Fleisher: You know I was born and raised in Los Angeles.
• 2:03
  Jared Fleisher: I went to Harvard and Harvard Law School and was a Washington lawyer and by circumstance I ended up doing some work for Dan Gilbert and built a relationship and fell in love with what he was doing in the state of Detroit and he convinced me to move to the city and it was the best thing I ever did, because being part of the transformation of the city something that's positive, that is tangible, that's happening every day is a great way to spend your professional life.
• 2:33
  Jared Fleisher: But when I was a lawyer in Washington, I represented local governments and economic development groups and transportation authorities and I ended up doing a lot of work for transit clients, including the Denver Regional Transportation District, when building out.
• 2:51
  Jared Fleisher: You know Denver Union Station and their line to the airport and you know various, various lines and I just I saw firsthand how transformative those investments were.
• 3:02
  Jared Fleisher: And you know, just watched as Denver went from a somewhat sleepy community to be in.
• 3:06
  Jared Fleisher: You know the place that every young person wanted to be.
• 3:09
  Jared Fleisher: You know in the Intermountain West and some farther away.
• 3:14
  Jared Fleisher: And farther away Exactly.
• 3:15
  Jared Fleisher: I think you may even have a daughter.
• 3:17
  Jared Fleisher: Who can, you know, uh, testify to that?
• 3:20
  Jeff Cranson: Absolutely so.
• 3:21
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, um, I've ridden that light rail from the airport to downtown Denver and it's pretty darn cool.
• 3:27
  Jeff Cranson: You're right.
• 3:27
  Jeff Cranson: Um, so why do you think it's been?
• 3:30
  Jeff Cranson: I guess you know, coming here from somewhere else and watching Detroit evolve, why do you think it's been so difficult in Michigan, I mean the?
• 3:38
  Jeff Cranson: The simple answer we always think is because we're the auto state and we were all about cars.
• 3:42
  Jeff Cranson: But it's got to be more than that, right.
• 3:44
  Jared Fleisher: You know what, it is more than that.
• 3:46
  Jared Fleisher: I do think that that's a part of the story.
• 3:49
  Jared Fleisher: You know, we obviously had the most advanced interurban streetcar system in the 1950s in the country and then, you know, as we kind of became the car capital of the world, we, you know, we tore up the tracks or buried the tracks and really, you know, built a built environment that was oriented around the automobile.
• 4:10
  Jared Fleisher: Right, you know big roads, you know low density over large areas, but you know that can't be the totality of the explanation, because in Los Angeles they did the same thing.
• 4:24
  Jared Fleisher: You know, in the, in the fifties they tore up all the rail tracks and the streetcar tracks.
• 4:28
  Jared Fleisher: But yet they, you know, in recent times, realized that they needed transit to deal with, you know, congestion, to give folks mobility options to, you know, provide, you know, options for folks who, you know, are coming out of college, can't afford a car, working job where they're trying to build up to be able to have more resources.
• 4:49
  Jared Fleisher: But they need transit now.
• 4:51
  Jared Fleisher: Young people that don't want to be dealing with parking, paying for parking, paying for car, paying for car insurance, wanting to go out and drink and have a good time, and that's not compatible with driving.
• 5:04
  Jared Fleisher: So you see, other communities that even had our history nonetheless in recent decades make substantial investments in transit.
• 5:11
  Jared Fleisher: I think that we've been hobbled in our region by a few things.
• 5:15
  Jared Fleisher: Number one a lot comes down to leadership.
• 5:18
  Jared Fleisher: I give great credit to Dave Coulter and to Warren Evans and Mike Duggan, who the leadership that we have in place currently in southeast Michigan knows we have to make these investments to attract talent, retain talent and grow.
• 5:33
  Jared Fleisher: So a lot of it is leadership.
• 5:35
  Jared Fleisher: But we have that leadership in place now and I think the Los Angeles and other communities in Denver that you know kind of made these investments starting, you know, really seriously, you know, 20 something years ago.
• 5:45
  Jared Fleisher: We're very, very late to the game.
• 5:47
  Jared Fleisher: We had the leadership in place.
• 5:48
  Jared Fleisher: Now that sees the importance of it, but kind of the the psychology you know, or the opposition became very, very entrenched and it's just a higher hill to climb.
• 5:59
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, climb.
• 6:05
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 6:05
  Jeff Cranson: Well, I think that you made this point in your testimony and Representative Kofia from Traverse City made the same point that this is not just about Southeast Michigan, it's not just about Grand Rapids or the big cities south of US 10.
• 6:13
  Jeff Cranson: This is going to be transformative for the entire state and there's lots of rural agencies that rely on transit too.
• 6:18
  Jeff Cranson: Because you've been obviously Detroit focused in your efforts, can you talk about that, why it's bigger than just Detroit?
• 6:25
  Jared Fleisher: Absolutely.
• 6:25
  Jared Fleisher: So.
• 6:26
  Jared Fleisher: You know, the most important thing is we want to meet the actual needs of different regions in the state, and northern Michigan is different than southeast Michigan.
• 6:36
  Jared Fleisher: Southwest Michigan is different than metro Detroit.
• 6:40
  Jared Fleisher: Right, the more rural areas are different than you know, than the more urban areas of our state.
• 6:45
  Jared Fleisher: So what the legislation that the hearing was on says is listen, we're not gonna tell you top down what you do.
• 6:52
  Jared Fleisher: You're gonna tell us bottom up so those regions can say this is our top mobility priority in terms of making our region more attractive place to live, work and play.
• 7:06
  Jared Fleisher: This is our top mobility priority.
• 7:10
  Jared Fleisher: That's tied to our growth strategy for our region.
• 7:12
  Jared Fleisher: For example, in Traverse City and in Marquette, their top priority may well be an airport expansion, if you think about it.
• 7:19
  Jared Fleisher: Marquette's a wonderful, beautiful place, traverse City too, but it's far from a lot of other places.
• 7:24
  Jared Fleisher: If they want to grow as a place to live for folks who have remote work, play, for tourism, they need air service and this bill is flexible to allow each community to invest in the transformational mobility project that they need.
• 7:43
  Jared Fleisher: In southeast Michigan, we do think it's transit.
• 7:45
  Jared Fleisher: We do think that if you build a high-quality bus rapid transit line on Woodward Avenue, the main spine of our region, from Detroit to Pontiac.
• 7:54
  Jared Fleisher: Just think about what that could mean with dedicated lane, nice stations For everybody who lives in the region.
• 8:01
  Jared Fleisher: You've got to go downtown to a ball game or to go out to a ball game or to go out to a concert or just to have a good time.
• 8:07
  Jared Fleisher: You don't have to worry about driving, spending $40 in parking, having a few beers.
• 8:11
  Jared Fleisher: You can do what the rest of the country does and have high quality transit take you there.
• 8:16
  Jared Fleisher: And what you see when you build that kind of high quality transit is that development goes around it.
• 8:21
  Jared Fleisher: And what do we need to do to grow?
• 8:24
  Jared Fleisher: We need dense, walkable communities in our metropolitan areas.
• 8:28
  Jared Fleisher: It's a key part of our state growth strategy and if you have that kind of high quality transit on Woodward Avenue, you know you create kind of these anchors or hubs to do dense mixed use development and dense development is how you grow our state.
• 8:43
  Jared Fleisher: Going out to the airport obviously is another big thing for our region.
• 8:46
  Jared Fleisher: If we could actually imagine, if we could have, you know, the amtrak line that currently connects, you know, downtown detroit and dearborn, or ford's headquarter, michigan central station, with their opening today the airport ann arbor.
• 8:57
  Jared Fleisher: Imagine if we had more frequent service on that existing commuter rail line where you could reliably and quickly get on a commuter rail line between ann arbor, that major economic hub, you know, uh, airport, dearborn, train station downtown.
• 9:10
  Jared Fleisher: Imagine what that would mean for our region's economy.
• 9:12
  Jared Fleisher: At the same time, northern Michigan is different.
• 9:15
  Jared Fleisher: Air service is what they need.
• 9:16
  Jared Fleisher: Air service is what they can get.
• 9:19
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, well, along those lines there's been studies and discussion of a rail line between Ann Arbor and Traverse City.
• 9:24
  Jeff Cranson: That would go a long way too.
• 9:25
  Jeff Cranson: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 9:28
  Jeff Cranson: That commuter corridor you're talking about that would incorporate the airport downtown has been a dream for a long time and that would make a huge difference.
• 9:35
  Jeff Cranson: And when you talk about a mesh system where M1 rail, the people mover and then a BRT could all work to complement each other, I mean you've already seen what M1 rail has done for the Woodward corridor, for that segment of the corridor in terms of that investment and that density.
• 9:50
  Jeff Cranson: So I mean there's evidence out there right of the corridor in terms of that investment and that density.
• 9:53
  Jared Fleisher: So I mean there's evidence out there, right?
• 9:54
  Jared Fleisher: I mean there's been, you know, something like $8 billion of investment on the Woodward Corridor since the M1 rail, you know, came in and listen, it's not you know the silver bullet.
• 10:02
  Jared Fleisher: You build it and automatically this development happens.
• 10:05
  Jared Fleisher: Right, you have to have you know the right, you know land use policies and the right leadership and vision.
• 10:10
  Jared Fleisher: But there's just no question.
• 10:14
  Jared Fleisher: I mentioned earlier in my remarks here that I worked in Washington DC where, when I lived in Washington DC, I lived actually in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington DC, on the Orange Line.
• 10:23
  Jared Fleisher: And there's a picture of the Orange Line before they built the metro and it looks just like cow pastures.
• 10:29
  Jared Fleisher: And then you take satellite view of the Orange Line today, northern Virginia, going into Washington DC, and it is giant hubs of development around each of the metro stations.
• 10:42
  Jared Fleisher: With the right land use policies, you can leverage these transportation hubs to do dense mixed-use development, and dense mixed-use development is how you grow, because it's literally dense concentrations of people.
• 10:53
  Jared Fleisher: Dense mixed-use development and dense mixed-use development is how you grow because you can.
• 10:55
  Jared Fleisher: You know, it's literally dense concentrations of people.
• 10:57
  Jared Fleisher: But more than that, young people, talented people, that's what they want.
• 11:01
  Jared Fleisher: They want to live in a neighborhood where you know they can walk to a bar, they can walk to, you know, a restaurant, they can walk and do a little bit of shopping.
• 11:12
  Jared Fleisher: You know they want that, you know all of that at their footsteps.
• 11:15
  Jared Fleisher: And you know, by building these dense, transit-oriented neighborhoods, you know you not only grow our state, you not only keep our kids here, you not only attract talent here, you add all that up into what we need to do.
• 11:27
  Jared Fleisher: We're 49th in the nation in population growth, 49th in the nation.
• 11:31
  Jared Fleisher: So, guys, we got to change what we're doing.
• 11:34
  Jared Fleisher: It's not working.
• 11:35
  Jared Fleisher: And I'll kind of go back to the very first question you asked me.
• 11:37
  Jared Fleisher: You know why is it taking us so long?
• 11:39
  Jared Fleisher: I would say, you know, let's look at you know we, over this period we have stagnated in population prosperity.
• 11:47
  Jared Fleisher: We're second to last in the nation of population growth.
• 11:56
  Jeff Cranson: Maybe we got to do some of these things that we haven't been doing if we're going to change our trajectory.
• 11:58
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, no, I think you made that point.
• 11:59
  Jeff Cranson: I kind of wondered if we're enough generations removed now from.
• 12:00
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, everybody knows about the great migration, but along with that, a heck of a lot of people made their way to Detroit and industrial cities from Appalachia.
• 12:07
  Jeff Cranson: So you've got people in your midst who are probably third, fourth generation people from West Virginia, and I wonder what they think when they hear that reference, because you're right on with it for sure.
• 12:17
  Jared Fleisher: I mean no disrespect.
• 12:18
  Jared Fleisher: We could be 49th to anybody.
• 12:20
  Jared Fleisher: Being 49th or 50th is not where you want to be.
• 12:24
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 12:25
  Jeff Cranson: We will continue the conversation right after a quick break.
• 12:32
  Jared Fleisher: Know before you go.
• 12:33
  Jared Fleisher: Head on over to MiDrive to check out the latest on road construction and possible delays along your route.
• 12:39
  Jared Fleisher: For a detailed map, head over to Michigan.
• 12:41
  Jared Fleisher: gov/D rive.
• 12:48
  Jeff Cranson: Talk a little bit about that.
• 12:49
  Jeff Cranson: I guess what you have found in talking to younger generations about why this is important to them.
• 12:55
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, who are the people buying those condos in Midtown or Corktown?
• 12:59
  Jeff Cranson: I see the prices and I'm like where do those people work?
• 13:01
  Jeff Cranson: How do they do that?
• 13:02
  Jeff Cranson: But those are the people that would say they want viable public transportation right.
• 13:22
  Jared Fleisher: And listen.
• 13:22
  Jared Fleisher: One of the reasons that our state is stagnating in population and prosperity is because we are losing talented young professionals and we are not attracting talented young professionals.
• 13:27
  Jared Fleisher: The folks who are most mobile in today's economy are young people who have options.
• 13:32
  Jared Fleisher: Right, educated, talented young folks.
• 13:35
  Jared Fleisher: They're the ones who are moving and you know we grow them here, we educate them at the University of Michigan or Michigan State or wherever it is, and then Chicago or New York or, you know, Texas or California or Denver, you know, or Nashville or Charlotte benefit from our investment in growing this talent.
• 13:53
  Jared Fleisher: So we opt to raise statewide prosperity.
• 13:58
  Jared Fleisher: We need to have a strategy that keeps talented young people here and attracts talented young people.
• 14:04
  Jared Fleisher: They have choices.
• 14:05
  Jared Fleisher: So what do they want?
• 14:06
  Jared Fleisher: You got to think of it like a product.
• 14:07
  Jared Fleisher: You want to convince somebody to buy your product.
• 14:09
  Jared Fleisher: Your product is Michigan.
• 14:10
  Jared Fleisher: You got to give them what they want in the product.
• 14:12
  Jared Fleisher: And what do they want?
• 14:13
  Jared Fleisher: You know they want dense, vibrant communities that have transit auctions.
• 14:18
  Jared Fleisher: That's what they want.
• 14:19
  Jared Fleisher: They want good paying jobs.
• 14:21
  Jared Fleisher: You know high wage, you know often high tech jobs.
• 14:24
  Jared Fleisher: So this package the transit piece, as you know, is the mobility piece is part of a bigger package that tries to do all of this invest in bringing high-tech, high-wage jobs, invest in building vibrant communities through programs that support downtown revitalization, investing in main streets, town centers, waterfronts.
• 14:45
  Jared Fleisher: That's the second piece of the package.
• 14:47
  Jared Fleisher: The third piece of the package is affordable housing.
• 14:49
  Jared Fleisher: He mentioned the high-priced condos in Midtown.
• 14:51
  Jared Fleisher: Well, I'll tell you what we have a much bigger catchment if we can also invest in attainable housing.
• 14:57
  Jared Fleisher: You know we have a much bigger band of folks we can keep here and bring here.
• 15:00
  Jared Fleisher: And then the fourth piece is the transit mobility.
• 15:04
  Jared Fleisher: But you put them all together and it's basically saying what do we need to do to be successful?
• 15:10
  Jared Fleisher: We need to attract and retain these people.
• 15:13
  Jared Fleisher: How do we do it?
• 15:14
  Jared Fleisher: High wage jobs, vibrant communities, transit options and, in many cases, attainable housing.
• 15:21
  Jeff Cranson: Well, speaking of transit options, it's definitely a point of pride here in Grand Rapids, in a friendly geographic way, that they had the state's first BRT and they have two now.
• 15:31
  Jared Fleisher: Yeah, and I was talking to the director of the Rapid and you know, you think about who transit is for, of the rapid and, uh, you know, you think about, you know who transit is for.
• 15:38
  Jared Fleisher: The most popular, successful line of Grand Rapids is the Laker line that takes all the students to Grand Valley.
• 15:44
  Jared Fleisher: You know, um, so this is, you know, the investments literally we talk about.
• 15:48
  Jared Fleisher: You know, uh, attracting, retaining, talent.
• 15:56
  Jeff Cranson: These investments are literally used by students to go to college.
• 15:58
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, no, you couldn't have a campus out in Ottawa County tied to a campus downtown without it.
• 16:01
  Jeff Cranson: Now it's really important.
• 16:02
  Jeff Cranson: I liked the reference you made to the seesawing economic development strategy in the state.
• 16:08
  Jeff Cranson: Talk about what that means.
• 16:10
  Jared Fleisher: So Michigan is schizophrenic on economic development.
• 16:15
  Jared Fleisher: We are a pendulum that goes one way and then swings hard back.
• 16:19
  Jared Fleisher: You know, the other way.
• 16:20
  Jared Fleisher: As you know, political party control changes or we do something and then we're like, oh no, no, we're kind of victims of our own success.
• 16:30
  Jared Fleisher: You know, we invest in SOAR and we got these big, you know.
• 16:32
  Jared Fleisher: You know giant manufacturing and battery plants and other advanced energy plants and oh, now we got to stop because we did it.
• 16:40
  Jared Fleisher: It's the worst possible approach to long-term prosperity to have ever-changing short-term strategies.
• 16:50
  Jared Fleisher: Like I said in my testimony, if anybody wants to be great at anything you want to be a great basketball player you better get at that free throw line.
• 16:56
  Jared Fleisher: You better shoot a lot of free throws.
• 16:58
  Jared Fleisher: You better be committed to it for the long term and focused on what you're doing.
• 17:03
  Jeff Cranson: And you made a piano player reference there, and so I'm guessing you've read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and that's where that came from, the 10,000 hours theory.
• 17:12
  Jared Fleisher: That's exactly right, and we're at a tipping point too, to just keep the references coming right now.
• 17:20
  Jared Fleisher: But to put that in concrete terms, the state's economic, the current economic programs expire next year, and where we are right now is so talk about CSUN.
• 17:29
  Jared Fleisher: We're actually going to go right off a cliff because they expire and at this moment where the population commission is pointing out that we're 49th in the nation, that our median income has dropped from 120 percent of the national average to 90 percent of the national average, not only are we going to go off a cliff, but we have no way forward.
• 17:46
  Jared Fleisher: We have no way forward.
• 17:48
  Jared Fleisher: So for folks listening to this, for your leaders in the state government, we're at this inflection point, this critically important point for the future of our state.
• 18:00
  Jared Fleisher: And what's the answer?
• 18:01
  Jared Fleisher: We're just going to do nothing.
• 18:02
  Jared Fleisher: We're literally just going to fight with each other and have no vision and strategy going forward.
• 18:08
  Jared Fleisher: Or we have a comprehensive plan right here that invests in all the things that we know we need to grow High-wage jobs, affordable housing, vibrant communities, transit and mobility solutions.
• 18:20
  Jared Fleisher: You know, it's a comprehensive package, it's on the table and it's long term.
• 18:25
  Jared Fleisher: It's long term.
• 18:27
  Jared Fleisher: And the alternative again the alternative is that we, like I think I said in my testimony you know we go off a cliff, we end up at a dead end.
• 18:34
  Jeff Cranson: That's the alternative.
• 18:36
  Jeff Cranson: I also think it's symbolic.
• 18:38
  Jeff Cranson: You know, setting aside whether any given agency thinks you know this is enough money for considering their needs, you know whether it's the cities or the northern t his says this is the legislature and state leaders are very serious about, about transit and public transportation, and that's important too, I think.
• 18:55
  Jeff Cranson: Tell me, I guess what, with all these things you've talked about in the cliff, and you know some of these depressing metaphors, what makes you bullish on Detroit and on Michigan for its future?
• 19:18
  Jared Fleisher: I think Michigan has tremendous potential you know a lot of the broadest dynamics about population movements.
• 19:19
  Jared Fleisher: You know a lot of them are under our control.
• 19:20
  Jared Fleisher: But there are some macro things.
• 19:21
  Jared Fleisher: You know, uh, for a very long time you know, uh, people moved to the sunbelt, right, and you know um policy matters but the sun matters too, right?
• 19:29
  Jared Fleisher: And they want our water, they want our.
• 19:31
  Jared Fleisher: So my point in saying that is you know I don't know if you've been paying attention to the weather, but it's, you know, 120 degrees in the summer in Phoenix and in Houston.
• 19:39
  Jared Fleisher: I really do believe that.
• 19:41
  Jared Fleisher: You know, Michigan is, I mean, it's very pleasant, very pleasant place to be, compared to 120 degrees in Phoenix.
• 19:47
  Jared Fleisher: You know, it's a beautiful state, like you said, with fresh water everywhere.
• 19:52
  Jared Fleisher: You know, green everywhere.
• 19:54
  Jared Fleisher: It's a beautiful state.
• 19:55
  Jared Fleisher: It's a relatively affordable state.
• 19:58
  Jared Fleisher: It's a state that has the potential to have great cities right, I mean great bones and so much progress in Detroit and Grand Rapids.
• 20:05
  Jared Fleisher: We have the potential for greatness but again, to go back to the analogy of the piano player, you can have the potential for greatness and not put in the time and do the right things, and you're not going to be a very good piano player.
• 20:18
  Jared Fleisher: We have the potential.
• 20:19
  Jared Fleisher: We've got to put in the time and do the right things to achieve our potential.
• 20:23
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, well said, Jared.
• 20:25
  Jeff Cranson: I think often it takes a transplant to really appreciate what we have here.
• 20:29
  Jared Fleisher: I love it here.
• 20:30
  Jared Fleisher: I love the city of Detroit, I love Grand Rapids.
• 20:32
  Jared Fleisher: I love you know, going north into the beautiful towns up there and the lakes, it's an incredible state.
• 20:40
  Jared Fleisher: And you know we owe it to you know what God gave us and to our children, to you know, realize this potential.
• 20:46
  Jeff Cranson: Very well said.
• 20:46
  Jeff Cranson: Thank you very much.
• 20:47
  Jeff Cranson: We'll have to talk again sometime and see how these bills proceed.
• 20:52
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation.
• 20:57
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout.
• 21:05
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jacke Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.