Latest / Black Fridays: Business Growth for Entrepreneurs, Creators & Professionals / Tech, Justice, and Leadership: Garlin Gilchrist’s Journey to the Top - Ep. 135 w/ Garlin Gilchrist

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Tech, Justice, and Leadership: Garlin Gilchrist’s Journey to the Top - Ep. 135 w/ Garlin Gilchrist · Black Fridays: Business Growth for Entrepreneurs, Creators & Professionals

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like the challenge that we issue to people, if you want to grow something that matters, if you want to build something that matters, Michigan is going to continue to be the place where you make the things that matter going forward.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you are about that life, this is where you need to be.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's the pitch.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think some other people will continue to respond to that.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: This episode is bought to you by our friends at Bamboo.
• 0:44
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• 0:52
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• 0:58
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• 0:59
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• 1:20
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• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's time for you.
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• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Time to get into the show.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: What up dope, Black Friday family, welcome back to another installment of the Black Friday's podcast.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into today's episode, I need you to hit that like button, subscribe button, drop a comment, and then go ahead and share some episodes with some family friends and loved ones.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we can keep this thing going.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now that I got that out of the way, I got somebody who is serving to make the state of Michigan a better place each and every day, none other than Lieutenant Governor of the state of Michigan, Mr. Garland Gilchids, how you doing today, my brother and I've done, man, I'm good to be here with you.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: What up dope, happy to have you on the platform.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I got to ask you for the folks that coming from a small place of ignorance, myself and then other people may be watching and listening to this, could you explain to us what a lieutenant governor is and what those duties of lieutenant governor might look like?
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a great first question man because I have no expectation.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: people know what a lieutenant governor is but the the easiest way to explain it is just like the United States has a president and then has a vice president who serves alongside them who is their number two
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: who serves as president if they are incapacitated.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: The lieutenant governor is like the vice president of the state of Michigan.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm a number two, whenever the governor of Michigan is outside of the state of Michigan, I serve as the acting governor of Michigan.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I also, and the first and line of succession should, you know, have him for a bit something happened to the governor than I would become the governor of Michigan.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: The other responsibility I have is I'm the only member of the Michigan government who serves in both the executive and the legislative branch because I'm the president of the Michigan Senate.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: What that means is I literally preside over the session.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I swing a gavel.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I get to tell people when they can talk, when they can't.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And most decisively, there are thirty-eight state senators.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if there is a vote,
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in the state Senate, that gets tied.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nineteen one way, nineteen the other way.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I cast a tie breaking vote.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I got elected, one of my former counterparts, he's no longer serve as a Senate governor in his state.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: What he said was the best part about his job is that when he votes, he wins.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so as a Senate governor, as president of the Senate, if there is a nineteen, the nineteen tie in the state Senate, I will be at a cast tie breaking vote.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is the automatic responsibility for diluting it.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is government side of the Constitution of the state of Michigan.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yes, that these are my Constitutional responsibilities.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So beyond that.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: My set of things that I work on that I focus on is based on, you know, just my relationship with Governor Whitmer who I've been proud to serve with, for these last six and a half years.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we determined the priorities for our administration and what we want to see in Michigan.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I go and try to make those things happen.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And six and a half years is a long time to serve in any position.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a long as I've ever had a job.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: out here is what have you seen in terms of developments either state of Michigan or just in the interaction that you have in government as a whole what are some of the things that come to mind in this six and a half year journey so I mean the thing that's been one of the biggest privileges so as you look I'm from the east side Detroit and as a kid
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't see most of Michigan.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the thing that got me basically outside of the metro area was basketball tournament, basketball camp.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's how I got to go to
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Lansing was because of the basketball tournament.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to go to Calamazood, play a basketball tournament.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went to Alavette College for a basketball camp like that kind of thing, right?
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But as a tenant governor, being responsible for the entire state of Michigan, all eighty three counties in our state, both Peninsula's.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Michigan is the biggest state physically, east of the Mississippi River in America.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: As a lieutenant governor, I get to go everywhere in Michigan and meet people.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I have been all over the state.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've been all eighty-three counties in Michigan three or more times.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I put in the work on the road to go meet Michiganers where they are.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I have been able to hear from them what's important to them, what they're excited about, and what they're angry about, frustrated with.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in those conversations, I'm having, and there can be, you know, one-on-one conversations, meeting with small business owners, meeting somebody's living room, meeting at a city hall, like I've been to every, you know, community and tribal college, you've been to all of our fourteen public universities.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what I hear about are just issues that matter to people, housing.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do we get more affordable places to live and more, have them be more available in more places?
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: healthcare, particularly like mental health services.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everywhere I'm Michigan people are worried about being able to afford their medicine, but also worried about like do they or someone in their life have someone who can help them if they are depressed, which so many people are.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: If they are going through some kind of episode, if they're struggling with addiction, what health care services to support them.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody at Michigan is worried about the economy and they're placing it.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: is my job today going to be here tomorrow or is AI going to eat it?
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, is the direction of manufacturing going in a way that's going to help me still be able to support it?
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I want to go into an area of the economy that might not be as big in Michigan, do I have to leave Michigan to do that?
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And these are the things that people are worried about.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Education, like I have three school-ish children, my kids all go to Detroit Public Schools.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've got two twins who are going there, seven grade, a baby girl going to the first grade.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: in order education now comes get better.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the urgent thing for me as a school aged parent.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I hear about these issues and I also see opportunities though.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I see people who are hungry, who are ambitious, who are creative, who are industrious, like people in Michigan can make some bottom nothing the way to know what else can.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: For sure, you know, and like, so I take inspiration from that.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so as the lieutenant governor of Michigan, a person who, who, nobody like me has ever been in this job.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not just because I'm black, although that is also true.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm an engineer.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a software developer.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I went to the University of Michigan for.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I started in Seoul to technology businesses in my career.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was a software developer at Microsoft right out of college.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that makes me a problem, software.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when you identify a problem to me,
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to try to fix it.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to find a solution or work with you to build a solution.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like on housing, I drove the investment in our state's housing trust fund, this community development fund.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's something that exists literally to fund the affordable housing, say the Michigan had it on a shelf for sixty years and never used it.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So as an engineer, if I see a tool that we're not using that can help, that's offensive.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: We need to go do something with that.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I picked it up off the shelf, put money in that fund, and now we have tens of thousands of new housing units
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: or a lot of the fastest pace ever in the history of the state of Michigan.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Putting in place more tools and more people can become first-time home buyers.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: A challenge for a lot of particular communities like, you know, did not enough single-man buying houses.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so I'm about solving problems that I hear from people and I think people would say to you that when they talk to me and they say to me something that happened, I'm the one to make happen.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as that problem solver, you're looking to go from Lieutenant Governor to become the governor, start in twenty twenty six and you're in the midst of the campaign season that begin in that journey.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why now and what has that journey been like for you so yeah, I appreciate that.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, why now is because as I've spent time getting to know Michigan, getting to know the people of Michigan, getting to know our different communities and what what people's priorities are, you know, I feel like I've been able to deliver value on the things that matter to people and housing and can healthcare.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I led the establishment of something called a certified community behavioral health clinic program.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I worked with Senator Debbie Sabin, I was where she retired to get them off the ground in Michigan and opened up forty new mental health facilities all across the state of Michigan that can serve people or growl to their ability to pay.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: But growl is one that they have insurance because I hear people in every community talking about, they need or know someone who needs help.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you story.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, cast one to stay football tournament.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Shout out to CJ.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, these young men came to say capital and they requested a meeting with me.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which, of course, I grant it.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you know, these, these people are young and ambitious and smart like what it's talked to them.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we get in there and I'm like, okay, look, all right, gentlemen, you have me, like what do you want to talk about?
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like before I finished the sentence, what they said to me is we worry about our friends as mental health.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you help us do something about that?
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is real and clear and present for people.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, what I see is a state full of people who are ready to take their next step, who are ready to do something ambitious, who are ready to be successful.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to make sure that they see Michigan as the best place for them to stay and succeed and to do the thing and be their best.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if somebody's not in Michigan yet, what they see is that the best place to come and grow.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I believe that we can build what we need to build so that that can be true for everybody in Michigan.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because what I don't want, what I want significantly less of, is to be confronted with the same thing that I was confronted with when I graduated from Michigan.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in two thousand five when I came out of school,
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to be a software developer.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I felt like I needed to go to another part of the country to pursue that career.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was heartbroken by that.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is the place that made me who I am.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I grew up on the East Side Detroit and went to high school in Farmington.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, this is this place made me who I am.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm proud of that.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I was devastated.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I felt like because I wanted to be this kind of professional.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had to go somewhere else.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, in my career, it was about finding a way to get back home, to be useful to the place that made me who I am.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so now, I believe that I have an opportunity as a tenant governor and a bigger opportunity as a net governor vision.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: To get the things right, we need to get right, so nobody in Michigan feel that they need to make that choice.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not just in the software industry building, whatever they want to pursue, whoever they want to be, they can be that here, no, they can be safe.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: supported and successful here in the state of Michigan.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that and that's somebody who has left the state of Michigan for me.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was always I knew I want to have my roots in Detroit specifically, but I always want to leave go get my graduate degree elsewhere so that I can be able to bring it back home and had opportunity to have a stand in Miami, Florida and then go out to Seattle and then start it working at Microsoft as well.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, that's that's what opportunity is.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's where the take bubble is, but it was always intended for me to come back home.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to come back home for other reasons as well, but I'm not going to get in today
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll ask you about your experiences, yeah, I don't a little bit later, but yeah, yeah.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look, I think there's nothing wrong with gaining experience in other places.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what used to break my heart was people who had moved away for whatever reason.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, I'm never going back home.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think about it in the conferences, I have all over, you know, I talked to parents, right?
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who are like terrified?
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: that if their kid leaves, they ain't never gonna come home.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I recognize that because my parents felt that way.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: My mother, her bedroom with Seattle, is he coming back?
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: My wife is from Southfield.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's she coming back?
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just think if we can make it so that everybody sees Michigan, the place they can say and succeed, that means we've gotten a lot of stuff right.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: That means we've gotten access to childcare, right?
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've gotten K-tole education, right?
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've gotten
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: access a higher education and career training and skill development and certification is right.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've gotten diversifying and broadening our economy, right?
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've gotten being able to, you know, if you have an idea to start a business to make this a great place to do that or to start it or to grow it and scale it.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've gotten right with you ready for retirement that this is a great place to retire.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the only age friendly state in the Midwest according to the ARP.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like, so we, I want, whatever the question is,
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I want the answer to be Michigan.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for you to take that next step, whatever workouts was ready to do.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I love being able to attract elsewhere to Michigan because we definitely are more than capable of what you had mentioned.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to take a pause real quick because I want to have some fun on Black Friday.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what you do is you to my favorite part of Black Friday is which is freestyle Friday.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Lieutenant Governor, I know you're student and booted today, but you're going to have to give us some bar if you're going to have to give us like a quick or sixteen.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what, man, that is not my nature.
• 14:24
  [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, right.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sitting around, I'm sitting all the time to live to.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't give you that bit, but what I'll say is this.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: My art is being able to take an echo people and speak in conversation with people, but I can't get you no versus.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that actually is going to be helpful for you because it's just a random assortment of questions.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they all about too, so I just need you to answer each one and answer honestly.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got you.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so I saw some footage recently of you hoping on the court and some some pretty impressive highlights.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I need you to give us your basketball comparison.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need you to tell me who would you say.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to tell you who I will.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to show my age a little bit because I first I'll tell you who I'm out of my game after.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So coming up.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I was in fifth grade, my school picture was with a bright yellow turtleneck.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: A terrible haircut that my father gave me.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And an authentic blue Chris Weber jersey.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you couldn't tell me nothing.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: My grandma bought me that jersey.
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went to the draft when I was in fifth grade.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got this new kid in our school who's dead.
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I noticed that job was.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But somehow he had tickets to the draft.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went to the draft when see where I got picked.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fire.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can tell me nothing.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I bought up my game after a combination of CW and KG.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was tough, skinny, whatever I could shoot.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like the rebounder.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was I was trying to be basically the original stretch for.
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that that's that's what I saw for even they didn't have like a name at the time.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I was trying to be a combination that a K G with his just like for silly and core intensity.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Chris, whatever had the best hands in any powerful or you'd ever seen, whatever it's touched, both hands, both shoulders, all that.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I modeled my game after you got you.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And out of all the traveling that you've done in the state of Michigan, what's the one place that could be a county, a city, whatever the case may be, that has like fascinated you where you're like, man, I didn't know nothing about any of this.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: the most beautiful thing that I've seen in Michigan is something called Lake of the Clouds.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's in the upper peninsula in the porcupine mountains, which are like, kind of, if you go all the way up to the upper peninsula, make a left and go all the way west to almost Wisconsin.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the Lake of the Clouds basically just lake that's in the midst of this, you know, about range.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And on
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's called Lake of the Clouds, because when you look at the water, you see the reflection and the clouds above.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is absolutely breathtaking.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've never seen anything like that of all of me.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it absolutely takes my breath away, man.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the thing that comes to my opinion.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like what is just unique and spectacular and beautiful in Michigan.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the natural beauty and wonder of our state is that.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love it and I know you're a techie like me, so what's your favorite piece of technology do you got a bunch of gadgets and gadgets at home?
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean I put I put the iOS beta on my phone immediately But I believe it takes so so
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't imagine a computer science computer engineering at Michigan.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I ran, I restarted and ran an organization called Black Electroengineers and computer scientists when I was there.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, it's like, you know, there weren't that many of us in the department.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to help us survive.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what I was really proud of is being able to work with and mentor a lot of students who came behind me, just like people who came before me meant toward me.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the young men who I am really proud to have meant toward young men named Justin Washington.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is an engineer at Apple.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to see Justin, you should watch the last WWE DC keynote where he gave the presentation on TVOS.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh wow.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I put the TVOS beta on my TV at home.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, this is great.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's young man.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's farming straight, like amazing ambitious, smart, hungry, talented, like he's great.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm watching him like a proud dad.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's having this presentation in front of the entire globe about what, you know, the next version of TV, I was going to look like.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's dope.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I got to ask you, this might be the most important question I asked you today.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do detrators have accent or do mission orders?
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely not.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We talk normal.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely not.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely not.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody trying to sound like us.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there's a, I feel like we have an accent in the sense of how we talk, but not like the, the actual, what am I trying to say?
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know how a certain place is like in the, in the south and maybe a certain twang, like Boston, New York, very distinct accents, but I think it's more so in our dialect and not the way that we sound.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's an important distinction.
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we define cultures, so of course we define language in Detroit that makes sense, but, you know, I do think that, you know,
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, as it, as it relates to Michigan more broadly, I do think it's in certain parts of Michigan, or especially as we get in the northern Michigan, the are Peninsula of Michigan.
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I can hear a bit of an accent there, but, but not everybody's trying to get toward how people in Michigan sound at this high field.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Got you.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, we said the trends.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Being a, a Detroit, you're also a very important question.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's their Coney order?
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't even call me anymore, what used to be?
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or are we still leading counties?
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I lived downtown.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I lived right across the street from King, basically.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, like, he's hot downtown.
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: My dad used to work downtown.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I spent a lot of time with life here as a kid.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I still go there now.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: My kid is love American.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's also kind of funny.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like bipartisan all of a sudden.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm regular man, just like in me straight, you know, county, onions, chili.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the only thing I eat mustard on.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I don't even like mustard outside of it, but I don't even like it.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You come with the territory.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a huge undertaking.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you just don't mess with mustard all in a year, you know, it's just the only thing I eat mustard all in this funny way.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's how that saw got it.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, begin it.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's what it is.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: What thank you for partaking and freestyle Friday.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Successfully passed.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So appreciate you playing against the random.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would love to be able to talk about your journey into civic, your civic duty because
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess one could say that you didn't have a traditional route to doing so, so we'll have to know how a black man from Detroit was able to, you know, go pursue his education in engineering, and then now become the lieutenant governor who aspirations of becoming the governor.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know my path is definitely, you know, not a straight one here.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, as evidenced by there are zero people in the country.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: who have my background, my professional background who are serving a statewide elected office.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but I look as a young kid, you know, my grandma taught school for forty years at Monker.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: middle school.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But she bought her baby a computer when he was five years old.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: She, she, I don't know, I never got a chance to ask her like specifically in precisely like what was like the thing that she decided, you know, and I need to do anything to buy this boy a computer.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: But she did that.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was first kid on the blackboard computer.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I fell in love with that thing, man.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like my parents let it be mine in a way that was really important that I appreciate now as a parent.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it gave me this kind of comfort and confidence with technology that I can manipulate, that I can make it do what I wanted it to do.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It didn't control me, I controlled it.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, I'm developing this sort of love and relationship with technology.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm also observing my parents who were very active in our community.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: They ran the L.M.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: when they produce association.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then at that, I mean, when we moved to Farmington, they ran the neighborhood in association, we were out there.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: But they had like, you know, real job.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some other wasn't a college, you know, motors.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: My dad worked for the Department of Defense.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like, they were super actively engaged in the community.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, they, they did things like, like, worked with our neighbors to make sure that there was public art in front of all the apartment buildings over there.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you go drive over by them, buildings by by Ralph Bush and by, call me on rec center.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: you'll see like sculptures.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's because of that advocacy.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not just there.
• 23:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I always knew that was something that was important.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of, I absorbed that experience.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And even as coming to the age, like we always had like C-span on the TV and most out on the stereo.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like always, so it was exposed to just political dialogue and discourse.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: My father was always very knowledgeable.
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: My mother was one who was like more like active and engaged with my dad, paid attention to everything.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I always do that was important.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just also thought he's supposed to have like a real job and like always money.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's what I was hoping for when I was on campus at University of Michigan.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was there when our affirmant of action policy was challenged to the Supreme Court in two thousand four.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was running an organization for black men on campus, you know, we're getting while studying engineering.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: His.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: His.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was the first vice chairman of his and then the second chairman of his from my last two years, but I was core member since about third year and so
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still active, I still can still try to stay connected.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, running a student organization for black men at a time when black people's presence on campus was a question, that demanded a response.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, being engaged in that, I learned a lot about that.
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was the first time I did like direct action, where there was like this affirmative action, bake sale, where they like, people were in racial hall.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, young Americans are free to my think, what's the group is Republican student group.
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: and they were like selling baked goods that the same baked goods had one price if you were wives.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: The eight dollars for your wife, four dollars for you black.
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Twenty-five cents, you native American.
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: One dollar if you are Latino.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a super offensive stuff, man.
• 24:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we decided we need to do something about that.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So me, I'm six eight, you know, stands off in Michigan.
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, but like, most of my friends are like, six three and up to, right?
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we was like, okay, we're gonna put it into this bake sale.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we put on black huddies when the age wall stood in front of the counter and it bakes out and it made me decide.
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I shared that because I shared that because what I learned was that.
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you see something wrong, you need to do something about it.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like we, we shouldn't let it go when it hurts people.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, and so I picked that up in school.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, I fast went, I go, you know, graduated, moved up to Seattle to work at Microsoft headquarters, started my first business called Detroit Intern.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: was a job in internship website here in the city that I started because I was felt so guilty about leaving.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe if I could get other people to get internships in Detroit, then maybe I could find a job in Detroit, and maybe they won't move to Seattle, like I just did.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like that was the whole premise of the business.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And but even out there, I still stay connected.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I started a blog in two thousand five called the Super Spade.
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Black thought at the highest level, talking about pretentious, right?
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a platform for me to start thinking about what it meant to have a public voice.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just talking about current events in the
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like political blogging was still something that was ascended.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there weren't a lot of black folks blogging about politics at that time.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I got a chance to meet a lot of interesting people online who were sort of doing that and sort of coming up with me in that realm.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that even opened me up to like, oh, these are people who do political activism, like, as professionals.
• 26:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I never knew that was the thing.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I thought like, you can't get your health insurance to be an activist.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was also inspired, though, President Obama's campaign, you know, a volunteer on the Seattle.
• 27:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got like an email to go to the campaign office in downtown Seattle, which was a block away from my wife's apartment in downtown Seattle.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was on that campaign that I met people who were technologists, but who worked in politics.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that just blew my mind.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you can like use like software skills to help people realize they're like political potential and political power.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I never knew that was the thing.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought you use those software skills to make people more productive at work.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I was doing with SharePoint.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought that was what this was for on one level.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then when I thought about it a little more, it was like,
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: My first job, I built computers for a rec center in Detroit on the West Side, where you know, buttsle, where we, uh, I taught people how to use computers, how to use this technology to do something that wasn't available to them before.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I showed a little girl in the internet for the first time.
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I showed an elder, how to, like, use the mouse by playing a solitaire.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, single click, double click, try to go to the solitaire.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: which is special because my grandma's helped me out of play south here and I'm a little, you know, I show later how to make a resume so she can get a different job.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's what, that's what, that's what, that's what, so I, this helped me remember that that's what technology is for.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's for a position of people to do things they otherwise couldn't do.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like with Steve Jobs said that computers are bicycles for the mind, then they'd be able to be more productive and more efficient.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because of that iteration, because of that campaign, I was inspired by President Obama, like some of the other people were, so I actually quit my job at Microsoft, got married a week later.
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then a month later, my wife and I moved to Washington DC for me to become a community organizer, classly-trained community organizer, but one who knew I'd use technology to reach people.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that introduced me for the first time, it's at least being adjacent to just like the government.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what the federal government in that case was doing, but I worked on campaigns all over the country, civic social justice, economic justice, racial justice, immigration reform, protecting voting rights, expanding access to health care, including expanding Medicaid.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I can't pan out worked on here in Michigan, which
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: little that I know was foreshadowing because the person who led the negotiation for that expanded Medicaid in Michigan was then states Senator Gretchen Whitmer.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we aligned on these things even that that many years earlier.
• 29:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was doing that work was having a great time.
• 29:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I like I said, I miss home.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to come home.
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to figure out what I could do.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: that was like useful.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had an idea for another business.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was actually a bad idea.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's an entrepreneur has another idea for a business, but it might not be a good idea.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had an idea for a business that wasn't necessarily viable, but I was thinking about like,
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: What, um, what can I do that'll touch the most people?
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that'll be useful to the most people in Detroit in this case.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the conclusion I reached is that what a thing that's supposed to reach everybody if it's working right is the government.
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And especially the time when in this twenty fourteen people lost trust in the government, we were in bankruptcy, and we still deal with the fallout from Kwame, it's like, what do we, and how can we rebuild trust in this institution so that it can serve everybody?
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I felt like I could use what I'd learned, both in school, in business, in a different part of the country that I lived in, in relationships that I've made.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought I could be helpful there.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought I could actually do something to reach everybody.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's what opened me up to working in public sector.
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I would ask anybody to consider.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that every talented person should consider a student in public service.
• 31:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because we need talented people to say yes to helping everybody and in, you know, a lot of companies do good work in the community, but you can't reach everybody through a company.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of advocacy organizations or direct service organizations do good work in the community.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's not their constituent, but everybody is the government's constituent when it's working well.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we need talented people to say yes.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's what all we have to come into public sector.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I worked in city government Detroit for two and a half years.
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was coerced in the runoff for office in twenty six.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was I did it's on success.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: We could talk a little more about that.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then got your river called me after beer run a mate.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I got here.
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love how no matter where you went with like your skills and your passion and what you were trained in, you always were able to bring it back to some level of civic engagement at the, at the smallest form, whether it's like people in the community and upskilling them and helping them identify with those things, look like, and being a black man from the city of Detroit, how had it been for you being able to make those connections around the state of Michigan because
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: growing up in Detroit and the Metro Detroit area is completely different from the upper peninsula, other places.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm curious how you've been able to make those foster those connections.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's interesting.
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think people respect that because it's seeing the presence in the night keeps showing up.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: That helps a lot.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So some of it is brute force.
• 32:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I found people to be very, very receptive.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think people can sense people's energy, it's like they know it is not fake, it matters.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then the other piece is like as part of my childhood, I moved from the city to the suburbs.
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went from a classroom that had all black kids and two white kids to be in a second black kid in the school building.
• 32:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I had to learn how to navigate.
• 32:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: different circumstances and cultures and races at a pretty young age.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so
• 32:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: that combined with my parents given me a level of self-awareness and self-confidence and self-assurance.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm pretty comfortable everywhere.
• 33:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so again, I think people can sense that if you're not nervous by now, there will be nervous around you.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm extent.
• 33:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not always true, but the sum is that.
• 33:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I show up with just the kind of energy you're wanting to listen and understand.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: wanting to create an ad value.
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think people sense that.
• 33:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 33:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And because of that, I feel like I've been able to serve more effectively as Lieutenant Governor.
• 33:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, me, people were there.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
• 33:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, loved it.
• 33:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 33:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Lieutenant Governor, could you enlighten us to what you feel like is the most impactful thing that being in public service and sitting in the seat has taught you so far?
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I moved by the voters of Michigan, blessed us with a lot of tools to be able to help people when they elected and reelected me in Governor Whitmer.
• 33:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that means we can do a lot of good.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the programs I'm most proud of.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it also really happens to be something that
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, would not have happened if I wasn't a software developer.
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a program that will revolutionize the lives of a million people in ten years.
• 34:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, position people to be able to, you know, get an apartment, get a mortgage, get a job, go to school, or be like reunited with their kids they've been separated from.
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's something called clean slate.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's an automatic criminal record clearance program.
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: That says that, you know, if you committed certain kinds of offenses that were like not violent or assaultive, and after you've served your time, and you've been, you have a committee more offenses for five years.
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: that rather than having to go through a long, expensive, and arduous process to get those offenses cleared off your record, that the law says our elders want to be cleared, we just clear them, which means that you can actually get that job that you otherwise want to be able to give because you had a record.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not because you didn't do it there weren't qualified, but because this thing was in your past.
• 35:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And already, three hundred, thirty thousand people are fully able to participate in civic and economic life because of that.
• 35:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, what's interesting about it is, I automated that process.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what that means is I had to connect the systems.
• 35:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Michigan has eighty three counties.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's eighty one different county jail systems in Michigan.
• 35:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: All those jail systems have like a database.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like here to be with committee crimes.
• 35:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what they did.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what it's timing.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll have to serve all the kinds of stuff.
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And none of them talked to each other.
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just all eighty one of them.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I believe the process to do the work to connect those systems, but connecting those systems unlocked economic potential in Michigan at a time when business owners have so many open positions that they are assertion and struggling to find qualified people.
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, here's a bunch of qualified ambitious hungry people.
• 35:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so let's position them to be able to be in the workforce.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm really proud of that.
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: That would not have happened without my technical expertise, but it's changing lives every single day.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm that proud of the impact that's going to have.
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: and being a black man from the city of Detroit, how had it been for you, being able to make those connections around, to stay to Michigan because growing up in Detroit and the Metro Detroit area is completely different from the upper peninsula, other places, so I'm curious how you've been able to make those foster those connections.
• 36:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's interesting.
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think people respect it because it's seen in presence and I keep showing up that that helps a lot.
• 36:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So some of it is brute force.
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I found people to be very, very receptive.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think people can sense people's energy, that's like they know it is not fake, that matters.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then the other piece is like as part of my childhood, I moved from the city to the suburbs.
• 36:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went from a classroom that had all black his and two white kids to be in the second black kid in the school building.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I had to learn how to navigate.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: different circumstances and cultures and races at a pretty young age.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: that combined with my parents, given me a level of self-awareness and self-confidence and self-assurance.
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm pretty comfortable everywhere.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so again, I think people can sense that if you're not nervous by now, then we'll be nervous around you.
• 37:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm extent.
• 37:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not always true, but it's something to say.
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I show up with just the kind of energy you wanted to listen and understand.
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: wanting to create an ad value.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think people sense that.
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 37:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And because of that, I feel like I've been able to serve more effectively as a standard governor.
• 37:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, me, people are dead.
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, loved it.
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious to give an effect that you have had these different opportunities at entrepreneurial ventures.
• 37:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel like you apply the entrepreneurial mindset to the work that you do today?
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean,
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'll send two ways.
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So one, I very clearly remember my experience has an entrepreneur trying to raise money for a business in Michigan in the early two thousands.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And not being successful at that.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not because the business wasn't successful.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: The business I started with two of my friends from childhood who also went to Michigan, that business sold seven years later to Kellogg Foundation.
• 38:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a going in terms of real business.
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that was hard to raise money for it's technology.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a web-based software business.
• 38:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was difficult in Michigan at that time.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I've done work to make sure that it's not a reality.
• 38:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: For people going forward, I started the Michigan Innovation Fund.
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: A sixty-million dollar fund for Michigan Entrepreneursior Reader Start and Scale businesses to know that they can raise capital for it in the state of Michigan.
• 38:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's important because especially scalable and defensible technology businesses, like you go where the capital is.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so if you are ready to get your next, whether it's your, you know, angel, sea round, series ABC.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you have to go elsewhere to get that money, it makes it more likely that you will relocate some of our all of your business to that place.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so creating more vehicles or people to raise that money and Michigan means that Michigan can be a lot stickier.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so keeping our entrepreneurs here.
• 39:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I created that.
• 39:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I created something with the the Innovate Capital Fund where we park resources at universities in Michigan.
• 39:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because our university, Michigan is the
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: the most productive research university in the country as far as the patents that it files on the given year.
• 39:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we have not been as productive in terms of turning those patents into businesses.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so this capital parked at these universities gives an additional incentive to professors and researchers and grass students or whoever
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: to commercialize that research, to start a business based on this and give it a shot.
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think about that because of my experience as an entrepreneur, wanting again more people to feel like there's a pathway for their idea to grow here in Michigan.
• 40:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so if there's a path for it and they can see it in this Bible, they'll stay here and try to make it succeed.
• 40:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what this is about.
• 40:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 40:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what do you feel like is the state of entrepreneurship now in the state of Michigan?
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know that there are some challenges in the city of Detroit from the standpoint of if I want to open up a breaking mortar, there's a ton of steps that I have to go through in order to even get that ordinance file.
• 40:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for you and the seat that you stand in, what are some of the challenges and then what are some of the ways that you're working to alleviate some of that?
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, first and foremost, I mean, I talk about people in Michigan being very industrious like
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of I should for nearly minded people in the city and across cities and Michigan and across all state.
• 40:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think we need to make sure we're doing everything we can to feed that and nurture that because even coming up.
• 41:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I didn't actually know what an entrepreneur was.
• 41:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I was going through, I didn't get that until like the end of high school.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And even then I had a very narrow conception of it.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: But because the kid, I don't realize that like my bar was an entrepreneur.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't realize that like a person started the grocery store.
• 41:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was like somebody's enterprise, your whole life, we're into this thing.
• 41:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that we've tried to be much more make entrepreneurship much more accessible.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not in terms of making it easier because we're not sure it's not easy, but in terms of like
• 41:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: people being to grasp the concept of what an entrepreneur is, who gets to call themselves an entrepreneur, who can be a business owner and realize that that is something that is more available than people might think to them.
• 41:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's one of the reasons why I led the work, for example, to make financial literacy a requirement for graduating high school.
• 42:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: As part of that exercise and getting that financial literacy credit,
• 42:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: you also are exposed to like this is what entrepreneurship is.
• 42:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And exposed to understanding that what does finance mean if you are an entrepreneur or you want to be an entrepreneur?
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it sort of opens up that window for people to look into.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I say if something want to pursue later, they have a foundation to build upon.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's really important.
• 42:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: The city Detroit or the region, the metrics are region, is for a few years, the number one startup ecosystem in the country, according to startups, you know.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And right now it's like number two, according to that same.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who is number one?
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter, it does.
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, that speaks to the fact that a lot of people have come together to try to make this again an amazing place to have an idea.
• 42:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It starts up in a grow up and we've seen the growth and the software businesses that are starting in and around Detroit.
• 42:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a significantly different reality than it was twenty years ago and I was trying to do that.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a good thing.
• 43:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I think it's progress and I'm working to help set up versions of that in other parts of Michigan.
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, for example, Michigan has twenty-one percent of the freshwater in the world.
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have more here in the place else in the single place.
• 43:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if we have so much water, we might as well be a center of excellence for how we manage and relate to water.
• 43:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I drove a fifty million dollar state investment a few years ago to start something called the Fresh Water Research and Innovation Center in Traverse City, Michigan.
• 43:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this will be a center of excellence in expertise for research and development, for entrepreneurs and startups who are doing things related to water.
• 43:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fish and Wildlife Management, Marine Autonomy, Marine Electrification, all kinds of technologies related to clean energy that are grounded in water.
• 43:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Michigan should be the best at this anywhere in the world.
• 43:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when now we have a center of excellence that is being built in Traverse City to do that.
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I want to establish those kinds of things.
• 44:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Again, all over Michigan that leverage our expertise, the leverage what is
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: unique and special and powerful about us and people about Michigan as a state about their resources that we store and how to leverage that to create value for people.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the the last thing I'll say is
• 44:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: All entrepreneurship is not about tech and things like that.
• 44:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I'm probably most proud of is the establishment of something called the Michigan Economic Opportunity Fund.
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's started out as a ten million dollar fund.
• 44:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we got these resources in part from the federal government, from the Biden-Harris administration, and something called a state small business credit initiative, SSBCI, and so I let our state application for SSBCI dollars, and set explicitly that we want to use these resources for the people who've been designed out of opportunity for those disadvantaged entrepreneurs, be they women, people of color, people who are living with disabilities,
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: and who have not been able to get access to a bank loan because they were designed out of that process.
• 45:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Say, well, the state of Michigan, we will be your partner to help you take that next step to give your business a chance.
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I rolled that out in partnership with Michigan Women Forward and Huntington Bank and the Balmer Group, all stood with me in the state of Michigan at the Huntington Headquarters here, uh, downtown by by Comerica Park.
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: He know the first or recipient of that was, who I hairstyly has opened up a location on Michigan Avenue.
• 45:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like this is what this is about.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But again, again, we want to broaden the set of people who see entrepreneurship as a possibility for them.
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this find enables that and for people all across the state of Michigan.
• 45:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm really proud of that.
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we talked about the state of Oxford University, but to say to people who have the confidence in Michigan to know the supplies they should start and grow.
• 45:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely and that's one of the things that I brag on about Michigan and Detroit when I'm other places are talking to my friends from other states and like we have a button tech ecosystem that's really for me I start to notice it maybe like around twenty sixteen seventeen somewhere like I could tell something was on the horizon and then like as you can see now like we're starting to see the fruit of a lot of that foundation and started back then so that's one of the things I definitely brag to people and like we we we got things we got things going in in Michigan and Detroit for sure that's right that's right
• 46:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So kids you so also another thing that I talk to people about is that and sometimes like a running joke at least for me is that you have always talk about well, let me let me start here.
• 46:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You hear the you hear people talk about you trait and how do you trait goes to state of Michigan goes because the larger city here and for a lot of other reasons.
• 46:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: However,
• 46:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel at times like there is, I tell people like there's Detroit and there's Michigan.
• 46:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of like the, almost a tale of two different stories, which I mean essentially it is, it's different parts of Michigan different ways of life and things like that.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to know like for you.
• 47:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: running this campaign or in the work that you've done on last six and a half years, what are your thoughts or approach around to making the state more collaborative or becoming like more of a ecosystem to support each other versus the kind of being, you know, Detroit here and in every well's in the state.
• 47:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, our success is connected.
• 47:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a period full stop.
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it's one of the reasons why I travel this head of Michigan so aggressively.
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, look, people can tell I'm black.
• 47:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: People can tell I'm from Detroit.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, but, but showing up consistently all over Michigan, like I feel like I can be, you know, a conduit to open peoples, you know.
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: perceptions and and uncover possibilities for for people working together or just being making sure that we're all invested in our share of success and our shared interests.
• 48:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to truth is like nobody of good conscious, you know, in Michigan.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: should want anything bad, part of our biggest city or our second biggest city, or our third biggest city, or whatever.
• 48:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We want to state to succeed because we can thrive together.
• 48:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: A growing, what areas of the state of Michigan growing is good, including the city of Detroit or the fastest growing part of our state, which is in West Michigan, out around the Grand Rapids.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think that you, you know, build those bridges.
• 48:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did you build those relationships by presence?
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You got to show up.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that is why I put more road time in anybody in the last fifty years.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Michigan, like I go.
• 48:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is not a place that I can go and Michigan to say I haven't been there creative value.
• 48:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that consistency.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: helps to show people that relationships are possible, you know, because you can trust consistency.
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You trust somebody that shows up and it listens and that it's going to go try and make something happen with what he heard.
• 49:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so what I'm offering, I think to the state of Michigan is someone who will build on that foundation, but who people can trust, can get things done.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll try to do what he says you're going to try to do.
• 49:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: but who Alzheimer's going to do everything is part of makes I'm having.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 49:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for you, do you ever think about the significance of being highest ranking, black official in the state of Michigan's history?
• 49:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does that ever like sit with you or you kind of like, you know, I do my job and I'm working for the people for the state of Michigan?
• 49:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's all, yes.
• 49:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the answer to your question is yes.
• 49:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 49:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm mindful of it.
• 49:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think
• 49:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It becomes most evident in the eyes of like our elders or kids.
• 49:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I can tell that this elder black woman is looking at me with a different set of pride.
• 49:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can tell that this little black boy who's five is looking at me with a different sense of like wonder and aspiration that just wouldn't be true if I wasn't black.
• 50:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I take that very seriously.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that, so how I've tried to carry out my job and do my work and how to chronicle it a little bit, you know, social, like I want people to feel like we are in this journey together.
• 50:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: First time is because I've been not in this road.
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's go down this road together.
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think as a road that we can travel, I think as a road as productive, I think it's a road that's important.
• 50:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a road that opens up more possibilities and it shuts off.
• 50:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we should continue to recognize that like, you know, in this time, in the times we're approaching, like, the same old playbook and the same old people are going to get stuff done.
• 50:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we need to, we need to be open to, to, to, to different energy, to different perspectives.
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a good thing.
• 50:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not something to run away from.
• 51:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the time when you got chomping out and these Republicans are trying to run away from the fact that,
• 51:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: They don't recognize that differences are where value gets unlocked.
• 51:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a good thing.
• 51:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's always been a strength of the state of Michigan when we've been in our best.
• 51:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We define the middle class and open up the middle class when we let a lot of people access the middle class.
• 51:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: The middle class would never be what it was going to be if it was only for a certain community.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It could never reach those potential.
• 51:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I hope to have that be reflected in how I serve in this job and how I can serve going forward.
• 51:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's definitely huge.
• 51:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just thinking about the capabilities for the state of Michigan, like you said, part of one of the reasons that one of the things I want to do for my civic engagement, so to speak, was to be able to leverage this platform to expose people to their local government officials and the things that happened around them because exactly what happened in the White House.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: to a lot of people's detriment and a lot of misinformation and half information and just not good things is going on and so it's like how can you take the power back into your own hands and it starts with where you live like people who are making decisions on your behalf on the daily basis you need to know about those people know something about them or know about the policies the things that they care about because they're the one that's working for you and you know granted
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: What happens in White House happens we all vote for that or, you know, should be voting.
• 52:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you control.
• 52:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have a lot more control over what's going on around you.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, well, look, we as people are powerful.
• 52:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have agency.
• 52:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have the ability to make decisions.
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: All of the systems that we live within or work within.
• 52:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't just happen.
• 52:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: These are not ordained by God.
• 52:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying it's like they are the results of choices that people made or did not make.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was oftentimes in the past, a very limited non-representative
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: group of people who made those choices.
• 53:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we have an opportunity today to say that a different set of people, a broader set of people, a more diverse, reflective, connected, inspired, resource equipped credentialed, like a different set of people can make a different set of choices that can build a different set of systems that are optimized for a different set of outcomes.
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we can do that, but that requires participation.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like nothing has ever gotten better through disengagement.
• 53:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you don't water plants, they die.
• 53:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we work with with disengagement.
• 53:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we cannot afford to do that.
• 53:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 53:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And why do you, could you speak to how at least the state of Michigan can be able to embrace the EI with the dismantling of the EI that we are starting to see to the point of exactly what you're saying, being able to have those opportunities to embrace diversity and government in business and things like that to help us be more collaborative as the community.
• 54:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It starts with having a vision for the future that is big enough to include everybody.
• 54:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a difference between you know,
• 54:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what's different about their Republicans.
• 54:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their vision is so small.
• 54:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so tight that everybody can't fit.
• 54:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so they have to leave people out.
• 54:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they jump over each other to leave people out.
• 54:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's problematic.
• 54:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that we are better.
• 54:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: when we're bigger.
• 54:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that we are stronger when we recognize that that everybody has a role to play and we should make sure that people know that they can again have us have a place to be safe and be supported and be successful here and that if more people can be successful that means there's more success.
• 54:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we need to lean into that and ask the question about what has stood between people and their potential and then how can we remove those barriers so that more people can be successful and say yes to the state of Michigan.
• 55:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's how we need to approach it.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's where the foundation.
• 55:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so then it's a matter of when we see a system, when we see a process, when we see a program that for some reason is failing a group of people.
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: that we need to understand that.
• 55:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we need to solve that.
• 55:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 55:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you can call it whatever you want.
• 55:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I call it progress.
• 55:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 55:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any thoughts on how we can grow or do our part to help grow the population or for the state of Michigan to be able to allow people to have more access to those those great things that we're going to see down the road?
• 55:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think some of this is we touched on it earlier.
• 55:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, I just want people, you know,
• 55:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: you have these different points in life where you make a choice or choice is presented to you.
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we just have to make sure we do the work so that Michigan is a good answer.
• 56:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I had all those choice points.
• 56:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, if you are
• 56:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: if you decide that you want to become a registered-printest carpenter, we need to have the best programs for that in the country.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you decide you want to become a child care education professional.
• 56:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: We need to make sure that we not only have good programs to get those credentials in Greece, but that we pay better.
• 56:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so that you choose between doing that job and Michigan or Ohio, for that and every other reason you choose Michigan over Ohio.
• 56:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 56:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think we have to, but we can think about it on that granular level.
• 56:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so again, what are the barriers?
• 56:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are the reasons that someone would say no in transform that situation?
• 56:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that is the reason for somebody to say yes.
• 56:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's how I think about it because it again, it enables people who are here to stay here.
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 56:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And see and noted they can succeed.
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then as far as like doing the work of
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: of communicating beyond, beyond the state of Michigan, and letting people know this to place where they can come and grow.
• 57:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just to let people know that that is possible here, and that we have our opportunity.
• 57:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Michigan has been that place already in history.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's how my family got here.
• 57:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 57:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like they got it because it was like, we need to go someplace where we can be successful.
• 57:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can be safer than we are in Alabama.
• 57:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they went to Michigan.
• 57:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 57:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so we can do a version of that.
• 57:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm going forward and I think that's important.
• 57:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, our state has now turned the tide and the population is growing.
• 57:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: A big contribution to wire population growing is because of immigration.
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and that's not something to run away from.
• 57:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's something to say that hey people see Michigan as a place of opportunity.
• 57:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a good thing.
• 57:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, everybody, see it as a place of opportunity.
• 57:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're here already, if you can come here later, it's what you need to do.
• 57:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I love that because for the exact reason that you say, my family came on different sides from Atlanta and from Mississippi and my greatest here.
• 57:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, I'm sure the automotive industry had or industrial industry had a huge role to plan that.
• 57:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that with a lot of different things that we're seeing here, including tech revolution, so to speak, and down also automotive and that being changing the people.
• 58:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: getting tech opportunities at these automotive companies, which is what I've seen from a lot of like transplants who come from other places like the South North Carolina, South Carolina, and then come here and then start to work and enjoy.
• 58:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been a joy, Detroit.
• 58:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's tech.
• 58:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's art.
• 58:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's life sciences.
• 58:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've had more than a dozen unicorn life sciences companies come out of, come out of the state of Michigan in the last decade.
• 58:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's
• 58:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the second biggest part of our economy is agriculture.
• 58:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying it's like the like ag tech is a growing industry here in the state of Michigan.
• 58:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think there are a lot of things, a lot of stuff that people can think they're teeth into.
• 58:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do we make something grow?
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like the challenge that we issue to people, if you want to grow something that matters, if you want to build something that matters, Michigan is going to continue to be the place where you make the things that matter going forward.
• 59:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you are about that life, this is where you need to be.
• 59:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's the pitch.
• 59:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 59:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think some other people will continue to respond to that.
• 59:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to add that to your campaign?
• 59:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're about that life, you need to come and mention it.
• 59:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: We right here right now.
• 59:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, forget it.
• 59:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: In your travels around the state of Michigan, what are some of the common things that you hear besides?
• 59:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure for a long time it's fixed a damn rose, but aside from that, what are some of the common things that you hear from the folks in terms of either concerns or things that they love about Michigan?
• 59:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, on a concern side, it's if I alluded to it for housing.
• 59:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: health care, mental health services, you know, what's my place in the economy going forward, you know, is AI going to eat my kids job or the kid that they my kids are interested in.
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: The answer is it doesn't need to.
• 59:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I hear about that a lot as far as like what people love and are excited about.
• 1:00:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are blessed with our state's beauty.
• 1:00:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I won the reason that we wrote out a program a few years ago called Nature awaits.
• 1:00:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I was a kid, I never went to a state park.
• 1:00:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we did this program such that for every fourth grader would have the ability to visit any state park they wanted for free for a year to be able to get just access to that.
• 1:00:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, imagine the things you can see if you expose what is just transformative.
• 1:00:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're really about the people who love that about Michigan.
• 1:00:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was asked to see down in Southwest Michigan, almost in Indiana, earlier to spring, to work to be with these, these stir forth and fifth graders.
• 1:00:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were releasing baby salmon into the river for the season.
• 1:00:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that was cool.
• 1:00:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:00:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would've loved him done that as a kid.
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, but that's something that you need to mention.
• 1:00:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't even know we have salmon like that in Michigan.
• 1:01:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I did not get on that.
• 1:01:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
• 1:01:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's cool.
• 1:01:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we have so many things that people can be exposed to and people people love that people love the beauty of our state.
• 1:01:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I hear about that consistently.
• 1:01:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I learn about these hidden gems.
• 1:01:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: That that's really inspiring.
• 1:01:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: love that.
• 1:01:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by the time that this episode is releasing people get a chance to hear it, it would be the day after June team.
• 1:01:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I just want to ask you real quick, the significance of that, what it means to you.
• 1:01:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And also, if you can relate to the state of Michigan as well.
• 1:01:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, on the most micro level, June team is my baby girl's birthday.
• 1:01:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's so true.
• 1:01:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Shout out to the baby, June team.
• 1:01:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ruby is my freedom baby.
• 1:01:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there we go.
• 1:01:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And on June team in twenty nineteen.
• 1:01:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that I think is unique and inspiring about Juneteenth is that this might be kind of nerdy, but like, this is a holiday that's about being informed.
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's about knowledge and information, because like, you know what happened in the story, right?
• 1:02:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, the people in Galveston, Texas were legally free.
• 1:02:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: according to the law.
• 1:02:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't know that, right?
• 1:02:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Since they didn't know that, they didn't act like that.
• 1:02:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: and they weren't treated like that.
• 1:02:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Juneteenth is celebrating the moment when he said, hey, you are free.
• 1:02:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is one of the most beautiful illustrations of the power of people knowing who they are and knowing what they have and knowing therefore what they can do and who they can be.
• 1:02:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I love that because it is a reminder
• 1:02:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: that knowledge is power, that information is important for us to grow, that we can't reach our fullest potential and be the biggest and best version of ourselves if we don't have knowledge understanding.
• 1:03:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Juneteenth represents that and all the freedom that comes with it.
• 1:03:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I love this holiday and proud that we celebrated here explicitly in Michigan and proud that we celebrated explicitly as a country.
• 1:03:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now,
• 1:03:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I'm probably that everybody gets invited into the celebration that you and teens and the way that it was, you know, my family did, but like, you know, a lot of families and other cultures didn't, but now I think people have a more conscious of it, and they can be transformed by this well.
• 1:03:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it almost like the physical embodiment of being invited to the cook?
• 1:03:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be saying, I'm gonna have for.
• 1:03:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a little shaky.
• 1:03:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry if I didn't really kick out.
• 1:03:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But everybody can't have access to what experience of like learning about something to be a better for it.
• 1:03:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It can be a struggle for it.
• 1:03:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what it is most definitely.
• 1:03:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so Lieutenant Governor, what do you have on the horizon?
• 1:04:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you kind of see in your crystal ball moving forward as far as current duties, future duties?
• 1:04:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like what do you have on the horizon or anything?
• 1:04:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Especially after working on it, you could share it with us.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I wake up every day trying to solve problems.
• 1:04:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm going to continue to do that as a tenant governor.
• 1:04:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to do that as the next governor of Michigan to go to the next level to come because Michigan, you know, we have amazing things.
• 1:04:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've made Governor Whitman, I've laid a really strong foundation for the future.
• 1:04:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as this times change as the world continues to evolve, I think we need somebody in public service, in the governor's office, who mission genders can trust to navigate those changing waters, who can, it was equipped to be able to handle what this technology means for people, for economy, for our culture, for our education system, that we can use these tools for the betterment of mission genders, not the detriment of mission genders.
• 1:04:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we can have leadership that is willing to stand on business, fight for our values and when there may be abuses either on the horizon or coming at the people of Michigan that someone will stand tall there and say, no, that's not going to come to our people.
• 1:05:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to stand up and fight against that and stop that.
• 1:05:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I want to see and what I want to build.
• 1:05:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it means to meet a to stand tall from Michigan to be proud of it.
• 1:05:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man, you know, like whenever you go someplace,
• 1:05:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: You never alone if people notice you from Michigan or from Detroit.
• 1:05:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
• 1:05:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that that energy is what I think positions us propels us to be able to do amazing things.
• 1:05:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we got to keep that energy going forward in a big way.
• 1:05:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I want people to
• 1:05:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: to be part of this movement, to join me at GarlandGillCrist.com.
• 1:05:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that we can build something amazing together.
• 1:05:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So people in people coming Michigan, they just know it's the best place.
• 1:05:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 1:05:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And working folks aside from GarlandGillCrist.com, working again in touch with you, like what's the best way?
• 1:05:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's your socials?
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like all that stuff?
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, GarlandGillCrist.com is the great way to join and be this campaign to stand tall from Michigan, click the donate button in particular.
• 1:06:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I last my favorite button on the web page.
• 1:06:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, my IG is Garland, I, that's probably the best and most sponsor place to see me as well.
• 1:06:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Garland on Twitter, GLI in, but that's where you find me.
• 1:06:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what you find me.
• 1:06:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: But really, join us with building us up and exciting and inclusive and ambitious and something that
• 1:06:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: that everybody has ownership of.
• 1:06:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's not something that's about me.
• 1:06:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about Michigan.
• 1:06:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm excited to grow it.
• 1:06:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 1:06:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I noticed over the last couple of years, which is social media, you've been more intentional in terms of, like, content and spreading a word about different things.
• 1:06:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just want the real quick, because I know you have, uh, an ordinary mindset, and then I could tell, you know, a bit of a creative in there somewhere as well, especially, we like the type of work that you do, but just want to know, like, what was the intentionality behind being more, uh, being more intentional about that communication and like creating,
• 1:06:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Effective ways to reach the people.
• 1:06:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: You had to know where people are.
• 1:06:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a, you know, I guess a communications version of what I do physically.
• 1:07:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't go in all over where everybody is and not and being willing to go everywhere.
• 1:07:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the reasons why I appreciate and respect this platform.
• 1:07:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look, I used to host podcasts.
• 1:07:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 1:07:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:07:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:07:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was at a podcast.
• 1:07:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: back in twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen and so like I respect um you know what it takes to to to build media to build audience to to do storytelling and in a real way I love to look at me like I had a cup of coffee with going to journalism school for grass school and I think that's really important and so I I because I think it's part of why I want to be on this podcast I want to come and support this platform
• 1:07:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: but also show that I think that people are getting information, experiences, and ideas across a wide range of platforms.
• 1:07:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so part of leadership, and they say like, you know, so leadership is a nice opportunity to success and showing up, well, that's a one hundred percent leadership is showing up.
• 1:08:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that means showing up on the media and the spaces where people are consuming as well.
• 1:08:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and we appreciate you putting up to platform for sure.
• 1:08:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: This has definitely been an honor and love the word that you're doing.
• 1:08:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And saying that from a non-biased place because you are fellow Wolverine and also a part of his and part of his history as well.
• 1:08:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, just really grateful to be able to have you here and we wish you the best of luck moving forward with the campaign and all the work that you're doing at the state capital.
• 1:08:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you, Denzel.
• 1:08:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, man.
• 1:08:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 1:08:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And everybody watching, listening, we're tapping with you all soon.
• 1:08:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Peace.