Manufacturing eCommerce Success
Manufacturing eCommerce Success with hosts Curt Anderson and Damon Pistulka dives into interviews with industry leaders and professionals that provide insights into various aspects of Manufacturing eCommerce and inspiring entrepreneurial stories.
Manufacturing eCommerce Success
Episode 113: Marketing & the "P" In MEP - Partnership (Guest: Erin Read)
Are you leveraging the power of partnerships to fuel your marketing success?
If you’re in manufacturing and want to unlock new opportunities through strategic alliances, this episode is for you! We’re diving into how partnerships within the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) network can amplify your marketing efforts and drive real business results.
Joining us is Erin Read, a marketing strategist with a passion for connecting analytics, insights, and storytelling to drive growth. As the Marketing Communications Director at Polaris MEP, Erin helps Rhode Island manufacturers strengthen their brands, generate leads, and build strategic partnerships that make a lasting impact.
Polaris MEP is Rhode Island’s official MEP Center, dedicated to helping manufacturers grow through expert consulting, training, and resources. Their work fuels the state’s economy and empowers local businesses to thrive.
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Hey, all right, it's Friday and you know what time that is. It's time for us here to go live from B2B tail and we're going to be putting talking about marketing and putting the P in MEP, which is partnership with Erin Read. I am one of the co-hosts today. Damon Pistulka, that gentleman, pretty gentleman, I just want to say, right over there, Curt Anderson is a co-host today. Damon Pistulka, that gentleman, pretty gentleman, I just want to say, right over there, Curt Anderson is a co-host. We're going to be talking today and having a good time, but Curt is going to take it away. My friend, let's get going.
Curt Anderson:Hey, thanks, Damon, I appreciate it. So, hey, we're. You know, our thing is we're changing, Damon. We're going to stop being the best kept secret and I'll tell you this is no, our friend. Here is no secret in the MEP network whatsoever. So, Erin Read, how are you? It's been way, way overdue. Thank you for joining us. How are you today?
Erin Read:Thank you both for the chance to come and chat with you guys. Every time I watch one of these live streams, I think, gosh, they're just having such a good party with their guests. I want to be part of that too.
Curt Anderson:So this guest, I want to be part of that too. So this is a good time, it's a good time. Welcome. Thank you for joining us, and it's uh, happy valentine's day. Hey, and diane byers in the house here today, damon, so diane at may all right, happy friday, happy valentine's day, awesome to see you here today.
Curt Anderson:Diane and she's uh, so she's probably in philadelphia. And, david, you know what they're doing today in philadelphia. Oh, it's pandemonium, just a little bit of a parade, just a little parade going on. And so Amy on our team, so, diane, I have pictures I'll share with you. Amy on our team is at the parade today. Eagle fans, green everywhere. So congratulations to our friends in Philadelphia today here here, Congrats.
Curt Anderson:Such a special time, such a special time. So, all right, erin, we have a ton to unpack. You are the marketing communications extraordinaire of Polaris MEP the Rhode Island MEP, I might add. And so we've got a ton to uncover, ton to unpack. But before we go there, ms Reed, I have a question for you. Are you sitting down? Are you ready for your first question of the day? You ready? Yeah, go for it. Erin, when you were a little girl growing up little girl growing up just a few years ago, when you were a little girl growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who did you admire? Who just showered you with unconditional love?
Erin Read:Who was your hero when you were a little girl growing up? Oh, what a great question. You know, I was so lucky. I think both my parents were my heroes. I had a really, really charmed childhood. My dad had gotten overseas with the Marines so he could pay for his undergraduate education at the University of Rhode Island and he was this poor kid from Quincy Mass. And then he discovered that he could speak Spanish like a native and also he didn't want to live in the United States. So he and my mom got married and they just didn't live in the United States. They worked for businesses around the world. So I had this incredible set of heroes who always were just embracing life and travel and educating us and inspiring us and making contacts and friends everywhere. My father I mean my dad was pretty darn cool. I got to tell you. In his lifetime he ran with a bull 17 times.
Erin Read:He took a one man play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and my mom taught English to people all around the world, which is why and I feel like we do have to make some apologies I don't speak like a Rhode Islander, but if you had ever heard somebody from Rhode Island speak, they have a bit of an accent that's like the bastard child between New Jersey and Boston. So my mom was a teacher in schools and she taught English and all the rest. So I just imagine that out there, that sons of the Angolan ambassador saying one, two, three FOA. You know it's yeah, so super. They're wonderful heroes to have. Just love them both. So really lucky.
Curt Anderson:All right, that's so, that's hysterical. So, dave, my sister, I have a sister that was right on the border of Connecticut, rhode Island, that joke. I can't wait to pass that one to her. She lived in Jersey for 30 years. I totally have to tell you, erin, mom and dad's name, please. What are mom and dad's names? Please pass those.
Erin Read:My dad's name was Mark. My mom's name is Patricia Patsy, as we all called her. They're just good peeps out there. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
Curt Anderson:So that's awesome. Go ahead, Damon.
Damon Pistulka :Well, I just have to say you said your father ran with a bull 17 times. Yeah, how many times did he emerge with no injuries? 17. Oh my goodness, I look at that and I'm like that be cool. But you know, growing up on a farm I had to do it before in real life and that's no fun like who volunteers for this stuff?
Erin Read:yeah my dad did. He was, he was a. Really it was just a great joy for him. You know he had he had learned about all of that when he'd first gotten over there as a young man and he made exceptional friends and and those friends continued to be our friends our whole life. So it was really lovely.
Curt Anderson:That's it. That's awesome, and so, and mark, if I caught, you said it was in the marine, so served our country, proudly lived all over the world. Uh, any particular favorite country, erin, I don't know for you, your family, what was one of your favorite?
Erin Read:yeah, well, I think probably my parents would say something else, but I ended up moving back to the United States, or I should say to the United States when I was close to 13. And the last place we lived was there for my favorite, because I was the most able to take advantage of it and remember it and be myself right, and that was Portugal. Have either of you visited Portugal yet? Yeah, damon's nodding right, I have not been to Portugal.
Erin Read:I have not been to Portugal Move it up on your to-do list, right, Damon? Where'd you travel in Portugal? Where'd you visit?
Damon Pistulka :I don't even remember. It was like 20 years ago, but I was there for three weeks in Portugal and Spain and Italy. Yeah, yeah, it's lovely.
Erin Read:You know, it's a great, great. There's some similarities to Rhode Island, right? It's this little sliver surrounded by other larger things, right? Actually, in Rhode Island we have a huge amount of a Portuguese population, so the food is so good you could not get better than Portuguese food. And it's a beautiful country. It's got such history. I mean, you're literally walking around, you're like, oh, look at that viaduct that was got such history. I mean, you're literally walking around and you're like, oh, look at that viaduct that was built before Julius Caesar. It's still working today, you know? Um, so it's got all this rich history and it's a very vibrant multicultural place and and, like I said, you can't go wrong with food and fun and incredibly nice people, the nicest in Europe. So I'd go back there in a heartbeat. So, uh, if, if anybody's listening from Portugal we.
Curt Anderson:We had a guest not too long ago who was an expat, who, he and his family, moved from Ohio to Portugal about 13 years ago and never left, and so phenomenal Great to share there, erin. So all right, let's dive in. If you're just joining us, we're here with Erin Reid from the Polaris MEP, that is, the Rhode Island MEP. If you're not familiar with the Manufacturing Extension Partnership MEP that we're talking about, we're going to dive into that in one second. Aaron, before we dive into your passion and how you just work relentlessly helping wonderful manufacturers in a great state of Rhode Island, I'm going to take one step further. So Mark and Patricia are your heroes.
Curt Anderson:You've lived all over the place. Come back to Rhode Island. You are a graduate of Colgate University Wonderful, amazing, incredible university. You found yourself in journalism sports, if I'm not mistaken. Let's go through. I want to go through like kind of like college days and like let's lead up to like how did you find bringing your superpowers, your talents, your skills into the world of manufacturing? But let's go back to what was going on in college there.
Erin Read:Yeah, you know. So going to college was great. I loved Collier University. It's a small school, a liberal arts school, which we need those which really its job was to teach you how to think and how to be thoughtful and creative and connect with other humans, which I think is a really great thing, and that's hopefully what I get to do in this job as well. But you know, when I was there we had maybe 2,400 students, so you know you'd go into a room and you would meet somebody. You'd go into a room and you knew a few people, which was lovely.
Erin Read:And the best thing ever happened to me as I first arrived, which was I tried out for the volleyball team and I did not make it, and I should not have made it. I was fine in little, teeny, tiny town in Rhode Island that we'd moved back to my mom's hometown, but certainly not good enough for college volleyball. But as a result, the coach for the team asked me if I would be the manager for the team and because I was the manager for the team, the newspaper asked me if I would report on the team because I was already there. So why not? And that got me involved in the newspaper, the Colgate News. And so by the time I graduated, I thought I was going to be a journalist. I'd been editor in chief, I'd done all this stuff, et cetera. So I get out, it's 1992. And let me paint a picture of the world in a recession.
Erin Read:And I come out of a liberal arts college from upstate New York with my Spanish and international relations double major and I want to go into journalism. And we'll say that there weren't a heck of a lot of opportunities, which was great. And it turns out that the thing that I had really learned from Colgate that was valuable was an incredible technical skill. Not those soft skills, but a technical skill. I could type like 93 words a minute with perfect accuracy, because regularly student reporters did not put their things in in time. So I'd be at 3 am banging out a story, right.
Erin Read:So I go and I sign up as a temporary secretary. For one day I'm supposed to be at this international organization, and I left six months later, having worked in several of the departments, including substituting for their PR coordinator, while she was on maternity leave. And that said to me don't be a journalist If you want to tell stories, if you want to learn about things and help other people feel things and act on that information. Be a PR person, be a marketing and communications person. So that's where I ended up.
Curt Anderson:That is a phenomenal story. Gosh one day turned into six months.
Erin Read:Yes, I'm like a barnacle I hold on.
Curt Anderson:So all right. So, aaron, so let's go here. So you are now with the Polaris MEP For any of our friends, family, folks out there listening and they're like what's you keep saying this MEP? And I kind of see underneath Erin, there that Polaris, what is MEP? Could you please explain to folks who and what is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and how are you guys just making the world a better place?
Erin Read:Aren't you fabulous? So you know, we are Rhode Island's Manufacturing Extension Partnership Center, and what's great is that means that we're part of a network of MEPs one center in each one of the states, but Puerto Rico and all of us have the same absolute mission, and that is how do we make manufacturers in our state stronger, more competitive, how do we help them not only sleep at night, but reach the dreams they had the night before? Right, that's where we're supposed to be and we're supposed to be able to thrive, and so I joined Polaris MEP about three weeks before the pandemic hit in 2020. I came over as a consultant after a long career right in marketing, and I was supposed to be running like events, in-person events.
Erin Read:I canceled them all and it turned out that some of my other skills were helpful. But it was really funny because when I first Googled you know, because we live in Google's world right Googled Polaris MEP and I'm like this is really weird. Why is a company that makes snowmobiles and those horrible slingshot machines in Rhode Island as a nonprofit helping manufacturers and it turns out we have nothing to do with those people. What we do is we're like a North Star, polaris the North Star to do with those people. What we do is we're like a north star polaris the north star right and we guide manufacturers to the solutions that they need. And we do that through the power of this extraordinary mep national network and that means 51 centers, 1400 plus experts right and then all the connections they have. So when a client comes to us with a problem and says I'm not sure how to get to this, we can say we're here to help and that's a really incredible gift, right To have that position.
Curt Anderson:Absolutely All right. Absolutely. Love that, Damon. What do you got?
Damon Pistulka :That is one of the things I really enjoy about the MEPs is you could if I was at the MEP today and someone came to me and talked to me and it was something I had no idea how to help, how to solve, all I have to do is go out to the network and go who knows something about this? And you will find somebody. It's amazing.
Erin Read:It's amazing how that works in the.
Damon Pistulka :MEP network.
Erin Read:It is, and that's the E in MEP right. So it's manufacturing. All we do is manufacturing. There's so many companies are out there and so many people are out there who are manufacturers, and they the manufacturing part of it.
Damon Pistulka :And the extension.
Erin Read:Damon, you hit it on the head right. We have an extraordinary between Polaris MEP and our sister center 401 TechBridge, which 401 TechBridge really focuses on the commercialization of technologies that are useful to the Navy basically blue economy in that area. But between those we've got about 29 people in our staff and that includes some extraordinary manufacturing advisors who have hundreds of years all totaled up of experience, right, but if we can extend that reach through the MEPNN, that's, that's extraordinary. And of course, the partnership, which you know is, is a we partner internally, we partner externally. It's a. It's pretty, pretty good gig here that we've got at the MEP, we partner externally.
Curt Anderson:It's a pretty good gig here that we've got at the MEP. Absolutely love it. So, all right, let's go here. Erin, a couple of questions to dive into. And Polaris, I want to dive into the menu all the extraordinary things that you guys offer. So for manufacturers out there that are like man, I'm not familiar with this MEP, like I could use some help here. 1,400 people strong, all sorts of expertise, experience you just mentioned hundreds of years of experience on your team alone. What are some of the things on your menu?
Erin Read:some of the solutions that you provide to help your manufacturers. Great way to put it, totally shamelessly, stealing a phrase that Kathy Mahoney, who is the center director over at the Mass MEP right, she's the president of the Mass MEP she always says it's top line, bottom line and pipeline, and I love that description. Right, we can help with your top line, your bottom line, your pipeline. We don't want a manufacturer to say, gosh, how can somebody six sigma, my quality department, we don't. What we want them to say is, hey, I've got a top line goal. How do I reach that? Right? So in Rhode Island, for example, birthplace of manufacturing in the United States, right, it's where the Slater Mill was.
Erin Read:Textiles started here. It's great, we still have a very strong textiles network, but it's not the textiles of old, it's really innovative textiles. I mean, this stuff is so cool, right? So Textile Innovator comes to us, right, and they have invented this new way to be able to do textiles, where they take things that are fibers that are smaller than one hair on my head and they weave it into fabric. So we could turn, for example, a uniform that one of our warfighters is wearing into a computer. Right, here, it's a circuit board. It's exceptional, right. So they've got this great idea, but where do they go? Top line growth how do they do it? Right? So they worked with our team, but they also worked with our 401 TechBridge team, because we were able to extend what they had, extend their reach, make some connections to them right For partners, help them apply for SBIR and STTR grants, get them the collaborators that they needed to kind of get this going through, and we gave them then operational training so that we could improve, so they could get it out there right. This is all top line growth, right. So that's a pretty exciting way that we can kind of help somebody with their top line growth. Great. So bottom line top line, bottom line, pipeline, bottom line right, bottom line.
Erin Read:Everybody needs to cut costs. That's always the way they're thinking, right. But it's also like how do you identify where you can cut the cost without sacrificing quality, customer service, productivity? Right? So we had a coffee manufacturer. Love coffee manufacturers. They're just the greatest people, right? Yes, coffee is manufacturing, roasting, packaging right, that's manufacturing. Right.
Erin Read:So they came to us and we worked with them on lean manufacturing, training right, those very smart concepts, and then also did some facility layout. Once they'd gotten lean, they realized, hey, this isn't physically set up for us to be the most efficient possible, right? So one little thing that's cool about MEPs right, we are measured. We get this incredible support through the National Institute of Standards and Technology flowing down into the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership right. And since NIST has standards in their name, they want to make sure we're up to standards, right. So you guys know this. They go about six to 12 months after we finish a project and they say did Plyer SMEP do what they said that they were supposed to do? So they asked this coffee manufacturer did Plyer SMEP do what they said? And he reported back that they had saved $1.5 million.
Damon Pistulka :Wow.
Erin Read:Now they're a company of 30 employees.
Curt Anderson:I'm sorry, erin, I'm a little older, I don't hear as well anymore. Can you repeat I'm sorry, aaron, I, I, I, um, I'm a little. I'm a little older, I don't hear as well anymore. Like, can you repeat I didn't, damon did you hear what she's?
Damon Pistulka :I didn't hear what she said, not quite, I missed some of it.
Erin Read:So this incredible coffee manufacturer and the case study, of course, is on our, our website reported $1.5 million in direct savings for what they were able to do by working on their bottom line operational efficiency, continuous improvement, lean manufacturing, the facility layout, which wasn't a huge thing. They didn't add anything, right? They're not adding square footage, they're reclaiming square footage, they're using it better, right? $1.5 million worth of savings? That's a heck of a bottom line improvement, right?
Damon Pistulka :Yes.
Erin Read:I think we could all use that which is pretty cool right.
Erin Read:This is why I love my job. I just get to tell the stories of how amazing our team is and what they do. That's something that'll help you sleep better at night is if you save, looking back, $1.5 million and believe me, they did not invest $1.5 million in that training. They invested the time and commitment and we got to invest our experts, which was great. All right. So that leaves pipeline.
Erin Read:You got to speak to the wonderful Aaron Clemens, our senior workforce manager. He came and talked to you guys a while ago and so our workforce team is amazing because we really look at kind of that pipeline, starting from the very like K through 12, things like manufacturing day, outreach to schools. We have this incredible workforce coordinator, Supriya. She goes each week and she sits at the Providence Public Library on a day when they have all of these different team groups in and she just answers questions and she passes out materials and she makes things happen, which is really good. She's also working with our textile innovation network on a young professionals thing. So, again, K through 12 and also university. We have Aaron, who really is extraordinary and he works on training programs and fair chance and second chance and incredible things, and then we have.
Erin Read:If you've not gotten a chance to meet the amazing Lindsay Brickle, who is our director of workforce and community partnerships. That woman is changing the world hourly, Hourly. I'll tell you guys a story later when we talk about partnerships, about what she was able to achieve, but she is extraordinary, right? So that's all of these things. No matter what we say to our manufacturers, what do you need so that you can succeed on your top line, your bottom line, your pipeline? And then we help them get there? That's it. That's what we at the MEP do.
Curt Anderson:David, drop the mic, man, drop the mic, as a matter of fact, let's uh, hey diane byer said I and diane dropped the comment in her says top line, bottom line, pipeline.
Damon Pistulka :And then she said nist, that's the national institute of standards and technology you know, it. Let's go to the meps.
Curt Anderson:Damon, thank, you, thank you.
Curt Anderson:Let's take a peek real quick yeah my screen, so I so again any manufacturers out there that aaron like this is, this is like gold, right, so your energy is just so contagious. This is so awesome. So what we encourage you to do, if you're a manufacturer out there and you have not engaged with the manufacturing extension partnership, that is your local mep. This is the state, this is the map. Right here there's an mep as aaron's describing you know you story $1.5 million not invested, saved by just more organization, efficiency. Just that is priceless, absolutely priceless, and as we're striving to make our country more competitive from a manufacturing standpoint. So here's the map. If you go to the NIST National Institute of Standard Technology, nist MEP website, you will see this map and you will see the MEP near you. So, erin, I'll stop sharing on that. So that was man, I don't know. That was like an incredible description.
Erin Read:I'm not so sure about that, but like. I said this is why, like when you get, you know, cut from something and you have one day that you're supposed to go there, it's just amazing when you realize that, honestly, like, just spreading word is really an important thing. Yes, spreading word is a really an important thing.
Curt Anderson:So absolutely.
Erin Read:And three.
Curt Anderson:You started three weeks before COVID. How about that? Look at that, Look at what you've done and can you believe it's almost five. It's going to be five years, Like in what it's going to be five years, it's going to be five years.
Erin Read:Isn't that wild, yeah, yeah. But you know what? Again, it's not what I've done. What I've done is just been able to learn about, hear about and then talk about what we have done and what we can do for people, and again, I give shout-outs. We've got the incredible NIST MEP National Network. We were joking earlier, right, about our T right National Network. We were joking earlier, right, about our tea, right.
Erin Read:So this is my mug for today. If people can read this I don't know, diane and Craig, can you hear it? It says, maybe today, satan, I love a little tea, I love a little tea with fun, right. But the MEP National Network has done a tremendous job. They've got a great team and out there they've started like a new series called the Tea with MEP and they're taking some of these complex things and breaking them down, right, and I appreciate that because that's what we all try to do. And so to have that kind of air cover of marketing messaging sitting there and say, okay, why, why do I want supplier scouting, why do I want this, why do I want that? How is it going to help me? Top line, bottom line pipeline, it's great.
Curt Anderson:Gosh man and patricia did a pretty good job, don't you think? Yeah, they did a pretty darn good job.
Curt Anderson:So all right, we have. We still have a lot to cover. Erin, you mentioned agriculture. You mentioned textile. So for folks that maybe damon's on the other side of the country, people that are not familiar with what's going on in rhode island, they're like, well, it's a small state, probably not big on manufacturing, but it is big on manufacturing. Please dispel that myth and just share. You mentioned textiles, you mentioned agriculture. What are some of the other really exciting, cool things that are being manufactured in Rhode Island?
Erin Read:Yeah, what a great, great tea up there. I appreciate that. So you know, what's funny is that when you look across the MEP National Network right, we sit there and some states have just kind of traditional strengths in certain industries right, you can't think of Michigan without thinking automotive, et cetera, et cetera. Rhode Island, for being such a small state, has about 1,500 active manufacturers. Now, I got to put a caveat on that because that's 1,500 manufacturers, that's fewer than probably in Cook County, illinois. I get it, I get it Right. But within those 1500, we have literally every single possible NAICS code that you could have for manufacturing. So that means in our state and among our clients, which is really lovely, we have an amazing woman who makes kimchi. We have somebody who created the batteries that are currently in the Mars rovers.
Curt Anderson:Wow, wow, awesome.
Erin Read:You could not get wider stretches of things. But they're all manufacturing and they're all innovative and working hard. Right, we do have some clusters. We're an ocean state, right, so surrounded by blue. That means blue related manufacturing is very strong. Many of our manufacturers are metals and machine shops that are part of the really vital supply chain for building submarines, for building naval defense. That's a really important thing. Even some of our textile innovators are doing things that actually are part of the defense supply chain as well. Remember, I told you he's turning it into a computer. It's just so cool to see, right, so we have those. We also have a traditionally thing. I mean, I don't know, are you guys old movie fans at all?
Curt Anderson:Oh yeah, Well we're, we're old, but so we got that covered Classic.
Erin Read:I'm seasoned as well, so have you ever seen the movie High Society?
Curt Anderson:I have High.
Erin Read:Society right, it's Space at the Newport Jazz Festival and off they go in the boat, the true love. Why is that? Because we're surrounded by water. We got boats here in Rhode Island, right. So ship building and, even more importantly, out of that, composites very, the first advanced materials. Right, we're composites very innovative, very forward kind of future forward on that. That's a big thing. Textiles strong, only maybe 75 companies, but they're incredible what they're doing Everything from your lanyard to, like I said, like there's a group called Cooley Group here they have out in the desert in the Middle East with their textiles created something that's like a geomembrane or something. I can never kind of get all the tech right, but literally it's a giant, multiple football fields wide thing that stores water in the desert with no evaporation and no condensation and no loss in the desert. They're storing water with a textile made in Rhode Island. That's cool, right.
Erin Read:Like some pretty cool stuff there. We do have an amazing food system Right. So among food processors, we punch above our weight. I think it's not just because we love food here and I'm not single handedly the one or single stomachedly the one who's responsible for their success, but rather we have this incredible university here called Johnson and Wales University, which trains chefs, et cetera. They come here, they learn. They don't want to leave Rhode Island. It's a great state. So they start food businesses.
Erin Read:But, more importantly, we have this incredible, incredible systems food business accelerator. It's called Hope and Main, and Hope and Main is extraordinary. They take what they call foodpreneurs and they help them take their ideas from concept to fledgling business and from fledgling business to a second stage or higher business. So it's really an incredible little cluster of companies. But yeah, those are some of the folks we have in Rhode Island. I'm sure that there are people who are going to be upset with me because I miss their area, but we get some life sciences that are going on and a lot of blue tech that crosses over all of those kind of little areas, so it's really nifty.
Curt Anderson:Gosh, I tell you there's a lot of cutting edge things going on in Rhode Island. This is phenomenal. Damon Diane's got a couple of comments here for us, yeah yeah.
Damon Pistulka :She said USA Manufacturing is so important. There are so many wonderful people working in the background to support them every day and she said thanks for being one of them. And then buildsub, build submarinescom. Yeah, diane knows it.
Erin Read:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great, great group, and you know, we have two partners here in rhode island who are very active in that, and that's uh cinedia and also utic, and they're doing some really cool stuff there yeah, we've got a lot of folks who are inventing and everything else and going like especially underwater unmanned vehicles. That's the next area and they're being built here in Rhode Island and and and invented here in Rhode Island.
Curt Anderson:Very cool. It's just. Isn't it just so awesome being on the forefront of all these exciting things, isn't it?
Damon Pistulka :And it's, you know, the. The geography lends itself to a perfect testing ground. Right, you've got a lot of interior water that's still it's ocean, but it's interior where you can test this stuff in a secure environment. And just you know, just so good for that.
Erin Read:And we've got a lot of smart partners here in the state and in the region who make that possible, right, and who are seeing the future of the blue economy and what we can do with it, and also all the companies in the supply chain like, cause, it's really cool, right. I mean it's super cool that Jaya Robotics has invented these little underwater. They kind of form as clusters robots. They're so cool. The Jaya bots, right, very, very cool. But also they also need, like, the wires and the pins and the screws and the everything else to go into them. And we've got those as well, right, but between the state of Rhode Island, right, really committing to it, that's a huge partner. And then you look and you see, like, we have the tech bridges. People are working together to make that happen and that's what makes a success. You can't create, support, launch, grow an industry by yourself, no matter how good we are.
Curt Anderson:It takes a village right.
Curt Anderson:So that hey, that was a perfect tee up. We're going to dive into some of your partnerships. How about that? We ready. So again we're coming. Hey, we're at top of the hour. If you're just joining us.
Curt Anderson:We're here with Erin Read from the Polaris MEP that is, the Rhode Island MEP. Strongly encourage and invite you, welcome you, connect with Erin on LinkedIn. She is just a phenomenon, great friend. She's a woman of high integrity, super passionate about manufacturing here in the United States. And so, erin, let's dive into the. I'm going to take a peek at the Polaris website here and let me share my screen and we'll go here. We'll go here. And, okay, Do you guys see my screen? All right, so let's dive in. So again, if you want to connect with Erin, you can find her on LinkedIn. You can also find her at her website. Here we're looking at Erin. So, for someone just coming here for the first time, let's just kind of navigate a little bit, just talk, walk us through, and then we're going to talk about the partnerships that you are, that you've been mentioning, that you really lean into. That really makes the MEP such a vibrant success. What have you got going on here so far?
Erin Read:Yeah. So you know, what's exciting about it is that I love what you said. Through the MEP and with the MEP, that's a huge part of our value proposition. Every marketer knows that you have to have a value proposition right. And for Polaris MEP, we don't build those slingshots. What we do is we build companies using the power of the MEP national network, and that's a really extraordinary thing to be able to do. And we're really all about kind of demand driven and what does the client need, not what do we want to push on them? So that's why it's always like find the right solutions to your challenges and get help with what you need, because that's critical. So if you look across the top, one of the very first things that you see is services and our services group across improving, growing and also workforce development. Again, that's basically bottom line, top line pipeline.
Erin Read:I'm very I'm a bear of very simple words here. You know what is it Padding to a poo bear, bear of simple brain, little brain, that's me, me. But within that there's a lot of different ways that we can skin a cat. So somebody can come to us and say, hey, my goal is to grow, and we say, oh my gosh, actually, you know what, if you put in a quality management system, trained up by our team, identifying the gaps, getting you so that you comply with ISO 9000, 2015, you could actually pursue this growth area, because you weren't able to even buy for those contracts before you weren't competitive, right. So lots of different ways to get there. So we do try to get them to it. So you know, it's lots of ways. Sometimes the smallest, most incremental changes have the biggest impact in long-term scalability and sustainability right Under programs. You're going to see that that's a good example of all the different things that we can kind of do, both around technology, innovation, pipelines, et cetera. It's a large list, but even if you look at that, you already start to see a bunch of partners kind of listed. So you know, no matter what, that's a thread that we put through, kind of going through Our results.
Erin Read:We are measured on our results. So there's a lot of videos there. In fact, remember I mentioned the Hope and Main story, right, hope and Main, which is this incredible food business accelerator. So we have this marvelous, marvelous project manager that's what we call the folks who do our business, advising, right, his name is Nathan Bonds and Nathan is passionate about food businesses and has developed this lovely, lovely partnership with Hope and Maine so he actually teaches one of their courses. When they have clients first come on about standards and flows, et cetera.
Erin Read:And if you went to our results section you'd see a case study. That's all about a company called Buppy Pets, and Buffy is because it was good enough for a baby to eat but you'd feed it to your puppy. Buffy and Buffy Pets does dog treats and they're amazing. And you know, I loved it because we ended up being able to do through the national MEP National Network, doing a video about that kind of three-legged stool that helped puppy pets be successful. It was Polaris MEP, it was Hope of Maine and it was our partner who is the client, because if you're not partnering with your client you're never going to help them get to their goals. So, yeah, we've got a bunch of things in there as well. So those are kind of the main highlights that we go around A lot of different things. We try to really tell that story as much as we can of how they got success, because I'm hopeful right that somebody will look at it and go, oh, I can get that too right, that's a problem I had. I relate.
Curt Anderson:Excellent, okay. So I'm going to come back to you guys. Hopefully I won't All right. There we are. So I'm going to come back to you guys. Hopefully I won't. All right, there we are. I'm always like wait, I'm going to like close up my. So, all right, let's, let's go over here. So, aaron, I'm going to pull up. So, again, go to the Polaris MEP website. There's all sorts of case studies. We mentioned what's on the menu, all the services you provide. You can tackle lean. We talked about floor layout efficiencies. You do marketing services. So again, I love it.
Erin Read:We do cybersecurity, we do a lot actually, that's a big topic now. You know, and it's so critical, there is nobody who is safe right. And you know, especially as we are balancing achieving the efficiencies and the potential of some automation, and especially the potential for taking somebody who has extraordinary skills and talents and having them stop doing things that a machine could do so that they can go do the things that only they can do Right.
Damon Pistulka :Yeah.
Erin Read:That we want that. We want to make sure that we have that Right. But as you do that, you're connecting more of your machines. You're exposing yourself to more potential weaknesses. So we do a lot around that area, which is really wonderful. We also do a ton of leadership training, and leadership training at every level is part of career pathways, right? You've got somebody who one day they were on the line with their friends and the next day they're supposed to be supervising their friends. They've never been given the skills to do that right. We can give them the training and the skills to do that yes, that's awesome, that's a huge piece.
Damon Pistulka :It's a huge piece in business because people are, you know, display their abilities and then that educational piece helps them become better leaders.
Erin Read:Absolutely, and it never stops coaching CEOs, bringing them together in peer groups. That's also critical. We are always learning if we're going to be always improving and that's at the core of manufacturing, that's the core of what you guys do at B2B retail and your own business right have to always learn and always improve that success story.
Curt Anderson:I've got it right here. I wanted to share with everybody, so um, so again, what we're here. We're talking about partnerships and how critical this is, and so this and this right here Aaron, tee this up, or you know, you mentioned it, teed up, but I love what you've done here is like you're highlighting, showcasing you, one of your clients, but just what are we? What's going on here? And we've got the. This is the puppy pets that you're talking about right it is.
Erin Read:it is so the mep national network, which is an incredibly important partner, obviously, of ours.
Erin Read:They do this ongoing series called the heroes of manufacturing and they showcase these videos on the nist mep website, and a great thing for anybody to have a resource so you can hear the story and see the change right.
Erin Read:So what's cool about it is it's like a little bit of a pageant, a contest. At first you have to throw all your ideas at the MEP and then say, please pick me, pick me. I want to tell this story right. So we thought we had a pretty good story, because our story wasn't just about how Polaris MEP helped a food manufacturing client. Our story was about how Polaris MEP working with somebody who is an extraordinarily important local partner and driver of change in this ecosystem here in Rhode Island and the client All three of us work together, and so that's really what it was about. So one of my favorite things about this video is that I got to be there the day they were shooting it and I got to talk to the Buffy Pets team Now, like many food manufacturers, when Lauren got started, her number one employee is can you guess it?
Curt Anderson:Her mom.
Erin Read:Her mom.
Erin Read:I can't tell you how many moms are not enjoying the retirement the way they thought they would. They're helping their kids achieve their. It's so much fun, right? So I'm talking to the mom and the mom's telling me you know, when Nathan first came on board, I hated him. I was like what Nobody hates Nathan, nathan is. Nathan is sunshine and goodness and Tigger, I mean, like the man on the weekend has like 70-something chickens that he grows, I mean, and he's still painting things for his neighbors, what? And she was like, oh, he was constantly watching everything I did and counting all my steps and timing me and telling me to do it differently. I was giggling so much at this because she's right, that's change, right. Change is hard for people. And to have Nathan like watching you that way, right, he's doing it out of love and out of service, right, to help them be more efficient. She goes. And now, oh, if I could have him and his whole family at Thanksgiving every year, I would. That is awesome.
Erin Read:So I love these side stories that come out of this. That is awesome, so I love, I love these side stories that come out of this. This video and this story of puppy pets is from lauren the, the entrepreneurs perspective, but that impact was felt throughout her whole organization and that's really marvelous right, just the the tough love from nathan, just you know, uh, making that that manufacturer just better, more efficient.
Curt Anderson:Let's, uh, let's, go here so I'm going to jump over to this link here. So we've got the accelerating the defense manufacturing ecosystem. What's going on here?
Erin Read:Yeah, so you know how people love acronyms, I'm sure you've never heard of an acronym.
Curt Anderson:Oh, I'm sorry, I lost a hang on, hang on.
Erin Read:We'll get it there.
Erin Read:Right Damon you know how people love putting acronyms. They create a name for something with perfectly great SEO words and then they immediately remove them by doing an acronym, right. So this is Rhode Island manufacturing to accelerate the defense ecosystem RIMADE. And this is really cool because it's an example of how you take a whole bunch of partners to create something better than our pieces and parts, right.
Erin Read:So we got this as a grant funded program through the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation. That is a section of the DOD and what they were looking at, what they wanted and this is a national program. I think it's something like 14 or 15 people at a time get different programs, get kind of appointed for this. Right, they wanted a way to make sure that they were really supporting the supply chain, specifically for naval in our area, right, but how do we support the defense supply chain? And so what we came to them with was a program that leveraged that national partner of the OLDCC, but also leveraged a bunch of our local partners, which was really cool, right?
Erin Read:So what happens is it's got two phases A client applies and, if they're accepted, then we send out to them a team of students students from two of our academic partners, university of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island College, and we've trained these students to be little consultants, to walk the client through a series of assessments and create a report out in a plan, and this is free to them. This is thousands of dollars worth of gap analyses and recommendations that are to that. So what are we doing with this right Top line, bottom line pipeline? They're getting top line, bottom line recommendations in it, but the pipeline? You now have a team of seven kids who, honest to God, have probably lived next to a manufacturer their whole life and claim they have no idea that there are manufacturing careers, and now they're seeing a place for themselves in manufacturing careers.
Erin Read:They want to work in it. Right, it is incredible to see that and it's something that we started at first just with the University of Rhode Island students, and then Rhode Island College is like we want in too. So now we're working with Rhode Island colleges. We've even got some kids from Community College of Rhode Island we're looking at it's so neat onto these teams just so they can see how the process works, so they can learn more about manufacturing, so their organizations can, in turn, better serve manufacturers when they're working with them. It is so cool. We're getting great impacts from this. It's 50.
Erin Read:In the second phase, after they've gone through that, very unusually, most grants don't let you buy equipment, but on this one you could apply and get about $50,000 total to help do some of the investments that are recommended out of those assessments. It's really incredible. So definitely there's three kind of key areas that it looks at. It's really risk mitigation, specifically around supply chain you guys know that's a really important part right now Cybersecurity hey, hey, there's my old friend and also robotics and automation. So those are kind of the three main areas. It's really cool. I love it. I love it. So we made this video. It's got the stories of both students involved and clients. That's one of our favorites, chris Goodwin I know we're not supposed to have favorites, they're all my favorites Chris Goodwin at Goodwin Bradley. Goodwin Bradley was actually involved in the making of the original, like Sikorsky helicopter and earlier things, and now they're, with our help and working with Polaris MEP, have reinvented the way they're doing things and they're moving forward into the next, the next era of innovation. Really cool stuff.
Curt Anderson:Super cool. I'll tell you, this is phenomenal. This is phenomenal. I mean like, and you're covering like all the things that you're checking. You know you've talked cyber, you've talked about, you know, getting young folks excited about manufacturing. I mean like you're hitting so many, you're checking off so many things on the list here.
Damon Pistulka :This is just phenomenal, yeah and then we're doing it with partners yeah, bringing so many different people together in the process Right that you wouldn't normally associate like that, right.
Erin Read:Well, let's always have to do that because we can't, we don't have the capacity number one and we wouldn't be the best resource. So this is a two-way street, right? It can't always be send us, send us, send us your leads, send us your referrals, do this for us. Right, it really has to be getting to know our partners and what their needs are and also what their strengths are. What do they bring to the table that other people have not had the opportunity to learn about, right? So the gentleman you see on the screen here with our fabulous center director, matt Watson, is on the right and that's Oscar Mejiaz on the left, and Oscar is the executive director of the Rhode Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. So since Oscar founded the Rhode Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, it is so fast growing and they don't serve manufacturers specifically, they just serve Hispanic owned or led businesses in Rhode Island. Many of those are actually makers and manufacturers.
Erin Read:There are incredible folks out there who are making foodstuffs, who are making jewelry especially jewelry oh, I need to leave my credit card at home every time I go to one of these events. But all of these things it's also a potential source of people for our pipeline, bringing folks into skilled jobs, high paying, well paying jobs here in our manufacturing. So those are two of the things that we wanted out of it. Right Was leads for our projects and also leads for our training programs and our jobs. But what did he want out of it? What could he get right? So early on we really talked with Oscar and we said, okay, what is it you need? And he goes number one show up. Honest to God, 90% of partnering is show up, show up and then amplify. Right, so that is a great way. And then listen.
Erin Read:So maybe a year ago I'm standing at, you know, a Latino women in business thing and I'm listening to Oscar talk. And Oscar is talking about how they really want to have an extra emphasis on making government contracting more accessible to their membership this current year. And so afterwards I'm chit-chatting with him, standing with our local SBA guy who's a dear friend, and the two of us both go oh Scott, what's going to help you do that? And he goes well, I need a closer relationship with this, that and the other. So that's what I did, went back, fired off a bunch of emails to our other partners and said let's get a closer relationship. I'm going to create a meeting. It's the three of us, I'm not going to say anything, but you're going to get to know our good friend.
Erin Read:How does that benefit our manufacturers? Well, any manufacturer knows if you're at the higher end of the food chain for the Build America, buy America and other things, you want a greater diversity of who can provide you with what, where it's coming from, keeping it local, reducing your total cost of ownership. You might not have realized. There was somebody here in Rhode Island who could do that for you, right? So our manufacturers are benefiting always from what they get, and Oscar and his team are benefiting as well, because they're able to provide a service and have more doors opened than hopefully they were before. We're going to keep opening those doors for whoever we can, because partnering is a two-way street. That's the best thing. Plus, they are the best fun events to go to.
Curt Anderson:That's awesome. That is phenomenal, Great food great fun yeah.
Curt Anderson:And a great transition. So I love the theme. And again, you know, erin, the thing here it's not just like you, you at the MEP, or just you know, as economic developers, it's all about just building relationships right. It's just all about just you know, all in it together. I'm teeing up this page for you so we're kind of showing different examples, but again we're on your website and you're giving a shout out to your this vibrant referral partner strategic partnership network that you have. What's going on here on this page?
Erin Read:So you know it's. It's a wonderful thing because these are just kind of a highlight of some of our top level strategic partnerships. But I love the way that you said referrals to Right. I jokingly call myself a marketing mercenary. I'm the kind of person who's like what are you going to do for me? Right, because at the end of the day I get judged by my business objectives for my MEP. My MEP gets judged by its funding partners right On whether or not it's delivered the goods. So we do things because they're the right thing to do, but they're also right for our business objectives and everything else. And so when you look at this, every single part of this illustrates that power of the partnership, the power of the P and MEP right.
Erin Read:Rhode Island Manufacturers Association is the trade association for Rhode Island. It's the NAM chapter here. The executive director there regularly talks about Polaris, mep and RIMA, as we call it, being two cars on a highway going to the same exact destination. We may not take exactly the same lanes all the time, but together we get to our goal and only by the both of us getting there does the entire industry come with us. Wrighton is the Rhode Island Textile Innovation Network. We actually support that. We run their meetings, et cetera. Win-win right.
Erin Read:Marketing mercenary gets her leads. Most importantly, we get the deeper understanding. We get the deeper relationships. We can do direct matchmaking, all sorts of things to strengthen textiles because they are so important in this state, right, it's just when you look at all these things even like again, we talked about food right, rhode Island Food Policy, council, hope in Maine, all of these things as much as we can come together to leverage their strengths, then that's how we pay off on our little slogan, which is what we want to say, that we are the resource for Rhode Island manufacturers. That doesn't mean that if you call me up every day and you say I need somebody who can write a social media campaign for me, I'm going to say great member of my team will do it for you. No, member of our team, that's not where they're best suited. We're going to get you to the right partner, whether it's a vendor partner or one of these strategic partners, to help you get to your needs.
Curt Anderson:Absolutely love it. So this is fantastic. And so again, this is a great. You know, if you're a private business owner, a manufacturer, you know creating, you know having that friends and family network on your website like this. I'll tell you, from an SEO standpoint, this is incredibly valuable, just from a credibility standpoint. When you try to be everything to everybody, damon, what happens? You are nothing to no one, nothing to know, nothing to know I love.
Curt Anderson:What you're doing here, aaron, is like you're teeing it up, like hey, this is where we specialize, but guess what? We have a nice, vast, robust network of other subject matter experts that, if you need this, we've got. You know, we have a guy or we have a gal that's going to help you move the needle, because you're focusing on the top line, bottom line pipeline, right yeah.
Erin Read:And we always are welcoming new partners and are partners who might work with us on one thing and not another right. So I'm thinking we have this extraordinary, you know, kind of system that we have here. But even like, when you look at, for example, the SBDC, every single state has an SBDC. Every single state has an Apex Accelerator. Every single state has an MEP right. These are things that you can if you kind of recognize that and you start to really understand what their metrics are for success, because I'm pretty sure they have some marketing mercenaries too, right. So it really does have to be a win-win right. But if you sit there and you say, okay, hi, I don't actually know somebody in this right or we don't have yet the strongest relationship there, how can we do it right? And then I cannot underestimate, I cannot I shouldn't say I cannot speak more strongly and passionately about some of our governmental partners. Right, the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation. We are so very, very lucky. That's our quasi-governmental economic development organization. Every state has one. Ours is exceptional With few people. They get all of the effort together and they regularly bring us in. We all swarm. Right, there's a wonderful food manufacturer. They need help to expand to the next level. They literally will bring in for that meeting ourselves the SBDC, apex, rhode Island Commerce, so that that way the client talks. Once we all see it, we say, hey, you know what Rhode Island Commerce? You guys are the best for making sure that they could use an innovation grant that comes from the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation for that and make sure that they're set up for the tax benefits. At the other end, sbdc, he needs some help applying for a little bit of a package through the SBA. You're the best at that. Apex accelerators we've got a municipal contracting opportunity here. You're going to do that. And if we're successful at those fronts, they have got to ramp up their productivity and their efficiency and their quality and get a food safety. That's us right. It doesn't dilute. It's so much stronger when we can work together that way, so it's really great. The other great partner this is going to sound like an odd one is the Department of Corrections. So you guys have spoken to other people, I'm sure, about second chance as part of our pipeline, right?
Erin Read:I mentioned Lindsay Brickle earlier. She's our Director of Workforce and Community Partnerships, so she had this idea a number of years ago that, based on the amount of demand we had specifically for CNC computer numerical control train. We needed more people coming out. We couldn't just get it through a program that is incredibly successful that we have with the community college of Rhode Island. We needed more.
Erin Read:And there was this untapped thing Lindsay managed to. In a facility at the women's facility, where you have to, of course, check your phone at the door, she managed to build out a workshop that includes Internet connected lasers machines that women go down in and in cohorts of six at a time, are trained and then, through work release and everything else, go straight into jobs. It's extraordinary. We did that thanks to incredible cooperation from the Community College of Rhode Island, from the Department of Commerce, from the State Department of Labor and Training, from Rhode Island Commerce, from even our state governor's office. None of that would have been possible if we hadn't sat there and said let's work the problem together and if they weren't open to it. We're incredibly lucky here in the state.
Curt Anderson:Right, man, I'll tell you drop the mic. That was awesome. How about Diane Byer's last comment there, Damian?
Damon Pistulka :Yeah, yeah, she said we are all better together. Love our partners and referral networks yeah.
Curt Anderson:Here here, Diane.
Erin Read:I know you guys do that down in Philadelphia.
Curt Anderson:Yep, yep, she's with May, she's with the TAC, the Mid-Atlantic TAC, and so she knows firsthand exactly how important those partners are. So, aaron, this is absolutely phenomenal. I know like we could, we could chat for like next three hours. We're coming into. I think I told you you probably shouldn't?
Curt Anderson:Yeah, so, anyway. So we'll start winding down here, but as uh, as we wind down, um, first off, thank you, but I have I have a couple more quick, super quick questions for you. How about for friends and family out there? You've been fierce. You know, marketer, you know that your entrepreneurial spirit, you have a contagious enthusiasm is you've been, you know, through your illustrious career working with clients, manufacturers what would you say is the best business advice that you've ever received or that you would love to pass along? Best business advice that you've ever received or that you would love to pass along?
Erin Read:Probably two of them. My old boss, todd Harf, from Creating Results, which was a marketing agency I worked for for 13 years. He used to remind me that time was not elastic. Marketing agency I worked for 13 years. He used to remind me that time was not elastic. So when I would put too much on my plate with some sort of idea that I don't know, I'd get a timey-wimey you know TARDIS to give me an extra six days to get something done. He'd just say time is not elastic. So that's good advice, not to try to take on way too much.
Erin Read:But you know, I think the other bit of advice that I really loved was somebody once said to me you know, the only change that people like is from a gumball machine, and that sounds like the stupidest business advice you've ever heard. Right, but this is the way I've interpreted it, whether or not this is the way it was supposed to be, it's just that really. You know, change is inevitable and for most people change is hard and change is scary, right. And we in the MEP network and we as enormously fabulous consultants and advisors, kurt and Damon, that's what you guys are right. You're always helping your clients. Change and change is hard, right, and even as humans just dealing with other humans, change is hard. So our job because we are not gumball machines and nobody is going to like change on its face, right Our job is to make that change more human, less stressful, more successful, just kinder. That's what we do.
Curt Anderson:Drop the mic, erin man. That was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. So, all right, the only change that people like is from a gumball machine. Time is not elastic. We've got top line, bottom line, uh pipeline, all sorts of in just incredible value in this conversation. Aaron, like this had to be like one of the fastest hours of all time. David, yes, this was phenomenal, david, your takeaways, your thoughts as we wind down, what are your?
Damon Pistulka :thoughts. No, I just think that just you know for me. I just love what I hear and how you're partnering there in Rhode Island with all the agencies to really help the manufacturers. I mean, bring the resources to them so they can really thrive, and making a difference.
Erin Read:Thank you. I can't thank you two enough. Talk about making a difference. What you guys do every week, day in and day out, to help us in the MEP National Network not be the best kept secret. More than that, to help manufacturing as an industry, as a great growth career, as an incredible driver of our economy, to not be a secret. Thank you, and we are really grateful for your ambassadorship, your partnership. So thank you very much Well thank you, erin.
Curt Anderson:So that means a ton to us. Thank you, that was special. So, hey, you know what it's Valentine's Day. Let's see if this works, damon. Let's see if I can get this to work. Does it work? Let's see. Sometimes it works, I'm terrible at this.
Erin Read:There it is, there it is, I get the heart.
Damon Pistulka :Now it's more like a liver.
Erin Read:Hey.
Damon Pistulka :Curt can send the heart.
Curt Anderson:I haven't mastered that, but so that was for everybody out there on Valentine's Day. We appreciate you, we applaud you, we commend you for just your passion, your enthusiasm, your energy of what you're doing in Rhode Island is just off the charts. Just hey, how about a big round of applause, damon, big standing ovation here for Erin Read, for just absolutely crushing it yeah sure.
Curt Anderson:So, all right, big thank you. Connect with Aaron on LinkedIn, check out Polaris. If you are a manufacturer in another state, we encourage you, we invite you, we welcome you. Check out the MEP network and just see how they can help you become a better manufacturer and, if you get a chance, go back. I don't want to see your thunder, damon, but hit that rewind button and listen to Aaron all over again, because there was just tons of value here. So we'll close out on this. Just go out and be someone's inspiration, just like our dear friend Aaron, and you too will make the world a better place, my friend. So, Damon, close us out. Aaron hang out with us for one minute, but Damon closes out on this wonderful Valentine's day All right.
Damon Pistulka :Thanks everyone for being here today. Lots of great comments and Diane, thank you so much for dropping the last couple couple comments. She says change is what forces us to get better and improve or fold and be left behind. That's awesome, awesome way to leave it. Like Curt said, if you got in this late and you didn't hear all the wonderful things that are happening in Rhode Island with the Polaris MEP, go back to the beginning and start over and listen to Curt. Incredible information on the Polaris MEP and what's happening in Rhode Island. Thanks so much for sharing that with us today. Erin, thanks to all of you that are listening and didn't comment. We appreciate that you're here with us every week, every week doing this. We will be back again next week. Everyone, have a great weekend. We'll be back, see you.
