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THE FRONTIER LINE
Hosts Wayne Aston and David Murray explore the critical global pillars of infrastructure development and energy production, from traditional methods to future-forward advancements. The Frontier Line covers the latest industry news, energy innovations, and sustainability trends that are shaping the future. Through expert interviews with industry leaders in renewable energy, utility-scale battery storage, and waste-to-energy technologies, the podcast provides insights into the evolving landscape of energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure. By focusing on the intersection of innovation and the politics of energy, The Frontier Line highlights transformative ideas and technologies poised to deliver cost-efficient, resilient, and sustainable solutions for global industries.
THE FRONTIER LINE
Valley Forge Impact Parks
What if small towns could become the new hubs of innovation and opportunity? Wayne joins us to share the inspiring vision behind the Valley Forge Impact Park in Fillmore, Utah, a pioneering project designed to redefine sustainable development. This ambitious initiative promises to turn Fillmore into a vibrant center for clean technology, thanks to strategic partnerships and the advantages of federal opportunity zones. Discover how projects like Valley Forge can revitalize communities, keeping young talent local and engaged with new prospects for growth.
We address the challenges faced by small towns like Fillmore and how the Valley Forge project seeks to reverse the trend of young people leaving in search of opportunities. Wayne walks us through the journey from a simple concept to a comprehensive development involving data centers, power plants, and renewable energy. The historical inspiration behind Valley Forge serves as a beacon of perseverance, and we also explore potential collaborations with places like Guernsey to bolster shared values and military support.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the Valley Forge project's commitment to supporting veterans through the 'Warriors Pride' initiative. We discuss the pressing issue of veteran suicide and how meaningful employment and education can provide purpose and joy beyond military service. By tapping into the resilience and character of veterans and their families, Valley Forge aims to foster a workforce rooted in patriotic values, offering not just jobs but a community filled with pride and opportunity. Join us as we uncover the profound mission of this project, setting a new standard for community revitalization and support.
Well, welcome back to this next episode. We've had some really good conversations. Hopefully you're following us Today. I am kicking off because I want to ask this guy next to me. We touched on it, we let into it about the Valley Forge Impact Park, which is our kind of thing. But, wayne, yeah, it's been a vision, but Wayne, it's been a vision. It's been, dare I say, your vision for a long time. That's come to fruition, that is really evolving and taking on this great identity.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about Valley Forge Impact Park. Go Valley Forge Impact Park, Okay well, what are they?
Speaker 1:What is it? Let's get more. Let's just dive right in.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, dave. I appreciate you teeing that up and you know you've been with me long enough now. So one of the things that I'm most excited about is and I want to be I try to stay as humble and grounded to the beginnings. At all times I may have had an idea, but I got the idea from some other guys who are partners and we'll talk about those guys. So it's not like this unique thing I think I've been responsible for, maybe helping move it along, get some traction and evolve. But one of my favorite things is seeing how you and the other core partners of the company have kind of given it your own definitions and meanings and it's taken on. This. It's much bigger than me. The vision is much bigger than me at this point and that's a really exciting thing for me to see and that means we're building something of real value.
Speaker 2:We talked about the vision of Valley Forge Impact Parks in the last episode and what that is. That's so so for the listeners, the Valley Forge Impact Parks is the, it's the land development underneath the things, and we talked about those standards that Valley Forge Impact Parks embody and we talked about the types of tenants that we're committed to attracting and accommodating with those parks. But it's also been a real commitment of ours to lead by example and bring a company to the table that is a tenant of the park, that also helps establish that standard, instead of us just being the land developer and just delivering improved pads and hoping and praying everyone buys into our vision. We're saying no, no, we're going to actually bring on this startup, this clean tech startup, and it's the anchor tenant of the park and we're going to show you all how this is supposed to look. This is our vision of what this looks like. It's an example of what it looks like, and that's American Spec Industries.
Speaker 1:Talk about that at a later date, I suppose.
Speaker 2:American Spec Industries? Yeah, we industries, and so talk about that at a later date, I suppose, yeah, american spec industry, yeah, we'll get there yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we've talked about it a few times, but we'll really we'll do a deep dive yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So with valley forge impact parks, you know I I was coming out of. We talked about the project in moab and this this is maybe, I think, 2021 or end of 2022, us transitioning and us thinking man, I, as a developer, need to reinvent myself personally and we need to come up with a new concept, a new development plan that is going to meet a greater need and have a greater impact, and this is the beginning mentality of Valley Forge Impact Park. And so I go about site selection and end up landing in Fillmore, utah, and I end up getting all of the same questions from lenders and providers that I got in Moab why are we in Fillmore? Where is Fillmore?
Speaker 1:Utah.
Speaker 2:And so you know I can remember looking at some of the original decks, like the old decks. Why Fillmore? I like overcoming this, this obscure location. Why are we in this obscure location of film? Or utah?
Speaker 2:Um, site selection is critical for any development. You know you. You hear the cliche term of location, location, location. And then you hear about mcdonald's and how mcdonald's ray crock it's all about. You know some, it's more about his real estate holdings in key corners of every city of the world than it is about making burgers and fries. It's about that real estate underneath. So, location, location, location.
Speaker 2:I looked at sites in Price, utah, looked in Wellington, looked in outside of Moab. I was looking for something that could sit on a freeway corridor so that it would make sense for logistics, trucking and shipping and all of that, and also something that was kind of out of the way. Did not want to be on the Wasatch Front or Utah County where it was heavily congested traffic, because I'm envisioning something that would require a lot of truck traffic. It would be great also if it was a lot of rail traffic, and so rail became a part of the equation and site selection and like, okay, what are the envisioning, the businesses that might exist on the park and what would really be infrastructural incentives, you know, to entice them to come.
Speaker 2:Rail was a big one. Interestingly enough, fillmore doesn't currently have rail. It's not. It's not currently rail served, but there's an existing old rail line that was abandoned in the 80s that we feel like we can resuscitate without, without, you know, too huge of an expense. And so you check the rail box i-15 corridor. We're off i-70. So, you know, transport into las vegas and denver seemed ideal. Um, it's in a federal opportunity zone.
Speaker 1:We've mentioned another big big.
Speaker 2:Thing yeah, uh. So for the listeners, federal opportunity zones is a whole other real estate kind of strategy. There's there's there's investment REITs and funds who are dedicated to buying land and developing land specifically in federal opportunity zones because those tax advantages are so dramatic. If we buy land for a million dollars and we improve it and we put in, we let's say we put in 5 million, we're in 6 million and we come out with a value of 10 million, so we get that gain of that, the land value gain. That's a capital gain. Well, if we hold the property for 10 years or more, we can eliminate tax on that gain, so that's free tax on on can eliminate tax on that gain, so that's free tax on all the margin we just created.
Speaker 2:That's a really big deal in land development because there's so much margin you can create from raw land transitioning through entitlements, through establishing market values, into something truly valuable. And Fillmore, that was a big advantage of really low cost basis of land compared to the Wasatch Front. We're talking about. Land in Fillmore at the time is a couple thousand an acre versus on the Wasatch Front it could be 200, 250,000 an acre or more for something similar, similar size, with similar nomenclature. I'm hoping that I'm tracking on what you were hoping for me to address here.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just enjoying it. Really it's understanding kind of how this all came into being. Yeah, I say keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, good. So there's all these site selection factors that kind of went into this. The federal opportunity zone was a big deal. And then I find out about, after I bought the property. Initially, I find out about the governor's office having this new program called Red Tiff and that's rural economic development tax increment financing and basically what that meant was for certain rural communities in utah. If you stand a business up in one of these rural communities then the governor's office would give you a 50% cash rebate on your first five years of taxes in business state tax. That's a huge incentive. That's a huge incentive. So you add red TIF onto your capital gains reductions or eliminations with the opportunity zone and you've got a really spicy tax environment now to stand a new business up in. Or you've got a really compelling reason to talk to a new manufacturer who might want to come in from some other state into Utah and you could present these tax advantages and make a good case for why it would be a good site for them.
Speaker 1:Well, we talked about financing in the last episode and I think this is kind of getting into maybe even deeper a little bit of some of the strategy, of kind of why things evolved the way they did and kind of what we've learned in that process, where you've learned the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely Structuring the cap stack, I think is what you're. I think what you're alluding to structuring the cap stack and figuring out how to finance something. My experience has been in land development, and so financing land development for me seems like a more manageable task than raising a cap stack or raising money on a tech startup, for example, or raising money for a new power plant or manufacturing data center, which I've never done Right, and so that was just a natural starting point.
Speaker 2:So as we built this team out, we started to kind of add on these other value adds, and one of those was, you know, testing the site for geothermal capacity. We were talking about geothermal and we, you know, we had boreholes, you know, drilled, and we went 500 foot depth, which is considered a shallow drill or a shallow well. The site tested for kind of the mid of what you really need for for traditional geothermal power. It wasn't a home run, right, it wasn't like the really hot brine that that would be considered the home run, um, but it was good enough, uh it, it was good enough for us to say, okay, this is a win and thank goodness, these, these new, new emerging technologies that fervo, for example, is bringing to bear right going.
Speaker 1:Maybe you know uh what uh 17 000 more feet, or 8 000, 9 000 more feet, or whatever it is uh two miles that deep, versus 500 feet, you know we, we knew that we were, you know, new onto something. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and that makes it a lot more than just something, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, within the first year or so, we knew that, we knew, we knew that the vision for the park was possible based on site nomenclature, based on what we had, you know, with 300, something-something acres. Then it kind of started to come down to the city and municipal authorities, kind of seeing the vision, embracing the vision or not resisting the vision and working through the process of entitlement. And you know, I'll just be candid we're still in the process, three years, three years since we bought the land, and we're still in that entitlement process. We're still, you know, we we have gone through some really interesting evolutions of identity for the park. I mean, we we kicked off with, um, this idea that we would do a modular manufacturing, uh, plant, modular housing, um, that's still very needed, it's still a good idea, it's still a viable needed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think we're going to see more and more of that, yeah yeah, um, we, we shifted gears somewhere in this process to really be focused on the waste conversion plant. Um, and now you know we, we've really gotten keenly aware of what the city's needs are and what they really want for their city.
Speaker 2:And, um, ironically, fillmore, unlike many other places that we're looking at, doesn't have a need for hundreds of new jobs. They kind of want this what they refer to as responsible, tempered growth. So, 30 new jobs, 50 new jobs, okay, and so we've evolved into this. Okay, well, maybe Not a shock to the system, kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what could we develop that doesn't just make the city feel like it's ballooning overnight in population, and so, you know, as it sits, we're looking at a data center. Data center is ideal for that, because we could put a million square feet of data center on the site, feet of data center on the site, uh, we can have the on-site power production and we can limit the number of jobs to 30, 40, 50 jobs, high paying tech jobs, by the way. So that meets what the city's hoping to do. Um, you know the city has been pretty vocal about their exports. They they've used this term their biggest export is their children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which was the wrong context, sounds really bad but it's yeah. When we first heard that, it's like oh that doesn't jive with everything going on in the world right now, but it's really it's just the kids.
Speaker 2:Kids leave, never come back yeah, yeah, and you know I, I was born in mount pleasant, utah. I think mount pleasant's probably got to be smaller than Fillmore. I mean, it's got to be. I would be. Yeah, it's one of these small Utah towns. Yeah, and I grew up, you know, at least went to high school in Overton and Logandale and that's a very small.
Speaker 2:My graduating high school class was 73 kids, so I understand what it feels like to grow up in a town and you just can't wait to leave. There's no job there, there's no opportunity, there's nothing. For me to stay in town for right, you know, I got to go to the big city and find, find my opportunity and that's what fillmore they're feeling that pretty deeply, according to city council folks. And so, um, I think you know we've evolved to the point where delivering this data center and a power plant uh, makes a lot of good sense and that's, you know, to be candid, that's the first, first likely phase and we're hopeful that as time goes by and as the needs expand, then the park will be something that can accommodate multiple factories. Our vision for the project is a pretty large vision, but we have to temper what we actually execute to what the city's needs are and wants?
Speaker 1:Well, do you? And obviously you know that's a part of what that Valley Forge thing looks like. You know we're at a place today where we see other parts of that, where the vision is about businesses. You know different kinds of things working together. We've kind of again we've hinted at it, talked about it in other episodes about manufacturing. How do you so now, when you see it today and when we're all talking about it today, you're seeing something that's. That's it's. You know it's evolved beyond modular building to this idea that represents what? And then I know also part of this and we probably talk about, talked about it. I mean we, you know, when I first met you, we actually met because of modular billing.
Speaker 1:So we put it together and said cause I had been working in the space and we ended up hitting it off and talking. And the one thing I really liked about you and I think that Wayne brings everything and I think we've all embodied is that we're starting with values first, kind of yeah, there's the business side of it, but it's like what do we value, what are we really trying to accomplish? And so obviously I know the answer to this, but I think everybody would love to hear you talk about it. It's like where does that? How do the values then drive this bigger vision for ValueForge? What does that mean? What does ValueForge mean to you? What does it mean to us? Drive this bigger vision for Valley Forge? What does that mean? What does Valley Forge mean to you?
Speaker 2:What does it mean to us? Well, you know that's a big question. The name Valley Forge comes from, you know, george Washington's Valley Forge encampment, the winter encampment during the Revolutionary War, and I'm a history buff and I just love that history. I love a history buff and I just love that history. I'd love, I love war history. You know, also, having being being a U S veteran, I love war history and you know I love the founding fathers, and so Valley Forge felt, it felt right for me for to name it that, uh, as a concept, and as a concept that also kind of embodies being triumphant through a struggle, serious struggle, because this whole third wave of data centers and on-site power production and developing renewable energy and imposing these platinum standards of efficiency for other businesses, none of those are easy things. They all come with a cost and a price and kind of attrition willpower to make these things come to pass. I appreciate your kind words about values. I know you share and espouse the same values, which is why we've hit it off like we have.
Speaker 2:We're like brothers and I want to give you an opportunity, while we're on the subject, to Well, there's no turning the tables on this, I am because the greatest example is me kind of leading us into Fillmore and then you really embracing the vision and then bringing the second sight to bear and that right, there is a miracle story. I don't know how, and it's in its infancy, so I don't know how much detail you want to get into, but I know the listeners would love to hear this and I'd love to expound on what you've done to bring Guernsey to reality, because Guernsey as it sits may leapfrog Fillmore in the process of municipal approvals and fast-tracking this whole thing. And so why don't you give us some of your background on bringing Guernsey to the table as a Valley Forge Impact partner?
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. Well, I would say this, one of the things we haven't touched on but I think was always in the back of my mind, and especially when Guernsey came up, not even as a possibility at that moment, but what I started thinking of it is our commitment to the military. So, before I talk about Guernsey, I think it's kind of. I mean, this all ties together in a way of kind of how one thing led to another, led to another. You, obviously, you served in the military and it's something very close to you, and it comes back to values. That's actually where I was going to go.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then you switch to me. That's okay, but I want to talk about Guernsey. Let's cover that.
Speaker 1:No, but I want to talk about Guernsey because I think it's absolutely applicable. Yeah, one hundred percent, but I think we have to talk about it's. Coming back to the values of. Like you know, we do things for certain reasons. Part of this is for veterans.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. Everyone, every business owner, every entrepreneur, must determine their why for doing anything. Why do we get out of bed and why do we beat our head against the wall some days to move this rock up the hill and in order to survive the storms that are inevitable? And in order to survive the storms that are inevitable, you've got to have a really strong why. And my why and this is deep in the values of Valley Forge, impact Parks and other businesses involved with this is I'm seeing this situation in our world where we have teens and veterans committing suicide at an alarming rate. To me it's unacceptable.
Speaker 2:I spent five years in Marine Corps Infantry Reserves and another five in the 145th Field Artillery Battalion here in Manti, utah another small town, central Utah, coincidentally and never deployed. So I don't put myself. I don't hold myself as a war hero. I loathe the stolen valor stories I hear all the time. But you know, serving a decade as a reservist and National Guardsman, I saw enough and got enough exposure to the. You know the trainings and protocols and this epidemic that we're facing and you know I also have had some really challenging experiences in my own family that have touched really close to home on the subject matter, really close to home on the subject matter. And so my why is? I'd like to build businesses that can fund the foundation to support this initiative of improving mental health and reducing suicide, and our veteran community is so susceptible to this.
Speaker 2:It's not just PTSD, it's not this black and white stamp, this diagnosis. It is such a web of things that I've learned over the years that lead to suicide or suicidal tendencies. It involves domestic violence, it involves alcohol and substance abuse, it involves homelessness, it involves joblessness, it involves a general lack of support by our government or our country or nation to help re-assimilate, especially the guys that deploy, men and women who deploy and come home and try to re-assimilate. Especially the guys that deploy, men and women who deploy and come home and try to re-assimilate as a civilian and struggle through that. And then each of the things that I've named kind of compound the whole circumstance, all of which is avoidable, by the way, all of which can be addressed, and one of the core tenets here is purpose. You know, when we take an oath and we go serve in the military, we take an oath to write that check, you know, to sacrifice our own life if necessary, because that's the duty, that's what we accept and we go serve with that oath. You come back from service and that mission or that purpose is no longer there.
Speaker 2:It's really challenging, the longer you've been in or the more exposure you've had in deployment to life and death scenarios, to be able to go work a regular job and feel like you're having a real purpose, like, even like, like, like the mundane things like going to the grocery or taking the kids to school, that this does not satisfy purpose. Um, and so, as we've built these companies out, um, we've developed a program called warriors pride, um, where we're programming for veterans. It embodies higher-than-average-paying jobs so that we can help honor their service by giving them a job they can enjoy, that they're proud of, that can pay for more than just the bills. They're not strapped all the time, they're making a good living. But then also programming within the company of a culture that provides specialized continuing education for free, Education on investing in real estate or crypto or whatever they're interested in.
Speaker 2:Education on family matters, communication, de-escalation skills, things that can improve family life, because we understand that that's the core of finding joy and having happiness. If your family life is a mess, it's hard to go to work. So it's integral, and so we're doing our best to create culture and values. That's a hallmark of the business that can create this environment for our veterans and their families. This is where teens and teen suicide comes into this whole thing. It's not enough just to give dad the training or mom the training who needs it, but those kids are impacted from whatever mom or dad's going through at home, and so let's make sure that we've got the resources and the trainings and the access for the whole family. If you're involved with us, it means that the whole family is going to have access to these advanced trainings and resources, and and that's how we're, that's how we're creating company culture based in these values.
Speaker 1:And and and and. To me that's, that's everything. Cause we were starting with the why right? And I and I, you know my reaction, you know reaction to all of that was well, yes, how can I help contribute? Where where can I? Where can I fit in? Where where can we do this?
Speaker 1:Because, you know, it might be non-military things that motivates other companies and that that's fine for us. It's that value of the military and bodies is, I think, crosses everybody. That value of the military and bodies is, I think, crosses everybody. You know, I think, having experienced, I'm not a military, but I have all my family and I've seen them and experienced them, and I understand the, the, the pride and the commitment they have to things bigger than themselves and I, I. So I think that notion, you know, first set with me, and that's kind of where this goes in and like, yes, how can we, how can we do all of these things? Like, well, we're checking this box, checking this box, but we're doing it because of this and if we do this, everything else will take care of itself because we're taking care of the important things.
Speaker 1:Right, and so, leading into that, which is what you asked me, um, you know, uh, two people very close to me. They had asked me something about you know a question, a business question about helping you know, helping them out and helping figure out something for how to maybe attract some business, et cetera, et cetera. And so it came. The one person is I don't have the pressure to talk about him, so I'm not going to talk about him until I say, is that okay, lives in a military town, also military retired and somebody who was in the leadership role, and so Guernsey is a military town. So immediately I was like, well, that's really interesting, knowing kind of the complexion of a military town. There's some really good people there. There's some, well, there are good people everywhere.
Speaker 1:But you just know like, okay, these are people that could be fantastic, be a wonderful foundation for what we're trying to do and we're trying to create, and we could, you know, synergistically with a town that is that's got an air base, you know, or a military base, part of it, and so that's how this all started is, you know, I I dove into the area, right, okay, so well, this could this work. You know, does it have all the things we've talked about? You know some of them? We've talked about power. We've talked about water. We've talked about rail. Um, you know, as we started looking at grinsy, I started checking all the boxes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and it was, it became better and better and better and better, the the more we looked at it, the the uh, the better it got. And again, you know it wasn't, it wasn't just me, it was, it was other, these two very special people like, okay, what about this and what about this? And it's been a synergistic effort in to say, okay, I think we could pull this off. And it's just gotten better and better. This is so much more than just me, but it's it's. It's it's just saying okay, well, let's, let's look at this opportunity. And the more we looked at the opportunity, the more like wow. And so wayne and I went out and spent a few days there and I think we had like all the boxes checked and we had an offer in on a piece of land and under under 36 hours yeah, it was lightning fast, it was a lightning fast because, because all the things worked and we're're so excited to see this come to fruition and again it just keeps getting better there are so many things beyond that have.
Speaker 1:Actually we're trying not to get distracted yeah, Really, really really trying not to get distracted Like, oh squirrel, Because there are some other opportunities in Guernsey that are also interesting, that would also be fun to work on. It would just, it would just contribute that much more to it, to Guernsey becoming that much more of a special place. It's a. It's a great little town, Hamlet of a town, kind of situated for everything. And you know, the more I learn about its history, the more like it fits in with you know what we're trying to do. It's where great in Jersey. I know there's probably some other towns where let's see the Oregon trail, the pony express trail and the Mormon trail all came through town. All through Guernsey there's a. In fact, actually I went and visited the, the, the old tracks where they brought the wagons through or they cut into the rock, and you're like, okay, well, that kind of has some interesting meaning, and like all things meeting in Guernsey, and especially for what we are involved in, what we're trying to solve and we're working on building out and accomplishing. It's quite the metaphor for everything we're doing, and so it's been a great thing to be part of that and kind of bring that to life, and that has then contributed to everything we're doing also, because now we're looking at all these other places going okay, well, what about this or what about this?
Speaker 1:Again, in business and in life, I think we're doing a really good job, staying open to possibility and not so focused on. It has to look like a certain thing. It has to look like this. It has to look like this Are our principles and our values in place? Yes, Are we doing? Do we have a good sense of our why? Yes, Well then let's see how all these things work out, and it's going to be different.
Speaker 1:In Fillmore, it seems to be right now that it's not pivoting, it's just evolving, because the town needs something right now and that is they don't need hundreds of jobs. I think there are those in town who would love hundreds of jobs, but most of the town is like that's too fast, but most of the towns like that's too fast, it's too much growth, it's too intense. We respect that. It's. It's about also working with the community to say, okay, what does this really need to look like for you as a community, so that it, it, we are a good partner, not an adversary?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where that project because we stayed open is like okay, well, we'll do this. Now we're not going to okay, it has to have this. No, these are the principles. As long as these are the principles guiding it, whatever we create, there is going to be the right thing, and then we'll continue to add on as fit. Guernsey is a little bit different. Guernsey is going to have perhaps a different feel. It might even be, maybe even broader than our original ideas and it just keeps coming.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe this and maybe this and maybe this, and so that's kind of my experience with it, and so it's been exciting to partner with Wayne and with the rest of our group, everybody bringing unique life experience to this and also the openness to say, okay, here's how I see things or here's how I experienced this, here's how I'm coming into this and here's what I'd like to see here's, here's, here's what I think, and and realizing that everybody has a see the table and and that you know in a business way, if we're talking about how that works, it's also leading by asking people what they think, by including and making the group and making it a group effort, has been a great experience. I think you've experienced lots of different things in life and lots of different situations. I have too. Out of all of my experiences, this has been incredibly healthy, the most fun I've had in a long time. That's why I know, that's why we're doing the right thing, because it just works.
Speaker 1:Again, for all the experience that I had, this is the stuff that I'm like yeah, this is when it feels right. This is when you're doing the right things, when you've got the values straight and you've got the right people You're bringing. We're bringing in the right people. It's not okay. Well, we got to go find the right person that is not necessarily they can just do the job, but also shares our values and fits with a vision and then can then execute on that thing. That's been exciting to be part of that so far. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:So here we are, here we are.
Speaker 1:In a nutshell, that's kind of where we are with Valley Forge, the Valley Forge project, and now it's about bringing some unique companies together. That some we've some, some we've already identified, some I'm sure we don't even know about yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Together in a synergistic way that will make these parks, you know, a shining example of what's possible. Yeah, if you start in the right spot with the why first, and then you figure these things out, these will be something that we want everybody to be proud of, whether you work there, whether you live in the community surrounding that. We want these to be places of pride. And, coming back around to the military, it's important for us. This is something that we see as done the right way. This helps contribute to better and more successful outcomes for military families and vets and I've seen it in a different space. I mean, I think my experience with anybody in the military is they can pretty much do anything. That is my experience is you put them in any situation and they can just go. And what I've noticed and again I think corporate America is starting to figure this out is that they didn't know how to translate it. Okay, so you did what in the military. Okay, so you did this thing and you wait a minute, you were doing it. They didn't know how that work experience translated to.
Speaker 1:Well, this job over here. Yeah, fortunately, there have been some businesses that have taken risks and go. Oh yeah, I would like a whole staff of people like this. I'd like a whole, because our company is 10 times better, because we have people that are committed to the effort and they've got all the right things, all the check boxes, and I think corporate America is getting there. It will be great to be part of that solution. Yeah, to say, yeah, we know you don't. Yeah, okay, you're probably not specifically trained on this thing, that's okay, you'll figure it out why. Because you've got all the other skills. You've got the hard skills, you've got the soft skills, you've got the human skills in place and you've got those in spades. You know how to lead, you know how to critically think through a situation. That's what I think you know. We're going to discover more of it. We're going to find that there are just a lot of people who do a lot of cool things, and I think often get overlooked.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. I mean the unquantifiable, the unmeasurable skills, leadership, communication, discipline, integrity these are all crucial to me, all crucial to me. Yes, I would rather take the guy who has impeccable integrity and hire him on and train him how to do something. Then take the, the, the guy that knows exactly how to run that, that piece of tech with no integrity and and have a meltdown within my company with toxic situation. And so it's about character, it's about values, it's about patriotism.
Speaker 2:I'll be very vocal, as I'm an American patriot. I bleed red, white and blue, Very unwoke, Not woke, very not woke folks. It's a very patriotic, back-to-American roots, touch-and-feel business and we happen to be bleeding into the tech space, data centers and advanced renewable energy, which has an interesting cohort supporting it of some woke companies and some really liberal companies and a whole mix there. But we're an anomaly because we're very being values driven, being very kind of conservative, patriotic, American, all these things. It feels more like, you know, the Industrial Revolution 0.2, like version two. You know, that's really kind of what we're building here, I think, and it's been fun because this wasn't part of the plan from the beginning. It's naturally occurred this way, In fact with Fillmore, the military.
Speaker 2:I won't get into classified information and I won't share too many details about what's gone on, other than we've been invited by the highest authorities in the state to meet with generals and sit at the table and discuss our plans being received with great enthusiasm and have far-reaching implications about how we might be able to develop, co-develop, interact with the military.
Speaker 2:In Utah and, coincidentally, in Wyoming We've had the similar kind of embracing of the concepts, embracing of the values, embracing of our vision by the highest ranking officials in Wyoming within the military. And so it's been fun in Utah and Wyoming so far to have these interactions and explore the possibilities of value that we can provide to the military. And I think it's refreshing to those guys to see that we do have this extraordinary commitment to our veteran workforce. We recognize their value beyond their technical capabilities as assets to the company and we want to reward them accordingly for their service in many ways. So the military ties are deep and continue to deepen as we move down the road. That's very exciting to me. That makes me feel like my time, though not a combat veteran time in the service. For me this is kind of paying off later on. I mean, I discharged in 2005, so I've been out a long time, but now it's kind of coming back around and it's really, really enjoyable for me to be able to be working with the military again.
Speaker 1:It's been a joy, it's been a great experience for me too, and for me, having not served having family members, it's my little bit that I can hopefully contribute and say, you know, if I have a chance to be part of this and contribute this and help out, well, great, that makes me feel good and I feel like I've done my part. I don't need any credit for it. That's a good thing, that's great and this all goes to that. You know, I think this goes to the larger patriotic kind of idea, which is you know, we this is very Mary, like we we do better when we, when we tend to all we doesn't. We don't have to be alike. Yeah, we can come from diverse backgrounds, but if we can rally around these bigger principles and that's that's the important thing, is like that's the beauty, is like I, I, I love the multitude of, is like that's the beauty, is like I, I love the multitude of things, it's it's rallying around these core ideas.
Speaker 1:We can do this, then we see that all the other stuff falls, yeah falls away it becomes less of a you know, becomes less of an issue and, um, you know, and I, you and I talked and have talked, and I go into the skills space. I am very passionate. That's I'm passionate about that space because I think I think for too long it's not a knock on schools per se, I just don't think schools have been able to test it and so they've stayed away from it. But I think we're we've done our kids to a certain degree and this isn't just new a disservice and some of it and this also isn't new, it goes back over 100 years. We've known for a long time, academically, they've studied this. They've known for a long time that the value of a person as far as like the workforce or how they contribute, has less to do with what they know. That's about 15%, right.
Speaker 1:Carnegie studied engineers of all groups of people. They studied a thousand engineers. The look of the study was like 120 years ago now, I think, and 15% came from what they know. 85% came from these things, these things they're called soft skills, human skills, critical skills. That's the stuff that we need to continue to learn, to master. There are different groups MIT I'll go academic MIT identified 24, 26 durable skills. They call them durable skills that all of us should work on, getting better at and getting better at and getting better at. These are the skills of the military. It's just part of being in the military. These are things you practice and you train on and it's part of the ethos of the military, which is why I say the military is really good. So if you can do those things really well, then you can go out and do anything.
Speaker 2:Another group, that's very interesting.
Speaker 1:My personal farmers, farmers anybody who's a farmer or anybody who's running their own business usually has to be good at all these things, and it's kind of this very interesting thing we talk about in business schools. You'll learn this, this, this. It's actually the people who master these skills might not be who we think they are, and those are the people that are really good, and that's my experience in hiring people over all years. I never hired based upon a resume per se. I looked at their experience and how they use those skills and how they master those skills, and I don't think I even understood it fully at the time. I've now gone back and went oh well, that's why I hired that way. It was because I was looking for those things, and I come back around and we can talk about this in the future.
Speaker 1:This is the AI question. What does AI replace? Ai replaces the 15% yeah, okay. Or the 20% the stuff that's monotonous. That, yeah, okay, yeah. Or the 20%, the stuff that's monotonous.
Speaker 1:That actually is not fun for any of us. For the most part, it what it does, but it's not. It can't right now in any meaningful way replace those skills, and that's that's the future. So it's it's about in. It's about investing in people and standing those skills up and how, and letting those skills flourish. We do that, we're going to be. We're going to be good. Anybody any other business is going to be good, and that's I think. You know I come back around. That's why the military, for me, one of the groups, is so, so perfect for all the reasons. It's because they're you know, that's who they are, that's how they conducted their lives. These are people who start at the top with, like, it's integrity, it's leadership, it's being a person of your word, it's critically thinking Now, I'm not saying you have to follow orders, but it's also learning how to listen and then understand and then assess the situation. This is the stuff you need.
Speaker 2:This is the stuff that Well, for the most part this is true I would stop short of making a blanket statement for all military personnel. Of course there's a screening process, of course there's the criteria to be met and mental screening and health screening. Those are real factors. But in general, you're right about all of this and I appreciate your kind attitude about it.
Speaker 1:So thank you for sharing all of that I'm with you, but that's where I'm at and it's been a great thing. So I think it hopefully helps people get a little idea of what's in our heads, about why we do what we do and what we're doing, and what it means when we say Valley Forge and Back Park, what it really means.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Thank you. Hopefully you guys have enjoyed the episode and we're excited to get to some of our next episodes that are planned here. Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for the contribution. Thank you, Wayne. Have a great night, guys. Thanks.
