(upbeat music) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag".

I'm a farmer, and farmers are entrepreneurs.

We try to figure out things for ourselves, even if it doesn't work.

I think a lot of it is we just don't wanna be around other people, but we do respect entrepreneurs and we definitely respect today's guests, Dennis Slape.

How you doing, Dennis?

- Good, thanks.

- Yeah.

You're an entrepreneur, but you actually, work around other people.

- I do, yeah, sometimes.

- Okay.

That's so odd to me.

Yeah.

You're from Germantown Hills?

- That's where we live now.

Originally, I was from Peoria, so I grew up in Peoria and then moved to Germantown when I returned back to the US with my wife so.

- Oh, we gotta get there too.

- Yeah.

- There's a lot going on.

You are a strategic program manager, is that right?

- That's correct.

- Did you just make that up?

- Somebody made it up, right?

- Yeah, what does that mean?

- So, what it means for our team is we have three strategic program managers.

I'm one of those.

So, at OSF, our team is charged with taking innovative ideas from our mission partners.

So, our employees bring us new ideas, and our team is charged with taking it from concept to commercialization.

So, I'm the one that helps develop the product or platform that eventually gets commercialized and launched to other hospital systems in the United States.

- Okay.

Well, I try to put things in context that I can understand, right?

- Sure.

- I've got this buddy, and he owns this company, it's called Thunderstruck Ag.

Jeremy.

And what he does is a farmer has an idea of like some invention, but it's a farmer, so he doesn't know what to do with it.

He knows how it works and all this, but like to sell it and, you know, so what Jeremy does he comes in and he helps him build a business, build a marketing, and get it to market.

Is that anything like what you're doing?

- So, that's kind of the later stage of what we do.

I don't know if is it Jeremy?

- Yeah.

- If he does the actual development of the product itself.

So, we help develop the product itself, and then once that's developed, we help with the marketing, the branding, and the business launch.

- So, it's just an idea?

- It's just an idea.

- You know, "Shark Tank" they don't like that.

- Yeah.

- They're like, this is too much of a concept phase and I'm out.

- Yeah.

So, in "Shark Tank", they prefer more of those that have actually had sales.

So, that's after the prototype and the product is being built.

So, we do a lot of prototyping of products as well.

So, it's never one and done.

It's usually, we keep working it and working it until it's perfect and until it meets the needs of the innovator or the user of the product so.

- So, these are doctors, nurses?

- So, any mission partner at OSF can submit an idea and our team will evaluate to see if there's potential.

If there's something already in the market, we'll just inform them of that and let them kind of use that product.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- If it's something new, our team will get involved and we'll kind of explore how big the market is.

Is it desirable?

Do people actually want this invention?

See how big the market is, see how difficult it is to make, or manufacture, or develop.

So, on our team, we have biomedical engineers that can do anything physical.

So, 3D printing, we do a lot with imaging segmentation.

So, your MRI and CT scans, it could come into our engineers have developed software that can segment that and then put it into a 3D environment, for example.

- This is like the team you're working on?

- Yeah.

With, yes.

- Okay.

- So, I'm the dumbest one on the team.

- Well, it sounds like in a group like that, that wouldn't be hard to do.

- Sure.

And we've got AR/VR specialists.

- [Rob] What's that?

- The augmented reality, so your headset.

- Oh, yeah.

Like the Wii.

- The Wii, yeah.

So, we can actually do things that we can throw into a headset so.

- You play like tennis and stuff?

- Correct, or we can perform heart surgeries in that headset as well.

- Potato, potato, you know?

Okay.

So, I mean, OSF obviously, is a, you know, huge juggernaut or whatever.

You got the doctors, you got the, I mean, you said anybody, so like a janitor?

- Anybody has an idea?

- A janitor, nurses, we get nurses with ideas, because they're doing the patient care.

- Yeah.

- So, they might have trouble with a certain device or, you know, the tubes getting tangled up, so they might invent something as simple as a clip to kind of either organize, that's one example, like wires.

- Yeah, I don't understand how you could be that broad, because you're talking like the highest tech stuff, you know, the 3D, 4D imagery stuff, and then you're talking about a clip that would also make life easier for people.

- Correct.

- How do you find, I don't even understand how you can throw that to a team or a crew that would have that broad of a range of expertise.

- Yeah, so the team has a lot of expertise.

So, you can come with almost anything, but we have access to the whole entire healthcare system as well.

So we can find subject matter experts that are experts in heart surgery, or brain surgery, or nurses that, you know?

We'll go interview a bunch of nurses about this particular problem to see is it really a problem or is it just a problem for this one nurse?

- Does every hospital have this?

- Not everyone.

Usually, the bigger ones, Mayo does.

- 80%?

50%?

- Probably less than 50, I'd say 10 to 20, if I were to guess.

- I know what you wanna say.

- What?

- The good ones do.

- True.

Yeah.

(Rob laughing) But we were just named Fortune Magazine 2023, as well as 2025 OSF was named as one of the most innovative companies or, yeah, organization.

- OSF?

- Good old Peoria.

- Yep.

- Okay.

And that's mainly part, because of you and your team?

- True.

We have a whole division.

So, we're like 15 members of our team.

So, we have a whole division of 200 people, and we do lots of other things.

We do simulations.

So, say there's a new procedure, a new device, before we even perform that on a single patient, the doctors will actually, go through a simulation.

So, we have a full mock-up of a hospital floor, an OR suite.

So, we can do simulations without patients on mannequins or actors.

And then the doctors, the nurses, can train in that environment.

- You're kidding me.

And that's all, is that just for training or is that so, I don't know, they could attack the, I don't know.

Let's take something simple.

Getting your appendix out, right?

You do a simulation like that, so you might know how the best way to do it?

- True.

So, also if you have new doctors learning the technique.

So, what we can do with our simulation floor, we have their real-life mannequins.

So, they're like your regular dummy mannequins, but ours actually, we can change their breathing, their heart rate.

- Oh.

- We can make them sweat.

- These are high tech mannequins?

- Yeah.

And we have a single, you know, single-view mirror, glass so the instructors can look in on them as they're performing- - Yeah.

- the interview with the patient and then trying to get them to find what the diagnosis is.

So, they don't know what the diagnosis, they don't know it's an appendix going in, so they'll run through all of the, you know, the physical manifestations the patient will have and then the doctor will have to kind of work through the protocol to discover that so.

- Yeah, I do know quite a bit about the medical industry.

I used to watch that ER show.

- Yep.

- Yeah.

So, but there, I mean, they were just teaching, you were teaching on patients, so sometimes they would like cut off the wrong finger or something.

You dealt with it, right?

- Yeah.

- Now, if they make a mistake, it's, you know, at least it's on a mannequin.

- Yeah.

So, they wouldn't perform necessarily a surgery on a mannequin.

- But they could.

- They could.

And we actually, our engineers have developed trainers for sutures and then for IV insertion.

- Oh, wow.

- So, imagine a new nurse that's never performed it on a patient.

- I think that's everyone that's tried to draw my blood.

- So, they're nervous about that.

So, we've developed, our engineers have developed trainers where it's basically, the arm with a vein that they can train on to perfect their technique, angle of attack, making sure they're hitting the vein as quickly as possible instead of multiple pokes so.

- Well, that's kinda, you know, I feel good about what I do for a living.

You know, I farm, you produce food, you know, I feel good about that.

You gotta feel pretty good about what you're doing.

- Oh yeah, it's every day something new and I get to work with everybody at the healthcare system so.

- But you're a serial entrepreneur, is that how you describe yourself?

- It is.

And that's kind of how, so OSF's actually my first real job, if you will.

- I'm with you.

I got it.

- So, before OSFI, was self-employed for the last 20, 25 years.

And so, through that I've been self-employed and kind of started multiple businesses and been a part of multiple kind of startups so.

That's what kinda led me into getting this position.

They were looking at somebody with that experience, and then luckily I had just finished, I finished my MBA in 2020.

So, kind of those, my experience and my education kind of coalesced into like, the perfect skillset for this job so.

- Okay.

Let me ask you this, because I've wondered this about myself.

I've never worked for anybody.

I've never had that real job.

I mean, of course, you work with people like my benevolent overlords here at WTVP.

Who's always watching, but I always wonder, you know, what if I need to go get a real, or what if I get that opportunity to go get a real job, would I be able to do it?

Could I switch that mindset to this independent entrepreneur to, I'm gonna have a boss?

Did you struggle with that?

- I was lucky enough to find this team and the role that fit kind of my past.

So, they were looking for somebody that took initiative and kind of just did what they allow me to do what I think is right.

Of course, I consult with them, if there's things that need to be consulted, but other than that, they allow me to just advance the technology, the projects.

And so, it's almost like a dream job, if you will.

- So, you found yourself into a job that is for someone of your personality?

- Exactly.

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

You don't have someone over you going, "Hey, I didn't get to TSP report," or whatever the stupid stuff that they have to do in office space, right?

- No.

So, our team is very, it's not so much hierarchical, it's more a team.

Even our leaders are part of the team so.

- Yeah.

- We all work together quite well and push each other.

- That's good.

I mean, you work around smart people.

It does seem like you work harder.

- Absolutely.

And you're working for each other as well so, right?

- Because you don't want Susie in accounting to be better than you.

- Yeah.

- She is annoying though.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

What's this?

- So this is a glass.

- Yeah, I was told not to touch it.

Here you are.

- So this is a glass anatomical heart.

So, it's got a lot of meaning to me.

So, one, it was made by a friend of mine, Hiram Toraason, who's a local glass blower in Peoria.

- In Peoria?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So, he made this anatomical heart, and I actually, gifted it to my team a few years back.

So, every member of my team I gave this to, because we were working on projects involving the heart.

At that time, we had several heart projects going.

So, I thought it was fitting for.

- So, how well did he do?

- It's pretty accurate.

- I mean, that looks like a heart.

- It's got all of it.

- So, he not only did this one, but a whole bunch of 'em, huh?

- Yeah, he did about 14.

So, each one's slightly different and unique.

- It's so small.

It seemed like glass blowing you, I don't know.

You think it'd have to be bigger or something?

- Yeah, he's talented.

So, he was able to do it.

He's done other things.

He is done like lungs, he's done other medical type.

He's an artist, but he can do technical stuff as well.

So, he's done quite a few pieces for the hospital.

- Okay.

- Yep.

- Let's switch gears a little bit.

Tell me about where'd you go, overseas?

Tell me about that.

- Yeah, so when I graduated Rochester Institute of Technology, all the innovation and photography, if you will, is happening in Europe and particular in Paris.

- Photography?

- Yes.

- Is that what you wanted to do?

- Yeah, that was my degree, my undergrad degree.

- Okay.

Well, like what did you, do you wanna be like a Axle Adams, or did you wanna do a brochure for the Super 8?

- Yeah, so my track was my advertising and editorial.

So, think of magazines, billboards, advertisement, type of photography.

- Okay.

- So, that was happening in the fashion and music industry, and particularly in Paris.

So, I thought, if I wanted to be the best, I need to be around the best and where it was happening so.

- But what'd you have like a school, or hookup, or?

- No, I decided to go there and the summer after I graduated college, I worked the summer, I worked in a gas station, saved all my money, bought a one-way ticket, and then landed in Paris one day and didn't speak the language, didn't know where I was gonna sleep that night, didn't know anybody and kind of figured it out.

- Let me get this straight.

You wanted to be around the best, and that was in France, Paris, France.

- Yes.

- So, you bought a one-way ticket, you knew nobody, didn't know where you were gonna stay, didn't know what you were gonna take pictures of, and you just went?

- I just went, yep.

- And then?

- Figured it out, right?

- Where'd you stay that night?

- So, there was a couple no-star hotels I ended up staying.

- [Rob] You mean by the sidewalk?

- Close to it, yeah?

(Dennis and Rob chuckling) So, I stayed there for a month.

I think it was $20 a night at the time so.

- Okay.

- So, I stayed there about a month, and then I found not a youth hostel, but a kind of accommodation similar to that, that I ended up living for several more months, three or four months.

- And is that your personality?

You just, hey, the adventure of it?

- I guess sometimes, but I always consider myself kind of introverted, but when I'm passionate about something, I'm have a tendency to go for it so.

- What you did is not introverted, that's just.

- I know, but looking back, it's like, what the heck?

What did I do?

(Dennis and Rob chuckling) - What were you able to learn over there?

- Yeah, so I learned French, it took about four years, and then I kind of got to know some, you know, young designers that were launching their businesses.

So, I actually, got involved with a few startups and a few luxury fashion labels that I worked with for seven or eight years.

- Were you taking pictures of the French chicks?

- Yeah.

That was part of the job description.

- Sounds rough.

Sounds like, no wonder you went over there.

Maybe I'm taking back that introvert thing.

You're just a brilliant man.

- Nah, I don't know about that.

- Do you ever come back to the States and, you know, like the "Titanic" movie, "Take pictures of me like your French girls?"

- Take of the, say that one more time.

- You're not gonna get the reference, but there's somebody out there is laughing.

50% of the camera crew is laughing at it.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

There's a scene in there where he, "Paint me like one of your French girls."

- Oh, where he is drawing?

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Funny, if you think about it.

Anyway, okay, so you get over there and you learn your stuff, but what happened?

How come you came back then?

- So, I ended up staying 10 years.

- 10 years?

- I did, yeah.

- [Rob] Okay.

- So, I'm married a French girl, divorced a French girl.

- That sounds like a French girl thing to do, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Did she come back to the States or?

- For a year or so then we moved back and then things didn't go as planned.

- We all get it.

Yeah.

We all know somebody French.

- But met the most amazing people in France from other countries as well.

So, some of my best friends were Sicilian and Greek.

So, I spent a year in Greece and Athens and then three or four months in Sicily so.

- Oh my gosh.

- Yeah.

- [Rob] You like it over there?

- I did, I haven't been back since.

So, my wife's kind of nudging to get my passport.

- She wants to go back, yeah?

- She'd like to go see my past life so.

- Well, yeah, I mean, you obviously, know all the good spots and all that.

So, if I would figure out life, right?

I would like to keep that information to myself and not let anybody gleam off of my struggles, but you are opposite.

You want to mentor people.

- Yeah, I think it's, one, that excites me to help others, but also, I've gained a skillset that I think is helpful for others.

So, I think you're mentioned there's a local branch of generators, so gBETA.

So, they're in 40 cities across the country that it's kind of a startup accelerator.

So, they do cohorts twice a year of five inventors that are trying to basically, have an idea, trying to develop that idea and start a business off of.

So, through gBETA, I've mentored over 100 startups from all over the country.

So, I think I've done 14 to 20 of the markets.

- Why, I mean, why, because I don't mean to be smart Alec, but I mean, you've learned your life lessons and we all learn 'em, you know, the hard way, right?

Your struggles and hard work and that.

Why try to help out other people when it might not help you in the end?

- I just figure you always help it.

Sometimes it comes back, sometimes it doesn't.

So, I didn't lose anything by helping someone, so why not try helping.

I would say out of those 100 startups that I did help, there was not one that I couldn't find a, you know, through my network, a contact for them or something to help them advance.

So, even though I'm an introvert, I do have a pretty good network of people all over the country and all over the world that we kind of support each other and help each other.

- Where'd you get the generosity from?

Why are you that way?

- I don't know.

I think just part of how I brought up.

- It's foreign to me.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- No, I mean, do you?

- Not, as a farmer, I'm sure you help your buddies on the farm, if they need help, right?

No?

- No, no.

- That's the Amish, I guess.

(Dennis and Rob chuckling) - They're busy building barns.

I mean, do you enjoy, do you feel, is there a sense of obligation or do you just enjoy it?

- Oh, I enjoy it, because I get to see new innovations that are coming about.

I can kind of tell which ones are gonna make it, which ones are not.

Those that are not, I try to guide them into either pivoting, like either changing slightly, or taking another approach.

- Or taking 'em behind a barn and.

- Yeah.

- Hey, sometimes that's probably the nicest, it's maybe not nice, but the most common sense thing you could tell somebody.

- Yeah.

I mean, the success of a business is knowing when to keep going, when you're ready to quit, and when to quit.

When's the right time to quit, if it's not going anywhere, right?

So, I try to help them.

- Yeah.

- Do the notes.

- Do you think they appreciate it?

- Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

So, a lot of 'em I'm in contact with still.

Some I'm actually, helping develop their business further.

So, more of an active kind of consulting role.

- Okay.

You must have one big old network.

- For some reason I do.

I don't know.

- Can I be in it?

- Sure.

- Could you help make this show better?

- I can try.

(Dennis and Rob chuckling) You need better guests than me.

- Well, we're trying, you know?

No, I think it's great.

I give you a hard time, but I think people sometimes struggle with helping other people.

A, number one, 'cause they don't want to be burnt, right?

They don't wanna put their time and effort into somebody that's not gonna appreciate it.

And you know, then some people are like, I need to get some sort of a return for myself, you know?

And then there's someone like yourself that just like, hey, I'm gonna get something out of this, whether they're gonna give it to me or not.

Is that fair to say?

- Well, I do believe I get something back.

- When you're learning or whatever.

- Whatever.

- Yeah.

- Or being exposed to other technologies or other developments.

You know, you see so many you can see commonalities between markets, or you know, we've seen this so many times.

I don't know how you're gonna succeed, you know?

- [Rob] Yeah.

- How you're gonna succeed, 'cause there's so much competition.

- [Rob] Of all the people that you mentored, who do you like the least?

- The least?

I can give you a pool.

You mentioned earlier, feeling burnt, right?

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So I think a lot of times at a startup, they're afraid to re-engage.

Like when you have a men, I'm not the only mentor, there's other mentors, right?

So, when you engage with them this one time during this event, right?

Most often the ones that succeed are the ones that keep re-engaging the mentors.

The ones that you feel burned by or the ones that usually, don't succeed are the ones that one and done.

So, imagine somebody comes to mentor you and offers more time with you, if you want and you don't take advantage of that so.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- To be honest, that's almost a signal to me that they're probably gonna fail.

- You'll be working at McDonald's, not thought that's a bad job.

Probably better paying the most of stuff out there.

- Isn't it $15 an hour now?

- No, I think it's more now.

- More than that.

- All right, focus.

How'd you get into developing buildings?

- Yeah, so when I moved back to Peoria in 2004, I was doing more commercial photography.

So, I was doing like annual reports for Caterpillar - And RLI, OSF actually, as well was a client back then.

And so, that type of work is concentrated in like three or four months out of the year.

So, I had the rest of the year open and kind of bored, if you can imagine.

- [Rob] Looking for something to do.

- Yeah.

So I started a magazine, so local magazine called "Numero" that we operated that for about 10 years, but I needed space for my studio as well as like the operations of the magazine.

So, I ended up buying a building in the warehouse district in Peoria not just up the street here.

- Downtown?

- Downtown.

So, you know, where Sugar's at?

- The pizza place?

- The pizza place.

- Oh, yeah.

- So the building next to it, and I actually, bought the building where Sugar's at, but way back and then eventually, sold it to the business owners.

- So, you developed that building?

- Correct, yeah.

- Okay.

Do you get a discount?

- I used to, but not anymore.

- Really?

See, that's what I'm talking about.

You help people out and then, yeah.

What do you learn from something like that?

Because I mean, those buildings, I imagine that could be a challenge.

- Yeah.

So, I was doing a lot of the labor myself in the beginning, 'cause I didn't have a lot of money, right?

So, I was just coming back.

So, we took it step by step, developed, you know, sections by sections.

You learn a lot, right, by having tenants.

I had one tenant that signed a 10-year lease, I did a huge build out.

- Oh, wow.

- And then they left nine months into the lease.

So I was stuck.

- Do they not know what a lease is?

- Well, if they run outta money, you can't get blood from a turnip, right?

- That's where you're call in your Italian friends.

- So, you learn quickly, like, okay, even though you have a lease, that doesn't guarantee their business is gonna be successful.

So, I guess learning everybody is vulnerable to success or failure, right?

So, you can't put yourself there to guarantee.

- What do you tell somebody?

Let's say somebody has had moderate success, right?

And they're like, I don't know, I feel like I should give back or try to help other people.

I mean, what advice would you give them?

- Well, if you want to give back, I think definitely you should seek out those opportunities.

But a lot of times you become expertise in your field, right?

And you don't realize it.

And so, that expertise could help others and especially, the next generation, or imagine a young farmer, right?

They learn from their probably family or their father that taught them.

So, it's kind of a similar thing.

Imagine younger people getting into farming that they don't have like a father or family.

- Yeah.

- True.

But you know what I'm talking about, yeah.

- Yeah, I'm being tongue in cheek with you.

I think it's absolutely essential to have someone like you in our communities, because I don't think they thrive without them.

And it's not just, you know, the innovation that you guys are coming up with that, but it's something that's willing to give their time back.

Someone that's willing actually, try to help other people succeed.

That's a mindset that not everybody gets.

The whole rising tide rises all ship.

Not everybody understands that, but you definitely do.

And that's, like I said, Peoria is lucky to have you.

- And there's a lot of others.

- You're not very good at taking a compliment are you, Dennis?

- I guess not.

(Dennis and Rob chuckling) - No, Dennis Slape.

It's a pleasure to talk to you and yeah, I'm sure glad you're around here making Central Illinois a better place.

So, Dennis, thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

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