And now the 419 with Gretchen de backer.

Matt, kill em, and Kevin Mullin.

All right.

It's the 419, powered by GTE.

And we have a live audience.

We are out at Lucille's at Toll House.

We need some noise from the live audience.

Acknowledge that you're there.

Thank you.

We're out here with the Lucas County Economic Development Corporation.

We are known as the Glass City.

And there's a reason for that.

And I feel like there's no better person to explain that to us than Kyle Sword from Pilkington.

Kyle, thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

A round of applause for Kyle.

So I guess we'll start there with why?

Why are we called the Glass City?

All right, so first to clarify, I'm not from Toledo originally.

I'm from Akron, Ohio.

And then I moved around the country and moved to Toledo.

But I am like a full on OG glass nerd.

And so, like, I like all the stuff about glass.

And I've been in the glass industry for a long time, and I do like all the history on that sort of stuff.

So I've spoken for.

Yeah, everybody loves a big glass nerd.

Everybody loves a glass nerd.

So yeah, but I have had that question before is like, well, why are we the Glass City?

And, it starts with actually pretty basic stuff, like, so back when, Toledo was getting founded in terms of, like, the industrial or, or the revolution of right around 1890s, 1880s, stuff like that.

Gas was kind of, growing, oil production was growing here, and a lot of places were like, well, where should we, like, set up our headquarters and stuff like that?

And at the time when oil production was being produced here, natural gas was like a byproduct.

And so we're like, well, we'll give gas away for free if you can move your company here.

So like, gas was essentially free or cheap, proximity to a lot of right, low cost materials like sand and all those sort of things that you need to make.

Glass was here proximity to shipping ports.

And, you know, whether it was the Erie Canal or the Great Lakes or the different road systems that were here, and then a good workforce, you know.

So those four things is really what led a lot of glass companies to be like, we want to kind of get founded there.

But to me, that's what started us.

But what really makes us the Glass City, I would say it comes down to boldness and collaboration.

Those two things in combination is really what you know, made us kind of spiral off and have all these different things are on glass.

What what exactly?

When you say boldness, and collaboration, I mean, what where does the boldness come from?

Yeah.

So there's a couple I've got a couple good stories that I like to put to.

So one is, if you ever heard the story, you know, Libby was the first one to move here, and, moved his his business here from somewhere in, New England.

I don't remember exactly where, but in New England moved his business here again for all the reasons that I mentioned.

But at the time, he was like, well, you know, I got this new bottling machine and I got all this cool stuff that's happening, and I want people to be aware of it.

So I want to make a big splash.

And so he goes and says what I want to do is go to Chicago, to the World's Fair.

And I want to I want to build a functioning glass plant in the World's Fair and then just showcase it, and people will be like, that's cool.

I want to buy that.

And everyone's like, that's insane.

That's never going to work.

And he's like, well, I don't care.

I don't need your money then.

And he spent $230,000 of his own money, which in translated to today's money is like 6 million bucks.

And he's like, screw it, I'm going to go to the World's Fair.

I'm going to build a functioning glass plant.

And, and I'm just going to do it and showcase it.

And, and he was also pretty inventive and like a good marketer and stuff like that.

So one of the things that he did was he was like, hey, you can come on a tour of this functioning glass plant in the, in the World Trade Center or in the World's Fair, but also like you got to pay $0.10, but if you pay the $0.10, you can use that as a deposit towards one of the glasses or one of the things that we're doing and like today, like a glasses of glass, nobody cares.

But back then, like glasses, everything had to get hand blown.

And so it was really expensive.

It was really artisan.

And it wa was just pricey to do.

And it was really challenging to make a lot of those things.

And so these, these inventions, these machines that he had, like cut the cost by like 90% so that you could really churn out products.

And so people when they went in and they could take that $0.10 and use it to buy something, they were like, this is cool.

I can make a business, you know?

And and he more than paid for his initial investment.

But that's kind of what started us.

I mean, that's such a bold move.

Never happened today.

Nobody's going to be like, I'll take that much money out of my pocket and just do it.

People just don't do that.

So like that boldness was really the start of kind of where a lot of that came from.

And some of the first, one of the first opportunities you brought real collaboration to this area, you and others working with you was the Year of Glass in 2022.

So you worked with Arts organizations and other companies in the glass industry.

Can you talk a little bit about what an example that was for the collaboration?

Yeah.

So, so for those that don't know, 2022, the UN declared, that the Year of Glass and and you're like, well, why, who cares?

And but if you look at like all the things that the UN is trying to do, they have, I think on their website there's like 27 different things there.

Like we want to provide clean water, we want to provide equality for women.

We want to provide like an environment that children don't have to work and, you know, all these different things.

And then if you look at all the different glass products in the world, which, by the way, there are thousands that you use every day and you look through them, they're transparent.

You look at windows, you think about your cars, you think about as an enabling technology.

Your cell phone, for instance.

You use these things all the time and just totally take them for granted.

But when you take those 27 things that the UN is trying to do, and then you align them with what values this glass and all of its ways created, it overlaps with like 22 of 27 of them.

And so really, people don't realize how many ways glass fully impacts your life.

And so, you know, I reached out to a bunch of my network here, and I was like, why on earth aren't we the Glass City celebrating this cycle?

The UN has served this up on a platter, and we're not even going to talk about it.

I go, we gotta we gotta make parties.

We gotta have celebrations.

We got to do tours, we got to do this.

And the great thing about this as an opportunity is you think about like it is served up on into our city as this opportunity.

But the great thing is there's all these different glass companies that are here and we don't commercially compete with each other.

So like we make glass for buildings and cars and solar panels, Oak makes bottles and, you know, container where Libbey makes plate where oak makes building materials for sale or make solar panels, all these different things that like, we could probably just be working together and and as a, you know, I start thinking about that, I go think of the same pain points that we have as companies, you know, like I'm trying to solve.

How do I get good people to want to work for us?

How do I solve the environmental issues?

How do I deal with sustainability?

How do I do I go and not only am I trying to solve that, you guys are always trying to solve that too.

And I go, if we just work together, I bet that we'd probably do a better job.

And and not only are we not like it, just not helping us to to actually not work together, we're actually hurting ourselves because we're all competing for the same person.

So I'm like, I'll give you a dollar or an hour and you go, I'll give you three.

Oh, I'll give you four.

Oh, why don't we just get more people to want to move here, and then we can all hire people.

Like, that'd be awesome.

And the same thing when it comes to different technologies, if we just work together, instead of ten of us spending $100 to deliver something in two years, we can spend $200 together and deliver it in six weeks ago.

We all save money faster, cheaper together.

Sure seems like we should be working together.

Guys, guys, we met, and became friends around that time.

I don't know if today's a day, right, but you actually have a unique perspective.

You are pro child labor, right?

Do you want to talk about that today?

Well, first, I think friends is a very, very good stretch.

I don't know, we would say friends.

It says it right here.

I have to say this stretch for most people.

Kyle S-Word, if I say your name correctly.

Yeah, yeah.

Tell us more about glass.

Yeah.

No, I, the story of, fiberglass is certainly an entrenched in our history as well.

At the risk of continually putting you on the spot to just know this off the top of your head, but that was innovation by accident, was it not?

Yeah.

The story.

And again, there are other people that are maybe even in the room that could tell the story better than I can't these people, they're not in this room.

But Aussie Aussie has a fantastic story.

Yeah.

So imagine you're a company.

And then the other thing I like this and I think about this stuff today and what would we do today.

So Aussie back at the time they had just invested basically all of their money.

They took all of the eggs and put them into the basket of, we're going to create all these machines that make bottles, and it's like going to churn out and it's going to be amazing.

And then guess what happens?

Prohibition and the Great Depression.

And now they're sitting and all their money is in bottling equipment and they go, whoops, that that wasn't great.

You know.

And I think like what would we do as companies today and like you know we'd him we'd ha.

But they're like we got to do something.

So like they, they said let's figure something out.

So if you've ever seen like glass block windows, you know, that was actually out of necessity.

They're like, we got to sell something.

And these bottling machines can do that.

Let's get in the let's get in the construction world.

We'll make glass block windows and they're like, cool.

Except what would happen is when they would go to put them together, water would get in between them, and then your glass block window would look like an aquarium.

And they're like, yeah, it's right in the walls.

That's that's not great.

We should do something.

So they had literally like a PhD guy and a lab tech and somebody else, and they were like, just figure it out, make a seal that does the t and it works.

Right.

And so they had have you ever seen like those baby shoes that you can take bronze and atomized them.

And this is an old school.

It's probably before your time.

But it's an old, old school thing.

They used to do these archives.

Yeah.

We are still unfamiliar.

So, so what they did was they took like that atomizer gun and they took glass and they jammed it in, and they were trying to figure out how to seal glass blocks together.

But what came out was like this stringy material, and they're like, oh, that didn't work.

And they're like, well, I wonder if this stringy material could do anything.

And then they're like, well, actually like that.

And they tasted it and they taste it and they're like, that tastes horrible.

That's right.

You know the first one.

Right?

And that's how that was made.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

You're not wrong.

Yeah.

It's very close to that.

So so yeah.

So they're like well this could actually compete with Rockwell.

Rockwell at the time was the way they made insulation was they literally took like rocks and stones.

They melted them and they sprayed them.

And you remember the insulation used to be super, super itchy.

That's because it was made of rockwool.

And like if you brazed it in, you probably died in nine minutes.

And like all these things that were really bad, but they were like, this would be really cool.

And then they were like, well, how do people know that it's our stuff versus somebody else?

And like, what if we just color it pink?

That'd be cool.

We could do that.

Like that industry test.

Like they're like a $9 billion company.

They got started out of an accident because like out of necessity, they're like, we got to do something like, we have to make money.

Let's go do something like that's how it was, out of necessity, out of hustle and out of just like, figure it out I go.

I think if we had to do that today, we wouldn't invent fiberglass as an industry, like as not just I'm not picking on anybody from ozone, but it's like systemic of our society.

Like we now are like, well, what about the lawyers?

And what about this?

And what about the here's all the reasons that we can't do it, but they're like, we're not going to eat tomorrow if we don't do this.

Figure it out.

But but that's that innovation piece, right?

I mean, that's part of it is like innovation out of necessity.

But some of it is like when you have a culture of innovation, you're allowed to make mistakes.

Yeah.

And we don't really encourage mistakes anymore.

And so I guess as we think about this and start to kind of look, look to today and look to the future, I mean, what what are we need to do to allow us to start making mistakes again?

Yeah, it's a good question.

So so one thing I think is these, these sort of like innovation hubs and cultures of like just get, just get people to try stuff.

And if you don't take as much risk on, well then you can also like try more stuff and maybe be successful.

Right.

So I think one of the things you have to do is you have to like, figure out how do you minimize some of that risk.

Part of it is just like it's a shared risk.

Like, oh, so it's like, okay, well if if we all try this and it doesn't work and then we're going to fire mad afterwards, like that's great for everyone else.

That is an option.

I mean, we can do that if you guys.

Well, but that's not going to be like I'm not raising my hand to do that.

That sounds like crap for me.

But if it's like, hey, let's all try this.

And either it works great, we can all benefit or let's not.

And okay.

And then we won't do it.

But if you try stuff and you're and you all accept that group risk, everybody's going to be more on board to try and do stuff.

And really that kind of goes back to our roots.

I was at, a youth panel recently.

It was about a year ago.

And they're like, what?

What does industry need from us?

And the recommendation I get, I said was, I think we should just fire all of our lawyers and hire a third grader to write all of our IP because, like, honestly, like for all the lawyers.

And if my lawyers are here, I apologize.

Like, I don't want to get fired tomorrow.

And I think our lawyers are great.

Just for the record.

Absolutely.

But I go it slows us down because we're all worried about it's like a sum zero game.

Well, if I do this, then you do that, and then I go.

But meanwhile, like, you know, that's not what's kicking our teeth.

And what's kicking our teeth in is the group that's across the pond.

That's just like, all in working together and doing it ten times faster than us.

I go and we're still talking about like, what could we do?

Like, well, just go do that.

Let me ask you a question.

This is potentially unfair, Kyle, but do you think that there is some connective component to where the innovation happened and the fact that this is in the Midwest?

And obviously there's geographic components of this, like a river.

Right.

But, why why do you think this place USA generated this sort of innovation or is sustained it.

Yes, I do think that it has to do with the people that were involved at the time.

They were all just really good innovators, but they also weren't afraid to like, go out and do it.

So like after this invention at Aussie, they're like, let's go get it, let's go hustle and let's go figure how to make some money.

Because it wasn't Aussie at the time.

Corning and and Owens actually collaborated after that.

And they created a new company.

So what do they call the company?

I think it was called Owens Corning Fiberglass Company or something like that.

Thank God you're here.

Yeah, I, I pull all the pieces together to make the big picture, so but I, you know, I think of another example as, like, so, Edward Ford at the time we started our, our plant here in Rossford in 1897, and we made polished plate glass for the commercial market.

So, we are importing it from Europe at the time.

And you need polish.

Plate glass is one of the three elements to build skyscrapers.

You need air conditioning, unit elevators.

And you need polish plate glass to deal with wind loads at high elevations.

So they are just killing it in the commercial market.

He's making tons of money and, Owens and Libby got together and they said, well, that's not really our jam.

Let's work on this Colburn process.

It's a vertical draw.

It makes a thinner piece of glass.

But you don't have to polish it, so it's way cheaper.

It won't deal with the the wind loads, but like, people will want it in windows for their houses.

So they did that in 1917 and they're crushing it in the residential market.

And in 1931 those two merged, you know, so that's what became Libby Owens Ford.

And, you know, these guys are crushing it in residential.

These guys are crushing and commercial and they're like, well, let's get together and like, do this thing and let's kick butt and let's do what I like.

That just doesn't happen today.

Like, so they were like, let's go do it.

And at the time that was a in today's dollars it would be $1 billion deal.

So it was massive.

And then you think about like what they then did during World War two.

And it was loads of innovation and they just spread and they had a shotgun approach and went every direction.

They just weren't terrified and afraid to go do.

And so they're like, let's try this, let's try that.

That didn't work.

Boom.

Don't do that again.

You know.

So they just did stuff and and that is if you want real innovation, you can't be afraid of failure.

You can't be afraid of who gets credit.

You just have to go do stuff.

And if it's not working, do something else.

But we're still we're going to take a break in a couple of minutes.

We're going to have Matthew Kurian from Noah come on up and talk about, kind of what collaboration looks like, today and what kind of the future looks like.

And then kind of have you come back and join us, for another conversation as we really look to the future and figure out what this looks like.

One of the things that we do, with our program, here on we, I love, we get a chance to meet great, passionate people that are making our community better.

There's no question, Kyle is doing that.

One of the other things we like to do is play a little game that, Gretchen came up with.

This is Gretchen's idea.

She didn't come up with the name.

She called it the 419 quiz.

But this is the audience participation part of the show where I'm going to need your help.

That you're all going to shout Gretchen's wacky quiz.

All right, you'll know when it's time.

Just play along.

It'll be great.

Okay.

All right.

It's now time for Gretchen's wacky quiz.

All right.

I'm just a bunch of dead eyes out there.

Just loving it.

Yeah.

Matt and Josh, we want to apologize in advance for the sucking the energy out of this room.

I'm going to ask for rapid fire questions.

Gretchen's going to ask for your favorite thing in or about Toledo.

And then you and Matt are going to work together to describe Toledo in exactly nine words, not eight.

Not ten, nine words.

All right.

For one nine.

If Toledo had a superhero named Captain Glass, what would their superpower be?

Their superpower would be to transform anything that it's involved in.

I like it, you're forced to sing karaoke right now.

What song are you choosing?

Livin on a prayer, Bon Jovi, I bless you if you haven't.

I don't mess around.

Actually, no matter what the question was, it was going to be livin on a prayer.

Yeah, for the gambler, Kenny Rogers.

Either way, I could go back.

Oh, brother.

Yeah, no matter what happens.

Yeah.

You hear that?

Well, if aliens landed in Toledo and you could show them only one place.

Where are you taking them?

Probably a glass plant, because lots of fun stuff happens in a glass pan when the children are working.

All right.

Now, now for this serious question.

Oh, would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?

Such an obvious answer.

And there's no lovemaking involved.

Well, that that changes my opinion.

I thought it was, I'm probably killing all the hundred small things because I'm, like, big and tough and can do that, so it's fine.

Yikes.

What a terrifying answer.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what I wanted him to say.

I mean, I've murdered lots of small.

Okay.

Before this is this is the group that likes me right on the blood.

Please.

Yeah.

What's your number one most favorite thing, or what you consider to be the best thing about the city of Toledo or the region or the metro?

Parks would clearly be high on my list, man.

I like coming in the summer when there's, Mud Hens games, and there's just so much life in the city and stuff like that.

I also like, out in one of the, one of the metro parks where there's a brew pub you can walk around and go on a bike ride and stuff like that.

We do have a lot of nature and that sort of stuff.

But I also like when the sun's out, which is pretty fun.

So there's good days.

What am I, what am I smartest friends?

Answer I like when the sun is out.

God bless you, Kylie.

Let's talk about innovation.

That's innovation.

All right.

Now, this is a kind of tough fortune.

Here.

We need nine words to describe, the city and or region that make it what it is to you.

I don't know if I can count to nine, but I will to do that for you.

But far away.

The American dream is still alive and well today.

He's prepared, my man.

Thank you.

Big round of applause for Kyle Sword.

Kyle, thanks for joining us.

We're going to take a break when we come back, Matthew Carrion from the Northwestern Ohio Innovation Consortium will join us here on the 419 powered by.

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All right.

Welcome back to the 419.

We're on the road at Lucille's at Toll House with the Lucas County Economic Development Corporation talking about innovation, talking about collaboration.

And we're talking now with Matthew Carrion from the Northwestern Ohio Innovation Consortium, or no IC.

Matthew, what is no IC?

Fantastic question.

This is actually incredibly opportune as we we keep hearing quite a bit, that same question, what exactly is that?

You know, a high level from a tax code perspective, it's a 500 1C6 for all the lawyers out there.

Apparently, there's a lot here tonight.

One follows me around.

That's that's what we look like on paper.

I'll say in operation, though, we're a, a fairly gritty R&D shop.

We're we're trying to take, incredibly complex problem statements, put them into the hands of university researchers, small businesses, family owned manufacturers, great suppliers, neighbors of you guys and and turn out real value.

It's, it's a lot of fun.

So who are the members?

Another great question.

So we've got some of the great glass companies that Kyle just talked about.

The all the Owens family, you know, what was Michael Owens doing?

He was starting an incredible amount of companies.

It sounds like, we've got all of them.

We've got Libby.

We've got First Solar.

We just added Pepsi.

Been a lot of fun.

Pepsi has brought, a brand flavor to the mix.

That is, no pun intended.

A lot of fun manufacturing.

Not going out of style.

Why is that so entrenched and so important to our region?

You know that it's fascinating when you look at our our gross regional product every year from a which I do, we look at, we love numbers.

Matt and I, we're big numbers, guys.

All the mats in the room.

But we, you know, we're it's about 32 to 32%, every year, group gross regional product is what Matt measures, is manufacturing.

It always has been.

We think that's the future.

We think that's incredibly important to what, what jobs we turn out.

About 27% of the jobs are manufacturing.

This is this is what we do.

You know, everything that Kyle just explained leads to the kind of jobs that we see, the kind of opportunities we see.

So we're just trying to fuel the future of that.

You start your work with a problem statement.

What does progress look like?

You you try to really live in the problem statement.

And a lot of that comes from the the shared problems that we all have.

A lot of our members, we're trying to do things on their own.

I was at O-I for a while when, when this was all getting started up, and we started to see that as a region were not working together enough where we used to everything.

The Kyle just talked about what we used to do around here over time.

You know, public companies divide.

They start to say that we can do everything in-house.

But when everybody joins together, you can do things for a quarter of the cost.

And a third of the time, that's the impact.

What role does the all levels of government play in in OIC if if any role I just incredible I mean, the support that we've gotten from every government leader economic development partner, corporate leader, you name it, everybody tends to line up and say, what can I do?

And that's that's what's been so exciting.

And a lot of fun for us is we we start to see that, you know, the capacity of this region is so extraordinary.

The lobbying support that happens without us even knowing in DC.

I just heard about a great, proposition that was happening, with Marcy Kaptur on behalf of us.

So the support is incredible, and people tend to not make fun of us.

I'll do the math.

Do you want to take a moment and just call out the least helpful elected official that's in the room right now?

I. I can't name one I can't even begin to describe, someone that that would be, the support has been positive.

Yeah.

Matt.

Kill him.

Would you like to go forward?

Yeah.

Trust me, I everyone knows, I at the risk of team is up in a total softball.

There's been several wins that I'm sure you want to brag about.

What are those?

Are is there a particular moment for you, Matthew, that that's noteworthy?

Absolutely.

We just, you know, we're, you know, we're big numbers, guys.

So we like to say that we're about 33% of the time is done.

It's a four year grant.

We're, the first innovation hub funded by the state of Ohio.

We're about 27, 28%, accomplished on our metrics so far.

So we're just behind the timing metric.

But I got to say, it's it's the people, being able to develop young engineers into leaders, being able to give opportunities to great family businesses.

In the UT Family Business Center, for example.

It's just a lot of fun.

You know, it's hard to measure that, that level of connection.

But I think that's really what defines when you build ventures together and you go after things.

It's fun.

So you are following Kyle, who's a big business corporate monster, and negligent.

Your words, a smaller family owned business with 10 to 15 employees.

What is their role in this?

And I know we're talking about being bold and innovative to some degree.

Lasting is bold and innovating.

But what is the role of the smaller agency in this future, in this vision?

Well, the drama alone is awesome.

I mean, if you want to find drama, find a family business because they will bring you high math.

Every every problem with every divorce you could ever imagine.

But, well, that's a different show.

That's probably not the show.

Yeah.

I, I was just, you know, one of our, our members, Pepsi, took us down to, a fantastic conference in Miami, Florida.

Terrible.

I mean, the weather was just horrible, but, a lot of fun.

There was a family business known as, Gallo.

Gallo wines was there, and they were saying, you know, if you if you want to get something done, don't give it to a large global company, give it to a family business, and then you'll be shocked how much risk they'll take on how fast it gets done.

They get it done yesterday.

And then all the lawyers are very concerned.

That night.

We're talking about Matthew Carrion from, the Northwest Ohio Innovation Consortium.

How did you get into this role?

How did you you come to join this organization?

Oh, man.

There was one, one late evening in an office, I think, totally fine.

Everything was fine.

One of my old bosses, Roger Smith, who's our, president of network now, great guy.

He was.

I think he had just talked to the CFO at the time who said, why don't we collaborate in this region anymore?

Why don't we work together?

I'm on every board in the region.

I can't get anything done.

Roger, can you go figure something out?

Start a nonprofit.

Go get it going.

And I was working late.

Roger walked by my desk and he said, you know, about this public kind of stuff?

I don't like talking.

I don't like being on podcasts.

Can you help?

Can you do that kind of stuff?

And I said, sure.

I'm, you know, I'm here working late, and I would like to get out of this office at some point.

Is there a podcast I can go on?

And, and he said, well, do you like to write grants?

Well, sure.

So here we are in your background, isn't what?

Matthew.

So I, have an engineering background, also certified glass nerd, you know, just love everything about Glass City.

I'm from here originally, and, it's.

I moved back for family, as you know, I think everybody does.

Sure.

Fortunately for the people that have moved back and, got here, got recruited, got into I, you know, merged into this and, yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

Another thing that you've talked about or, and OIC is working on is, is workforce development.

And trying to get young people into the industry.

And, and the message about what manufacturing looks like today, as opposed to sort of the stereotypical thing that people may think of when they think of working in manufacturing.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yes, I, I love to hear people ask if it's if it's still as dirty as it always was.

And I say it could be, I guess, but it depends on what manufacturing you're talking about.

A lot of what you see today is it's it's working on a computer in a clean room.

I mean, it's so different than you you'd ever imagine.

The steel plants of Gary, Indiana, of yesterday are probably not what you're going to be.

You're going to be looking at today.

So many of the companies around here, they've done such an incredible job to attract smart talent, and bring them here to do high level intelligence work.

A lot of manufacturing is is intelligence based now, and it's quickly evolving into that, that realm.

And we're trying to harness that.

What will you consider?

When will you consider Nike a success as you're getting towards the end of 50% through the grant, how will you know you've done what you set out to do?

Well?

What will people be able to see your experience that that's a great question, I think.

What was it?

I think I mean, it was a long question.

I and that's and that's good.

I like, but I like to think that, it's, it's it's hard to see it.

It's hard to experience it.

Like people often say like, well, you know, we go and do these, these talks and people say, okay, I'm ready.

How do I get involved?

Sign me up today.

Yeah.

And we're like, do you want to apply for a corporate position?

And then we can sign you up for a project kind of a thing.

It's hard to get involved in this directly.

I think success is is the mindset.

I think it's it's it's listening to every story.

Kyle just told.

And then tomorrow morning, waking up and realizing you're going to commit to excellence and you are going to go and do that thing that maybe your grandpa did, that you're going to replicate, or that story that you heard.

You're going to entrench that in your mind and really commit to that.

I think that success metrics wise, I can talk all day about numbers to talk to me about the kind of the timeline of a project or a solution for you guys.

You identify a problem or somebody brings a problem to you.

What what is that?

You know, on a calendar?

What does that look like?

Yeah, it's it's very quick.

We like to think that's our kind of competitive advantage.

You know?

Why?

Why do companies sign up for this?

Why is this really so appealing?

It's, you know, on the on the scale of months where we're looking at problems and we're trying to put great partner companies, and universities on board to turn things around six months.

You know, if we want to figure out a 4% energy gain on a fiberglass furnace in Delmar, New York, we're trying to do that in the next six months.

There have been in Denmark, New York in fall.

I've been there in the fall.

I don't know how you know that picturesque.

Don't believe anything I say, I don't I was barely listening would talk to me about.

I mean, obviously, we're here tonight, as guests of the Lucas County Economic Development Corporation talk to you about the role that that they and other partners have in success with knowing, well, if they want to do something valuable any day.

I'm waiting.

But, you know, pretty pretty soon.

Wow.

Shot across your arm.

Oh, there a handsome man I love, I love.

Yes, he was paying his own bar tab tonight.

That's that's right.

Crack that steely grin of Harmon.

I, I love the, you know, I always joked in on the corporate side, the word alignment is like the most cringe word.

You'd be like, oh, God, they're going to get aligned again.

Like, I just had a teams meeting last half hour to get aligned.

But I think what that's trying to do in the county, bringing myself.

You're bringing Kyle Sword here, getting these conversations together in a in a comfortable way like this is this is pretty accessible.

That's that's Toledo.

That's what we do around here.

That's what I was going to ask you.

At the risk of just beating this into the ground, you mentioned moving back here.

Why is northwest Ohio, Toledo, the area uniquely positioned to be competitive potentially again?

Yeah.

I, you know, we study so many other regions.

We're advised by Akron.

We looked a lot at Madison, Wisconsin.

You know, plenty of areas that are nowhere near as beautiful as Toledo.

But it's it's it really is the connectivity.

It's the ability to to come to something like this and find the innovator doing the thing and say, I want to get into that, or I want to get into something like that.

How do I do that?

It's incredibly welcoming from what I've seen.

I, you know, by some from here, but you come back here and you say, I'm coming to this event, I'm going to go and meet that guy, and I'm going to try.

I think that's done here better than most places.

I spent a lot of time in South Bend, Indiana.

People there do it too, but it's just not as good I man.

All right, Matthew, it's now time for rise, man.

Yeah man.

It guy I'll tell you what.

There is no draft blood coming out of this group.

I can do that.

I can tell you.

All right, let's let's try that entire time.

30 minutes.

I know I threw you a curveball.

You weren't ready for it, but now we are.

Let's do a really stupid name.

Well, your parents chose it.

It's now time for a rare zinger by.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you all for rapid fire questions for me.

Gretchen's asking for your favorite thing in or about Toledo, and then you.

And that'll work together on nine word.

You're getting canceled tonight.

All right, if Toledo renamed one street after you, what street should it be?

The what is the current street or what is the answer?

question.

Matthew.

The new street name?

No follow up questions.

Okay.

Clear.

Yeah.

The new street name would be, where collaboration meets commercialization.

That's not going to be good on GG Boulevard.

Boulevard.

Yeah.

Thank you all.

Now, that brings it home for me.

Otherwise, I can't finish the address.

What?

What's a completely useless talent that you have?

Oh, on demand, backflips on demand right now.

I mean, I thought that thought that would be hilarious, but I'm not going to do it tonight.

Yeah, okay.

Well, we can't believe you, buddy, but, no, I don't need to die in the middle of the show.

Yeah, you can do it.

After the show.

Only at weddings if you die after the show.

All right, that's fine.

All right.

If you could ban one word or phrase forever, what would it be?

Remember?

Alone, my man?

Yeah.

All right, all right.

And then lastly, what's the food combination you love that other people think is weird?

Oh.

Oh, man.

Definitely peanut butter pasta.

Peanut butter pasta.

Why did you have to hesitate when that was in the chamber?

I was afraid at the response to it.

Yeah, okay.

That's why you should have been.

A lot of that is sociopaths.

Answer.

Know what?

And she's not proud of that.

You're going to have to backflip to get out of this.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Good lord.

The sheriff's department is heading to your house tonight to Five Heads.

What's your name?

One most favorite thing.

Or what you consider to be the best thing about the city of Toledo?

Is it the peanut butter of the pasta?

Why, cheese?

Probably both.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

The, best thing about Toledo, I, you know, I'm very, very biased on this one, but I got to say, the the family, like, this is just it's home.

Oh, my God, this is.

It was a good answer.

This is not the metro park.

It's giving back.

Yeah.

Like, it is.

Yeah.

He's upset that you're a better looking and a nicer person, and your family loves you.

You're not wrong.

It's right.

And you have a family that loves you and wanted to be with them.

I was told there'd be a vote tonight on the most handsome man in the room.

I could rank them.

If anyone wants the rank, I don't have to wait for that vote to come in next.

Ride your bike here tonight.

All right?

Nine with that shirt and a medium.

Nine.

Words to describe Toledo.

Sorry.

Just processing that last joke.

I got to go with.

Take your time.

Classy.

Classy.

Accessible.

All right.

Industrious, gritty energy, collaboration.

Matthews and alignment.

Nice.

Yes.

Thank you, thank you.

Lineman.

There it is.

All right, Matthew, can you give me a big round?

It was for arguably the nicest Matthew on the planet.

I do want to see that book.

All right.

Clapping for the Matthew.

This is his journal.

I don't kno you've ever seen the movie seven.

This is what they found in that guy's house.

This guy is a murderer.

I do not go to your cars by yourself tonight.

You guys are comparing notes.

I don't record nothing written here just so everybody can see.

Matthew Kerry would know it.

When we come back on the other side of the break, we'll have both Matthew and Kyle back on stage.

I don't know why he's leaving.

He has to come back right now to leave you to do so.

We'll be back on the other side of the break.

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All right.

Welcome back to the 419.

Powered by CTE.

We've got a live audience out here at toll House.

We're at Lucille's, where the Lucas County Economic Development Corporation, our friends from Newark, Kyle Sword from Pilkington.

Thanks so much for being here.

We talked about the history of glass.

We talked about innovation and collaboration, the work that you guys are doing today.

What does the future of this look like, and what do you need from the folks in the room and the folks at home?

So let's maybe start with the future.

Well, fortunately, that that's all, Kyle.

We just ask him what to do next and he says, fire the lawyers.

So I think that's what we're doing tonight.

Yeah, you got your problem.

You got your problem statement.

You have a couple months to do it all.

Yes.

All right.

The future.

What does it look like in.

All right.

So I'll answer.

So because I like to talk about stuff.

You may be aware of this, but to me to me the future.

No.

Like.

No.

It does pose a really good opportunity for us to collaborate, work together.

It's mostly stuff around glass, but it's really a vision of like, look at this as a pilot, look at this as an example of what we can do and how we're stronger if we work together.

You then take that.

And like one of the things that we're doing around, let's say recycling the idea is, okay, well, let's prove out that this works.

And if it works, you can copy this model in 75 cities around the country, and you can do this and you could do that.

But if we can solve this one problem here, we could also solve different problems by having collaborative ideas of people that work together.

And a lot of times when you start looking at this again, I mentioned already that like, you can do it for less money and faster.

If you do it together, what you then do, like we got seed money from the state of Ohio and if you look, we're going to pay it back in terms of like okay, well look at the GDP growth.

Look at the number of jobs that we're creating.

Look at the innovations that we're driving.

Look at how we're growing our companies.

What we're finding with this stuff is you get collaborative groups together and go, well, if we need this amount of seed money, look at how we pay it back and how fast we pay it back.

Do you know how many people in different city, state, federal regions are trying to solve that exact problem that are just like, we got our checkbook and we want to grow jobs.

What do we do?

Right?

You know, I go, well, we have answers like, literally like, this is a good answer.

Just get people together and say, let's solve this problem together.

Boom, fast move.

You can copy paste, move it elsewhere.

Let's go to the next problem.

At the risk of asking or giving you a chance to sort of state the obvious, walk me through some of the pitfalls that doesn't make that happen organically.

Like why are we?

Why are we shooting ourselves in the foot?

I'll take that one.

Thank you.

That wasn't directed at you.

Okay.

If Kyle will allow it for free, you know, and you take a major problem like glass recycling, you know, we all hear about it.

We kind of see it.

It's it's it's fascinating.

Is it really working?

Do I put it in a Murph, you know.

Where is this really going?

The companies are looking around the US and trying to say, okay, what city can I try?

Can I put an investment into?

Can I say, you know, partner with a local company and figure out how to do this?

We do that here.

We're putting the right projects in place to be able to say, here's what we tried here was the failure or here is a success.

Here's what we're going to try next.

Here's what it costs.

Here's the impact, the full sheet so that they don't have to search and search and search for what do I do?

Where do these monumental global industry problems where do I get started?

We're trying to give the roadmap of you start here.

And here's the impact is that now I see doing anything to address companies AI issues or making plans for them to address how they're going to incorporate that into their companies.

Yeah, absolutely.

We have we have one active project that's focused on fairness, efficiency.

So putting AI to work in the decisions that are made around operating furnaces seems pretty pretty basic.

Seems like it already would be happening.

It happens in other industries.

It's not.

We're trying to make it realistic, get it deployed, make those decisions.

So that people don't have to.

It's incredibly more efficient.

But on the people side too, where we're helping people learn the glass industry through the help of AI tools.

So they're learning with AI chat bots.

Some of them we're developing through great local companies like actual Reality Technologies, others that are our market ready, solutions.

It's doing it with the the help of the AI tools.

You know, there's this guise of eliminating people around using AI.

That's not what's happening in these heavy industries, these tough industries.

It's people plus AI that are really making Toledo, the next great city, the next great place to innovate.

Who who do we benchmark against when we look at other markets that are doing this?

Well, other industries that are doing this well, who are the folks that that you guys look at and say, all right, let's let's steal some from them.

We constantly look at polymers.

You know, the Akron region is a great use case of of being about ten years ahead of us and trying to do this kind of a thing.

You know, we're.

How is that possible?

I mean, this is a polymer.

And what's a Murph?

We could go.

We could go back all the way back to this.

Yeah.

No, in I we even in my, industry, which is, men's hair care products.

What?

Why is Akron ahead in so many things?

Is it that they're eliminating, you know, superfluous boundaries or what?

Why are we constantly duking it out or wanting to aspire to be more like them?

I think one is that they do have a better collective of, like, the right number of people starting to talk, and they've just had the advantage of time.

I think they started earlier than we did as whole.

So I don't think it's because we're incapable of.

I mean, when you say they started before us, we're talking about a decade.

Is is 20 years.

What is that?

What is that?

I don't know, I think they started about 20 years ago.

I think that they've got.

Yeah.

And they do some more aerospace stuff which is also gets a little bit more funding to do some of that stuff.

So I think they have started a way always before, okay.

To me though, when I look at what do we need to change?

And this is just as an us, it's like it's the whole Midwest.

Sure.

Paul Toth from, Connect Toledo had a really good example of this, and he went to a, venture capital friend of his and said, hey, how come we got all this good stuff?

How come venture capital money isn't flowing to us?

And he said, one of the main reasons is when we start ten companies in California, if nine of them fail, the only thing you hear about is the one success.

And he goes, we do it anywhere in the Midwest, anywhere in the Midwest.

Nine of them succeed and one fails.

All you hear about is the one failure.

So the first thing is stop talking about negative Start talking about the stuff that we're doing.

That's worth the clap for sure.

Yeah, start talking about the stuff that we're doing and the thing that you have to do on this, and it's not just, no, it's not just one collaborative group.

It's what do we all do together is let's get groups that have common problems and then let's all work towards a little bit better tomorrow.

And if you can do that, do the sky is the limit like you by next year.

Look at what you can accomplish.

That to me is what our opportunity is.

And then Gretchen, your question, if I remember it was like 20 minutes ago, it was a long time ago, but around like, I. Yeah, right.

I like, believe it or not, running glass furnaces is kind of complicated, you know that, like, the gas bills, $1 million a month and there's 4000 different inputs.

It's almost like you live in the old West End.

Yeah, like tell me more.

It's super, super tip like it's it's really difficult.

And it might take 5 or 10 years to train people.

Sure.

Hey, I gives you all this information, all this sort of stuff, and it makes it easier and better and like it pays for itself.

If we get the right thing for I will save money and pay for the.

I work with the fuel savings of making the furnaces work, and then people go, oh, that, that saves money for for glass companies.

I go, really, I go every single manufacturer in the world would use this technology.

So our opportunity isn't what's use.

I is a nice toy to make glass companies better.

How do we go?

Let's create universities that churn out graduates that are already skilled in every AI set that we want to use.

We immediately have ten companies that are like, yep, I hire you.

There's this stuff I want you to do.

And then when they deliver on those results, they go, hey, I want to start my own business.

Boom, here's a pile of cash.

Go do it.

We can take this technology and leverage it into every technology around the world, every other industry.

And we could be the center of excellence for this new emerging technology if we get out of our own way, if we just start doing I think it's a good time in the show to mention now the fact that Matthew is actually AI generated.

So it works.

It really, really works, right?

They ask copilot for a better version of Matt.

It's that, yeah, there's less gray.

Yeah.

All right.

Two teams younger, less bitterness.

Okay, we got it.

We got it right around.

Robert.

You just have more here.

Yeah.

Let me get your hat.

Matthew will change your life for the better.

You mentioned universities.

Obviously.

That's that's one role they can play.

Are there other things that you need from our local universities to continue advancing?

The, the goals and the interest of, of Newark, maybe just to celebrate.

You know, we just got one of the best class science professors in the world.

I even I know about this man that was just telling me about it.

At the University of Toledo.

He's.

He's leading a program.

A lab for the clap, for sure.

You know, it's it's incredible the kind of the kind of expertise and support that he offers for for this effort, for this energy.

Bowling Green State University just replied with wanting to hire a complementary position.

I mean, this spreads pretty quickly.

So you pick a position, you hire an impact person and then it spreads.

I mean, this can move pretty quickly.

I've been I've been amazed by how well the universities work together when you force them to, it's it's really nice when when there's a shared opportunity that's funded.

That's what everybody gets together on.

When this is funded, it's leading to jobs.

It's leading to impact.

Both universities say that all of I-75 is once a year.

Let's get together.

So I mean, I get the the obvious nature of collaboration wins.

Take down the barriers.

Let's be growth focused.

But when the rubber meets the road, that's still really hard.

So what are the first steps that we can take to to try to build this, build this culture and get in in a habit of doing innovation, in the habit of doing collaboration.

Habit of doing.

Yeah, yeah.

To me, one of the things is you break it down until it's a task.

That's manageable enough that you can do it, and you have to have a little bit of skin in the game.

Like if the state just was like, here's a bunch of money, do some cool stuff, we'd be like, awesome.

Yeah, yeah, we did all that stuff.

But we're like, we're shelling out money to be like, I want to figure this out.

I want to invest in this.

So everyone should have a little bit of skin in the game, and then it should just be of like, what problem are we whatever group it is trying to solve, how do we do it together?

And how do we all have a little bit of skin in the game.

So I think like, okay, let's just pick any street in downtown Toledo, ten, ten restaurants, ten businesses, ten whatever on that.

They're all trying to get people, they're trying to get revenue, they're trying to get interest.

They're trying to get enough buzz.

It's like, okay, let's invent something, let's you.

So you have to be able to willing to put a marker out to go.

What if we did a festival on Thursday night and we invited people in and we did this and we did like if you just start that and everyone goes, I'm in, I'm in for a buck.

I'm in for two bucks.

By the time that you're deliver that you have delivered like this amazing, awesome thing that hundreds of people are like, why isn't there anything cool like this that I can go to there?

There are literally lines of people that would come to it.

You got to start.

So it's like, get a small enough thing, get enough people in to be like, I'm part of this and we can solve these problems so much better, faster and together and cheaper.

If we just do it.

We just have to go, like, let's put a marker out, do it, go solve this problem.

So that's the takeaway I give people is don't be negative.

You know, talk about that.

Talk about the wins and talk about how do you get a little bit better towards better tomorrow together.

If you do those things it's all good.

You may have just answered my next question, but I'll ask it anyway.

Matthew, we'll start with you.

If there's one message that folks walking away from this evening, take with them one message that folks that are that are watching this or listening to it on FM 91.

What what's the message you want them to walk away with?

Yeah, I think it's a legacy of boldness connected to a future of, innovation and really, really gritty, getting things done.

I mean, you know, the Toledo brand, the Midwest brand, we get things done.

I think we've had an incredible amount of opportunity in the past.

There's nothing but opportunity coming up in the future.

It's your personal mindset.

It's your dedication to getting up every day and doing that.

I think it's a lot of fun.

I think manufacturing is the art of craftsmanship.

I think there's nothing but promise in the future.

We have all the right people here to do it.

It's just about doing it, committing to it every day.

I love it.

I think everybody here loves it too, so I can't wait.

Yeah.

And, so first off, I'll say that my beautiful wife is here, which is really fantastic.

So when I think about my beautiful wife and my beautiful children, I go, I want to live in a cool town.

I want to live in a place that has fun, people that do this cool stuff.

I want to work for a company that does cool stuff.

I go, so I'm just going to do those things.

Like, I'm not going to ask for permission.

I'm not going to get everybody's agreement so that we can walk together safely towards that.

I'll be like, let's go do some cool stuff.

And we just you have to just do you have to just be a part of the solution.

And again, get everyone to focus on a little bit better tomorrow if we can all just get to be a little bit better tomorrow and whatever it is you care about, by the end of the year, we're going to be awesome.

We're going to have so many more cool things in that whatever space that is, go do it.

Go do it quick.

Get a big round of applause for Matthew and Kyle.

Thanks so much for joining us tonight.

Of course, the 419.

If you missed any part of the interviews with these guys, you can catch them.

7 a.m.

on YouTube, 3 p.m.

on FM 91 in Toledo.

Brian Defiance and Lima, 6 p.m.

on connect channel 30.4.

And of course, thanks to our gracious hosts, Lucas County Economic Development Corporation, having a big round of applause for for Matt, Josh, the entire team team.

I believe Matt did say he was buying around after this, which I think is so, so generous.

So generous.

Right?

I mean, we're here from behind me.

Yep.

We're all throwing the money and he needs a large shirt.

Yeah.

And of course, thanks to each and every one of you for being with us tonight.

Have a great evening.

Enjoy your time.

And, go get that free drink at the bar.

And thanks to Lucille's, do.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Cheers.

To me, community means connecting to others.

I'm Dani Miller and welcome to the Point.

I lost it yesterday.

We're a community committed to education.

Discover new ideas, dive into exciting subjects, and engage with the world around you.

I would send them personally a t shirt.

Crime doesn't pay in the old West End.

Pass it on.

That's how we cleaned up the neighborhood.

Vision loss for people is not the end.

It's the story.

It's the next chapter.

There we go.

Public media invites you to get out and play day.

Monday through Friday.

It's the 419 powered by W GT with Matt Gillum, Gretchen de Backer, I'm Kevin Mullen.

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Give me an hour.

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