Welcome back to Rooted in Reaching. I'm your host, Marty McKenberg. Today we had a great conversation with Allie Shook, the executive director of Marshall County Lifelong Learning. Ali and I had a super conversation about how to support entrepreneurship and lifelong learning in rural parts of Indiana. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Well, I am very happy to be here this morning with Ali Shook, the the executive director of the Marshall County Lifelong Learning Network. I think I got that right.

Yes, sir. Yes.

Allie has been a friend of the region for a long time and we've wanted to get her on the podcast for a while to talk about both how she supports entrepreneurship in Marshall county in particular, but also in the region. And then I'm going to poke her a little bit about whether or not she thinks she is an entrepreneur herself since she's got her hands in so many great things that are starting new. So anyway, Ali, thank you for being on.

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

It's always nice to, I know not to be overly chronological, but to hear a little bit about you, where you came from. I know you're actually a Marshall county born and bred proponent and resident. Tell us about that. You started at Marshall and then you left and you came back.

Yeah, yeah. So born and bred, like you said, in Marshall County. Parents born and bred in Marshall County. A lot of family still there and just had my sister and her husband actually just moved back. So we're very excited about that. But yeah, so grew up in Marshall county, went to Plymouth, graduated from Plymouth, I went to IU and then came back for a teaching job after, after college. So I went to school for special education and health education and so came back for a special ed job and then have been here since.

So did you, when you were away for school, was the intention to always come back, come back home to teach?

No. I mean, I thought I would. I thought I would teach. I actually, I actually went to school originally for broadcasting, if you can believe it, and then decided to change. I decided to change. I really loved it in high school, the broadcasting department and stuff and what we were doing and so thought I wanted to go into that and then ended up going into special ed. My mom and stepdad are both special ed teachers, so kind of grew up in it and just felt comfortable and appreciated that and had a passion for it. So did switch my major, went into that, I honestly thought looked into doing some sort of kind of a Teach for America kind of situation and looked at different places, but at that point they didn't want people with teaching Degrees, So you didn't have access to that, but yeah. So kind of looked around and thought potentially going somewhere else. And then I ended up finishing school in December, and so was kind of in a like, what do I do? Kind of standpoint. And there was actually a maternity leave and a sick leave that both happened that spring. And so of course folks back here knew that I was finishing up. Please come back and fill in. And of course, you know, once you do, then. Then you're good.

Next thing happened. Next thing happened.

And then 20 years later you go, huh, interesting. I'm still here. Yeah.

So did you come back to the same high school you graduated from?

Not to teach originally? No, I taught. I actually started in. The two jobs that I filled in for were at elementary school in Marshall county and then out of junior high, and then I kind of worked my way around. I was at Argus High School, Culver High School and junior high, and then went back to Lincoln, which is in Plymouth, and then kind of switch it up from there.

But it's always an interesting circumstance for a young teacher who comes back and they're only four, you know, four or five years older than they even know kids.

Oh, sure.

Who are in the school. Younger sibling.

Well, and that's like, I have lots of younger siblings, so I'm the oldest by seven years. And then there's a whole bunch. My youngest sister is a sophomore at iu. So that tells you kind of the gap.

Big range.

Yeah. So. But. But my brother was seven years younger than me, is seven years younger than me. And so going back, his age group was in high school at the time, going back to teaching. So that was always interesting to say the least. But I was not at Plymouth High School, so I didn't have to worry about him and his friends.

But so being from Marshall County, I mean, Marshall is a rural county. I think it self identifies pretty strongly as rural Indiana. Did you see it that way too, growing up?

I think so, yes. I don't know that. I don't know that it was something that we really saw as a label or that I really thought that we needed to maybe own or that it was that's who we are kind of situation. It just is what it is. Right. Or it just was what we were at that point and still are pretty much. Being in Plymouth in Marshall county is kind of funny because Plymouth's kind of the big city inside of Marshall County. So going through school in Plymouth, I was part of the kind of the. What you would maybe see as the city or the urban area, even though, I mean, it's not urban, but you know, that kind of feel.

So the biggest community in the city.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's just kind of that you feel that at each stage, I feel like whether or not you're in a rural or urban area, you know, or how you're connected suburban wise, and you just kind of, you have to, as you're in it and as you're, as you're feeling that, you know, it just kind of depends on who you're talking to. Right. Within the region or, you know, it's feels that way, you know, and we're definitely the rural county. Right. But I don't know, Elkhart and South Bend or Elkhart and St. Joe have plenty of rural areas too.

Right, exactly. I would make that point too. You drive around, it doesn't.

Yes.

It's not like it happens at a county line.

Right.

You can be in rural parts of St. Joe county, rural parts of Elkhart county, and then when you're in downtown Plymouth.

Yes, exactly.

It feels like you're in a cute little town. Right, right. Which you are.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's a. But, yeah, there wasn't anything I didn't feel, I guess it, it didn't feel that way to me. It doesn't necessarily feel that way now other than from an amenity standpoint, obviously you're always, you know, when you're in a smaller area or a smaller town, you don't have access to the same things. But, you know, as we know in the region, you have, you know, a 20 minute drive, 30 minute drive to whatever you might want to access, you know, and then easy access to Indy and Chicago, of course. So. So yeah, so it makes, it makes it nice because you kind of have that. It's nice and quiet and, and small and easy and, you know, and then we can go and get the other.

Stuff if we want, if you need it. Right, yes, exactly. You need to hit Trader Joe's. It's there for you. There's Target, there's. Yeah, yeah.

Costco's a little out of reach, I feel like, but. But I do make the trip every once in a while.

So you were a teacher?

Yes.

For how many years? About 10, roughly 10 years as a teacher. And then you moved into a new space?

I've been in a couple different spaces since, so I was actually the rec director for the Plymouth Parks Department for a couple years. And then I was the leader of people in partnerships at American Engineering in Argus and Then have been in this role for LLM since.

So was it an intentional choice? You'd been teaching for 10 years and you were thinking, I'm ready for something, a new challenge, a new opportunity, or did it, was it just something presented itself and you followed the path?

I would say a little bit of both. At that time, I, you know, teaching can be very hard, as the folks that teach know.

Everybody's remembering education space. Back to school.

Yeah. In the education space and doing what I was doing and then doing what we were at the time, fostering and doing some other work like that. And it was just, I needed to make a change just for purely like mental health purposes. Right. And sometimes, you know, it makes, it kind of lends itself to that, like, where can I, you know, what is, what's out there? And I'll say too, from a teaching standpoint, inside of teaching and then wanting to do something else is very much a big question mark. Because you're seen as, you can be an educator, but you can't be anything else. And not that you can't. Right. That's a, that's not the right word. But they're in terms of applying for different jobs. Every, every application says three to five years experience in X, Y or Z. Right. And in education you can go, well, I taught for 10 years. I can explain to you what I just did for 10 years. And in the space. But that doesn't reflect on, well, you need business experience. Well, you need, you know, whatever kind of experience. So it's very hard to leave that space and find something new.

So you get a little pigeonholed as an educator.

100%. Yeah. And I would say, I mean, you know, I'm very biased, obviously, terms of education and educators, but I would say that they are probably the best suited for going into a different role somewhere because they can kind of roll the punches and they're flexible and they know how to adapt and obviously know how to work with people.

Sure. Part of the territory.

Right. And what we hear a lot, you know, even in the CTE space and some other, you know, now is that everyone lacks soft skills. And it's like you have the perfect candidates for soft skills, like the people who can talk all day too, pretty much anyone.

And if you can deal with teenagers all day, you can probably deal with pretty much anything.

Right. Or 25, 5 year olds. Like, I mean, there's, you know, there's something to, you know, hurting cats, basically. Right. Like, I mean, and keeping it going and making sure everybody's leaving with new knowledge at the end of the day, you know.

So did you find that a lot of teachers had side hustles? Summer, Summertime?

Oh, yeah, most teachers. I mean, I feel like that's a pretty. It. Maybe not as much necessarily now. I don't know for sure, but definitely when I was teaching, a lot of folks had a second job. Whether or not that was in the evenings, on the weekends, or if it was summer break, at least they were doing something or teaching summer school or just finding something to kind of supplement their income. But, yeah, I mean, everyone's dabbling in something else, likely. And since I've been out of education, the world in the Etsy world or the, you know, kind of. That kind of world has come alive since then. So there's different avenues for folks to be creatives. And 20 years ago, that would have.

Been much of an option, but now. Now there's. There's a pathway to sell online.

Right, right, exactly. So instead it was a lot of, you know, waitressing or, you know, doing things like that that, you know.

But did you have a side hustle during the.

I had many side hustles, yeah. I mean, in terms of I was waitressing or bartending and then working at the park in the summer mo and doing that kind of stuff. So, yeah, lots of different random things of where you could just try to supplement a little bit and, you know, pay the bills.

So you. You were at American.

Yeah.

And you were at. What was the other one you just mentioned? The Parks Department.

Before that, the park. Yeah. And then teaching. Yeah.

And then how long have you been at the Marshall county center for Lifelong Learning?

Yeah, so I've been there since April of 22. So I just went through my third year. So. Yeah.

So. And did. Did those other positions, the Parks Department and the. Did that lead to this opportunity to lead the learning network, or was it a new network at the time, or did you take over for someone else?

Yeah, so I didn't take over for someone else, but it wasn't new either. So it had been in existence since 2001, 2002, but it was a working board for the majority of that time. So it was kind of something to supplement and help classes within the vocational world and inside of adult basic education. Since then, vocational has changed into career and technical ed. So that's why we went from vocational to cte.

And so remind the audience, what does CTE stand for?

Career and Technical Education. Career and Technical Education, yeah. Yeah. So when I was in school, like building trades, automotive things like that would have been considered vocational classes. And now we just call them cte. But. But yeah. So getting into cte, doing. Doing the work that I'm doing now, the work that. What I have done in the past in terms of teaching, being at the park, being American, I think the job I'm in now is a really nice blend of all of those things.

It sure seems like it is. Right. Because it's very educational in nature and yet rooted in business, kind of business and industry.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

A lot of relationships, relationship building, of course. And so I appreciate that side of things and being able to be out in the community and really kind of chatting with folks and kind of, you know, convening groups that maybe are doing parallel work and that don't know that both are doing the work. By being in the meetings that I'm in or having the relationships that I do, I'm able to say, hey, wait, I think someone. I think this would be a good idea where we can connect the dots a little bit. And by doing so, I hope that we're fulfilling a role. Filling a gap that was not being filled three years ago. And the LLN board for a long time was doing good work and was doing what they could do, but they just literally didn't have an executive director. So.

So what were they doing? And then what was the gap that.

You'Re having somebody that can do it every day.

Right.

Like when you have somebody who. A paid person that can live and breathe it every day, they just can get done. Yeah. When you have, you know, 10 to 15 people from industry, business, education that come together once a month or once a quarter and. And talk about what's happening. As most know, that's a lot of talking about what's happening, and then. Okay. And then they see each other again.

Computing becomes a problem without.

Yeah, the action steps are just not. I mean, you can. You can create them, you can try, but it's really hard when people can't. It can't be their daily work. Right. And so having me in that role and being able to do it as a daily job, of course we could get things done.

So. So what is that? Daily work?

Yeah.

Because I think probably a lot of people don't know what the Marshall County.

Yeah.

What's the acronym for it?

The Marshall County LLN.

Marshall County LLN. I'm even not 100% clear what the daily work looks like for you.

Right, right. I don't know that most are other than me and my board. My daily work can consist of doing a podcast. My daily work can consist of meeting with our employees, who are some of our CTE teachers, and making sure that what's going on in the classroom is what we want and making sure they have the materials that they need and those kind of things working in close coordination with our CTE director. So North Central CTE is a CTE that our Marshall county schools are in, and that includes both Marshall and Stark counties and then Laville or Union north schools, which kind of hovers in St. Joe county, and then Rochester and Fulton County.

All are all part of that same network.

Yeah. So there's 10 school corporations that all feed into that with some of the classes that we. So the courses that we kind of focus on the most are really public service related in a way. So one of the classes that we started a couple years ago was fire and Rescue. And then last year we started the EMT class which was the. So within CTE you have year ones and year twos, juniors and seniors, and so you have to, you have to start and then you can add the capstone. So with our fire and rescue, Fire and rescue had to come first, and then EMT as a secondary class for our seniors. Those kids are able to in fire and rescue and EMT earn every certification that they need in order to be hired on after graduation as a full time firefighter, paramedic or EMT right out of. Right out of high school, Right out of high school at any local department. So we have a few that earned every single certification that they needed and they're out and about now doing their thing, which has been awesome. But with bringing them up, the reason I brought them up is out of those 10 school corporations we have, most of those school corporations are in that class because there are certain classes that we provide in Marshall and Stark counties that are only offered in one location. So a lot of times, and not to get too in the weeds on this, but there's in St. Joe or I'm sorry, Marshall and Stark counties, we have classes in Plymouth and Knox. We try to have dual programming so kids can access either one with whatever's closest. And then there's certain programs that just because of sheer numbers, maybe the equipment they it needed and those kind of things really only makes sense to have one section of that. So ours is in Marshall county.

And then we have the fire and rescue one.

Yeah, Fire and rescue mt. Yeah, which has been great. And then how did you identify that as a need?

Did it come up through surveys or were you hearing from fire departments hey, we need more young.

Yeah, yeah. So employees. Yeah. So a little bit of both. We have, you know, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of relationship building, that's where we really try to build a lot of our work out of is, you know, having conversations with folks of what the heck do we need? What makes sense for Marshall county, what makes sense for the region, what makes sense for Northern Indiana, what makes sense for our, you know, the Midwest, you know, those kind of things.

Right.

And what can we set these kids up with, give them access to, to be successful after high school? Right. And not to mention, too, is, you know, with adult basic education, too, and adult ed that we have. We are trying to offer the same things with adult ed as well. So we try to.

Because it's the adult.

Yeah.

You know, so I'm, I don't automatically think about high school students. You're mentioning juniors and seniors. But there's an adult component to this.

Yes, 100%. So all out of all of those courses that we have and all of the ones that are offered within cte, which we maybe partner or help with, but we may not employ the teacher, but I work in close coordination with those that. The classes that are inside of Marshall County Career Innovation Center. Right. So that was our big project that LLN has done in the last few years, which is ready. Funded, of course.

Right. Which we'll talk about in a minute.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, but the Career Innovation center, those classes that are inside of there are ones that we try to help with, partner with, convene industry partners for and those kind of things, source equipment and, you know, whatever we can do to help. And those, the classes inside of the Career Innovation center are ones that we try to provide an adult version of as well. Sometimes that doesn't make sense. Sometimes it's not a need. Sometimes it's not something that adults are interested in or maybe isn't as helpful. So there may be a little bit of a twist in terms of what that looks like, of what the adult class looks like in comparison to the high school course. But, yeah, really trying to fill needs. Looking at, you know, all the statistics that Greg Hildebrandt write at EDC Marshall Economic Development folks, those guys can look at, you know, numbers and go, hey, we're really heavy here. We're really not. We're really lacking here. And a lot of conversations like that that happen that help us identify, you know, what we're doing and where we might need a target.

Can you, can you tell us a quick story about an Adult who benefited from the program. You don't have to use names, but like, like who are you serving and what kind of transformation is this making in their lives?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's numerous stories to be told from the classes that. So Jason Rivich is our adult Ed director and he's done phenomenal work in the last few years. He came on after me in terms of timing. So he's only been there for about two years now, I think, in terms of time at adult Ed. But in that time, the amount of folks being able to access our programming is, it's, you know, gone bananas. And we have so many people involved now and being able to. Having folks being able to access that with whatever they need. Right. So there are individuals, of course, and we've had some who have come in, you know, we have ESL classes. We have folks that have come from all over the world. And what I love is in the hallway, they have a big world map and stickers from where everyone is from. So just those things that, you know, can really see who's represented in those classes. And we broke those down into beginning, intermediate and advanced courses within ESL and can provide for all three. And that's been phenomenal for folks and has led to jobs in terms of connecting folks with employers then and those kind of things. And then on the other end of that, which can also be the same thing, is RGED courses. So folks can access.

What are those?

Graduation equivalency diploma. So folks didn't get a high school diploma. They can get a ged.

They're coming back to getting that.

Getting back, yeah, to get that diploma. And so being able to access ESL and GED maybe depending. And then within side of that as well, then we offer some other courses. Jason offered a CNC course. So folks are able to come in for a machining course, welding course, and some others. And those are where you have individuals that are able to access, that get skilled up in a. Whichever, you know, one they program that they desire and then are able to access industry within our area and secure jobs. And those are ones where there's industry partners that are connected. We've had folks that have had one of our Atamco, which is located in Argus, they have on site ESL courses and those are provided through adult ed. And those are things that, I mean, that's kind of barrier breaking. Right. In terms of them being willing to. To host that on site. And so that, that's a. That makes a big difference in people's lives.

So yeah, I was going to ask about that and I still want to get a story, specific story, but like you have these great industry partners in Marshall County. You've got itamco. You just referenced you southwire. There's a surprising number of like very strong, robust industrial operations going on in Marshall County.

Sure.

Does it, Is it, is it a chicken and egg question? Is it a person, say an adult comes to you to get training because they know they have a job waiting for them at itamco if they upskill or learn how to do the CNC routing? Or is it that they're at a point in their life where they just feel like they need to go back and learn a skill that will then hopefully lead to a job?

Yeah. So I think it's more the second, not the first. Because if most industry, most employers, I in the. I can't speak for everybody, I don't know for sure. Right. Some employers may go, that's not true. But I would say they, if they've hired someone on, they may know somebody's a good person to have on staff. Right. In terms of good person, good soft skills, shows up every day willing to learn, willing to do what they need to do, but doesn't have this maintenance set of skills that we want them to have or this CNC set of skills that we want them to have, then they may come to the class. But on the flip side of that, I think it's folks earning their GEDs, then accessing programming of one class or another and then connecting the dots to hey, here's this person. Or they just feel more comfortable at work. Right. Like there's folks that are in the classes that are maybe in the class from a quote unquote hobby ish kind of situation. Right. Okay. And not necessarily that they're going to go home and do it, but it's more of a, like, I would like to feel a little more comfortable doing this because I may get asked to do this at work or I may need to access that or this, this is something that I know that if I can do it, then I start to get looked at for sure.

So they're inspired to job opportunities and the way that this education could maybe lead to those opportunities.

Yeah, yeah. And we hope you know that that continues our, like our CNC class. We have both instructors that we had are both bilingual too. So just making sure that we're providing things where people feel comfortable being in there and they can speak the language, you know, with them and make sure that they're Getting what they need.

So you've mentioned ESL a number of times now. What, what's the landscape in Marshall county that you're facing when it comes to esl?

Yes.

And CTE courses and training.

Yeah. So that's within Marshall. Well, within Marshall County. I don't know that I'm not 100% sure what the total percentage is for Marshall County. I think it's pretty. It's in the teens. For the city of Plymouth, you're looking at close to 25 to 30% of the Hispanic population within there. There was at one point, you know, I know within the schools at 20% ish were marking that they speak Spanish at home. So knowing that the kids are going home, speaking Spanish at home, parents obviously still speaking Spanish at home or are speaking Spanish and so making sure that we're providing everything we possibly can in whatever language we need to most likely Spanish in our area, it's most likely Spanish. And making sure that folks can access the opportunities that we have because we want to make sure that it's equitable obviously and that everybody.

You really couldn't do the work properly if you weren't providing those services.

No.

You'd be missing a big chunk of the population.

100%. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't. We have no desire to do that, of course. So. Yeah.

So tell us a story.

I don't, I. It's hard to pick one story. There have been, you know, there folks we've had with. I was just thinking through with Jason's. Jason, he hosts graduate his graduation in June and so that just happened a couple months ago. I'm trying to like if there's a specific story that he, he always tells stories about certain folks in his classes and what they've accessed and what they can do. There was someone who went through the ESL program and then earned their citizenship during that same time. So being able to access that and do that, that was huge. Obviously for her, connecting the dots from an employer standpoint and getting them high paying, or I shouldn't say high paying, getting them a living wage job at local healthcare organizations, again not speaking specifically about specific place, I don't want to name anybody. But getting them in contact with someone who went right through the ESL courses, beginning, intermediate, advanced and then was able to access a living wage job is huge. Right. So it really comes back to every individual and being able to connect the dots for them in whatever way we can and help them get to where we can get the H VAC classes that Jason offers. As well also come with a big toolbox at the end. And that really makes a big difference for folks, you know, being able to leave and then go get a job and having that huge set of tools that they need to access that. Access that employment afterwards. So I being on the spot about coming up with a story.

I'm sorry to put you on spot.

No, no, you're fine. I just, I'm not good at like, oh, yeah, sorry. There's just been so many that have gone through his work from an adult ed standpoint and been able to access. And he has done a phenomenal job of being that person that is there for them, that can get them, you know, they. They keep coming back in terms of, okay, what's next? Or okay, can you get me in touch with, you know, this person or that person kind of thing. So it's just really been good, a good convening kind of situation where local industry and Jason and the schools and everybody can kind of come together and work together.

Yeah, that's great. So this podcast is mostly, you know, we talk a lot about entrepreneurship and we're either interviewing entrepreneurs or interviewing people who support entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

What's the relationship of your current work to entrepreneurship in Marshall County?

Yeah, so we've been working, again, I will say, in terms of the career center that has really been front and center for lln Right. In the last few years now. And we're really close to ribbon cutting here soon. And so that's kind of been our focus. Alongside that, been working closely with Marsh County Economic Development in Marion University and Salah College, and then our CTE program as well with North Central cte in terms of creating kind of an entrepreneurship pipeline in a way, and making sure that we're offering same as we do, like I'm talking about with welding and others, that same type of idea. Are we offering entrepreneurship courses at the high school level, at the college, quote unquote level with Marian and then adult level with edc?

Yeah.

So trying to figure out what's best for us has been interesting, to say the least, you know, and kind of finding, you know, kind of weaving our way through that path, which has not been a straight line by any means, and making sure we're providing what folks really want and need to access. And also not like, I would not call myself an entrepreneur. I don't identify that at all. And I don't want to just like, I will say in coordination with like our weld or our automotive class order starting until our automotive teacher, like you tell Me what you need. I do not know what tool you need. Right. And so from an entrepreneurship lens, I think same thing like starting businesses, of course. Like, we can recognize, we can identify what those things are. Right. And making sure folks have access to that and the resources for that. But then it's the kind of the course, quote unquote work that goes around that and identifying what that is in the curriculum that can help our kids in high school kind of understand. Okay. If you really think you want to start a business or maybe you already have one. Right. I know we have one kid in entrepreneurship right now. We just started this fall. This was the first time we're offering it as a CTE course. So that just started in August.

Okay. So it's its own separate course.

It's its own separate course. Yeah. And it really should go in coordination with something else. So like a kid who just took welding can then take entrepreneurship. So there's a tie to a business a year one and then a year two as the entrepreneurship course. So connecting the dots there for them and getting that started this year was something that we've been working towards and wanted to make sure that we had. And then Marianne is offering their courses in. Dr. Tucker out there, is doing a great job getting those instituted out there. And then Greg, I know, has been working as well in terms of what do we do from a. From an adult standpoint. Right. And that's connecting to Small Business Development center and having them come down and do some course coursework and, you know, different classes, workshop kind of things, and then just kind of meeting people where they are. Right. Like, there's no way to. I don't. I feel like it's kind of like, you know, with some of our classes as well, we have to just do it and then does it make sense or not? Okay, well, let's tweak it or edit it in one way or another and give people what they need. If we feel like everybody comes in, they're like, yeah, we know we have to do that. Like, then, okay, we can start skipping that section and we start going on to the next. So it's really, I feel like one of those where we kind of have to jump in, offer the stuff, and then go from there.

Sounds very entrepreneurial.

Yeah, yeah, right, sure.

Well, I mean, trying new things, learning from failure. I mean, those are sort of traits of entrepreneurship as well. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, And I appreciate that. And I, And I think that that is, you know, education can certainly be in that field. Right. In. In what we're doing from a, an education standpoint with kids and these courses that they're taking. And, and it has to be what looks different now than it did 10, 20 years ago. Right. In terms of education is, is making sure that we're meeting kids where they are and then that we're helping them get to kind of a, a destination. Right. And that destination is not a finish line. But where is that next point to then go to the next point, to the next point to create lifelong learners. And in doing that, I think it's always has to be. This works great right now, but maybe, you know, like, just with like automotive, you know, we brought in automotive this year. This is the first time we're having automotive at the career center. And our kids have had to travel. Marshall county kids have had to travel to Stark county for the last 20 years. First for shop class. Yeah, for automotive. And so that was something that we really wanted to make sure was part of the career center build and bringing, having those kids be able to stay because we had kids, you know, our Triton kids that come to our classes, they are, you know, 10, 15 minutes to the east of Plymouth. They're going to Knox, which is 20, 25 minutes west of Plymouth. Right. So these kids are traveling a long ways. And you go past the slow timeline, you know, when you, when you go that way, so that just adds another wrinkle.

Right, right, right.

So we really were focused.

Yeah, yeah.

And for a high school kid, too, like, you know, and I got to get back for practice. And you're like, what time is it?

Right.

So, so trying to alleviate that issue, but with bringing in automotive, you know, we're, we're doing automotive technologies, but, you know, the idea is at some point we know we're likely to have to offer an EV piece of that. Right. Whether or not it's its own pathway or, you know, whatever. But EVs are going, likely going to, you know, who knows, you know, I'm not going to predict the future by any means, but they're out there on the road, correct? Yeah. So when they, when you start to go over that hump of, you know, more than. Right, right. You know, internal combustion kind of engine. So you, you then you flip the switch and now we're doing more EV and said, you know, so it's just kind of recognizing that and knowing even, you know, from a welding standpoint. We've talked about that with like, robotic welding and stuff too. You know, those are. Robotic welding is 100% out there. We know that we know it's an industry and when is the tipping point of when it makes sense for us economically to offer that because obviously there's a higher cost to doing that and when does that make sense in terms of our offerings and our pathways and stuff. So yeah, I think in that way it is entrepreneurial ish in that it has to be that let's try it and see what happens. What works doesn't work well.

And you have to do a little bit forecasting too. Right. You're looking at trends in industry because you want the students to be up to date on what's coming next. Right. So you've got to keep your eye on that.

Yeah. And that's, you know, when inside of like the advanced manufacturing space our kids, we now have a shared program for advanced manufacturing. And so that's something too that where we have, you know, our kids are working on things that I should not touch but awesome for them and they're able to do that. And they, you know, we are getting some additional equipment which we're very thankful for and that's going to be things that are on, you know, Talk about the 4 axis, 5 axis systems and stuff and you know, it's not something that I should talk about but they're getting into that world. Maybe a lot of our industry, industry is maybe in two, maybe three, but it's going to get to four and four. We know, we know where we're going.

Manufacturing 4.0.

Yeah, we know where we're going. Yeah. And so and seeing that we need to train our kids, even train our adults. Right. Like that, there's no reason we don't have an advanced manufacturing adult ed course as well and providing those for folks so they can level up in and we'll make sure that they have the skills needed to enter the workforce in five years and whatever that happens to be. So yeah, training them on present day equipment to make sure that they are or even future I guess at this point.

But near future equipment.

Yeah, yeah. To make making sure that they're comfortable and familiar with that. So.

So in this effort you've had a big, there's a big, big change that's happened. Right. You had a big opportunity here, which is the new center that's approaching ribbon cutting.

Yes. Yeah.

Tell us a little bit more about how that, how did it come together? What was your role in it and where is it going?

Yeah. So we were, we are very excited. We are getting close to our ribbon cutting that'll happen in September. Middle, Middle of September. Yeah. So we're, we're very excited. It started pre me at lln. The first introduction of ready was kind of coming online at that point. And so the pre work had been done in terms of acknowledging and that work was also done. So I will say going back to Marshall County Crossroads, which is now one mc. So that's kind of shifted and morphed into one mc. Now back when we did Marshall county crossroads, that was 2016, 2017, I feel like, if I'm remembering my head correctly, and that started the whole Stellar process. So at that time, rural counties had access to applying for Stellar. That was through Office of Community and Rural affairs. And you can win lots of money to put towards all sorts of projects.

Okay.

And it was, you know, it from indot, it was from, you know, Rural Health, it was from Oprah. It was a lot of different state agencies were a part of that and are still. And so in that work during Stellar, all the communities came together and in the county and in the city and others, and everybody worked towards, you know, what, what do we. What do we hope we have? What do we need? You know, those kind of things. And developed a project list of lots of projects that you're familiar with now likely were part of Stellar in one way or another. Like the Reese Theater, got some Stellar funding, I believe some of the trails in networks in Plymouth, in Culver and you know, the Amp Theaters.

And I love that too, because they're community generated project ideas.

Yeah, yeah. So there's all sorts of things that kind of culminated out of Stellar. And then there was a list of things that, you know, kind of what we also want to do. Right. In identified needs. And one of the identified needs was there was no central training location in Marshall county for folks no matter their age. There wasn't. Everything was kind of hit or miss and kind of all over the place and just not a central location. And so we identified that we really wanted to do that. Now the work that was done in terms of identifying what we wanted to do came from, well, we want to build a building. We want to. And we wanted to have our own center. And then got insanely high price tags for what that would cost. And so we came back to the drawing board and we said, okay, what could we do instead?

Also very entrepreneurial.

Yeah, yeah, how do we solve this need? Yeah, how do we solve this need without having to come up with $30 million? Because that's never going to like, we just, you know, it's like that. That is crazy to Think that we would get there where, you know, let's make it more attainable. And so we came to the, back to the table and had lots of conversations and our shared programming, some of our shared programming that was existing at the time was already happening at Plymouth High School. And so it was recognizing, okay, we already have buses from all over Marshall county coming to one central location for a few classes. Right.

Makes sense.

At that time it wasn't very many, but it was, there was a few. And so all those, all those schools were coming in and so it was like, okay, that, why wouldn't we do it right here? Like it just, it just makes sense, right? We can build out, we can renovate, we can rehabilitate, we can build new if we had to, to add on and recognize, you know, that we had something that would make sense. And Plymouth Community Schools was very willing to work in that, you know, be a partner in that. And all of our other schools, all the Marshall county schools, you know, we had letters of support from everybody. They all recognized that it made sense too. Yeah.

Plymouth Century, centrally located.

Yeah, everybody's driving 10 to 15 minutes, right. So you know, we could put it somewhere else. And it was like, you know, we can, that's fine, but if we do, then someone's going to have a 30 minute drive and somebody else is going to have a five minute drive here. Everybody drives 10 to 15 minutes. So just made sense, I think, logistically. And the bus routes were already doing it.

Right.

So it was just kind of one of those, like I had to come up with something new. And so, yeah, so we, so we made do with what we had. We pushed the limits a little bit in terms of, you know, what we were doing and really tried to do everything that we, we did everything we could possibly do with what we had access to. And, and that was, you know, I get to go and talk about it a lot and, and, and kind of be. I, I guess I don't want to say the face of it because I don't want to be the face, I don't want to be the face of it, but be the person that goes out and shares the stories about it. Right?

Yeah.

But it was a collective effort by a whole bunch of people right now I could live and breathe it every day, like I said earlier, right. Like that was the whole, that was part of the, you know, having an executive director that could live it and breathe it. But there were so many others that had to play along with us, right. In terms of making it make sense. And, and even from a financing standpoint in terms of those that, you know, donated to the project, getting ready funding.

So, so, so let's back up there. So this was happening, it was at Plymouth High School. You were using some existing spaces and then how does the right, how does the ready money come into it?

Yeah, so we applied for ready in August of 22 is when that was due, the first round and so applied or I don't know, I don't remember when the actual due date was, but I believe it was August and then found out in September. I believe they announced at the meeting that we already funded. And so then we, then it was, you know, let's go.

What has that allowed you to do that you weren't doing before?

Yeah.

What is this new project going to allow you to do once it's officially open in September?

Well, yeah, so it's. So a lot of the existing space inside is, it's open and being used right now. The space that's getting, that's finishing up this week. Like literally I think we're going to have access to the classroom tomorrow and then access to the bay on Friday for automotive. And that's for automotive. And so that's the brand new building that we were able to put in the service. So everything that surrounds that parking lot basically has something to do with the career center and the classes that are a part of that. Before with the, with this project we were able to build out lots of classes, adding capacities, adding numbers of kids that could actually access the course, not to mention Automotive. We have 40 kids in automotive now in Marshall county that would have been zero last year. Like they would have been going to Star County. Of course not all 40 because there.

Weren'T over, over to Knox. But that would have been, that's a transportation, transportation issue.

And not necessarily, not everybody necessarily could have gotten into that class because of capacity. So you only had one option for them. And so now providing that option in Marshall county is huge. So there are things like vet science was one of the classrooms we were able to renovate. And so Shannon Verheagye is our teacher for that. She was able to take a half day course. Now it's a full day course. So she has a morning and afternoon. So that's a plus 25 in terms of kids accessing that course.

Just more kids. More adults as well.

Yes, more adults as well accessing this.

Center and more classes, more opportunity.

Yeah, 100%. And you know they're so what we, what we would consider them the career Innovation center, from a project build standpoint, is that which leans on that parking lot. Right. But a part of our career center also includes kind of a career center south is what we would call it. And that's Lincoln Ed center. And that's where our health careers courses are happening. Ccma, Criminal Justice, Entrepreneurship, and some others. And so those are all Fire and rescue and EMT meet there as well sometimes. And so those are all happening at another location. And that was. We were able to take health careers, move it over to Lincoln Ed center, freeze up space at the high school in order to put another course there. So it just provided us opportunity that we never would have had.

So it does seem fair to say probably that the work you did leading up to this opportunity laid the groundwork for the creation of the new center.

Yes. Yeah. Like in terms of my jobs before.

My experience, you and your partners jobs before.

Yes.

And so that. That kind of is leading me to a question about leadership, like the leadership in Marshall county, including yourself, in the years preceding, you know, the. The build of this new project. I think it laid some critical groundwork. Right. And both building partnerships.

Yeah.

Around the county, with. With the schools, with industry. Leadership is a big part of what you've been involved in, too. So tell me about the role of. Of leadership and making something like this happen.

Yeah. I think you have to own it, you have to believe it, you have to dream it, and when you do those things, then you can hopefully make things happen. Right. And I think something with leadership is knowing that sometimes you can't. And that's just as hard sometimes, you know, of, like, I can go out and push this all day long and, you know, I can go and, you know, like, let's pound the pavement kind of situation. Right. But then knowing on the backside of that that you can pound the pavement and people can still look at you and go, sorry, no, you know, taking that, tweaking it and finding a different route. Right. And continuing. Continuing to try to get to that point in which you want or need to access. Right. In order to be able to make something happen. And so I think it's, you know, it really comes back to drive and.

Continuing perseverance has been an important part of this.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, there were times where it's like it was, you know, knocking me around a little bit and, you know, and it's one of those where it is what it is. Right. It's a. When. When you're in a position, when you're in positions, I feel like like that sometimes you have to, you have to just take it. You know, there are. You're going to get, you know, knocked down sometimes or, you know, hit around a little bit, and it's a. Just get back up and keep going and, and know that, you know, it's, it's. It's for the good of the group. Right. Like, I mean, this is one of those things where I have no problem speaking to anyone about the career center and talking about what we're offering and what we've been able to do in the last few years and what that money has, has generated. Right. In terms of access and programming and knowing that it's for the good of the, it's for the good of the city, it's for the good of the county, it's for the good of the region, it's for the good of, I mean, northern Indiana. It's for the good. The benefit of it is too great to not be passionate about it.

It certainly does help to truly believe in what you're working on 100%.

Yes. Truly believe it makes it a lot easier. Right.

I also know too. So, you know, back on a little bit of a personal note, you. You put your money where your mouth is in terms of your own life as well, like lifelong learning.

Yeah.

I assume you consider yourself a lifelong learner.

Yes, yes, I do.

And you've done some things over the last few years. You know, you've moved into new positions, but you've also gained more education for yourself.

Yes. Yeah.

I think you were at Purdue and you've taken some additional classes.

I don't know if I say that out loud very often, you know, being an IU grad, but yes, I know.

And you're living in Notre Dame country, so.

Yeah, I know.

Triple threat here.

Yes. I working on. Have a class left, an educational Leadership and Policy Studies degree. You know, it was one of those things where at this point in my life I felt like I was getting just too old to not have done it yet, you know, and motivator, I suppose. I know. I know to a point where it was just like, you know, I, I kept thinking I wanted to do it. I. Money always kind of became the issue of like, just one more thing to like, I just, you know, in it for me, I guess, in terms of leadership, it just felt like if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna be in these roles, then, you know, I should have the, the degrees to back it up, I guess, you know, and I don't know that that's really necessary. I think that's one of those things where it's like a. Depends on where you are and what you're doing and, you know, those kind of things. And it was just like, literally for me, because of the. That was very much a personal choice that no one told me I needed to do it. Yeah, very much a personal choice in terms of the folks that I was sitting around the tables with. I felt like, you know, I wanted to know that I had that. And so very much a personal decision and.

Well, and it gives you a great story to tell about your own lifelong learning journey. Right. With students or adults, whoever.

Yeah, yeah.

Industry that you're working with.

Yeah, it's doable. Yeah. I was. We were driving my girls to school this morning and my youngest was like, I am going to go to college. I'm like, okay, that's fine. What are you going to go for? She's eight. What are you going to go for? I don't know. You know, she's. I'm going to do just naming random things. Okay. Is it far away? I said, well, it can be far away. Or I said, you know, like, I. As far as my work on the computer. Well, yeah, you know, I told her, you know how to do. I work on the computer sometimes because, you know, they'll see me working on class stuff sometimes. And you know how, like, you can just stay home and do it too. Like, you don't have to go somewhere. So they're like, oh, okay. Like, you know, kind of, what am I. What are my options here? So. But yeah, I mean, I think it's. It's always good to. I'm very much a tinkerer at the house, like building things and doing those kind of things, like, with my hands and have renovated our house pretty much top to bottom and gutted it. So I think there's, you know, things like that that give me pleasure in terms of, like, making me think for you.

Yeah.

Yes. I will say I do get frustrated at times doing it, but.

Do you have an older home?

Yes, it's. Yeah, I was in. It's a 1970s ish house. So it's not, you know, it's not.

Terribly old, but still, there's never. Never a lack of a project, I imagine.

Oh, no, it's just home ownership, right? Yeah, exactly. But yes, have really had to gut it and start over and so just.

Yeah, but. So you've got ribbon cutting coming up in September. You're closing in on finishing your master's degree.

Yes.

What. What's next.

Gosh, I don't know. What's next for you?

What's next? What's next for Marshall County?

Yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, right now we're, you know, we've had these kind of conversations about from a career center standpoint. Have had conversations about, you know, what, what is next. And from a strategic planning standpoint too. We had done some strategic planning work back in 22, like a 22 to 25 situation. And so we started that process and, and 24 of looking back and saying, okay, what, what did we hit? Yeah, what really doesn't make sense for us, you know, because at that point and they had started that work before I came on board, so it was kind of identifying what they thought maybe they wanted to do, but not 100% sure that it made sense. And so in that, in the time that I've been there now we've been able to kind of, you know, that's really not in our lane or, you.

Know, we've been really good at focusing on refining that. Yeah, refining it.

Yeah, yeah. And making sure that, you know, what we can do, we can do well. And so with the career center project, like I said, that was a lot. And it was what I kind of did a lot of every day. And so hitting the point of ribbon cutting and kind of coming on the back end of that. Right. Is now being able to focus on doing what we do and doing it well. And so not necessarily bringing on more programming. We will if it makes sense. Right. So if we see a need with kids or adults and you know, what we haven't talked about at all today is, and what I do want to mention is we do work with workforce development as well, and we do work with Purdue MEP and offering courses for folks that are in industry already and industry sends folks to those. So it's important for us to offer those public courses for them because a lot of times, you know, like a smaller business, you know, we talking like an American. It doesn't make sense for them to spend, you know, five to ten grand to have somebody come in and train somebody on osha and the one person that they need to have trained in.

It makes more sense to send somebody.

Thousand dollars and send them to a public. And that's kind of the case across the board. Right. In terms of any of the industry and in kind of those just one offs or two off people that they have in their locations. So working in workforce development and I think we've been working with them and identifying more Leadership opportunities, especially because throughout Covid, a lot of people got switched around inside of their locations of. Of work and maybe ended up in spaces that they either weren't ready for or just hadn't been trained for or just really are needing some additional knowledge in that world. And so providing some leadership courses for.

Them to send this gives them the opportunity to kind of get up to where they feel like they need to be.

Yeah, yeah.

And giving them.

Yeah. Giving the people the feeling of being in that course and going, okay, that, you know, not crazy for thinking that I needed to do that or oh, that's a really great option for how I handle that situation or discussion or makes a lot of sense, having hard conversations. Right. And so training folks in that. So I guess with all that to say, our work now is really identifying who we are and really owning that and then really refining that. So really making it better. And those are the courses that, like, even from a building trade standpoint, others like really focusing in on how do we hit the mark with these kids and adults and making sure that we're providing exactly what they need. Connecting to the right industry, connecting to the right partners and making sure that. That they have access to whatever they need to have access to. Right. And that's changes every day.

That is fantastic. I am. Yeah, I am sure Marshall county is grateful to have you in this. Depends on who you are connecting those dots and making those connections. Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, it makes a big difference. Like you say, you're not duplicating services. You know, you're kind of aware of what's going on. You can make the right connection. I imagine the networking piece is as important as anything else. 100% right. You're introducing people to, you know, huge deal. So before we go. Yes, you know, a little. And again, on the personal note, or on the Marshall county personal note, tell us a hidden gem or two in Marshall county that maybe we need to know.

Oh, my.

Or a place that we should visit or even just your favorite. Your favorite restaurant or your favorite outing.

Sure, sure. So this is going to seem Plymouth centric, but remember that I live there. Right. So in terms of speaking of Marshall county now, I will say Lake Max is great. Right. In Culver. And going there to the beach, going down to have dinner and hanging out down there is fantastic. That is a great evening from a Plymouth perspective. My cousin, I go and ride our bikes on the trails all the time in the park. And then we. My kids and I do too. But they love obes downtown opie's Deli. So we always, they like literally choose that for dinner, the birthday dinner. Like where you wanna go for your birthday. Obes Deli. Just like it's automatic. They love the pretzels and cheese. The grilled cheese. I cannot make a grilled cheese at home. That is. Satisfies their obese deli need.

It's a pretty high standard. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. They do it unlike me. So those are things that we like from a family standpoint, really love to do. And then I will say they're very well attended normally. And in the month of July and August there's Mayor's Month of Music. It's now the Mayor's Summer of Music. It used to be Month of Music because it's just August now it's July and August.

So now it's the Summer of Music.

Summer of. Yeah. Summer of Music. And that's. Yeah, that's every Friday night at River Park Square, which is downtown, the park right behind the main drag of Michigan Street. And at RPS they have a band every Friday night at seven o'. Clock. And there's food trucks, five dead with ten food trucks there. Wow. And a band and bands of all sorts every.

Every Friday night.

Every Friday night. Yeah. So it's just like those are. We enjoy it because it's kind of. It's free. You can byob like it's just, you know, come down, hang out, have some dinner if you want, food truck wise or even grab stuff downtown and bring it down. But yeah, it's just a nice kind of casual go and hang out. Doesn't matter, you're not paying, you know, to, to be there kind of thing. So you can kind of come and go as you please.

Well, it's one of the beauties of living in a small Midwestern town. Like being able to do things like that. Yeah, like sense of community, beautiful summer evening, listening to music. Like it really doesn't get much better.

No, it doesn't. It's. It is, it's. It's really nice because my kids can go and they can ride their bikes out on the. There's a trail now that they finished the trail. It's one of the other projects from. From Stellar that was just finished this past year and. And so the trail now goes along the river back there and so they just ride the. They can ride their bikes the whole time and you know, just kind. We can go and socialize. So yeah, it's a nice little Friday night event. So Thursday or June, July and August.

There'S still a chance to go.

There's still a chance. Yeah. They actually go left.

Yeah.

I don't know what the date is this year, but they actually go to the Friday of Labor Day weekend. I don't know if that's a September or not, but they actually is like.

The last day of August.

They go to that, that Friday of Labor Day weekend.

So, anyway, Ally, thank you so much for joining us today. This is great to talk to you. Great to hear a little bit more about what's happening in Marshall county, especially around that CTE space at Career and Technical education and lifelong learning.

Yeah.

And I love that you're a lifelong learner, too. I'm going to keep trying, inspiring all of us. Keep thinking about what's next.

Yeah. Thank you.