the people with Jeff Webster.
ep. 12
listen.
episode notes.
Episode 12 is a discussion with Jeff Webster, President & CEO of Excellerate Foundation.
Our topic of discussion is the State of Northwest Arkansas and how the economic growth in the region impacts the people who live here.
Jeff Webster, President & CEO of Excellerate Foundation.
about Jeff Webster.
As President/CEO of Excellerate Foundation, Jeff Webster works closely with Excellerate’s Board of Directors and is responsible for the overall management, leadership, and strategic direction of the Foundation.
Of late, Jeff has played a pivotal role in addressing the housing crisis in Northwest Arkansas. Projects have included coordinating a $40MM community tax credit housing syndicate, chairing the Bentonville Affordable Housing workgroup, and bringing forward multiple affordable housing partnerships.
Jeff also brings decades of experience as a high-level executive at companies in Northwest Arkansas and across the country, including President/COO of Simmons Feed Ingredients, Group VP of Renewable Products and Senior VP of Strategy at Tyson Foods, Inc., VP of Global Strategy for Kellogg Company, and CEO/COO for multiple start-ups in technology and human performance sectors.
Originally from Kalamazoo Michigan, Jeff attended Michigan State University in their Geophysics program and attended Northwestern's Executive Development Program. Jeff is married to his wife Teena of 36 years and has two daughters and four granddaughters all residing in NWA.
route.
The route for this episode is a tour of some of the current housing & affordable housing options in Bentonville & Centerton. This route serves to show one example of Featherson Village in Centerton and how different housing options can actually work.
music.
references.
Bentonville Publis Schools Ignite Program
episode transcription.
episode introduction.
[00:00:02] jeff webster.: ...that's the point here, folks, is you don't realize what's going on in our community.
And these are hardworking people, but they just can't access housing. And you look at far and away the number one thing that people come to us "I'm having trouble paying rent."
It's the single biggest thing someone's going to pay. Where this starts to go is, it just dominates what everyone needs help with. And even for our Board, they're like, well, how is housing a social determinant of health?
But we always say, the first doctor bill and the first copay someone pays is to the landlord. Because you don't pay that landlord, you're living under a bridge or something.
I'll never ask this question again on why housing is this big dominant part of a healthcare outcome.
[00:01:29] mike.: You're
introduction comments.
[00:01:29] mike.: listening to the underview and exploration of the shaping of our place. My name is Mike Rusch and as we continue in our question, what is the state of Northwest Arkansas? One question we have to ask is how has the growth of Northwest Arkansas impacting the people that live here today?
In the previous episodes you have heard how the population growth of Northwest Arkansas is also leading to economic growth. In our episode, "the region," Nelson Peacock, the president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas council said this...
[00:01:59] nelson peacock.: ...the goal is to have enough density in our downtowns where we can bring more people in, have more things to do absorb these 400,000 additional people over the next 20 years, and also do it in a way where, you know, the teacher that teaches, can live there or the firefighter or the police officer that they don't have to live out, in a rural community and commute in.
so I think about quality of life and character of our communities more in terms of people rather than buildings. People get focused on the building and like, is it too big? Is it too small? But really, it needs to serve what the people need, because that's what creates the character of our communities.
[00:02:43] mike.: So my question is this, are we really able to do this? Is everyone able to take part in the growth and prosperity that is happening in our region?
So in the spirit of this question, I have the opportunity to sit with Jeff Webster, the CEO and President of the Excellerate Foundation to try and better understand this question.
The Excellerate Foundation reports that currently more than 150,000 people in Benton, Madison, and Washington County face financial insecurity, housing instability, and a host of other challenges every single day. And just for clarity, 150,000 people is 25% of the combined population of those counties. That sounds like a lot of people. So I think it's fair to say that we need to dig into this to try to understand why.
So my question is this. Is the topic of affordable housing that we've heard so much about, really part of this. And if so, how and why?
You may have heard, the Excellerate Foundation they have been in the news a lot lately, namely about the work they are doing around creating affordable housing solutions. This includes the recent work to partner with the Bentonville Public Schools to create affordable housing solutions for teachers and school district employees.
We will dig into this issue as it is currently at the top of the list of challenges for the region. However, we also learned more about some of the other challenges that Jeff and his team at the Excellerate Foundation are working on around healthcare, education, and more.
Remember, this is a conversation about how our place is being shaped. With the projected growth of the region, estimated to reach a million people we need to figure out how our current challenges can be solved so that we can continue to move forward well.
Building a community where everyone has the opportunity to participate, and if we can't, well, I hope you're starting to understand the additional problems that we could face.
And one last note, before we start, I want to acknowledge that the organization that I have worked for has worked with the Excellerate Foundation in the past. And I'm trying not to have a bias, but I have had a chance to see their work up close.
So, lots to cover today. Let's jump on in.
episode interview.
[00:04:41] mike.: Jeff. Good morning. Thanks for spending some time with me. I'd love to start with who you are. Tell me your story.
[00:04:48] jeff webster.: Yeah, so stories always can be interesting, maybe this is or not. I've been in Northwest Arkansas since probably about 2008 or so.
Was head of strategy at Tyson and then ran one of the big business units there. Left the area for a time then came back and was president out at Simmons. Ran one of the three big divisions there. While I was at Simmons, I was asked to come on the board of, at the time, Endeavor Foundation.
Which I didn't really know anything about what it was and what it did or anything else. Big encouragement by my wife to do that. That kind of works in the, she works in the social service space. So, came on the board found it very interesting, engaging, and really opened my mind to a world that is right next to me that I never really even knew existed in a lot of ways.
And then as I was winding things down at at Simmons, they ask if I would be interested in actually being the CEO of the foundation. By then, I was pretty fully engaged and I just felt like it was a great opportunity to take my business skills and apply them to something that really matters in life.
And I reflect on all the business things that I've done and most all of us touch business one way or another. But boy, once you come into the community service space, it's just a whole nother level of rewarding. So it's a little bit on how I got here.
[00:06:03] mike rusch.: Let me ask you, what does Northwest Arkansas mean to you ?
[00:06:06] jeff webster.: Well, I think it's just a it's an amazing place. When I think of the growth, I think of the diversity. I think of the opportunities for people, but then it's like I said a little bit, then there's this whole other world of people that are struggling that need help, that don't have the same opportunity that a lot of us have had and that's where our foundation comes into the mix is trying to help people achieve equity on their side of things that otherwise they may not be able to access.
[00:06:36] mike rusch.: Is this home for you at this point at this point in your life?
[00:06:40] jeff webster.: Yeah, for sure. We've got two daughters here that live in one in Fayetteville and one in Springdale. And four granddaughters here. So we're we're definitely like a Northwest Arkansas.
[00:06:50] mike rusch.: Well, let's jump in. Tell me as your role as the CEO/President of the Excellerate Foundation, I'd love to have you maybe just share a little bit about who is the Excellerate Foundation and what's the scope of the work that you do?
[00:07:04] jeff webster.: Yeah, so, a lot of people don't know who we are.
So, so maybe to touch on that. What is this foundation, et cetera? So there's some things that are quite different and somewhat interesting. So we were formed about 25 years ago. So the hospital it was Bates Hospital in Bentonville and Springdale, I believe it was Memorial Hospital. They were both non profit hospitals.
So then they both sold. And if you think about if a nonprofit sells to what's now become Northwest Health, who gets the money in this transaction. So what it is it's called you create a health conversion foundation. So that's what formed us 25 years ago. And there's probably about 250 health conversion foundations.
Within the nation because of the regions that the hospitals served, our articles of incorporation and bylaws say we're all about Northwest Arkansas. So, Washington, Benton Madison County, that's where we operate. It's just those three counties. So, that's what formed us 25 years ago.
And so, there's always terms around, you're a foundation, and you can get quickly into, well, you're a non profit or a for profit. Well, certainly, we're not for profit, but we're not your conventional non profit either. So our original, the term is corpus was about $130 million. And so then with that, we then do what foundations do. You make grants.
And so that's what we did. My predecessors did a great job on a lot of things, including managing our funds well, like think of it as investing in Vanguard or something like that, and then spending the returns we made. So, so currently we're about $150 million in assets, but we've put about $125 million into Northwest Arkansas.
So again, good job managing those things and all kinds of historically grants. We have a mission where we want to help see everyone in northwest Arkansas thrive. So super broad in that sense. And so historically we've done things like no specific order. Help build Arkansas Children's help build the women's hospital.
We helped put the mental health beds in, in Springdale Hospital. We've helped with a lot of things and just social service grants. So helping Seven Hills, Samaritan House, Salvation Army, but we've helped put drinking fountains on the greenway. So a lot of broad things, because it's helping everything thrive.
So that's how we started with a very broad mission and then in 2018, we really stepped back and said, let's put a much more strategic plan in place. So a few of us came out on the board, that's my background, head of strategy for a time there at Tyson, et cetera, and Kellogg's, and so, we put that in place, and that's really what started things changing here across the last six years.
[00:09:39] mike rusch.: Jeff, thanks for that background. I think it's really important because you've got a pretty long history, 25 years of serving this community.
In a whole lot of different ways and a whole lot of different facets serving a whole lot of different people. You've seen this place grow and I'm sure that those programs and initiatives have changed a lot over the past 25 years. As we look at where we are today in Northwest Arkansas, what are some of the key initiatives that Excellerate Foundation is holding up and pushing forward and saying this matters to our community?
[00:10:06] jeff webster.: Yeah, so, so as I go into those initiatives let me anchor those kind of in that strategic plan I mentioned. So, the first thing we did is we were fortunate to be able to get information on what other health conversion foundations were doing. So that was a backdrop. And what folks were doing is looking upstream at what's called the Social Determinants of Health.
So we come from healthcare. So it's what can you do on the social service side to make sure that it is a good health outcome for someone or prevent a bad one.
So we said, we're going to look at these areas that are upstream of health outcomes, good or bad, but before that, even we said, who are we out to help?
So, we step back and really look at who is our target population? And what we recognized is about 47% of the jobs in Northwest Arkansas range between 30% and 80% of the area median income. So it's just median like average, but it's the median income within Northwest Arkansas. And of course, that moves every year. And that's somewhere around $27,000 to about, say, $65,000. Let's just use that. It's always moving around some. So 47% of the jobs are in that. But more importantly, 35% of the household incomes, big or small, sit in that group.
And these are folks that while all this amazing stuff is going on in Northwest Arkansas, it's households that maybe are made up of firefighters and school teachers and bank tellers and people that work for the city, people that work for Tyson or Walmart.
It's called us. That's who it is. And so often there's all these things great going on and like you can come to an awesome free museum in town. As long as you've got gas money and your car works to come from outside of town and come into it. So, we really wanted to make sure that group oftentimes they're also called the ALICE population.
That stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. I had a chance to sit down with Alice Walton and I said, Alright Alice, we're not going to call it the ALICE population here in Northwest Arkansas. We simply call it the Green Band. I'm a Spartan. Go Spartans. Spartans are green. And so one time I just color coded that and then that's become central to our logo and everything else as far as where's the green band come to from.
There's nothing special about that from a color standpoint. That touches diversity on all kinds of different dimensions. So it's not about kind of skin color and those types of things or racial or ethnic backgrounds or your preferred religion or lack thereof or anything in between that. It doesn't matter. It's that commonality, if you will, that makes up 35 percent of our households. And so as a foundation, that's who we're about. We're not going to forget these folks, Okay. Thank you. And so that's the very first thing that we lay in, as far as who we're out to serve, and that doesn't mean that we don't help people a bit below that or a bit above it, but we're not forgetting these folks.
[00:13:01] mike rusch.: Well, maybe explain a little bit about why this green band, as you call it, matters. Like, when we think about the needs of Northwest Arkansas specifically, why is this band important in meeting the needs of people in North Lasargas?
[00:13:14] jeff webster.: And that really gets informed by our organization that we have called HARK and I'll come back and talk about that in a bit.
But what we saw was the folks that are in that, and remember, it's us, are oftentimes, they're just One paycheck away from all of a sudden we always say life happens, and oh, I'm in trouble, and they can get behind, et cetera. So, and it's the underpinning of our whole society. And so that's why we look at that group because oftentimes when we'd meet somebody that isn't Salvation Army, they might have a Master's degree, and you're like how did you end up here?
And so it was also a desire to keep people from falling, but also to help people up as well. And it's big needs out there. And again I'll talk more about our way of seeing where those needs are through the HARK organization and the data that we have, but that's the big thing is.
Being able to help that population, and a lot of those folks may not have had the same opportunities that some of the others of us had. And so it's trying to bring those same types of services and support to them.
[00:14:19] mike rusch.: I've had a chance to watch from the outside in many ways. This is not a subjective analysis of who you think is in the green band.
This is a data rich, statistical gathering, understanding of who really needs help. Is that a fair assessment?
[00:14:33] jeff webster.: Yeah, yeah, very much. And as I start to To talk again off that strategic plan, we really define what we call three strategic pillars. So we have one around social support, we have one around housing, and one around education.
And we that's an acronym of SHE, S H E. So what you're hitting on is within social support It's our data really comes from our organization, HARK, that we have there. HARK is really the preeminent, if you will, connection organization.
So, if people are having challenges on the social service front in Northwest Arkansas, you call 2 1 1. United Way is going to route everyone into HARK, and then HARK sits down we build them a comprehensive plan, communicate that with them, and then we follow up to make sure they get connected to what they need.
We've helped thousands and thousands, I think probably approaching 20,000 people now since 2020, really, when we took off with this in terms of helping on all kinds of stuff.
We're super data rich and we are super analytical as far as understanding these things, Mike. So, that's what you're asking about. So, then the data is all, if you look at HarkNWA.com, all of our data is there. So, it's our way for the foundation to listen to the community analytically, factually, not just anecdotally, we, of course, we have that too, but we can look at it from a fact standpoint and then drive our decision making around grants and then even other organizations using that data for various means as well.
[00:15:58] mike rusch.: That's super helpful. From that information that, that informs the, these strategic pillars and the initiatives that you have that are going forward from that. I'd love for you to share what some of those are today and how maybe, and if relevant, how those have maybe changed over the past five years or so.
[00:16:13] jeff webster.: Yeah. So, so, we're a foundation, right? And we're really technically a public charity. And so what's important here is you already said, or I said, what do we do? We make grants.
Well, importantly. We do more than grants, and this is what starts to really set our foundation apart in terms of what we do. And that's where an operating foundation also. And to do that I always say that the strong suit of our foundation is it's a Venn diagram made up of people with social service background. That's where most of our organization is as far as staff.
Philanthropy, we are, you are a philanthropist, so you need to understand how that works. And I'll put the information in the chat box. Like they were for profit, now we don't take a profit, etc. But with the metrics and the mindset and the discipline of holding a super high standard of excellence, that's where it always comes, all that comes in.
I always say, like, well, which one's the most important? And I always say two things. It's a little bit like a well, I don't know, a brain, a heart, or a liver. Which one's most important? I don't know for sure, but if you pull one out, I think you're dead. And so are we, or said, maybe a little more less colorful.
[00:17:34] mike rusch.: It's no, keep the color. It's helpful.
[00:17:37] jeff webster.: And so we're still a relatively small foundation so then within those three pillars, social support, housing, and education, we're going to make grants. That's what we do, but we're also, we also operate in each one of those three. And so differences are, we're going to be in front of city council. We're going to be sitting down with the JPs one on one.
We are going to be out doing a lot of those things out front. The classic, a classic foundation, you're going to make grants and you do great things, but it much more in the background. So that's why you see us out a lot as far as actually driving things ourself.
We can't do everything. We don't want to do everything, but on certain topic areas, we've got the right combination of those 3 things that we think We can play a significant role.
So Hark is our example of what we do, what we are the connectors and we actually operate and run that division within the foundation, within social support.
[00:18:34] mike rusch.: Do you want to dive into, I'm really curious some of the, either the Programs or initiatives or needs within each one of those areas.
[00:18:41] jeff webster.: Yeah that's great.
So, social support. Let's start with that 1 and we'll go sequentially. So, this is interesting because we would argue that this is the somewhat the most important pillar because if the community clicked on this in terms of bringing people together and having a social support network, like a lot of us have. But a lot of us don't have. You put our other pillars out of business. Unfortunately, they're never going to go out of business because the community doesn't have that.
So various things that we do in that space is we had a big investment in Potter's house. And everybody, oh, you help build the center that they have there as far as the secondhand thrift store and all that kind of stuff.
Well, a lot of what Potter's, that's not really what we invested in. What we invest in is they have 20 years of how do you bring people together with what we call the blue and the green band and orange band. . So, we first of all started there and helped them get a playbook on, well, how do you do what you do?
Because it's second nature for them. Got a playbook created.
How do you measure if, because we're analytic, how do you measure if you're even making progress? . But we, they, we mastered that and then we've been able to take that to other organizations Camp War Eagle, so. The program called SOAR For the Love. You probably know For the Love, so they're one of our partners in terms of how do you take a lot of those deliberate ways of bringing people together into the community.
So we do those types of things, and we do that through grants. We don't operate. So it's not work we do, but we do, we have grants where we support them, et cetera.
[00:20:12] mike.: Within the social activities you described these are building, helping to build and form and shape, uh, not just individuals, but communities as well, too.
I'd love your perspective on the role that you see with the partners that you have, and what that looks like to really define the community aspect of what Northwest Arkansas is.
[00:20:32] jeff webster.: Yeah, and it's these different ones that I just touched on. You see this continuum and I would, boy, this is big time give credit to those organizations.
This is, we're not operating here, folks. We're just making grants to help them be able to be funded and until they get their sustainable funding, etc. in place. But like you have For the Love which is just at the end of the day, food is something people can get together over.
They started in Bentonville every Thursday night, and it's just getting people together over a meal, and just getting to know each other.
You see the community coming together like that. They had 320 people there last Thursday night. It's crazy. And the next thing you know, they start getting involved. And how can I help the community in different ways, etc. So it's the beginning of maybe a conversation.
The next step on that is, well, it's great that you know somebody and you talk. But then can the conversation start to become on, well, what are the issues that our community is facing? So now it's becoming more deliberate around the conversations, if you will, and you start to find these common things come out of it , not just, impromptu meeting someone.
Well, then what inevitably comes out of that is people become passionate about wanting to do something. How do I actually do something? Right? So that's where that IAF group comes in and they're great at actually teaching people of what you guys figure out your common topics. How do I now go in and have a conversation with a mayor or a county commissioner, county judge in our case, right?
In terms of these are the needs of our community and in an articulate way, in a informed way, et cetera, and they start to change your community. So those are the kind of things that we wanna see going on here. And our role is just to help bring people together as I described. And help, we're a grant maker and grants to help make those organizations do their thing.
[00:22:17] mike rusch.: Sounds like you're really describing a process for like systemic change. Yes. In a good way. Yes. Is that a fair? I see no one else will be able to see the smile. I can tell your humility in that, but like,
[00:22:31] jeff webster.: Well, it feels like I'm also smiling because we're sitting here over the microphone. If we had camera, we'd just roll you out here and you'd say, we drive systemic change, the big banner on our wall out there.
So it is those types of things. There's tactical stuff you do, but it's trying to think about how do you help shape a community so that, right back to our mission, so all people are thriving in that community and all people have similar types of opportunities that they may not naturally have just due to their life circumstances.
[00:23:01] mike rusch.: You also mentioned housing and education, maybe before we housing dominates the, a lot of conversations and rightfully so. Maybe before we get into that, I'd love your perspective on the educational front of the Yeah. The work that Excellerates doing there.
[00:23:15] jeff webster.: So, once again we start out as grant makers.
So, historically we've probably put up to now $15 million into early childhood development. So this is in Arkansas. The program's called Arkansas Better Chance, so ABC Pre K. And it really helps once again, families in that same green band or it's 200% of the federal poverty level and down, et cetera, so you can describe things different ways.
But it helps them make sure that their kids can be in a Pre K program for three to five year olds. And boy, there is study after study. We had Justin here. He'd take you through all this. Synopsis and all the stuff that I don't know a lot about, but just on how the brain is getting wired for kids when they're in that three to five year olds.
And it's not just learning math and all these things. It's called serve and return, and the way they interface with people and develop just relational skills in a lot of these things are super important. And if you get behind on those things you, you can then all of a sudden see issues by the time they hit fourth grade on more of your reading, writing, arithmetic type things.
So, but being in a, have universal pre K in Arkansas, something we believe. Arkansas should have. And so there's a certain amount of funding for for families and for their kids to be in those programs, but it's limited funding. So as a foundation, I think we're probably seven, eight years now that we've put now about $2 million a year.
So we were up somewhere at $15, $16 million that we've made in terms of grants so kids can be in those programs. And then you can You know, the schools track this stuff longitudinally where you can see the difference if they're in those programs or not. So, so we do those types of things that are grants um, but then we're also an operator.
And so, if I talk about operating within education we need a stronger workforce. And. In 2019 Dr. Jorgensen, who was president of NWACC and the Northwest Arkansas Council, came to us, and they said, Can we help them with a research project? Because that's when foundations help fund research projects, and we said, Okay, well, what's the project?
And Dr. Jorgensen's point was NWACC. Great school. It's more of a non traditional student school. And especially at healthcare, they would see students start and they drop, students start and they drop. And it was for a myriad of different ways. And she said, there's just gotta be a better way for this such that we need an expanded healthcare system here in a huge way.
So could we help them look across the country? And is there a better way to do this? It was COVID year, so it slowed us down a little bit on that. But what we found was a program that started 25 years ago. It started. In San Antonio, it's called Project Quest, with a proven model in terms of taking nontraditional students and then helping them with their tuition, books, fees, helping them with child care, helping them with rent, so that they could be a full time student.
Think 35 year old mom that's a single mom, like, and they didn't go to college or something. Like, they're in trouble. They're in trouble economically, right? So it takes and it doesn't matter what decision they did or didn't make or anything like this. The point is, they may have the ambition to drive, but they just didn't have the support for all kinds of different reasons .
So it helps different types of students that are, again, that's a non traditional student, with those different things. So, we researched that, and that program had been replicated in Austin, in Houston, in El Paso, into Tucson, into Phoenix. And we said well, how do we bring that program to Northwest Arkansas?
And, the challenge was, well, we're a grant maker, who do we make the grant to? And you look around the room and literally our team and we said, there isn't going to be somebody to make the grant to. And we said, we're going to have to incubate this thing. So we are going to start this up.
And it's just a great community success story. I don't want to sound like it was, did we work hard? Yes. But we just did the role we had to play. So, we. We said, well, we're going to form this thing. We'll incubate it within the foundation, and eventually it'll stand on its own. So this is all about UpSkill.
So we partnered with Walton Family, and now instead of this going by yourself, we're going together more and more with Walton Family. So we each put in a million and a half dollars, so three million dollars, to create this program. We interviewed every one of the CEOs, CFOs of all of those different cities within Texas, they gave us job descriptions, they gave us their contracts, they gave us their financials on how they did things and everything else so that we could learn from that.
So, it was awesome, in July of 21, Governor Hutchinson was here, all about workforce and the need for an expanded workforce and he spoke at the Northwest Arkansas Council came off the stage, I had a chance to shake his hand, and next up, I'm like, alright, we're launching this thing.
We, we didn't have a staff, we didn't have the website, we didn't have kind of anything, but we said, that was July, we said by January 1, we'll have the first 100 students in the program. And this is how the program is going to work and we had already talked with the educators and the health care arena, et cetera.
July 1, we had the first 100 students up in the supply chain hall of fame building, but what was amazing was the community coming together. How are you going to fund this? So, we went to the five main hospital CEOs we happen to know them, and we laid out this is how this program is going to work.
It's going to work in healthcare, and they're like, we're in. And I'm like, yeah, well, you're going to have to cover a third of the cost of this thing. And we're in. They even know what the number was. That's how important this is for our healthcare system here as we're growing this fast. So, and then we met with all the educators, UAMS, NWACC, NWTI.
And now we've expanded also with core U of A. I'm looking at other educators as well. And then we said, well, how are you going to fund this program as we expand it? So we sat down with Nelson Peacock and we said, we need to get these 17 quote CEOs in the room meaning. Judge Moehring is the CEO of the County Mayor Hines, the CEO of Rogers, etc.
So all the judges all the mayors in the room, the CEOs of the hospitals, the CEOs of the educators, so all 17 of them in the room. And then we laid out, here's how this program's gonna work, and here's the funding we need from the ARPA, the recovery funds, on how this could go in. We need this much money from you guys, and you guys.
And it was a $24 million raise. We needed funds to help expand the colleges, et cetera. And it took us 14 months, but the community came through. Every one of those counties, every one of those cities stepped up and said, we're going to do our part to help this. And the provisions put in place by the educators, et cetera.
So we launched that program. We've got I think 100, we've graduated probably 50, we've got probably 160 people in the program right now. We need more people to come into the program. So this is good as we're talking about this little bit of advertisement around it. But it's amazing. So, household incomes that might be $29,000, $30,000.
They're graduating. Their household incomes are now up in the 60s. So it's transforming lives. And the things on these programs is, if a parent didn't go to college about 40% of the time, well, their kids go on to college, graduates from this program and they have all their data out of Texas.
Seventy percent of them will go on to college. So it's another systemic thing. This is not just about helping somebody. This is about getting people to work, giving them the opportunities that, again, they may not have had for whatever reason, but these are hard programs. It's in our health care sector and I mean there's thousands of jobs in the health care sector.
The other part that's awesome about this is these are people from Arkansas. They live in Arkansas, they love Arkansas, they want to work in Arkansas, because a lot of what happens is we're a net exporter of people, got great schools here and great RN programs, but then a lot of out of state students and they go back to the state they came from.
So the educators like the program, the hospital systems, etc. love the program as well but that's once again, us actually running the program because the need was there for the community.
[00:31:23] mike rusch.: And the way you describe this, it really does sound and is working this way is question to you, but like, this is not just a benefit to one city or county.
This is really to the benefit of, not only just the region, but potentially the state as well too.
[00:31:38] jeff webster.: Yeah, that's some really great points. So, we push hard to make sure that we're bringing in people that, are in the outer parts of the counties in Madison County. Again, those are our three focus areas.
But yeah, as we talk with the state, this is a pilot for our state. You if we do this right, you know how this should go and likely will go because, again, it went city to city in Texas. So we, when we talk to the State Department of Education, we think of UpSkill really as a is we're the pilot for the state in terms of how do you do this thing.
So, great support from the counties, great support from the cities. The educators are are super great, and the employers, the hospital systems are thrilled. Yeah. And so The student, another important part, is they commit to working for the hospital for two years. So, there's contracts in here that kind of firm and wrap the whole thing up in a good way.
[00:32:27] mike rusch.: So it's great. Thank you very much. All right let's dive in to the topic of housing. But I think it would be fair to say That while housing is the buzzword because it's one of the biggest challenges, it really is the symptom of a whole lot of other things that we're dealing with in our community.
And so I would love to understand why is a foundation involved in housing? What are those programs? How are you involved? What are you doing? And why?
[00:32:52] jeff webster.: Yeah, well, it really it comes all the way back. And I remember I was on the board, And our Hark organization was starting up. And we started out with Well, we were going to create this Catalyst Fund because we meet people, again, at a Salvation Army.
How'd you get here? Well, my car battery went out. And then, the next thing you know, they couldn't get to work. And then it was a last straw. And then all of a sudden, they're on their friend's couch. They jam their stuff into a storage unit. These things you don't know if you're not around. Put their stuff in the storage unit.
And then, oops, they can't make their payment on the storage unit. And guess what was in there? Social Security card, birth certificate, and all of a sudden, no, you don't have an ID. And you just don't even think about this. It happens to people. So, we said, geez you, you mean we could maybe keep them from falling if you could just help that.
And so we did, again, foundations do research. We did the study on that and showed that people wouldn't just keep coming back here on a free for all for money. We didn't give them money. Everybody goes you give them money for the beer and all the stuff. No, we would pay from the car battery at O'Reilly Auto Parts or wherever it is.
But we'd also help them with first and last month rent. So now all of a sudden maybe they're coming the other direction, you know what I've got this job and now I can I can move into something, but I need help with first and last month rent to get going. And again, I don't come from the space, and so I never had to go through this, and I remember the, we put the thing in place, and I remember going, okay, we just dealt with a whole housing situation.
And then our community liaisons are looking at me going, where did this guy come from? And it's like, well, yeah, that's first and last for month rent. Good job for an imaginary apartment. Cause there aren't any. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I never had a problem getting an apartment and that's the point here, folks, is you don't realize what's going on in our community.
And these are hardworking people , but they just can't access housing. So that was almost the first eye opener there. And the other thing was all of a sudden Hark has started to operate. And you look at far and away the number one thing that Hark That people come to us I'm having trouble paying rent.
It's the single biggest thing someone's going to pay. And we always say and where this starts to go is, it just dominates what everyone needs help with. And more and more. And even for our Board, they're like, well, how is housing a social determinant of health? But we always say, the first doctor bill and the first copay someone pays, is to the landlord because you don't pay that landlord, you're living under a bridge or something.
And I remember when we took our whole board through this, I remember that I'll never ask this question again on why housing is this big dominant part of a healthcare outcome. So that set the stage for us, the data we kept seeing coming in from HARK. So then in 20 In 2018, we went to Walton Family and did a great research study on our housing crisis and the future of what was looming and coming in there.
And at that point, I was only on the board, and I remember sitting there with our CEO, and it was just, they were going through great information, great facts on what needed to be done. And, I'm an operator, and I'm just sitting there, and it's just how I am. I'm like, I can't take this. And I lean over to our CEO, and I'm like, come, we'll do it.
And she's looking at me going, And I said, well, just tell him we'll do it. And she goes, well, who do we make the grant to? And I said, this isn't going to be about making a grant. This is going to be about somebody stepping forward and saying, you know what?
We're going to start driving stuff. We're going to figure out how this stuff works. We're going to figure out what our role is, and we are going to play our role. And we are going to drive this because otherwise it's just going to be let's get together and talk about it. So that was very sitting in that meeting was pretty instrumental for us as we went forward.
That's the beginning, but that's where the impetus came from.
[00:36:42] mike rusch.: So Jeff, the way you've described housing and the needs and the things that you're doing, especially in the beginning of keeping someone in that kind of first place or making sure they have that first need taken care of. Where does that take us? Is this just a form of charity that we're extending to people in our community?
[00:36:58] jeff webster.: Yeah, and I, I wouldn't see it that way. So, again the HARK data showed us something. This whole crisis that study coming out showed us something, as we get into actually building something, was all of a sudden COVID. So we had this small fund, again, where we were helping somebody if they were struggling with rent, like we said.
Well, then when COVID hit again, building stronger and stronger relationships across groups. Walton Family put in a million dollars. We put in a million dollars to help people that all of a sudden were struggling because all of a sudden, you think about all these businesses were closing. So we were able to do that.
And then another thing we were able to do, which really illuminated it for us even more we were able to partner with Benton County with Judge Moehring, and we recognized that there was rental support. So this is still on the rental side of things.
These are, all our businesses shut down, folks. Everyone's worried about someone that isn't willing to work or something like this. This is all of a sudden, if the coffee shop's shut, if the massage therapy place is closed. How do they pay their rent? So we went to Judge Moehring. Benton County was big enough.
If he asked for $8.4 million dollars of funding from the federal government, it's going to go somewhere, folks. So, taxes and all this kind of thing. But the money was there to help our people. So we brought in $8.4 million dollars. We were able, to through our HARK organization, we were able to, family by family, go through all the rigmarole at the federal level in terms of are they qualified or not and then do all the federal reporting.
We had to do all the federal audits, so we partnered with Benton County. We did all that. We distributed $8.4 million dollars. Then another $6.6 million, then the state hadn't even used their money and they were going to give it back to another state. And we said, well, wait a minute. And we brought in another $20 million from the state before they gave it away.
We brought that in case we needed it. And we used, all in, I want to say we did about $16, $17 million of helping people. So it helped us see this whole problem even more. Because it wasn't just that they all of a sudden lost their job. You know what else is happening? And all of a sudden, even the place that they could pay when they did have the job, all of a sudden they can't pay it anymore.
And in 2022, you all probably saw the stories that they referred to Fayetteville, meaning our MSA, meaning our area. It was the highest rental rates escalation in the country, and then the housing prices in Northwest Arkansas rising faster than anywhere in the country. And so like, and here's our folks that are the underpinning they're not the bad guy folks, it's us.
It's the people that work for all of our different companies. It's your neighbors, it's your friends, it's your colleagues, it's your relatives. So, all of this is just screaming at us, and you look at the median prices of housing now up around $400,000 and climbing above that and, and then we're very data rich.
So we have all the census data, and you can just see more and more people having to move out of the cities and move further and further out, and they basically have to drive until they can afford to live. And now you're just adding the how good's your car and gas money, so that's another contributing factor to all of this.
So, we saw all of that going on and we got educated on well, how can you access money and build things, etc. So, the first project we did was one called Cobblestone Farms. We're good at bringing people together. We were able to have New Heights Church donate 10 acres that they had down there. Then it was complicated, half in the county, half in the city, and get it de annexed and annexed in, and all this stuff.
And you gotta apply for some of these federal money that's out there, one day per year and all this kind of stuff. So this is us all of a sudden leading the charge on this. Us standing up making the argument with Planning Commission. Us making the argument with City Council. Got all that passed.
Got the funding, et cetera, so we can get that project going. So, and what that does is, and I'll just use a real soft but round number. If a 2 bedroom apartment is $1500, it allows that 2 bedroom apartment, $750 a month. That is a big deal for folks. So we learned how to do that. We other, there were other developments underway
about 5 in Northwest Arkansas. And it's made through a whole tax credit program that, in short, the government makes tax credits available that big companies can use. And so in, in 2020 into 2021, we said, well, those tax credits, there's about $40 million of them will get sold to Wells Fargo or any, it doesn't have to be a bank, Microsoft or anything else around the country.
And we said, you know what? These are our people. It's our problem. It's our corporations are here. We need to start solving our own problems.
So when we went to the national syndicator that sells the tax credits, they said, well, we've done this 50 years. We've only seen 2 states ever pulled this off a regional fund.
So, long story short, that also took us 14 months.
But we played our role of bringing together six different regional banks that are in Northwest Arkansas. We sold in those $40 million worth of tax credits to get these developments built. So, this is us beginning more and more experience in terms of how this whole housing stuff works.
The next year, we have to, as I said, live in Bentonville. Mayor Orman asked me to be on their affordable workforce housing task force. We had great support from a lot of different people. Including city council members, et cetera, but really put together.
What are some tools that Bentonville can put in place in order to help the situation. So I won't go into what all of those are, but those are in progress or process in terms of different zoning, different ways of dealing with fees and various things like that. So that work is ongoing underway.
And then all of a sudden, we meet Dr. Jones, so here comes the Bentonville School Project, and of course, we knew Dr. Jones a great, we knew her from our ABC Pre K work, and so funding kids in Bentonville. We also knew her through HARK, so we have a employee assistance program, and she was a tremendous supporter of that program, where we make sure, once again, Who are the people that we're helping?
Well, they're people that work in the school systems or the student, the parents of the students as well. So big proponents. So we knew her quite well. And we're figuring out how to do these projects where we know how to access federal money. And there's a, I want to say this too, because the whole tax topic comes up here, and everybody gets wound up on this. The money that we're using that we get, we all are paying federal taxes. And I, for one, don't like taxes, and don't like federal taxes, and I'm probably, well, there's a lot of people in our state like that.
But at the end of the day, we're paying them. And so then the federal government is taking all this money that we paid in, and they're going to allocate it to the various states to be used for workforce housing. So that's happening, folks, no matter what. And that's a federal thing.
[00:43:58] mike rusch.: Yeah, someone's benefiting from that.
[00:44:00] jeff webster.: Someone's going to benefit. So, here comes this money, it's coming into the state. Every year since 1986, Republican, Democrat, doesn't matter. It's a great program. And here it's going to come into the state. The only question is, I happen to live in Benton County, or in Bentonville. So, do you want the money that's coming to the state to go to Benton County or another county that isn't in Northwest Arkansas?
As far as I'm concerned, I want to make sure that we get our fair share here. So, we are a champion, if you will, to go access that money because it's going to get deployed within the state. It's just a question of what county does it go into. So, we know how to access that and so we've gotten really good at how do you access that and bring our money home because it's our money and it already got paid in.
So this isn't about more taxes because of this. It's just going to go somewhere else otherwise. So, so we knew how to access that. And then we're always, Hey, is there a piece of land that can make this whole thing work? Cause it keeps costs out of the system. So we met with Dr. Jones. They had land that they were using for kind of recreational purposes right next to the campus.
We said, well, would you be interested in using it for housing purposes? And they said, well, maybe we can make that work. how do you do all this stuff?
So it got complicated and kind of energy charged real quick. But, we got a legal opinion of yes, they could donate that to a non profit for that use, which is still a beneficial educational service to the school. It's just changing the use, if you will. They confirmed that with the Attorney General. They also confirmed it with another legal opinion from the Department of Education. So that's that piece of it.
So then the project. Is is pretty amazing. It's a hundred units there 60 of them um, are multifamily. So think of a three story apartment, if you will and again, that part is for the public.
So, Can be employees of the school, can be parents of the students, or people that live in the school district but we access the funding to make that happen. So this whole thing is a $25 million project, but we'll access that, that state money I was referring to on that. Then there are 40 cottages, so this is, helps where in Bentonville we can now do smaller cottages.
They're not big homes, but they're starter homes. So 40 of those, 20 of them are rental. And so these will rent, and these are for sure for school employees. Likely earmarked towards teachers, but school employees. So those will rent something two bedroom apartment about $1,500. These will be a two a two bedroom cottage house for $1,000 a month.
So again, That's what a teacher can afford, and not have to live far away. And this is where Dr. Jones, they were, they'd make offers to a teacher and multiple of them, they rescind their offer because they want to live in Bentonville and they can't. So this allows them to be able to live there, on the rental side.
[00:46:53] mike rusch.: And just for clarity, too, or maybe to make a point, maybe to reveal my bias, those teachers aren't just teaching certain students. They're teaching all of our students, right? So it's a, it is a, what you're describing, if I'm listening correctly, this is not just a benefit to a teacher. This is a benefit to the, everyone that teacher teaches.
Is that fair?
[00:47:11] jeff webster.: Correct. And we also have a community center there. So there are teachers there so that they can also do additional tutoring, a financial literacy program that will be there. That is super important, especially when I get to the 3rd stage of this whole thing, and I'll talk to that in a second, but multiple activities going on there.
It allows the kids to volunteer working there as well. Even on the construction side, you get to Ignite program. They're interested in construction wise. Can they help with the program? But then the other part of this, the other 20 cottages are what we call our shared equity program. And this is something that has been done in other cities.
But the way we put this together, nationally. very much. Bentonville's going to be known for what we're doing here, folks. That's not what it's about, but it's crazy what this is. So, like, let's pause for a second.
Why do you want to own a house? Ultimately, it's probably the biggest thing is the equity appreciation of the house. The idea of my payment, goes to the principal part at least. I get my money back, it's going towards principal versus rent. I'm throwing it away. I get the pride of ownership. I can paint it, green and white if you're a Spartan or whatever you want. So you can do all these things, but it's mainly that appreciation.
But then the barriers, or the hard part is there even any housing? Can I afford that housing? I gotta come up with a down payment. If it's not a down payment, I have to pay principal mortgage insurance or a combination thereof. I have to pay taxes. I have to pay insurance. And I gotta pay all this maintenance.
But, it's, for most of America, it's worth it, given that appreciation part. So what this program does is essentially brings all the positives Without any of those negatives. So how that works is we have these there's 20 cottages there. The foundation will pay for and build those cottages and then a person lives there and they participate in the shared equity appreciation.
They don't own it outright, but what did I want to get out of owning this thing? Anyway, I want that equity appreciation. And my principal, I want that back. So what this means is, let's say they live there five years, so they make a principal and interest payment. They're going to get that principal back.
And then they participate in the equity appreciation during that five years. At the end of it, there's no closing costs. So we take all those costs out of the system. They don't have to make a down payment. They don't have to pay principal and mortgage insurance. They don't have to pay the taxes. They only pay insurance on their contents, more like they're renting.
They don't have to pay the external insurance. And so they get all of the benefits of this without all of those costs. So think a household that is $65,000, $60,000 can actually move into a house, it's a $200,000 house, cottage. But they can live there and participate in that without even having to come up with that down payment.
And then as you're projecting things out, but at the end of that five year period, when then they go, okay, I'm going to move into another house, they should have $50,000 worth of equity that's come out of that house along with their principal to then go into their next house. You can't do that anywhere in the really in the country. And so that's what we're, that's the really special part about how this whole thing works.
[00:50:23] mike rusch.: A lot of moving parts. And you're using the assets of the community of tax incentives, all of that to make this work. I guess the other option would be if we didn't, if Excellerate wasn't doing these things. Then we need to raise taxes to pay teachers more what they deserve. Is that a fair?
[00:50:42] jeff webster.: I definitely get the point on all of those kinds of things. And we'd rather not get into that. Spiraling up and this and that type of thing is all we know is there's not enough housing for folks, the teachers are is, this is a national crisis It's not just in bentonville or fayetteville or somewhere else.
You've got all kinds of different cities people Trying to get people to open their homes up for teachers to be able to live with them in a spare room or something just because it's a national crisis. And, and education is so important to all, our families, et cetera, as you go forward.
So, yeah, it's a $25 million project. We, our foundation will put in $5 million. We've got other philanthropy support from various sources that'll also put in $5 million. And then you've got a bit of a loan, and then we access this state federal money here to make this whole thing happen. So, I mean it's a, it should really be a huge success story.
And keep in mind, our goal on this is because what foundations also do is, you're doing research, right? So we're looking at how can we replicate this in other parts. There's a lot of people that are asking us, how do we replicate this in other parts of Northwest Arkansas, other parts of the state?
So, ultimately that would be our our ultimate is coming up with a model that can be replicated in various and it doesn't necessarily have to just be for school teachers. It could be helping city employees. It could just be helping the general public, especially in this shared equity piece.
[00:52:11] mike rusch.: All right. Jeff, I tried to ask every person that I've had a privilege of sitting down with a couple of questions. Number one what are your fears for this place?
[00:52:23] jeff webster.: Well, I would I would say that the fear, that's a great question, especially just top of mind and where we get into trouble is if we just stay in our own bubble of who we are and who I know and who I'm friends with and people that are like me and everything.
We are going to end up with a lot of community issues that inevitably a lot of these other communities have. You're going to end up, out of touch, you're going to end up with a big divide, et cetera. So, that's where a lot of what we're doing, comes right back to things like For the Love or Potter's House.
They're trying to bring people together and understand the differences that you have. And you end up growing in ways you don't even see coming. It, and if you do have the opportunity to be able to influence and drive change, et cetera, it makes you aware of it. It makes you willing to spend your time to help.
The broader community in that sense. So that's why I said, I think in the beginning of this thing, the whole social support thing and helping people have a social support safety net. If all of a sudden you struggle, lost work or something like that, that can happen to, you got family, you got friends, etc.
Not everybody has that same relationships that can help out. So a lot of what we want to do is help people understand The broader community, then the heart will be there, then the willingness to support things and understand that these are great hardworking people, they need a chance to, they want to work hard and, but they just are in a different place in their career or their life journey, etc.
So, my biggest fear is if all you do is just always. I get up, I drive around the road, I go to work, I come back, and I don't know on these side roads, I don't know anybody in this, etc. It's a detriment to our community if you don't take the steps to learn people, about people that are different than you.
And it's not about necessarily you helping them, you're going to grow in different ways as well.
[00:54:23] mike rusch.: You may have answered this question, but I'll ask it. I think one of the things we're really trying to understand through these conversations is what does community wholeness look like? What is wholeness look like in this space that you're working?
[00:54:37] jeff webster.: I think it's, a celebration of differences, it's an understanding of differences, it's the I think so often on a lot of things we're doing, people are afraid of the unknown, and so I just came, I'm going to tell myself a story about what I think is going to happen, or what I think certain folks are, or certain situations are.
And it may be a story based on their experience, or they're just guessing to that story. And so, I really think that's the piece, that people need to take the time to understand differences, celebrate the differences, and grow themselves in ways that they're different. I know for me, I came, I was a business person I came in here, I see things a lot differently now.
It's the staff that we have that, that are we're all different as far as staff and, boy, but that's what makes us stronger is like, we're strong as a foundation because of all these differences we have of people's backgrounds and how they see things and So I think that's what the community needs to do is take that time and be willing to do that.
There's so much growth and excitement around here. It's just, pause and make sure that you're understanding the full community here and make sure that everybody comes along with this, not just certain folks or something like that.
[00:55:53] mike rusch.: Well, Jeff, I'm incredibly thankful for your time and the work that you're doing.
Thank you for sitting with me. It sounds like the work that Excellerate is doing is just obviously critical in its relevance and its professional approach to it. And it's just the heart and the passion as well, too. And so, just thank you. Yeah, for the work that you're doing on behalf of the community.
Thank you for your team and I know all the hard work's going on. So Jeff, thanks for your time today and just Yeah, keep doing what you're doing.
[00:56:17] jeff webster.: All right, great. We At the end of the day, we're happy to help. That's what we're trying to do great stuff and give it away.
outro comments.
[00:56:22] mike.: Well, it was great to talk with Jeff. I appreciate the clarity he brings to who the Excellerate Foundation is and the role and addressing some of the challenges our region faces. It's clear to see how their work is evolving and how their programs and partnerships are created to address very specific issues.
But this begs the question. Why is a public charity trying to find innovative solutions for housing for people like teachers, firefighters, police, and more?
Well, because right now, the supply of housing in Northwest Arkansas and the demand because of that growth are driving prices way up.
In fact, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports a 53% rise in the median home price between 2019 and 2023 to almost $328,000. And they also say that the median home price in Bentonville is now closer to $450,000.
So just to reiterate, affordable housing by definition is generally defined as housing on which the occupant is paying no more than 30% of the gross income for housing costs including utilities.
So let's make this real practical.
If you're a first year teacher making $55,000 a year, or a starting police officer making $52,000 a year, or starting firefighter EMT making approximately $45,000.
That means that you've got about $1,375 per month, including utilities, which means you need to find a home under approximately $225,000 and a current search on Zillow shows zero homes in Bentonville for less than $225,000. And if we expand our range to include Centerton, we find two homes for under $225,000, and if we up our minimum price to $300,000, well, there's one subdivision called Featherstone village that's coming online and shows about 30 homes available or so.
So it becomes very clear, if you're a single teacher, firefighter, police officer, or EMT, the availability of housing options are, well, almost zero.
So this brings up two very important issues.
First, the vast majority of wealth building in this country is directly connected with home and land ownership. It allows for building equity and owning something, belonging, and growing wealth. It doesn't have to be a house with a white picket fence. You heard Megan Brown talk about this. There are just different and better options that we have available to us now. So when we don't allow different ideas of housing into our community, we actually perpetuate these issues.
Second, we're asking these teachers to teach our children, these police officers to keep our cities safe. And these firefighters and EMTs to help us in emergency situations, but we aren't willing to pay them enough to live in our cities.
So that's why nonprofits, like Excellerate Foundation, are the ones trying to find solutions to create more affordable housing in our cities.
Okay. So thank you for listening to all that I realized I'm getting long-winded. I know there's a lot to work through, but I do hope at this point, we're all starting to understand how all of these things are coming together and how these solutions, these issues around affordable housing are ones that we're trying to solve so that we can include more people into our
[00:59:31] mike.: communities. For this episode, the route will serve as a tour of a few of the locations of some affordable housing options in Bentonville and Centerton. You'll go past the Featherston village that I mentioned earlier and the future home of Excellerate Foundation's McAuley place.
You will start downtown Bentonville and travel west through the many neighborhoods that were once county land and see how both the city is growing and the housing options going west continue to present very little variety between single family homes and large apartment complexes.
However, as you come back into the Southwest side of Bentonville, you can also see how the increased density along Southwest B street and working your way to the Southeastern side of Bentonville around the Town Branch area is helping to create more diversity in rental housing options along with the integration of retail and services, there are a small number of workforce rental housing options within these developments that are driven by the market, but they have long since filled up.
next episode preview.
[01:00:25] mike.: In the next episode, we're going to zoom in one more time to the ward levels that make up a city, and ultimately those Wards are the ones that decide on the city council representatives who help lead the city.
For that I have the opportunity to sit with Beckie Seba, a city council member for the Bentonville's Ward 1.
Ward 1 is the ward that I live in, so she is one of the elected members of the city council to represent where I live. Her responsibility is to reflect the wards, values, goals, and voice within the city council.
[01:00:54] beckie seba.: I'm also very much a proponent of small government. I don't want to see government growing and growing and growing. I think government was created to move very slowly for a reason, but that means that they don't do everything well.
And so, as I'm looking at all these areas, I'm also looking at. What does the city need to actually be involved in what things should they stay out of?
[01:01:21] mike.: Specifically on the topic of affordable housing, the Excellerate Foundation has been working closely with the City of Bentonville to recommend solutions. Some of what you heard Jeff talk about called Project Arrow.
However, today the solutions that the Excellerate Foundation and their partners have proposed to the Bentonville City Council have all received a majority, no vote, and therefore will not move forward.
And this begs the question why? What is it about these proposals that are not in the best interest of the city and what is the city's role in affordable housing?
So I'll sit with Council Member Seba and try to bring some light to how the city is finding a path forward to some of these types of issues and to hear her story.
music.
[01:01:59] mike.: And as we close today, I can't help but leave you with a song from University of Arkansas graduate Ben Rector, who ironically graduated with a degree in business and marketing, which I'm sure he uses in the music industry, but glad it's not the gift that he's using to give to the world.
Ben has seen a whole lot of success with many of his songs and albums at the top of the billboard charts, and in this song that Ben wrote, it's about the people who actually make the world work. I think you'll like his perspective.
If you're on Spotify, enjoy the song. Here it comes. And if you're not check the episode webpage, there you'll find links to this song.