#9 - Ben Bhatti: A New Frontier: Texas Leading the Way on AI Policy for Smart Growth and Resilience

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So tell me a little bit about where you're from.

So. Well, I from Van Den earlier, but I, I grew up in that area.

My family was given a land right there from the demand of us in the Republic of Texas. So that we go way back. Well, on that land game worth it. You know, it eventually had to get sold off just because my family, the longtime relatives or family member, then the money goes away. Also, he spoke about books. So we have it.

So but I've been there with the school and van and the school where and I joined the military in 1988, so I'm a little bit. But then I did 30 years there and retired in Abilene to Dyess Air Force Base, and that was my last assignment. We liked Abilene. So what's it? My wife. But I retired first and my wife retired the next year.

She retired out of Korea. So when I retired, they sent her to preach for the year without me. And then after that year, she decided, you know what? I want to be a florist because we we were apart quite a bit, you know, we, was three years in New Mexico. She was in Wichita Falls. That's our. And then I'm going back to Wichita Falls.

We were there for two years. They sent me to Korea for a year by myself. And then after I got my some career this semester at body, and then I retired four years later and they said, hurry, Korea. You know, it's just this, just

get out of this job. So be together. Yeah, yeah. So did you meet the.

No. We did. Yeah we did. We were both. We were both doing the same job. We were both aircraft armament specialist. So we were the we fixed the weapons systems on fighters and bombers and and we loaded with bombs, views of bombs. But all the planes. How cool. How risky is that? It's not as risky as you sound.

They're pretty safe, you know, it takes there's. It takes a lot to actually make one go. Offers lots of steps. So they're pretty foolproof. Yeah. So which side?

So then you both work from West Texas. But got there. Syndicate.

Is that right? Let me show you some Los Angeles nuts. So she's she came she met me and she's, such a boy from Texas.

And knows how to grow things and had his own food, raise cattle. She said she needed me for the zombie apocalypse, so she said that's my dream. So I moved to, to Texas from DC during, the Covid lockdowns. And I was seeking my doomsday apocalypse like helper. And so. So you have a little bit of grass out there, and we've been growing some veggies, but it's been my plan.

My goal. What does that do you grow. That's awesome. Well, right now I'm like the wrong thing. But wildflowers for bees because, sorry, I've recently got into being some beekeeper. That's amazing. I want to ask bees. And you could put a record in your list. And I'm very interested because, one of my best friends or husband has some reason, I mean, some amazing hobby.

And glad I'm not allergic, but I definitely want to do those. And chickens. You sure? Well, as many times I've. I've been is I've been stung in the last month in the house when I'm not. Let's see. Oh, no. It's good. Really? Yeah. He said it's been fine. But why do you want some so much? Well, the first time was, I did a bee removal at someone's house.

Okay. With the bees hive inside the wall. And so we had to go get them out. Uses fancy vacuum. This sucks. All the bees out. And even though I had a suit on, sometimes I get through and mainly in the gloves on the hand. So I got stung eight times that day on my hands. And then when I worked the bees at my house on me, sometimes they get through on it.

1 or 2 stings era, or they'll wait till I take the suit out and combine the done reported. Well, Commissioner Buckingham knows what she's hired a globe. You know, your land. That is very cool. And

how did you get involved in politics? If you want to tell our listeners, I'm sure they're interested from going through the military to your political trades over here.

I've been in some commercials. You guys are checking out this this man on the film here, he's been into TV shows here. So how did you get into, all this?

So I don't see. You remember Bobby Hanson still? She worked there in the district office. Is there an apple? Yes. So what I retired from

and from the year I had a luncheon.

Retirement. What was she? And her husband was on the military, the Senate. And after the luncheon, she was going to do a retirement. And that's that rule that, you know, I haven't really thought about it. I just want to enjoy her time for one. So how would you like to work for a congressman? And that was one of the reasons that celebration.

You always had an interest in politics. Yeah. So that would be very nice. And and then the district you're you're helping the constituents, which is very important to think. And Jody always said that. So here you know I said well hey you know your profit oriented because obviously people and I spent 30 years in service on service. So this was was a great transition from the military to go and to serve government and working to help constituents.

So interview with, Russell. Yes. And so, like I said, you know, I hired and, and, and they put me in charge of the position services time. So it worked out great. But 60% of our caseload was veterans. So that worked out awesome. And I was able to help. And welcome to the different organizations. So so

I love that.

Well, side note for the audience, Glenn reached out to me a little while ago saying most of my podcasts, and I heard that I work with Jody. So shout out to Jody, Erin, center for resource. I want to send a student with Russell. Yes, such a small world. And we definitely exchanged emails like 12 years ago,

probably about this show itself.

Yes. Right. It was. I was just that you were doing were you in charge? I wasn't just sure. I was in charge of the Texas lunch. Yes. The flags. We had ten interns one summer. Very fun. Some of them are now in Austin, which is really cool. One of them came and lobbied me, actually. I was like, you're all grown up.

And then one of them came, but we're going to be at one of the Senate, dinners. And he was a staff and Senate, you know. So it was a real small world. There's definitely some cool of that that come out. Yes, that. So I look and then what got you in with the GLA? We're in the position you're in now.

Let's talk more about what you're doing okay. So once I left the Joe reenters office I want to go help a friend with this plumbing company. For just a brief period. It was a temporary, Jeff.

Well, I thought as to where I would completely retire. You know, we can do anything, so I could just enjoy life. But, then maybe he was working in the Senate office for then Senator Bucky.

Tim reached out to you? Just he owned a business and said, hey, I just I've come to be her district reps. So can you interested in this? I would be yeah. I think you do that job. So then Adrian who you know reached out and unmet were Tim in the in the senator. So coffee and we had a discussion and I went to work for her part time handled that northern part of Senate district one for gas station services again.

And it just worked out one deal level with a lot of local leaders and voice their concerns. And to the to the senator, to her. We had both calls. We get together and talk about all the issues going on the district. We're just kind of eyes and ears for our boots on the ground. So that's an industry kid, and I enjoyed that.

And so then I when she writes or for land commission, she said, once you get what you say, you want to continue to work for me. I said, I do. I start on with Austin. She got not you can stay at my daughter's in college there. So I'm just and at the time my wife's like a job, just, retired.

Right. So we just weren't ready to move. So we were able to stay in, and I'm leaving, and I stayed with and, one of the glo, and she asked, what do you want to do the job? There's many departments. And I said, well, I did 30 years in the military, 15 of those years in Texas. You know, I'd never heard of the landlord.

I said, let me do something fabulous with that. I want to tell people about the veterans like has come know that a lot exists. So that's basically where I spend most of my time doing. I still meet with the local community leaders. And what's their concerns about, you know, they might need community grants for, for I guess you can get that from the jail.

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But most of my energy is focused on veterans issues.

That's amazing. Well, thank you for your service and their work. Now you're obviously, commissioner working and love to you because otherwise she wouldn't, like be out West Texas. So that's very, very impressive. So tell, people who don't know and aren't as familiar, what is the general dance?

Well, your sudden it has about 800 people on staff, well over 100. So it's a huge audience. And she managed 13.1 million acres of land. And this all over the state of Texas, the leasing of that land, even more rights to that land. The money we make off it goes into the permanent school fund, which currently is about $62 billion.

Yeah, the primary school fund was established, I think it was 1857. I forgot that we were right to fund public education and we can't spend the principal not. So we give the interest to the civil rights, or the same way to vocational education manages with the minds of residents. We get the, interest from your to fund public education through the 12.

And this year it'll be about 4.8 billion compared to 2.6 billion last year. Well, so we're doubling and and a lot of that has to do with the commissioner finding other revenue sources for the permanent short on such as covers. Mr.. Sequestration. She bought a 353,000 acre ranch in Ruther County that we lose out and then it can be used for calibration honey.

And we own them, you know? Right. So a lot of land we have. And so we set up for renewals, and we also are responsible for ten miles of the Gulf out into the Gulf. So we have that as well.

And are you involved, specifically the agency in regulating kind of the distance that we have, Texas, South Shore and all that, or is that just like set in stone?

It's ten miles. That's it. That's always interested me.

Well, I'm not sure how the ten miles came about. I'm sure that we did that. But ten miles is what we have. It's just considered. Yes, yes, but what one thing that that the commissioner has that's been in office is his idea of security, of water. And there was an island and he may have asked if we've made it medium nationally.

Last year there was an island in the Rio Grande that we really didn't know. Nobody really laid claim. I did see that other than a quarter. And the cartels had engaged on, on, on the island that most people don't know about.

And so, Commissioner, Mason, looking at the treaty between us and Mexico that we all increasing from the middle of the Rio Grande north well over the last couple of years, the water changes the path a little bit.

So when you read plot and show what's north of the middle, it turned out the island was on. Actually. So she went and cleaned it out with BP's out there. They cleaned it up, and we got rid of all that nastiness that the cartel had gone on the island.

So what she's she's making touch us a little bit about that.

Yeah, that's a pretty cool claim. They just said she was just done. What else? This is kind of the commissioner's role.

So, we also do a also clean ups, managed, the the erosion of beach erosion, not Great Barrier Reef restoration, you know, things such as that. We had about 50 folks, at least 50 folks down and five different areas along the coast and also refunds.

Right. So, we help also with the community grant. So a lot of the grants that come from federal funding, and things such as that will come into the geo open in July of disburse, such as after Hurricane Harvey. They were about 10,000 homes that the deal was helped through. These grants help distribute the money to rebuild these homes specifically for low to low income venues.

That's a very big job. And hurricanes disaster, you know that anything that affects when and specifically with these tragic floods that just recently happened, what's been the impact and, and your, role in helping it?

So in San Angelo, it's only about an hour and a half. So I've seen towards in my area. So after that I would be on, you know, wrap it somewhere, work with the chamber, trying to figure out ways to

help them.

So you think the Glo is not the first responder? Something like that. Sure. They can help with prevention, you know, before an event like now. So help with after the event. But there are other agencies out there that be a first responder or something like that. But if we can come up with a help them plan to various happy again in the future or help mitigate the damage that maybe they do some buyouts in some very flood prone areas, maybe they biosolids or going to make it look or flood the area or develop.

You get some grants to reroute the sewer system from the community to make sure to that

it. What would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions people have, you know, lawmakers have about the Glo and just the public in general? If you could explain it in the then

yeah, yes, it well, they I think what they don't they don't know what we do.

So they don't know how to act. You know where it's helping us. And so I think the commissioner Commission Buckingham has really done a great job in getting her, I the team out and letting people know whether they'd be the team here. And awesome to be able to happen on visits with legislators or people like me, visit with local and county officials and say, hey, this is who we are, you know, and this is what we do.

Because I just don't think lawmakers, if they don't know what we do, they don't know how to help us. And so I guess she, you know, they have to know what all we're responsible for. And people that land office, you know, the land office understand what's an 86 was

about predates the other by nine years. So what was the oldest agency overseas.

Well I did not know. That's right. Well, I was originally

mapping out the land, so we did military. We did the bounty grants, basically military grants where they eat or bounty military reward them, warrants where they gave out land to people in the upper sky for it to finish in Mexico. But we didn't have any money. So the promised land, well, somebody had to track what checks on every vehicle.

So I was the land officer. Did that was morphed into a lot more than that. Oh, ton of. And so we still do that for veterans since that after World War two. But the veterans name word came about to to help veterans buy land at a low interest rate. And, and, now it's expanded into now you buy land in my home.

Your improvement loans. We also run Penn State veterans nursing homes and at one five state their cemeteries. The money we make of the land loans and home loans on private loans goes towards funding those

homes and cemeteries. So we're a state agency all and we're very stable. That's their home. Rely on taxpayer funding. Wow. So Andrew people you pretty much cover right.

Yeah that's right. That's amazing.

So your when your role with the legislature specifically are sounds like you're educating them a lot on what you do and the different programs. You have an apartment. What, what have you had to do this past legislative session? And obviously I'm going we've got a lot of the disaster flood conversations happening, a lot of that through special.

But what was your role and Sheila's role through this legislative session specifically? Try align your priorities.

So the the jello stuff, which I didn't get involved with so much I'm on Austin, so I'm sure, I'll meet with our local rep, Stan Lambert, or we'll talk about the issue we have. Senator Charles Terry was also our son. It was before redistricting, sort of the prairie and and watching him share that what he had North Abilene she itself.

And so we we're actually very fortunate to have two votes in the Senate race and they, they they were in one set most of the time. So it was nice to have two votes in the Senate for an issue that we really used over it. But yeah,

anyway, we did get a new bill this, this legislative session that helped with so before we were capped at seven across the state.

So there's for state variance. And

what do you mean by that. We we weren't allowed to have more than seven. Oh we might why is that.

That was just what was how it was written down. The chat was and so we, we actually have a that bill passed and that was lifted that a cap to where we could build more than seven if we need to.

They, they removed the cap altogether and so you know, we how we get those cemeteries to know that people will want to do a survey, you know, has to be a certain letter of population, lots of different numbers that go into that. And the thing that we can't do is we can't purchase land to put it up. So the land is only donated.

So, for example, Tyler, Texas has been pushing to get a cemetery out there. So we all of our cemeteries, I think the one in Killeen is probably the furthest use.

So not to east. There's a lot more Texas on the ground, but it's pretty.

You're see, I feel like that's the furthest east cemetery. Yeah. And so and and if you check pits dot 87% of the population of Texas lives on the east side.

About 35. So. Wow. If, that means it's probably a lot of veterans over in that area as well. So there's probably a need. We do have a state where rhetorical. There is some you know, a lot of times the community is coming together or counties to say, hey, you or somebody will donate the land because it's that's, that's the first step.

You can get somebody to donate the land. It makes it makes it a whole lot easier to get some material,

you guys to do that and it's to get the land donated.

So, you know, if, if it was somebody, if there was and usually the county will work with that. And if I'm in, if it was in my county, for example, that I helped with, help them out and I would try to work with them and say, hey, what can we do to make this happen?

So can someone donate land to Texas? Is what you're not sure I can say? I have a thousand acres. I want to donate it to Texas. I want to donate it, I want to I want it to be. I want to donate for veterans. And I want to dummy for Veterans Home, which has, you know, something like that.

So, yeah, they could do that

sometimes. You know, the cities, especially economic development, you know, they own land, you know, that they want to help bring in, develop and you want to bring in businesses sometimes like that. So you apportionment in Fort Worth. We just opened up the our 10th, Texas State veterans or signal which, which, open in January and that land was donated.

So what's the latest donated. And so that's the first big step. And then then you work with the VA. Because of the case, the VA pays for the funding, the grants to help build that. So

I was going to say, what role does the federal government have versus, state and especially with the veterans issues the VA brought up.

So the VA will fund building our homes and building our cemetery. We also get inspected by the VA. So on in the five cemeteries we have in the news, the fifth one, it's not quite open. It'll be open to mission to Lubbock. Where do you go on. And so in that they'll come in and they'll so we recommend to one of our cemeteries and we finally do a national secretary and a all of people don't know the difference unless they see the name on the outside.

Yeah. What you want, would you pull into the cemetery? They look very, very similar because we have the same standards. The VA will come out your, your your headstone the this tall your grass needs to be needs and they'll come and inspect your records and says we are funded by the VA. And then once it's built, we take over.

And with our cemeteries, what we've done over the last year is we've given ownership, so you of operating the cemetery itself to either the city or county we had before that. And enameling was the most recent one, I believe. And we just we just did it, last year or the year before where we were running the cemeteries, but we were using a city agency to provide our report to get the importance to to run the cemetery.

Well, that's not a great hiring job for, you know, for people. So we've talked with the county commissioners and, and the city council and say, hey, while we make this one of your requirements, either, you know, if this county wanted it, that's fine that the city won in Abilene. The city took it just the the cemetery is actually within the city limits, but it's not within the county that exists.

So the county commissioners agreed. Not really. And argue the that the county was in was so small that it just didn't have the bandwidth to actually fund it and or keep up with the, the land store, but it still it would it was just very small cap Jones County. But we so we had the city that when we took over the cemetery and then we provide funding for.

So give them the funding actually you can give them a little extra for the Air Department to have the, you know, have to do all the employees. But the boys now have a job with benefits with their retirement plan, unlike this temp agency. So we had a high turnover. So now we have people already religious in the community that now have a vested interest in staying with us.

And hopefully, with a great story.

That's awesome. And obviously the veterans issues are near dear to your heart. You were just in you're also talking to people all the time. So what are some of the biggest problems, you know, as you state to people boots on the ground to our veterans that they're facing that you you're addressing just right now?

Well, so some of the things they bring up are not necessarily veterans, landlord related. But I know people, you know. Yeah. I worked in the federal for a while, so, I don't just say

it's not my role. I try to help them. You know, a lot of times it's. You are. I don't I can't get into the cemetery.

And I don't know why I or, you know, they want to preregister, and so I can't get preregister the center. So I'll try to help them with that. You know, or they have issues getting their landlord approved. And a lot of it has to do with this that the elderly veterans are maybe not used to the the technology that we use now to.

Sure. Application process. So I've sat down and I actually will sit down with them and help them walk through the application process. I mean, they can still call I just have an application, you know, it's just going to sort of process them through the app and LG it for sure. But what you going to do all your application process online.

I'm always available to help those that because those you know our veteran population, aging veteran population most of our what you guys are, are our Vietnam veterans are now our older generation and levels. Folks don't use technology. You're not actually, they might get may get online for something that they don't do a lot. So I'll go in and help them.

I mean, I'll go over the house. It's better than the staples if they want to. You pre-registered for the cemetery. We have we have on site records in each center. Cemeteries has a deal once deal. And they actually work for the deal. On site represented. Sorry. I turn to them or I'll respond to that one. Just because I felt you couldn't be buried there.

Your spouse can be buried there. So I don't star parents, you know. And then once you get there.

So you're saying we're the tech guru? I will say these folks out there won't come steal your way over here. But my grandson was not saying that that you're an elderly veteran might say I do. To each their own.

To each their.

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Well, I know that that's definitely the areas the most passionate about. But you do down so many different areas. So I'm, want to share a little bit about energy policy. And then you mentioned Jaguar Land Use leasing and you manage millions of acres. Right. Or than any other state. So, how does Texas change some of these, create opportunities from energy development?

I know that you mentioned the minerals and, you know, someone could lease those out. That's amazing. And really innovative. So what are there and kind of opportunities are coming from

so right then or okay. And just to some people ask what why does city touch a songbird in that. Just, you know, yeah. But so when we were accepted into the United States and we thought

we kept our, you know, we could they wouldn't take it as payment for our debt.

Right. So we used the land to generate revenue. And so that's how we ended up. And, we didn't inherit we didn't have 13 million. And it's it's ebbed and flowed like evictions is awesome. And they can buy commission. The Buckingham is on the market to sell anything. But she is in the marketplace. So she doesn't want to sell anymore event because the money generates revenue, which it's share.

So right now, out west, you know, you had the, you know, fracking more fracking in in the water that comes up with that. And so right now there's a program where we're taking that wastewater and looking for nothing. And your kid and there cleaning it and irrigating crops as a test for now to see how that works.

And so instead of just dumping that water, rainwater is a precious, precious resource based on Texas. That's that. Now, hey, we can now use a large or something else. So, that's probably the latest and greatest innovative thing that we've done when it comes to energy and absolute best and resources.

Interesting. That was Senator Perry's bill, right? When that occur, you know, I don't remember if I was just Bill, I didn't read the bill, but I should know, like since I'm in his district and I just forgot that.

So tell me more. Tell me more about that one. I did hear about that one, but I'm actually a skeptic of the bill. Really? Yes. Susan's. I think it was, environmental use of the water being. How could you tell that it wasn't,

Had anything wrong with the water and it was safe. She put on the crops.

Well, yeah. I mean, they said she was testing water and you showed up testing, you know, the contaminants in it. And as somebody who's lived in a place where in the public place where you throw a hose into a swamp and you say, I could do this machine and you drink it, whatever comes back up again, I know we have the technology to clean water.

This one, not where that hose was laying in the swamp. I think it's like every other days. And it came out of that. But once it came out the other end of that machine, it's good work. But by the time you're thirsty. But for sure.

So we had

the,

authorizing water reuse and desalinization. Honestly.

House Bill 2031 and House Bill 49 and so on on that one. We're all okay. We also found it

had to do with that. So industrious.

So Texas we have kind of a wild place gun host. We've got mountains. We've got, your country ain't got no forests.

Amazing plains. With, you know, coastal preservation and coastline worship things that the yellow in your audience

so that, you know, we do have the coastal Maine program.

And you know, they're the restoring the reefs oysters, scallop commercial oyster fishing.

And so restoring some of those reefs, some of the, some of the, some of that was destroyed by, remember, Deepwater Horizon. So that was, that was, you know, there's a there's a fund that came out of that that we also administers all those funds to help repair a lot of things along the coast doing erosion and beach erosion and, you know, building the reefs.

So some, there's lots of the new flood floodgates, you know? Yes. In, in, in Houston Bay. That's to help mitigate that storm surge from hurricanes. It is last year commissioner went to Europe because they have so like a some flood mitigation or for hurricanes over there. And she will kind of watch what they did. And looking at ways to lessen the impact of that storm surge or it comes into place, just like you said ago.

And then she there's one I believe it was Liberty City that she was missing while we were talking that there's actually sinking, you know, a sovereign and, you know, New York City sinking that that's not that.

But but, you know, I think I think she said leaders Liberty city that from the time she was a kid there in the now it said five feet. Oh, wow. She's not that old. So it's not that 101. And, how can you what technology can you use to set up some more sanctuary? This way you start building that beach line up and and, that was smart people.

A lot smarter than we know exactly what it is, but. And they think that part of that was just due to taking all that water, some other lease for drinking water and starting something that maybe called in some assembly floor and just and we end up drinking water from then, as they say, that whiskey's for drinking and water trying.

You know, that's what we're saying. West Texas I need to go out there or

Are there any kind of recent trends you're seeing or think developers or entrepreneurs should be watching in the space

So the so we've started to do a carbon sequestration. Yeah.

So that's and that's another fairly new revenue source that we have. The low carbon listing, recently put it back in there in motion feed forward and you can connection. Lisa. And we've got some big leases, some mobile and things such as that. So it's actually not it's something else.

It's an which is why our groups are permanent stuff on the ground. There's lots of,

you know, all the stuff we're using. I believe when she took office, we were at the principle. The balance was about 56 million. And I think now worry about 62, which is huge. And two and a half years. Yeah. To grow that much.

So what do you think that that's down to specifically just the commissioners? Yeah, I think it's, plans or what do you think it's down to you

gotta do, I think with the fact that she's totally engaged in focusing on, hey, how can we generate more revenue at the station? And that, you know, for example, the British Orange County were asset purchases last year, 300,000 acres.

Well, you know, there's a very, very small segment of the population that can afford to buy 53,000 acres, and it doesn't sell. They've been for sale for a long time. So that doesn't sell. What did people end up? No lender can't sell. They need to sell. They break it up you pieces. Right. Well, with all the dark sky in this year and you have all the, you have this observatory out there.

Hearst. We need to keep that. So know. Not likely. Should work. That is nice. And we can or, you know, just let just this natural thousand year. And so she was able to get the land office to buy often, you know, purchasing it. And there was already leases on there and there were three I think there were four lessees.

Only one of them didn't stay, but she allowed the other three to stay in their leasing land for cattle, in our office. And alpine basically tells them, hey, this is how many cattle we go run per section, 640 acres.

So many as a out there. It's about for how long? Animal units per section, if I remember. Right.

So which took about. You can only run four animals units per 640 acres. Because this desert or so we actually prevent overgrazing. Yeah. And so they'll start releasing, you know, on thousand acres or. Yeah, it's it's a lot of land. And to them that small place. But you know, we this is relative to where you live, the needs that are small a small place that are well I love it out there.

I spent much time as I can out there. We did a road trip for my birthday and, like Thanksgiving, and I love to go and just and go out to eat as and opinion. More of like the Marfa area was on June, which was very cool, but I went to Dark Skies Observatory and I did the star party.

Yes. Have you done that? You know, I've had it on my calendar a couple of times and then the back out, but, so is it worth the trip? It's really worth the trip. And only thing is, it got dark. Fully dark. So much lighter than I thought. Yeah. To actually get it was, you know, 11:00 at night and finally was dark.

So we were honestly past my bedtime. Well, well, last night, but it was great and I'm glad that we stayed up for it. It was beautiful. And I mean, I've never seen the sky so clear. Well, and

What are the biggest challenges with the like the federal government's

response time. So a lot of times it is 1 to 2 years after an event before we'll ever seen money from the government come in and help. And that's probably and and a way to say if we can something like it. So I took one that we went on with six is what can we do if that money starts to help our people, you know, and what I like, when I look at our social media followers on social media and that'll show you working in the Or they'll hand in the keys to some of you had their house rebuilt because they're low income.

And so we help with that a lot. And these people express live right. They're housed in the story and twist wall. We're still working on the walls or, you know, from art and, so I mean, it's it's been it's been a long process. And I'd say with the Senate bill would take so long to get that money to us, a sort of that when you have it.

as to what would you say is improved the most since you've seen it?

I well, I, I think advocacy from the state level. One of the things that I think a lot of people, the transparency from our agency, you know, one of the first things you see on your website is a full transparency. We want to be transparent in everything we do is we have a team that does, you know, that goes out and lets people know which I'm part of.

I'll do outreach as well, along with others outreach and letting people know, hey, we're here to help. And so the advocacy from our largest city and also working with state agencies and the folks that are here at Austin and our government relations, they're going to the Capitol and actually talking to lawmakers. Hey, it's all we did. Yeah, we have some money.

We hope you understand what I'm asking for because this is what we do. But there's so I think from the state level, the advocacy and just education, the awareness and then being transparent, what we did, you can you can view all of our releases on online, you can view and people that can go online and pay the world Service and of these rights.

And there's a lot of things that go on and the public has access to all that. Our landlord reach more is open to the public.

Right. So and vital. But yes, we we'll be watching those. So is this new technology that that the gloves kind of enforced. And what I,

I don't know if it's new, suit me.

Yeah. I've only been with them for, two and a half years. Yeah. So we do some the GIS lobbying and, and was, you know, the old are we also have the archives of records Division. So when we started looking at the boundaries of property and we have all the maps today, when we go back, the original notes from the surveyor, some 1800s.

And some people can do that online and socially, or they can go to our records division and they can go in and actually look at the notes. And so it's never you. Only they can land mad at the land. Many to go and check original land boundaries. And it was cool. It was to help with the always to look at our records and and while they're there they get hold the original letter received else first wrote to actually government way back when we have all that.

So

it's amazing what you've been able to that archive and the data that's out there from the government in general. So it sounds like you're bridge transparency.

Yes. And the and the digitization of those documents, that's the commissioner a lot degree is really worked hard. And then we one of the things we figured out when when she first took office is that the archives and records department and the state in the past, it really did not have the right or backup generator for the air conditioning.

You know, it has to be kept to a certain temperature to protect those documents first. So

she did spent quite a bit of money to get that. But it's important, you know, those documents hundreds of years ago that, last time I was the American to hold a letter of, like, hold a letter from you, not Sam Houston, then, you know, so it's just those documents are history, and we I was able to look at the document that my great great grandfather signed for the land grant that he used.

Yeah. And so, I mean, just people that are in the genealogy or. Yeah, checking out land speech or in schools. You know, the education for the the schools to bring your field go and field trips and go out there and look at Texas maps and archives and, you know, Alamo Falls under that. We also have the Alamo. And that would some huge revelation, probably right when

as we close, I mean, any kind of takeaways for businesses or people who want to get involved, with the work that you do or contact you directly, is there any way want to shout out, you can do that or.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's somebody that wants to, if you go to our website Zillow about texas.gov.

And there are ways you can apply for leasing land. You can see what land available. We you can you know, the airport that regional airport used to be a regional important Austin okay. Just now an acting studio. Oh I know that there is a it they they have it set up a different studios for movie sets.

What the globe. And so we recommend you set up and actually, I believe we still have a restaurant down on the coast that we, And that I said all that when it comes down to help public education. So if there's people are looking to lease land or lease something from the globe, you want their website and their there's a lease application.

You look at what if you want to lease raising cattle hunting or, you know, commercial real estate available, you can definitely, apply to lease it.

That's amazing. Wow. Well thank you. Thanks for sharing all that. And thank you for coming on the show. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

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Welcome back to Bills and Business, Your go to podcast for the latest developments in Texas legislation and business. I'm your host, Laura Carr, co-founder of USLedge. And today we're excited to welcome Renzo Soto to the show. He is the executive director for Texas in the southeast at TechNet, the national network of technology CEOs and senior executives working to advance policies for faster innovation and economic growth.

Based in Austin, Renzo leads advocacy efforts across several states, including right here in Texas. In this episode, we'll talk about everything from state monetization to AI regulation. Also here runs his own inspiring story, from legislative staffer to tech sector advocate.

Very cool. So for those who don't know you, can you tell us a little bit more about what you do for TechNet and how you help them? Yeah, absolutely. So TechNet, like I said, is a trade association. We serve the tech industry, but it's not, you know, kind of the traditional old tech companies that you always think of.

We also have, you know, venture capital firms, we've got folks and energy folks in health care because technology is everywhere these days right here. And so if you fit along, one of our policy verticals, as we call it, it's long as it's within our legislative agenda, you know, our doors are open for membership and we give the full service.

I'm part of the 50 state team. I'm the executive director for Texas in the South, for all of the states that I cover. And so the services that we offer on the ground over at state levels is full on advocacy. If there's a bill that is within our policy agenda, we track it. We flag it from our members.

We identify what changes might be needed if we can support it. In some cases, we do oppose legislation. What fixes can we provide to make it so that it's workable for the industry and we make that happen? There's could be calls, those could be letters, testimony, visits to state legislatures, interim presentations, whatever it is that is needed of us.

We typically try to do that for our members. And we also offer federal level services. So we've got a comms team, we've got a federal advocacy team as well, who works the Congress as well as the executive offices over in Washington, DC. We do a lot of the same things that we do offer at the state level.

So very, very proud to have a full policy shop to be serving the tech industry.

So when are all your states back in session? Are you in the interim for a little bit preparing? I am technically I'm only in the interim for this month because I've got Puerto Rico coming in for their fall session in August.

Okay. They're not as busy as the rest of my states. There are a couple of headaches that we're dealing with over there, though, and there's such an interesting legislature there. They operate off of acquired uranium. And so anything that's that was filed this year is alive for four years, and there's no resets of anything. It's just the process is what the process is.

It's exactly the same as here. How send it all that. Well but you got four years to do it, so sometimes things just kind of happen in the blink of an eye. So, you know, that's why we've got lobbyists out there to help us monitor, because they don't really have a legislative tracking system. And when it's updated, it's updated extremely late.

So, you know, you'll learn, like, a week later, that something's already passed an entire chamber. Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico. All right. That's is what I looking to, so they'll benefit from some runners for sure. Okay. Wow, that is so crazy. I know each state we're talking about this is like a different country. Which states are you covering right now for tech?

Now? So I have New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Puerto Rico on top of Texas.

Okay. Wow. Yeah. And they are all extremely unique. And I feel like am I which states would you say are the most, in with tech policy right now? Like, what's the most legislation you've seen in the state?

Oh gosh, I mean, Texas, I think by far.

Right. I just by volume, by scope of the legislation, the things that we wanted to do definitely took the cake. There were some very creative ideas and some other states, though I think New Mexico and this was my first time covering New Mexico, and it was intentionally given to me when we hired our Florida person. So that would be a little bit less busy in the region.

And then they had their busiest year that they've ever seen in tech. But I had to handle. And so that was definitely eventful this year. Really. Everyone one took some kind of bite at the tech Apple this year. But in terms of busiest, I would probably say it was Texas, New Mexico, and a little bit between Arkansas and Mississippi.

So overall, you know, if you had to kind of summarize the categories of what policies are people trying to pass or those more like I focused, are they talking about agents yet? Are they trying to regulate? What have you seen? Most of all, I think AI is the like type of dishwasher every day for sure. Most states now, and it just depends.

You know, some folks are trying to take a bite of the comprehensive apple. Others are taking it more sectoral or identifying specific harms, like deepfakes, for example. Yeah. And then, you know, there's still the issue of data privacy. Not all states, have passed something along that, along the lines of what Texas and multiple other states take over 20 states.

Now, have passed in terms of a comprehensive data privacy framework. And we always advise from our perspective, you know, when you're talking about AI, you're really just talking about data, you're working with it. And so we want to be consistent with the way that we handle consumers data. And, you know, how we maintain their privacy. And so we think that data privacy comprehensive data privacy framework should always precede comprehensive AI regulations.

Not all states move in that direction. And, you know, we deal with it as we can. But, you know, I would say those two things are definitely still top of mind in several states. How are the companies you represent kind of keeping up with every single legislatures, different data privacy, restrictions and legislation? Yeah, that must be really challenging.

So that's what we're in the business for. We're the only trade association for the tech industry that serves, the, as much of the industry as we possibly can in every single state. Other associations kind of nitpick, right? They have their specific topic areas that they engage on, or maybe specific seats, that they're able to engage in, like I said, were the only ones that have that, you know, have full on lobbying presence in every single state in Puerto Rico.

And so we help to keep them, you know, apprized of the things that are going on, we, you know, we monitor the bills that are filed, we analyze them, we kind of compare them against, you know, the model framework that we've seen that's interoperable across several states. And so, you know, here's where it detracts. Here's where it's exactly similar.

And then from there they take the information that we give them. And of course that they get from their own resources on the ground or wherever it is that they're getting from. And then they run it up to their legal teams, who I'm sure are underwater all the time during Q1, when legislative sessions are. And so, you know, we make do, with the resources that we've got.

But, you know, we're proud to serve that kind of front light role for a lot of our companies.

Very cool. And obviously, your work expands so many different states. How are you seeing the states handling AI regulation and legislation? You mentioned the deepfake side of things compared to the federal level. What what are you saying? I think the states are doing what the states do right there, being the experimental labs, of policy, and they're trying to see what works.

Now, that being said, and we really like this trend that's happening right now, there's been an effort between state and state level policy makers, state legislators, state executive offices, economic development leaders to try and come up with an interoperable framework. As much as possible. We from our perspective, from the industry's perspective, do like and prefer the idea of a federal framework on this because it's such a complex issue, you know, it touches so many different industries.

There's so many different use cases for it. Billions of dollars are being invested into it. And so consistency, particularly for companies who are operating not only across state lines but across countries, is really, really necessary to have, you know, assurances that the investments that they're making, that the products that they're developing, the services that they're offering can continue without a hitch, no matter where they might be in the country.

Now, that being said, I think, you know, we've seen from the data privacy conversations that states are not, you know, asked to wait, when they don't need to. And so we've seen efforts like in Colorado, for example, where the state's first company or, sorry, the nation's first state level comprehensive policy framework for AI was passed into law.

It's not effective yet. They're still working through it. And there's a lot of fixes that are being discussed by industry as well as other stakeholders. But as that process has been happening, you've seen other states kind of borrow from what's being called the Colorado framework and fitting it around what they think is needed. And in a lot of cases, those states have, you know, before they even put the proposal out, they've put out studies, they've put out committees, they put out commissions in order to take a look at what is happening at the federal level, what's happening at the international level, what might they need over at the state level, and trying to come up

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with something that, you know, makes sense for for what they need, within that state, that has not gone kind of, you know, through all 50 states yet. A lot of states are still in their study phase, but they're not slowing down in terms of what we also think are important protections on things like deepfakes. Right, right.

When you're impersonating other people for harmful purposes, that's, you know, we've seen in many cases a legitimate gap, within within state laws and state legislatures are stepping up and, you know, providing those protections. And so we're there to act as a resource to legislators to kind of guide them and help make sure that they're achieving the protections that they want for their constituents and their citizens without unduly burdening or inadvertently stifling innovation.

Very cool. As a tech company myself, I was keeping track of just making sure we're, you know, complying and all that. Are you noticing that the very large states California, Texas, New York, Florida, if they do pass any like very large legislation that would impact a lot of industry that, you know, the companies are taking that as a standard and then moving forward with that, or are they kind of going, okay, this state, I'm going to modify our platform this way.

How how are you seeing companies react to this legislation from larger states. Yeah, yeah. So the conversation here in the US I think is very interesting. Right. Because the biggest, you know, piece of legislation on this, we saw from across the pond, over the when the EU AI act and that was a major and there's been a lot of I guess I'll say, consternation right from the industry about the concerns that they've got.

And that's why there's thousands of pages, you know, not only on the bill, but also guidance, what things mean over there. So they're still figuring that out largely here in the States. I think we've been left to innovate for quite some time. And that has been to the benefit of the technology. And, you know, really industry has been coming up with a lot of, you know, safety, security standards.

We've called it responsible AI development and deployment, which is a very real thing. You know, we've studied, for example, with the federal government here, what those standards should look like, not just for certain players, in the AI arena, but for everyone, because it's important, that we're doing this in a way that, you know, unlocks the potential of the technology, but does so in a way that protects the interest of people, protects privacy, protects government, like those kinds of things.

Right. And so states, I think, have been looking at those industry efforts and then identifying, you know, what are they hearing in terms from the news, from their constituents, from industry as things that they want to address and as those big states are offering, you know, kind of their ideas? We are seeing other states pick up, and push those ideas themselves.

I will candidly say not all of them are things that industry has full of endorsed. And so we're still working through kind of the details and the implications of some of these more consequential pieces of legislation. So I wouldn't say that we necessarily have a standard yet as far as, you know, a model bill or a very exact framework that we're operating from, that quote unquote works, to address everything that all of the stakeholders want to address in a bill.

Will they call this before the session in Texas? And it was probably gonna be the AI session. Definitely feel like it dealt it. Yes. No. Right. So you're busy. Yes. You testified a time. Yes. And we can see that in y'all's tool. Yeah. So we can actually we can show a clip if you like.

all, for the record, Renzo Soto, executive director for Texas in the South representing TechNet.

We are on the bill. And I do have written testimony here for y'all. I apologize for that.

I want to start by thanking Chairman Allen for the process that he's put out on this. On this particular issue. He's been graciously working with stakeholders, including industry, throughout the past year, hearing our concerns, hearing our feedback on this very important issue. And in the written testimony that's being, passed around there. We are highly, excited about the potential of AI responsible development and deployment here in Texas.

Our state in particular stands to benefit from a lot of the different applications and unique use cases of AI that are already being realized out in the field. These things include heightened cybersecurity processes, being able to solve some of the greatest medical challenges of our time, like earlier ways to detect, to to detect cancer. And with the burgeoning, industries here within the state, as well as the established ones like aerospace, medicine and biosciences and more, they're going to be leveraging these technologies, in conjunction with one of the largest, technology workforces in the country that's here in Texas.

So we appreciate that. House Bill 149 includes key components for striking the balance between safeguarding against legitimate harms and continuing to allow for innovation. These include aligning provisions with existing laws to ensure there is no conflict or burdensome overlaps, as well as providing flexibility to, AI developers and deploy ERS so that they can comply while continuing with innovation.

We are working with Chairman Kip Lee Leone to secure further improvements to the bill. Those are focused mostly on further, further alignment with existing statute securing necessary clarifications for compliance as well as other technical recommendations. For instance, we do share some of the, operational concerns that there might be included with the political viewpoints section that's within this bill.

And we've been grateful that the chairman has been very open to hearing our perspective on that, and we look forward to working with him on addressing that issue. So thank you again for the opportunity, and we're glad to be a resource on this issue, and we are grateful for the opportunity to have been engaged as a stakeholder and will continue to do so.

Happy to answer any questions.

So, yeah, you testified a lot. Yes. So what? Across all the states, the southeast Texas you were focused on, were you, working on the session? I think it goes back to I, it really is the the number one topic that state legislators in terms of tech, right, are very interested in and there's so many different ways to spin it.

And we actually like that. Right. I actually, you know, was asked during an interim committee hearing here in Texas, you know, should we be taking a look at this from a one size fits all type of policy or should we be looking at it kind of secondarily. And if you want to craft a good AI policy, we do think that you should take a look at it sector by sector, because there are so many rules and regulations that are on the books right now.

That impacts AI. All right. I think the Texas Department of Insurance commissioner has been on the record several times, is saying, you know, as far as reviewing, you know, AI models that is used for rate setting, for insurance. That's something that they can already oversee. They've released a rule on it. You know, if that's something that you want to do, you have to disclose that over to the, over to the agency, and they can ask you for your records, as far as, you know, what goes into those models that you're using.

So it's not such so much as a black box. And that exists for a lot of different sectors. And so got to be careful right, about introducing that one size fits all legislation, scoping into every single AI system under the sun and placing obligations on the folks who are using that. Because you could inadvertently upend a lot of efficiencies, some of them decades old, types of, you know, technology that's already being deployed in certain fields and so you're seeing kind of that approach from some states, and then you're seeing the one size fits all approach from other states.

And then like I said, you've got those, you know, one off identifying very, very specific harms that you want to address those types of bills. And so because the scope of the arena of what is AI and what could be captured under AI is so broad, that really is what kept me really busy this year, not just in Texas, but, you know, throughout the entirety of by region.

And are you seeing as a whole industry? You know, this is a bit of a general question. I'm sure there's a ton of nuance here. But, you know, I've seen in the US, we're typically more AI for technology forward. Let's have this race to AI ML to win it. Do you find that most the industries you're representing feel that way too, or are they more in the cautionary approach?

I think, you know, we're definitely trying to leverage the, open space for innovation, within within the US, to the advantage right up to the companies for our national security, to the benefit of American citizens.

And so, generally speaking, yes, you know, the current landscape allows for that. And we understand, right, the need for guardrails.

It's something that's in our policy principles, which is essentially our legislative agenda as to just guiding state lawmakers as to what those appropriate guardrails should be. And it is so nuanced. I'll give you an example. Whenever we were discussing House Bill 149, the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act, one of its iterations before was House Bill 149 involved something a little bit similar to the Colorado framework.

And that is a risk based framework, which essentially is taking different things that AI is able to do in different sectors, different applications, and labeling certain actions that are taken as low risk versus high risk. And if you're high risk, you got to do a little bit more to make sure that you're mitigating against, you know, things like bias, or dangers that those riskier models might wade into.

Right. And so as you do that, you got to take a look at who's in that arena. You've got, you know, what is typically understood as a developer, y'all, for example. Right. You're creating it. But y'all are also a deployer because you're putting the, you know, the product out there. Sure. People can be both. People can be one or the other, or you could be somewhere in the middle.

You could be like a distributor. You're just, you know, you package, an AI system and provide it to somebody else. And then you could, you know, then you're looking at, are you an upstream developer or are you a downstream developer or, you know, upstream deployer, downstream deployer. And so in our discussions, of this framework that affects everyone, we were having conversations of, well, what happens or who is responsible for, say, reviewing the data.

That is in an AI system if they are both a developer and a deployer, but they've got a downstream deployer who's then providing that to a distributor, who then provides it out to the consumer. And that is a very, very difficult conversation to have, even at the like at my level, for sure. That's just the trade association rep, because I don't have the insights as to the contract team, for example, between all of the different players that are involved in that one product before someone, even sees it.

And so that's kind of I would say, that that kind of environment, is really difficult to navigate. And so that that is kind of like some of the considerations that we're trying to give over to policymakers. In terms of, you know, like, is this actually going to work as, as you intended to work? And again, it's it's hard to have that conversation and it's hard to keep up because how can, with all the innovations about happening way faster than legislation as usual, which is good Innovation's amazing.

But with that, I mean, what you just mentioned with, all the different players, there's so many nuances to each use case and there's a million different use cases for AI, and there's a million more created every day. Right? So I can imagine that's really tough. How, how are companies? I guess everybody's kind of taking advantage of that innovate innovation period.

Right. But what do you think as far as, like the cautionary side we should be doing that you would that, you know, the people that you work with really think should be happening that nobody's talking about to protect, you know, companies and people using AI. Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So so, for example, like I mentioned effects already, right?

One, one that is very obvious. And, you know, at least insofar as my region, for example, you know, some of the typical ones are that we've seen filed is on elections or intimate images of other folks that especially when they're nonconsensual. And absolutely, we should definitely be taking a look at that legislation, right. Passing it, making sure that those gaps are filled.

And like I said, we work to make sure that there's no, you know, inadvertent unintended consequence, that burdens the technology, particularly those who are working alongside,

legislators and making sure that those issues are addressed. Texas had a very unique one, also along the lines of deepfakes, where they're protecting, particularly elder folks, elder Texans from phishing attacks.

Right, right. I mean, and that can come in so many different ways. It could be a phone call, which I think is really hard. Right? And they sound exactly like, you know, you can mimic like someone's kid, which is, which is wild. So, yeah. But then there's, you know, the traditional more, I guess, more traditional ways of, of it happening before I was, you know, as large as it was, these days, like via email and that's just expanding more and more.

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And so Texas took some steps to make sure that there are some protections there from phishing attacks. But like I said, particularly for our older and more vulnerable population, and I think that's a good thing. Some other things that, you know, we were taking a look at include online impersonations, of, of individuals. And that was a little bit more technology neutral.

But because it's technology neutral, it would apply to AI in First Nations as well. So I think those capture I think some very, very obvious, very, very widespread, bad, you know, or mis some misuse. Right. The technologies are available. I had one come through last week and, our head of operations, it's just really good at cracking down on this type of thing.

Phishing, and can spot it from a mile away. But I got the first one that I saw that was very, very good. And luckily I had one pass the password protection manager that really triggered me to say, oh, this is, phishing. So I had a message from, friend and partner of ours come through that looked like a very standard normal contract from his email, with his email signature from his email.

Yeah. And it had a Google like, you know, log in to, hello sign or docu sign. Silence. So I clicked on it, took me to a Google login page, and then I realized the domain was not Google, and it was a really random one. And it was like one pass does not recognize this as an account.

And I said, oh no, this is phishing. Yeah. So I immediately reported it and then told him and he's like, I know it went out to everyone, I don't know what to do. And I was like, oh no. So everyone changed their passwords and everyone got secure. But it was a very sophisticated one that I'd never seen because it had his body signature.

That would be in a normal email. Right? So that was crazy. I know, I know, and it's like I said, it's becoming more and more widespread and, you know, technology's there. I mean, you know, people are using technology for these types of bad actions. But there's good technology out there too, like one pass, for example, that helps you catch these things.

And that's one of the considerations too, right? When we're talking to legislators about innovation, about that one size fits all policy, we're like, well, that also impacts these kinds of things. You know, like when you swipe your credit card that, you know, triggers something over at your financial institution to make sure that it's you that's actually doing that.

And so there's so many of so many good applications of AI, and we're really only seeing, right, like the very beginning of it. I can't remember who said this, but there's a famous quote out there about, you know, the AI you're interacting with now is the worst AI you'll ever interact with from through on. And I think it's true.

So really exciting about what that's going to bring about. And our role, like I said, is to just be there to educate policymakers and let them know, hey, you know, before we go down this road, let's open all of these rabbit holes. And it's a lot of rabbit holes. Oh, yeah, it's kind of fun to go down all the rounds of the what ifs.

There's a million. Yes,

but one bill that got significant attention, which you brought up now, is that HB 149? That did pass, and so had over 280 stakeholders, even more than the data privacy legislation from last year around. So, what was your role in that? And can you explain to anybody, you know, what the this bill did?

Sure, sure. So we were really proud to be a key stakeholder, like I said from the very beginning, even before it was officially announced, we knew that there was interest, from Representative Cooper Leo and as well as the legislature broadly to regulate AI. And so we wanted to make sure, like I said, that we're representing the perspective of industry and depending on the scope of it, will weigh in based on whatever is is captured by the bill.

And so kind of taking a little bit of a step back, what is the bill do? It does several things. There's a lot of very, very pro innovation, very, very pro economic development pieces in there. Things like clarifying existing statute in terms of the training data that may or may not be used for certain AI systems.

There's a sandbox program in there to allow, you know, especially smaller developers to work with the state to develop from the ground up, you know, and a concepts that they've got. And as long as it's not violating, you know, kind of existing state law or other law that was established within House Bill 149. And they're free to do so as long as they go through a certain process.

And I think that's going to give a lot of leeway, for especially entrepreneurs and smaller developers, to come into the state and want to build their products and be headquartered here. There's also good governance measures in terms of the state overseeing what, you know, AI systems are being used over in the public sector. Doing that on a periodic basis, which I think is going to be really, really instrumental in democratizing the benefits of AI.

To every Texan, because that, you know, it's it's, you know, the state agencies serve all of us, right? And if they're using AI and they're benefiting from it, we're going to field its impacts as well. So really, really exciting pieces there. I think the core component, though, of, of the bill, that everybody's talking about is kind of the outcomes based framework, as it's been called.

That's in there, which essentially identifies very, very specific harms, that essentially is outlawed. And it says, you know, things like if you're capturing biometric identifiers, people's faces or whatever, it might be specific with the intention of tracking them and identifying them, you can't do that, especially without consent. And that makes sense. And so it lists out, several of those and outlines them as things that AI systems should not result in.

And it leaves a lot of flexibility. And I think this is the good piece. Of the bill where it says. No matter how you get about to avoiding these very, very specific harms, that's all well and good documents. Right. And, and it's just a good business practice document. You know, your data, your practices have your audits, have your assessments, make sure you're testing all those things, but it doesn't mandate that.

And so I think that's a very, very good balance because a lot of that work, even if it's not in legislation right now in states or at the federal level, that has been done by industry, like I said, through study, through helping set some of the standards over at the national level that are now making their way, throughout the industry.

And people are adopting it. They're adopting it based on whatever their needs are, so they can continue to do that. They can continue to advance the responsible development and deployment. While Texas is filling in the gaps and saying, here are the absolute non-negotiable goals, the things that we want you guys to avoid. And it was a very, very productive conversation because at that point we could then home in on, okay, well, we can agree that these are harmful, you know, outcomes and we should work to avoid that.

And thank you for giving us the flexibility to make to, you know, developing and deploying our products so that we can achieve the outcome that you want us to achieve,

Very cool. And how are you, you know, involved in educating some of the legislators on I feel like it's a very it's a very detailed and, ever changing subject to go into as somebody.

So how do you approach it with like a legislator who doesn't know anything about AI?

So we start from the very beginning and I will say, I've done this quite a few times. I've not just in Texas, but in several of my states. And it's a, it's a good thing, right? Like I always, always welcome when a legislator or a committee invites us to, you know, educate them about what is AI, right?

What should we think about? And because a lot of people don't realize, that it's literally everywhere. It's on it's in your phones, you know, it's it's your, your spam filter, in your emails. It's those things that you don't think about every day, but, you know, it's it's just happening for you when you're listening to music on, you know, on your drive over to wherever it is that you're going and you're getting recommended songs that I do.

Right. And so we kind of cover the breadth and the scope and how wide it is of AI first so that they can understand, okay, we're talking about a lot of different things. They're here. And then we work to pare that down because, you know, they always have questions in terms of well what about this particular use or what about this particular harm.

And once we kind of work our way towards there, then we can have a much, much more, you know, tailored, direct and productive conversation. Because if I don't have the answer, then I guarantee you one of my members do, and I can always come back to them with it. But now we have a very, very specific thing, that we're discussing rather than we want to get AI under control.

Right. And it's like, what is that? What does that mean? Well, that's a great job that you're doing. What got you interested in AI and tech in the first place? Great question.

So I've always been kind of interested in tech myself. I build my own computers and it's really not that hard, actually. I just think about it as Legos, you know, you're just kind of slotting things in and making sure the parts work with each other.

And that's. I just like putting it together, kind of like a puzzle. And so that's how I got interested in technology is just, you know, building my own computer systems and having it work for me and having like, you know, like a strong one versus one that's more tailored to, like, my job now. It's just something that I've personally found interesting.

And then, I, you know, by happenstance, this opportunity popped up and I had to be with TechNet, and it was, you know, I was kind of shown to me as you get to be on the forefront of several, you know, groundbreaking pieces of technology and the policy that surrounds them. This is back in 2023. So obviously, right around the time when generative AI, these frontier models started becoming a thing.

And so the opportunity was just there. And, you know, I, I make this joke a lot with my fiance, where, back in 2019 when I was still a legislative staffer, that was public education reform. That was work in the budget. So that was a big issue that I got to work on 2021 as Covid work in the budget, lots of federal dollars that were coming in to say we needed to make sure the state recovered another big issue, 2023.

I worked on, community college finance reform is a $800 million, another big piece of legislation. And then in 2025, you know, obviously was the year of AI, big pieces of AI legislation. So I'm just like, what is a legislative session like the where I'm not working on a big issue? And it's, you know, seems like it would be nice, but I'm a little bit lying to myself because I know I just I love working on these things.

They're such massive, massive puzzles and they're for the benefit of Texas and for Texans. Like, at the end of the day, these policies that you're working on are going to impact someone in a positive way somewhere within the state. And now that I work a regional job somewhere in other states as well. And I love that, this is just something that I'm personally passionate about.

And so it was a perfect intersection of this opportunity was given to me. I've always had that interest in tech. Tech obviously applies to so many different industries. And so you're helping so many different people in so many different sectors. There are so many different walks of life. This is same thing that you do with policy. And I knew that I was going to be the big issue in the Texas was getting ready to do a comprehensive study.

So I just said, let's, let's do it. And I threw my name in the ring and I got the job, and here we are. And now I'm, you know, absolutely nerding out because I get to hear from some of the world's leading AI developers into the players and also some of the smartest and brightest and most innovative, like, you know, entrepreneurs, people who have these really, really amazing ideas, that just, you know, stem from, like grassroots engagement and learning from them.

What does it take to take it from concept all the way to, you know, something is developed, something can be deployed. And then how can we, from the industry perspective, make sure that our biggest players and our smallest players, all of them, are taking care of it. So it's a really, really interesting job to be in right now.

Well, congrats. I know I can tell you're so passionate about it. And they picked the right guy. I didn't know that you had, a background in building computers. What types of computers? Gaming computers. For the most part, you know, I mean, I think folks really just got into, like, higher and higher end computers over the latter half of, the last decade.

And, you know, and I'm totally nerding out here a little bit. Yeah, I love it. You know, esports became like a really, really big thing during that decade, too. And a lot of my friends got into it and I was like, yeah, I'll build your computers for you. And that was kind of like a good way while I was in college for me to make money over on the side now.

Yeah. Well, tell me your path, because I always knew you were in policy. Was this kind of side hustle of yours and interest? I was it was like a little bit of an interest. I just, you know, I'm like every, like, teenage and young, you know, adults. I was like, who's a guy? Like, I was in a video games growing up and all of that.

But, you know, public policy and tech and all of that. Yeah. It was more of like a side thing for me.

Kind of what undergirded all of this for me from the very beginning is really my family, my family over in the Philippines. All of them are like some type of public servant. Most of them are in, like, the medical field.

But, you know, some of them were like teachers or working government or entrepreneurs, those kinds of things. Yeah. And so when I was growing up, it was like I saw them constantly, constantly helping people. And so that was just something like a value that I developed. And so when I moved over here, it started growing up a little bit.

I was like, okay, I want to find my niche too. I thought I'd be medical. Then I realized I have very shaky hands, so people probably don't want me doing their healthcare for them. With very shaky. Yeah, we have robots now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then also I did not like blood, so I was like, let's just, let's stay away from that.

Sure. And I got into public policy over in high school because I did speech and debate. And, you know, I've just always been curious, always a studious kid. And so there were so many different things that I could learn about in so many different fields. And I just, I loved it. And so that's how I kind of got into the public policy space, tailored it all around that.

And then when I landed my first internship over the Texas Capitol back in 2016 and work my first session back in 2017, I kind of just got the bug. And that was still when I was in college, building my computers, doing technology on the side and all of that. So really never would have guessed that those, you know, my side interests with my main interests was going to intersect in the way that it did.

How cool. Yeah, I felt like that too, with I was more of a just a sci fi nerd. I'm non-technical completely, but I'm always fascinated by it. Yeah, yeah. And Michio Kaku, if you ever read any of his buttons, I've not. He's like a futurist physicist and he can write things in really, like layman's terms of technical things.

And I just got really excited about the idea of AI. So his book, The Future of Humanity, if you want to borrow it, it's really good if you're interested in that kind of thing. Sounds great. He is amazing and he can just explain things so easily. And it's, you just got me thinking about tech really early on of, like, what would be possible in the next ten years, and I just thought that was the most fascinating.

So, yeah, it's fun to be in this role now. But yeah. Yeah. No, it's still when I was in college, I studied philosophy, you know, and so it was like a very, very, removed conversational. Everything was the discussion, right? Everything was ideas. And I thought that actually really helped me within this fields, because then you could think about, like, you know, we can always figure out the puzzle pieces.

There are all of those folks who are really good at implementation. They're the engineers. They know how to make things work. But you also need like ideas, people, right? And if you're not thinking about those ideas, I think, you know, you kind of lose out on, you know, the what ifs, right? Like, what is the next big thing that is going to have us take that like next leap forward?

So yeah, same here. I would not really say I'm really that technical that is not who I am building computers. Come on. That's pretty get like I said, they're like Legos. You know, that's pretty good. How are you using AI right now in your in your job and in your daily life? I feel like you kind of get to keep up with all these new innovative tools.

Yeah, yeah. So use your tool obviously. Yeah. It was fantastic. During the legislative session, it was the only way I could keep up with what was going on in Texas while I was out in my other states, because I'm like, yeah, I don't have time to spend two hours listening to this hearing, but I can control EFF this transcript.

Once again, that's great. So that was absolutely fantastic. Obviously we also use like general purpose generative AI tools. We have some folks who are definitely more technically knowledge that they're more knowledgeable about it than I am, but I've seen some really, really cool applications of this where they take, you know, various different bills, in different states, and they're able to come up with some kind of sheet, some kind of work product that shows you here are here's what each bill does.

Here are the different similarities here, the differences between all of them. And that was really, really helpful to me during the legislative session because, you know, like I said, in Texas, the volume of the legislation for I was just so, so broad. And sometimes they kind of did the same things and multiple, you know, pieces, of these bills were all moving at the same time.

And so I had to understand, okay, if this passes and this passes and they're doing the same thing and they're changing the same statute, but they're doing it a little bit differently, does it still work, or do we need to find some stage in the process where we need to marry them with one another so that we have something that's coherent?

So that was a really, really cool application of AI in this space. That I think is, you know, once I guess, like a little bit more developed and it gets more commonplace, I think is really going to change the game and we need it in the bill drafting process, because that's what I noticed last, the last couple sessions when I was in the legislature.

You're getting five different attorneys draft, five different the same bill. Right, right. And then they all affect things differently. So you can easily use AI to check and cross-reference that I you're easily absolutely. And then you know what? There's there's one great example of this out in one of my states, I was dealing with data privacy. And there were two comprehensive data privacy bills.

They were very different, and it was very obvious how they were different. And then this third bill popped up and it was specifically only on health care. Then I read it and I was like, this is so broad in its application that almost everything is classified as a health care product, which makes it a comprehensive data privacy bill.

And it took me three hours, you know, to get through that because I had to do it by hand. And now imagine if I could have just, you know, put that on in some kind of prompt. What state was that? We'll get that thing. So yeah. But but you know, that's like a great that would be a great, great application of this.

Because then you could have the drafters who were like overseas obviously underwater. And I don't fault them whatsoever about, you know, kind of the differences between these bills, because that's just what's happening when you have limited resources, but, you know, something to help them to and make our lives, over in the other in these buildings a little bit easier, for sure.

We're seeing, you know, AI being it's I would say, the most polarizing time for AI use because you've got, you know, I talked to lobbyists and government relations professionals all day, every day. 50% of them are using it for everything. Yeah. And 50% of them are dipping their toe in the water or have never used it. And some, even me in new states that I'm going to have are even maybe scared or fearful of it.

Right. And what I found that's so fascinating is just how people are doing their work. Like there's so many amazing use cases where I just think, like Otter AI for when you're in a meeting, and then they have the notes in the summaries for you. You don't have to write them down. You can be present. And, a lobbyist I know was telling me the other day, you know, he's sitting in a conference room and there are three different lobbyists in there.

And he had Otter AI going on the call and to record everything was sitting back in the meeting, another one taking notes frantically by paper handwritten, and another one typing them manually. Yeah, frantically. And it's just crazy. Now to see how different people are working. And I just encourage everyone to, like, find out ways they can automate and like, make their life more efficient because there's so many really cool tools.

Last week, for example, we had a hackathon with our team. Cool. So we had our whole team come in and we said, here's the prompt. You have to do two days, like literally 48 hours with the business team and the engineering team on three different group group teams and said, go build the most valuable tool for our customers.

It could be something on the roadmap or could be something completely new. And, they also the business team had a project to automate, something that we haven't done yet for the company and our business practices. That would be great with AI. And so the funniest thing that they came up with, I won't tell you which one won.

It's going to be released soon. Yeah. You take offline. I'm very excited about that. But the funniest one was we have a rotation right now for office. So at lunch, we feed everyone food, right? Every day everyone gets food. And we have a paper dissertation that says people's names of each day, and they have to unload the dishwasher that day.

That's it. That's what they have to do. But it gets really confusing, and it's actually the most of the thing we all get in fights about the most, which is so funny. I totally get that when I, when I was in the legislative office ordering lunch hardest thing. Yeah, it's always the hardest thing. It's those little things. So somebody came up with the best, most innovative idea.

It's a slack bot that literally messages you when it's your day, and you have to push a button when it's done, and then it tells everyone it's complete. So we're about to toss the paper dissertation. It's like, how efficient? Now we don't have to worry about that. No one's like, whose is it? Is it yours? Yeah. Yeah. So that's so great.

Hilarious. Yeah. But you're right. Right. Like, it's it's those little things that people don't think. Yeah. Take time. But they do take time. And it's annoying everyone. And it's like, what can we do to make this better? And there's probably, you know, we used to say there's an app for that, right. Like now there's AI for that. And so yeah, it's, it's just, it's, it's really exciting.

And, you know, and this was something that I talked about a lot too, during legislative session. And one of the things that we advise states to do is study the issue first, because it's so important that you get this right, because if you don't get it right, there could be so many unintended consequences down the line that prevent your state from being able to benefit from it.

And it could be really, really small things that just add up to so much, just to so many, you know, different consequences. And so I would like to democratize that. And that was something that I talked to a lot of legislative offices about is, you know, figure out one small thing, you know, something that's not scary, something that doesn't involve sensitive data, something that you can, you know, kind of have everyone, regardless of what their age or their technical know how might be in the office, just understand and be able to implement.

And if you can do like that, one thing and understand this is like what AI is there to do. It's not, you know, it's not the sci fi yet. I'm sure you know, as the technology develops, maybe we can start having those conversations. But, you know, it's like you can't do some certain math problems yet, right?

And just realizing that you can make it what you want it to be, I think is like the first step to getting people to not be so scared of it. And those have been, as I've seen, the really, really helpful conversations, especially in the policymaking scene, is just when someone comes in and says, look at this really, really cool application that is really relevant to you.

And that's what I use, I love that. Yeah, that is very helpful, showing them how it can impact them.

Very cool. Yeah. The last thing I was going to go into was

what are some ways that people can work with you and TechNet if are you looking out actively always for new, stakeholders and people like, say, there's a company that's listening that needs representation.

Would you want to look? Absolutely. Yeah. No, definitely. That is a conversation that we're always willing to have. Great. And if it works out, that is that is fantastic. Okay. But also, you know, the policy making side, I mean, you know, I, I enjoyed being a lead stakeholder on a lot of AI issues, but it was not always so great being the only stakeholder on some of them.

And it's not just, you know, AI issues, it's other technology issues as well. And so I think it's really important that our entrepreneurs, our small businesses or even our small, you know, like like small businesses who are not tech companies but want to leverage tech, understand, like here is kind of what the broader tech industry is thinking about and how can we partner up with one another to make sure that you can continue to use the products and the services that you need?

Without, you know, some kind of unintended consequence of ending that for you, I love that. So how can people get in touch with you or TechNet if they want to have some kind of representation or help in the future? Yeah, we've got a website, so it's TechNet, dawg. If you look over there on our Contact Us page, all of our emails are there and so feel free to just reach out to me like that.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And is there anything else you want to add before we, we finish up? No, no, I think this was a really, really amazing experience. And it's and it's, you know, I, I guess I will say it's really exciting, that we're having these types of very technology forward conversations, especially in the interim because the legislative sessions are way too hectic and way too busy and everyone is, you know, lacking sleep.

For us to be able to have conversations like this. So I'm really, really glad that we can talk about, you know, the impacts of these policies, how Texas is kind of leading the way, really, in these types of conversations. And whenever we see the like the benefits, because I am sure, that we're going to see a lot of benefits come from it here in the state of Texas.

And seeing how that evolves, throughout the rest of the country, you know, we can say, oh, I heard about that over on Bills and business. And now here we are a couple of years later and it's all over the place. You know, that's such an exciting thing, I think, to be a part of and definitely just encourage folks to jump on the train.

Now, I love that in the interim is the best time to place seed and start researching. So thanks for all your insight. I feel like I could talk to you forever, so thank you for coming on the show. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

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Welcome back to Bills and Business. I'm your host, Laura Carr, co-founder of USLege, where we make government more efficient with technology. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by someone who truly operates at Mach speed in the world of public affairs and crisis communications, Katherine McLane. She's the founder and CEO of the Mach One Group. Katherine has built one of the nation's premier firms, serving clients who live on the front page, from major brands to high stakes nonprofits and public figures with deep experience in politics herself. 

She's worked in public service advocacy, from the Bush administration to lift Strong and Governor Schwarzenegger's team. Katherine brings a strategic and principled approach to communications when the stakes are high. We're going to talk about how smart messaging influences policy, how organizations can be ready for when a crisis hits, and what every founder needs to understand about their public narrative.

Let's dive in.

Tell me more about you.

Tell me about how you got started in all this political madness. Well, picture this Austin 2000 presidential campaign, right? I did a tiny, tiny bit of work. 

Okay, 

on the presidential, and I was.

Which once like this. 

Oh, President George W cool. Okay. And I met Mark McKinnon, who was President Bush, and then subsequently, Senator McCain's during his presidential, media director, media advisor, his ad man.

And he was on the fence about, do I take a job in the administration? Do I stay in Austin at Public Strategies, which he helped found. And I was very, very fortunate to get to work for him at Public Strategies, which at that point was just an amazing place to be. And many of the colleagues I see walking the halls of the Texas Capitol still today are, you know, fellow alumni of PSI.

It was just the best finishing school you could possibly ask for. So when I was there, Bob Bullock and then a little bit later, Governor Ann Richards were senior advisors. So it was just it was the most amazing thing to be, a kid starting your career and seeing these giants of Texas politics, walking the halls at PSI.

So I was it was super exciting. Great, great time to be there. And I know that you mentioned your time with Schwarzenegger. Did you go to California as well? Did you do some DC time? I all of the above. Okay, I did, so it's 2003, Schwarzenegger announces on The Tonight Show he has no staff. He has a few consultants and advisers.

And there's a gentleman named Marty Wilson who ran the Sacramento office for Public Strategies. And my boss was kind enough to call him and what he told me. Here's how he told me. The conversation went well. I talked to Marty. He really needs you out in Sacramento and in, you know, campaign headquarters in Santa Monica. Can you be out there by Thursday?

Years later, Marty shared with me that it was, hey, can you give Katherine a job on the campaign? She really wants to help, but who cares? I got a job on the craziest campaign and, probably one of the top five craziest campaigns in U.S. history, I think so, yeah. How would you say Texas and California? You know, politics differ.

It is also personal advice here because we're going out to Sacramento. A couple weeks next month. Oh, so fabulous out there. So I'm excited. Are you really first time in Sacramento? So. Oh, we'll have to talk. Yes, definitely. How are California and Texas politics different? Like, how long do we have? I know that there are very different top three things, if you like, think of it as Alice through the looking glass.

It is the mirror opposite. Okay. Right. The dominance of the political party. Right. You know, it's it's the same, but on the other side of the aisle. Yeah. And year round legislature. So, I remember my time in the governor's office there. The the silly bills that we would see. And it was a game for us in the press office.

Like, what are the silly bills we can make fun of? And they were there were like, bills outlawing Ferris bills that, you know, addressed just like this, these ridiculous, you know, minute details of daily life. But with a year round legislature, you have to prove yourself to your constituents. You know, you have to move bills. You have to show that you're working for them.

And it does sometimes lead to some silliness. How many do you know how many bills they have filed out there? Because that is we have a lot and we had the most months this time. I remember looking at stats, it was like eight, eight plus, you know, 8000 north of 8000, right? Which is, you know, a good bit more than previous couple of sessions.

So I don't know that. Well, I would know from 20 years ago, but not from recently. I know those sessions, 8 to 12,000 rotating in Texas. Oh, I'm not sure. Year round legislatures seem to have almost the same as us. I don't know for what we're doing these days. It's crazy. We're doing a lot to do it.

A lot. So how was your session? It was so interesting. You know, one of the things that we're seeing come up in the special, was a bill that every everybody at the Capitol, you know, whether you're working on the communication side, like we are, governance of government affairs, it was just like a hobby to watch SB three and how it was progressing.

And like, what's that thing going to do? Oh my gosh, it looks like it's going to pass. And then it did. And it was like, oh my gosh, is he going to veto. Is he gonna is he going to veto it? And sure enough I was refreshing my phone at 11:00 at night to see if there was any news and there was no news.

And then, yeah, I was intrigued too. Yeah. Everybody is. And now we're, like, popping the popcorn and, you know, pulling up the recliners to watch this special session. So it should be amazing. Well, for the listeners who don't know, can you tell us more about the Mark one group. You know, company founded, what you do and everything about it?

I have a lot of questions for you.

The work you have. Well, I this is my baby. I have two children, but this is my other baby. Yes. And the Mark one group, came about after I served in the Bush administration as press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, when Margaret Spellings was secretary, who is the most amazing person I've ever had the good fortune of working with?

And then I came back to Austin towards the end of the Bush administration and served at what was then the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Okay, so this was when, Lance was a global icon and one of the most, if not the most effective cancer advocates on the planet. And so we did amazing work. And, this was during the time when the foundation really pushed the ballot initiative that created the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

That was the first thing I got to work on. Wow, designing a statewide campaign to promote that. And Texans voted for it overwhelmingly, like 60, 65%. I mean, just an amazing level of support throughout the state for that. And so I thought, you know, I'm going to get my feet wet in the Austin market again. It's been a long time.

I've been in California and Washington, and I want to settle back in and I'm going to hang out my own shingle, and I'm going to start my own public affairs and crisis consulting firm. But then matters took a different course at the what became the Live Strong Foundation. So this was, you know, ten plus years ago. But a lot of people remember there was a, you know, very, intense global media focus on Lance Armstrong that also began to encompass the foundation.

He created a sterling organization that does amazing work, really focusing on people affected by cancer. So lots of wonderful organizations raise funds for research this organization happens to focus on. You know, I'm diagnosed today. These are the challenges I face in understanding my diagnosis. This getting treatment, you know, figuring out what my insurance options are like.

They are amazingly helpful with that. And to see this wonderful organization getting pulled into this terrible crisis that they had nothing to do with, it broke my heart. You know, we were talking about, like, public health experts, oncologists, social workers who literally work one on one with cancer patients. Reporters were like, way laying them in the parking lot and asking about things that happened in France, in the cycling world, you know, ten years before that.

So I stayed and I ended up being, you know, along with our CEO and, some of our board members, the architect of, you know, how how do we navigate this organization successfully through this very, very intense, sustained, very critical media spotlight? And that's how I got my PhD in crisis communications. Amazing. And I know a lot of people who do this and have done that in DC.

And yeah, what is crisis communications in layman. Oh, it is you know, there are degrees, right? There's you know, sort of level one, level two, level three. But for the Livestrong Foundation in this case, if for two years, you know, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, USA today and various other outlets are hitting you on a weekly basis and coming up with story ideas like, that's a crisis that your organization may very well not survive if you're not incredibly agile and clever about the strategic decisions you make and then how you communicate them, and that can happen, obviously, you know, on a lot of different levels, you know, we all know

what keeps us up at night about our organization and where we're where we're vulnerable. You most CEOs can predict exactly like where these are the top five things that are terrible. And if they happen, you know, sure, it's going to hit the fire. Right. But what we've developed is and I don't think this is like, optional for organizations anymore, you have to plan ahead.

Crisis planning should be an annual exercise. It should go right along with your strategic planning. And it should encompass your sea level. It should encompass, you know, the folks who may be on the ground and who might be, accosted by reporters and find themselves in the line of fire in that way, too. I think it's really important to be prepared and to have a game plan and then also have a crisis protocol.

So you are specifically dealing with customers in the political world. Am I right? Your clients are mostly, who are they? Well, most of our clients turn to Mach one because they have a policy, regulatory or legislative goal. Either defense or offense like this can't pass, or we got to get this through and they realize that they need public opinion behind it in some form or fashion, whether it's in their district or statewide or strictly at the Capitol.

There has to be a communications ground game that helps push their goal across the finish line. And quite often we're pulled in by lobbyists and government affairs teams who recognize this. They're like, oh, you know, this can't just be a capital game. We have to broaden the net here, and we're going to need more, more muscle on this.

And that's where we come in. So are most of your clients kind of, very confidential. You keep this very locked up because this is some strategic stuff. We're talking here. Like every bill, this is, you know, lobbying adjacent. It seems like it's imperative for lobbyists and people in government relations. You want something to pass or not have some kind of strategy.

So, yeah, people kind of secretive about this sometimes. Sometimes. But then we do a lot of coalition work, which I love. That's fun orchestrating. And I'll give you a great example. So the session was the 88th. We worked on HB 1605, which was the high quality instructional materials bill. Yes, right. I don't know if you remember that, but it was a groundbreaking.

Oh yeah, I was so we had a natural advantage that session because all eyes were on the voucher bill. Right. So much attention around that. And we know what happened to it and what led to, you know, all led up to this session and passage. But we knew, okay, children in Texas, barely half are reading and doing math at grade level.

That's insane. Right. And it has so much to do with the instructional materials that are being used in the classroom. This has to change. And so it's always such a blessing when you're pulled in on a cause that you believe in 100%. And this was one of those, but what Mark one really excels in is we understand how the capital works.

We understand the nuances for that, and we're not going to run the same campaign play every time. You have to look at what are the natural advantages, what are the natural obstacles here? And in this case, it was that big blimp of a voucher bill is drawing all the fire, and we can sell our little bill underneath it until we can't.

Right. And then we have to be ready for that. So we built a stealth campaign that laid the groundwork for everything. I just said kids aren't reading, doing math at grade level. That's crazy. We have to put the tools in the hands of the teachers in the classroom and give districts you know, what they need in terms of incentives to encourage them to pick the right curriculum.

And so we yeah, we ran this stealth campaign and, the bill passed. And that kind of work is amazing to us because you really you are changing, ground level stuff in this state for the better. And that's the best feeling. That is fun. And I got the pleasure of meeting almost all of your team, I think, at our tiny dive party.

Right, right, right. And are you all female? Run. Is it pretty much there is. There is a gentleman on our roster who happens to be my husband, who's our chief financial officer. He runs, back of the house. You need that. You do. You do need to have one of those. Exactly. But client facing were all ladies.

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Very. Yeah. Well, I love that. Me too. So how long have you been running them off? One. We set up shop in 2013. Okay. And this was right after, you know, we sort of finished up the worst of live strong headwinds okay. And had them in a very good spot. And indeed today they still continue and serving patients and advocating for people affected by cancer.

So we started up, with just a couple of people in the basement of the Westgate Tower, and we focused on crisis and public affairs, plugging in with legislative campaigns. And we've been doing that ever since. And I still love it as much today as I did back in 2013. Well, everything's always changing. Yeah. Nothing that's ever boring in your world.

Are you more busy typically in the interim or during session specials? When slow time for you, is there any well, changing? Indeed. It used to be, a decade ago and more. After session, things would slow down and you could, you know, go to the beach and do nothing for a few weeks. And then that began to change in recent years, with special after special or just the amount of priorities that the legislature deals with means that smart clients recognize, like, I've got to use every advantage I have, and that means getting going after sunny Day in advance of the next session.

Right? So literally since signing day, that is exactly what we've been doing, which, you know, you're like, oh yeah, I can breathe as soon as, you know, you guys behind us. But then you, you know, you have like a couple of days and then you're right back at it and it, it seems also that with the, you know, shorter notice on these special sessions.

And now we have this upcoming special session. Right. Just very notable. So how are y'all preparing for that with your clients. It's interesting the agenda for the special is still iterative right. So there's a lot of well what about our thing. Could we could could it could it or like no let's not let this is better handled in a regular.

And we need the runway to frame the issue. So there are a lot of strategic conversations that happen in times like this. It could be a second chance when it's a broad special, it can become like a normal session. Right. And it's looking like a more inclusive agenda. Right. There's you know, it's not just 1 or 2 things.

There's a bit of a laundry list. So I think a lot of organizations are like, oh, maybe we yeah, try to get our foot in the door there. But I think in a lot of cases, you might be best served waiting and having the time to frame your issue, tell your story, build stakeholders, train your spokespeople.

People find the right ambassadors for your mission who can tell your story with power and with meaning.

I love that, and I think that's smart. You've seen it. You've seen it all. What do you think? And how do you think companies kind of should be thinking about their messaging like, oh, through the interim and what should they be, you know, preparing for?

If you could give any advice to these companies in the political sphere? Yeah. I see it in my mind. I picture a crowded room with everyone talking at once. That's the marketplace for us, right? Okay. So many priorities, especially, you know, once you get to a session, everyone is, you know, in your face talking about their priorities and why it's the most important thing.

And, you know, this needs to get done right. So having the time to thoughtfully layer messaging and share mission awareness and introduce yourself, you know, a lot of organizations wait until they need something. Yeah. Before they make an effort to introduce themselves to whether it's their stakeholders or folks at the Capitol. And, you know, that's that's a tragedy you have to have.

You can't wait till you're in the ditch to, you know, make the plan totally too late. Yeah, absolutely. That's how I felt in the lobbying world. You had to do all the prep. There's just so much to do before. Yeah. Getting back into session. Right. Even relationships. And, how do you, you know, work on campaigns or are you involved in the campaign world at all?

We do not do political. Okay. You know, occasionally we give advice to friends, I'll say that. And I love doing that because I did serve and, you know, a number of campaigns when I was much younger. And, you know, that's the kind of bug that doesn't leave your system. So we help candidates with stuff like, you know, let's let's work on, your presence.

Let's work on your stomp. Let's work on the way you communicate, how you communicate. And then sometimes we do that with spouses as well. If they're going to be actively involved with the campaign. And, you know, a lot of it is just confidence building and building the muscle. Right. You know, having that kind of practice is just invaluable in terms of feeling secure and confident when you're going into whatever it is, whether it's an interview or a speaking engagement or a speech.

And I just saw that you launched in Houston. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. So where are you based now? We have Austin in Houston is our home base, and I'm spending a lot more time in Houston with our clients. There, which is such a delight. I love Houston. If I didn't live in Austin, I might have to be a Houston girl.

It's just such an amazing, presence not only in our state, but such a hub of our national economy. It's just there's so much potential there. And then, you know, it's interesting to look at the patterns of how people, retain help their when they have a capital issue. They don't usually hire Houston folks they know, like, oh, no, we need an Austin government affairs team.

We need, you know, an awesome team that's experienced in capital communications who can, help us navigate that.

So how are you helping these clients, like, prepare in just in the interim, through the specials, through the campaigns. What are you guys working on? Mostly we're working a lot on, especially with newer organizations or organizations that are locating here from out of state.

A lot. Yeah. Yes. And that's so fun. And, you know, it's fun. I mean, we're we're seeing lots of growth from California still. Yeah. Right.

So there are usually like three things that we focus on at first and it's, you know, know your regional audience. You know, San Antonio has a far different style from Dallas.

You would never construct the same tone that you would, you know, in both of those regions. Right? So we focus with them on what matters in your market, what is really important to the people here, and how do you best communicate with them. And then we also work with if they if there are, you know, if there is a policy goal at the end of the rainbow we work on.

Okay. So we've got our regional okay. What's our capital. What does our capital outreach look like. How do we build awareness and presence there. Most often we're working with a fantastic lobby team or government affairs shop who can help orchestrate that and, you know, do a great job of making introductions, building relationships so that there is awareness. And, of the presence there.

And then this is my favorite one.

We always build in whether it's capital, regional or statewide communications plans, if you're especially if you're a California company, it's we weren't born here, but we got here as soon as we could. Yes. And we're so happy to be here. And we're grateful to be here. And Texas is the best. It's the, you know, best in which to do business.

And we're creating jobs. And here's how we're contributing to the community. And we're here to stay. Yep. Right. We're not just here to squeeze revenue out of, a state that happens to have possibly given us some incentives to be here. We want to give back, and we're doing it. And here's how I've noticed that messaging just with all my friends from California who live here, including my husband.

You know, that's true. They they do want to really be here. And they did get here as fast as they could. So it's good that you're giving out advice to the people in more welcoming that way. Timely, right? Absolutely. Are you seeing, so do you work with nonprofits as well? And okay, how does the strategy differ with, you know, nonprofits and charities compared to, say, the more political side?

Right. No, that's a brilliant question, because you do have to take a really different approach. You know, I mentioned the Live Strong Foundation. They were my first client in 2013. They're still a client today. Wow. And for them, you know, we look at what are advocacy goals that matter to their constituents, people affected by cancer in Texas and throughout the world, throughout the US.

And we prioritize, you know, so many nonprofits have just so much time, energy and funds they can devote to an advocacy effort in addition to their full time mission. Right? Sure. But, you know, for years, every nonprofit we work with, we tell, you know, it doesn't matter how much you can devote to your cause, if you change public policy, you're going to, you know, quadrillion your impact.

And so advocacy, we you know, we always for every nonprofit client, we always ask them to consider what are the policy changes that would really advantage your mission and help the people, or in some cases, animals that you're helping to save and serve? And I really enjoy that work. It's great. I mean, you're working with people who are in it because they care.

Their heart is devoted to it, and it's wonderful to work with people like that.

How do you keep kind of the messaging really authentic? Right. You've got a lot of different stories to tell. And I'm seeing now, you know, we can talk a little bit about how AI is impacting this, but you can see now when something is just ChatGPT totally or, you know, you're like, okay, yeah, try, try to make this more authentic.

How do you, you know, tell everybody's so unique. Each case. Yeah. It's so hard. I mean, it doesn't seem like it would be a really hard thing, but especially with, you know, we're talking about nonprofits and, you know, that kind of advocacy effort, you are often handed the gift of people who have amazing stories. And you get to work with them to help prep them and coach them to, you know, testify before a legislative committee or, you know, write an op ed or, you know, do an interview or, you know, help their story shine.

But you can't mess with them too much, right? You can't like, over style them. You have to let them speak from the heart. You can coach them with like, okay, you've got two minutes. How do we want what are the absolute essential things? Let's let's narrow out everything else. Right. But you don't want to make someone self-conscious. You want them to shine and be their authentic self.

And there's a really delicate balance that I think you really develop with experience. And so we our team is really, really good at helping people gain confidence without messing with them too much. I have friends who've said you've helped tremendously with their, testifying. So yeah, yeah, that's such a stressful thing. And, you know, so on the spot, I haven't done it yet.

And I might at some point. Right. On behalf of our company, but haven't needed to. And yeah, I can imagine I see people go up there and some people are terrified. Some people have been doing it forever. Oh, yeah. Like Glenn Hammer. He's he's there ten times a day. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's old hat to a lot of folks.

But yeah, for a lot of people who are representing a cause that really doesn't come up. Yeah. Every session it's a very, you know, kind of daunting experience. And then not only do you have to testify, sometimes you have to answer questions. And, you know, the scary part I know. Well, with a good lobby team, you probably know what questions you're going to have to answer.

Yeah. But quite often, you know, there are a few curveballs and you have to wing it. That's always a fun part to watch. Oh yeah.

Texas, you mentioned, you know, you bunch of companies moving in from California. We have a lot of listeners who are also, you know, founders and and the business side moving here. What advice would you give?

You know, not not selfishly, but you know, a startup founder. What what kind of advice would you give and their communications style and strategy. And, you know, coming into Texas, you said it's so different than, you know, just even regionally. But what would you kind of tell them? Basics. Well, I think a couple of things, you know, if they have any kind of intersection with, you know, the regulatory or policy legislative world, embrace the unknown.

You know, we work with a lot of founders who are, you know, they are experts in their industry, in their field, but that they have not had to work on the government affairs realm at all. And so we're like, embrace the unknown, get the experts. And most of them, there's there's no hard sell there. They're like, oh yeah, great.

Of course. Yeah, let's, let's get the best, you know, let's get a lobby team that has excelled in this industry or in this area. And let's tell our story with, you know, company like, like Mach one. But I think there's also, an important element of, as we were saying earlier, like the sincerity of why am I here and what do I contribute?

And what audiences do I care about? You know, at the very basic level, it's what are my goals, what audience do I need to achieve them? And let's build our messaging, you know, framework aimed at that audience and the secondary and tertiary audience around that, you know, with increasing or decreasing levels of prioritization and, and effort. But again, like, you can't wait to introduce yourself like make sure that you're telling your story from day one and having the conversations with the right people who can be in your corner if they know who you are.

What do you say is kind of changing the most? I know everything in communications is rapidly changing. So what's what are you saying in 2025 as the most kind of crazy thing?

Okay, I'm going to say this and then it's everything. Yeah. Right. In the Republic playbook and messaging and song sheet that throughout my career, my long career, it's it's kind of gone.

Right. You are seeing, elected officials and Republican Party stalwarts embracing issues that were traditionally embraced by the other side and the way, you know, the sort of muscle memory of how this is how we talk about that issue. You have to relearn that now. And there's a greater need for agility now than I've seen maybe in my entire career.

This I, I was thinking about this like I was trying to think of, like, how do you illustrate this moment in the political, you know, evolution. And it's sort of like in the late 80s, early 90s in Texas, when conservative Democrats migrated to the Republican Party. Now, you were probably not watching this because you were far too young.

I was not too young to watch. I think I was in the UK that is a piece of it, too. I mean, you probably weren't aware of 1989 when our governor, you know, to be governor, Rick Perry, switched sides from DDR. I feel like this moment is somewhat like that. People aren't switching parties, but they're switching issues that they care about.

And so if you've been on autopilot the last couple of sessions, you know it's time to put your hands back on the wheel pronto, right? You have to reinvent. And certainly, you know, for my team, we kind of have a day one approach with every client, but that has never been more valuable than, you know, this session and the 88, and I'm sure that that trend is going to continue.

How about technology? How are I know I've talked to so many people in marketing. Marketing become more like a data analytics. Yeah. Job. At this point, there's so many different factions of marketing. There's so many different types of, PR how is AI changing any of the work that you do or that you've seen? Yeah, it's so fun to watch this.

Yeah. You know, not just in PR but in media too, because, you know, we work so closely with press in the PR industry and, those poor guys, you know, we all know that media industry has been shrinking for the last two decades. It looks so different now than than it used to. And they have to rely. They have to, you know, be scrappy and rely on AI, more than most I think.

And sometimes it doesn't go so well, like my team was showing me this really hilarious piece about how the Chicago Sun-Times, they put together a summer reading list and put it out. The books don't exist. No way. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the kind of stuff that's happening, and it's hilarious, but it's sad but funny but sad, right?

So you absolutely can't have anything like that. And of course, our industry is very different. Yeah, right. We, the way I look at it for my firm is it is a convenience and for, you know, analysis and data gathering and analytics, it's fantastic. And, you know, if you can enhance your efficiency with a first draft of something great, but it will never, ever or ever, ever take the place of the experience and the perspective of somebody who has served in the Texas Capitol and understands the nuances of, you know, the inter-party relationships, the context of previous legislative attempts at something.

So it's it's great and it's convenient, but it's a support tool. It's not, you know, the big ball game.

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have you seen any issues? You deal with crisis communications? I'm sure you have. But with, deepfakes or any type of edited images or, I know that obviously Texas has really cracked down on that within political campaigns, which is great, but have you seen any issues arise kind of on the more on the lobbying side or, in grassroots even?

Yeah. No, we've seen, a lot of organizations and causes being affected by misinformation. Yes. Which is so much more rampant now. And it is so easy to lose the thread of, you know, a false fact that's planted either purposefully or, you know, with benign intent. But, you know, reporter got it wrong. Now it's in the public realm.

It gets picked up by five other outlets. And now the opposition or, you know, a lazy reporter has defined your issue for you. And it's wrong. And that is the worst feeling, for an organization to face. You feel powerless, right? Like, how am I how am I going to call, you know, ten different media outlets and go, like, that's not the case.

It's actually this, it's hard, but, you know that we love riding to the rescue in situations like that, right? That's when it's it's really helpful to have an organization like ours or one of the, you know, many wonderful organizations in Austin that do similar work who can make phone calls and go, Bob, are you taken the easy way out on that piece of data there?

Can I please show you three conflicting studies? And would you would you give it some attention? Right. So misinformation is something that I believe will continue to be a big problem for organizations as they promote their causes and tell their stories. That must be very difficult if people are just reading the headline. Yeah, you know, and they're not going to go back and look at the correction.

Yeah. All right. Very tricky. Yeah. So then you're like you're just mitigating right. You can't look the client in the eye and go, we're going to fix this. The best you can do is say we need to stop the proliferation where we can get the record corrected. We will so that, you know, moving forward, you know, any other reporters who look at what's been written about this, don't see that and don't draw from it.

But, yeah, it's tough. It's tough. And that's why proactivity is so important. Because if you're the first one shaping the narrative, you know it's right. That's good, that's good. I thought that was good. You did.

Have you seen people kind of going away from legacy media and more to independent media these days? Any clients specifically or what are you seeing with that change?

So much, you know, I mean, especially TV, right? When, you know, when I started my career, years ago, too many to mention there was TV. We did have TV then, but, you know, it's like a live, live shot crew was like 4 or 5 people, and I don't know if that's the case anymore.

You're probably lucky to have 1 or 2. Maybe two tops. And it's just so much harder to break through the competition for their attention. Right. And, you know, the reporters I talked to are like, I don't I can't even look at my inbox. I don't have any hope of ever clearing the decks because there are hundreds of emails competing for my attention every single day, and many of them are great.

Some of them are lousy and ill constructed, and they immediately go into the wastebasket. Right. But, you know, I think you have to fight harder for attention from traditional media, and that's what's spurring, greater utility for the newer tools social, digital, etc.. And that's not going to change anytime soon. I think that migration will continue to happen, and that balance is going to continue to shift.

What types of, you know, leaders or messages do you think will kind of cut through the noise? Mostly this next cycle. Oh my gosh, that is such a fascinating question because we all and I have feelings and thoughts. I have thoughts and feelings. We see the opinion polls that show us, you know, Americans are tired of the divisive stuff, right?

Tired of rhetoric. We want things to go a few notches down, but, you know, it works. It's effective in many cases. And so our, our politicians going to back off from that, not until it proves a detriment, in my opinion. Why would you if it works, you know, you're probably going to keep doing it. However, I think you'll also see, greater emphasis on the grassroots point of view.

Yeah. How voters are faring in the grocery store at the gas pump. You know, just this week we're, sort of splashing through conflict with Iran. Right. And, and, you know, our ally Israel involved with that. And so headlines all week have been, you know, what's going to happen to the price of gas. How are Americans going to fare at the gas pump moving forward?

So what we learned, I think, from the last presidential, was President Trump's sort of greater identity with folks who are struggling economically, was a big game game changer and helped push him across the finish line. And what was, you know, in many states, pretty tight race. So maybe we'll see more of that. Maybe we'll see more of an empathetic point of view, a more grassroots point of view, coming to the forefront and it'll be, it'll be a very interesting thing to watch.

But it's kind of hard to call at this point. It's kind of is it a no publicity, bad publicity situation a little bit. I mean, that is becoming more and more true, right? It really is in a in a marketplace where attention is so hard won if you get the spotlight, even if it starts off in a negative way, can you turn it to your advantage?

Maybe. Right. You have the audience. Yeah. That's wild. It's a wild time we're living. I know it is crazy, I got to say. Yeah,

well, tell me how you got involved with legislation this session, because I know there were a couple bills, that your teams mentioned. You worked on the Texas Doge bill. The life of the Mother Act.

That's right. Do you mind sharing more about both of those bills? That would be. I would love to hear your taken. So the Texas Doge bill was really, an effort and a much needed effort to reform the regulations that organizations have to abide by, which in many cases are outdated and antiquated. And so this was an effort to clean up, and it passed.

And we were so proud to have been able to contribute to that. And, you know, point out the, you know, pull look through all of the regulations and sort of processes that organizations have to abide by and then find the most ridiculous examples and, and highlight them. Right. Like facts. Your certification to this number. No. You know like facts.

Can you imagine somewhere in Texas there is a state agency with a fax machine waiting for people to like. It's insane. But we love that kind of stuff. Like we are willing we'll geek out on, you know, hours and hours of reviewing, statute and processes and regulations to find those things and, use them as sort of the banner for why this doesn't make sense and why it has to change.

So ridiculous things that are so ridiculous. Now, ten years ago, when I was in DC, we had fax machines, but I don't even think we were using that. Yeah. Like, you know, maybe when that, you know, ten years ago on the Hill could have been any day in time in the last hundred years. You would never know. Well that's true.

Maybe, maybe the phones just getting updated. Yeah. And hemlines changing. Yeah. I think you got no pantyhose now. Exactly. That's great. Yes. I'm all for that. I'm all for that. Oh, but you asked about life. For the life of the mother. Oh my gosh. Yes. This was something that I personally, was really honored to be a part of.

And, it was a very thoughtful campaign, and it was it is so grateful to Senator Hughes, who spearheaded this. And I don't know that anyone else could have done it with, sort of the inclusivity and the approach taken that led to, so much support for the bill and the bill itself, makes clear it clarifies the statute around when physicians are allowed to perform life saving, or health preserving, abortion procedures on patients.

And, you know, this is something that doctors had been complaining about like that the law wasn't clear. Their penalties were so stiff, you know, didn't they deserve more clarity? And, and, in the end, the legislature agreed. And, it's going to save lives and we're very, very proud of that. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Really big Bill. Yeah, we were thrilled on those those two.

How about this upcoming special? Do you have any big bills that you are personally involved in that you're gearing up for? A couple, but what I'm so excited to watch as we all are is SB three. And like what what comes next? And, you know, I think we, you know, throughout the session,

I know my team and I like oh, it was like the water cooler talk of like what's going to happen with SB three.

And then as it made its way through the legislature, we're like, oh my gosh, it's almost through. And then, you know, as we said, the big question was, was the governor going to be to it? So now, it's going to be interesting to watch the forces coming to bear, around shaping the regulatory structure. You know, this is an industry that a lot of Texans have become very fond of in the last few years.

But there are abuses. So how does this get cleaned up? And, how how intense are the fireworks going to be around it? We'll see how much everyone can agree. I know there's some very different perspectives on this and it's new, but it's you know, this is an entrenched industry now. So the business community I know is it's $1 billion industry here.

Exactly. So, we'll see. Yeah, we will watch the space. I will be watching with you, and I'll come and bring the popcorn out about it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Any final thoughts for our listeners like founders, lobbyists kind of staying sharp before we start on these potentially special specials, special sessions coming up and campaign season.

Yeah. I mean, you know, for some, there's another bite at the apple happening in a month. Yeah. And if you're in that zone, you don't have a minute to waste in terms of shaping your agenda and communicating it. So get to work, take your vitamins, wear your deodorant, and, you know, get yourself in front of the people who need to have, the conversations with you about the priorities for others, it's you.

You've got time to lay that groundwork in advance of the next session, and you have time to see, and recruit and hear stories. You know, so much of what we do is real people, real stories, right? And we're talking about authenticity. And there are so many people whose stories illustrate exactly why a piece of legislation is so critical to many, many Texans.

And those voices are often very hard to find. Right? It's a it's a big commitment for someone to serve as, you know, an ambassador for a cause like that. You know, all of us have jobs and lives, families and things that we're doing, and taking time away from them to push a cause is it's additive. Right.

But that's why the interim is so important. I think for a lot of organizations, they have the time to find and cultivate and prepare people to serve, as, you know, the carriers of their mission. And it's a lot of work being in that public facing role. And you're kind of in the it's in a really important position. But then you can also have a lot of you can get some flak in the public eye for sure.

No kidding. Yeah. There's there's always a price to pay. There's always a downside. Right. Or at least the risk thereof. Yep. For sure.

I was going to ask you, like, how does the USLedge utilize?

I mean,

with what you do. It has to be such an intense labor hour and it has to be so urgent. How do you use it? A lot of different ways. So we have you know, you've met most of our team. We've got 20 people on staff but ten developers. And so they're spread out all over and we have ten people here.

So for my position, I'm mostly on the kind of figure face for the company. So it's really that. But also then we have marketing got product, then we've got customer success, and sales and then the engineering side so that everybody uses it in a different way. And it's really for efficiency, I would say. So everyone's using it in some capacity.

If it can be used with AI to make you so much more efficient, 1,000,000% use it. So our engineering team has been using cursor AI. And so there's a lot of very technical pieces to this that they use. And I'm non-technical. So you know I'm telling you you're in good company. But the cool thing that is is coming is, you know, I have a lot of product ideas and okay, here's what I know.

The problem is because I faced it. Yeah. Here's what I hear from customers now, and here's what we need to build to do that. So I was a lot more involved in that. Now we have product manager who handles that mostly, but I'm very deep. So in product I can now type in a prompt to the software that can create an entire UI for a product for me.

So that's amazing. So instead of an engineer spending who's a, you know, front end UI engineer, we can have a back end developer now create beautiful, UI, UX, UI design, instantly. And now I can actually spec out product so much more efficiently so I could type in. Okay, I really need to make a build drafting feature that includes all the laws and regulations in Texas, all the sections of code, all the, legislation from the last 50 years, hundred years.

And I need to make it follow the council rules with, you know, this thousand page documents. Yeah. It will create me a UI template that I can send to an engineer and say, here's what I actually really want, and I can modify that. That's in say, this wasn't available six months ago. So now I can go in and actually spec things out for them where I could never before, like I can't go and draw like, oh, I was at the beginning of this, I would be like, okay, we need a box here in a box like this.

Oh my gosh. Yes. So that's amazing. They're able to code ten times faster so software can be developed so much faster. Now. Leaner teams are better because now we have you know, our CTO can manage ten people so much more efficiently than 20. And now they can get more work done. And so it's actually more efficient to keep it lean.

Yeah. Which is cool. For marketing I would say the data analytics like you were mentioning, it's amazing what all these different tools can do. Outreach sales sequences. So we're using Palo I tool, which does kind of so we're just starting new audiences. So California, Alabama, they've never heard of our company. Right. So we are doing, you know, founder led, messaging, one, I went to the University of Alabama.

So. Right. We're sending out, sequences from me.

And it's going up. Yeah. Thousands of our prospects. Right. That can be done so much faster. And then they respond directly to me. Yeah. So I have sent maybe a thousand emails to potential prospect, versus having to do any of that manually.

And then it does a follow up for me three days later. Hey, are you interested? Totally cool. If you're not, but, you know, would you want to chat? Yeah. Looking at to speak. So that's insane. That's fantastic. That's amazing. That's fantastic. You trying to find out all the new tools all the time. But yeah, these are just a few.

I mean, speaking of Alabama, yes. You worked on the other side of the blanket in the press, didn't you? As a reporter? Yeah. In school. Oh. Public school. What's entry stories like? I was literally I was a student reporter. Yeah. It was so fun when I was more on the political side, like, interested in student government and, like, I was in the college Republicans, very in into it.

And, so I then did some internships in, in Montgomery, like fun and in, DC. And so I would want to make my stories more about that. Like there was, I think some, you know, scandal. I mean, like, okay, can I write a story about this? But they're like, no, there's a cat in the tree that was covered in Tuscaloosa News.

Okay. So it was very fun. And I did get to then also deal with her, which I found was a lot harder than I was. It was so different where as an intern, it was so much more difficult because you have a picture of a sun, right? 80 degrees and sunny 90% of the year. Yeah. What do you say if how do you how do you how do you add to that.

Yeah man that's why everybody so much harder. That was so difficult. Oh man. They'd be like okay here's a sun. And you think you go up there and you're ready. And then you're like, what do I even say? Oh yeah. So no, that's what I did. Then.

And then I definitely thought at one time I would be a journalist.

Yeah. I preferred the political side. So I got some communications stuff when I was at the RNC. Right. And then it went more into policy.

Okay, wait, so you grew up in England? Yeah, I did, yeah. And then tell me about the culture shock of Alabama after England, because I have a similar experience.

But I want you you're older. Right. When you when you moved here 17 to. Oh my gosh 17. Is that like a good question. There were a few culture shocks actually. Yeah. So my first stint was not at Alabama. It was in Alabama at the Marine Military Institute. Oh, wow. I voluntarily I wanted to be in the Coast Guard.

Okay. As an officer. Yeah, it was my grandpa's dying wish. Oh, and I thought, you know what? If I'm an officer, it's just gonna help me with everything about it. Sure. And it'll probably help me in politics if you want to do that long term anyway. So this will be really cool experience, Hey, was it hate it?

Oh. It was. Oh, absolutely. Oh, good and bad. I made a best friend there for life. Oh. My roommate. Okay. She is. That makes it worse. Most people in the world. And she knew me when I was my little girl. You know, I have braces twice. So I started that school with braces. We were like little babies. Yeah, there was a lot of corruption.

No. Oh, and it was not female friendly. Yeah. So us girls were really stuck together. Right. And but it got me kind of more like an activist to that point. I was angry. Yeah. I was seeing injustice. They took away the women's electronics just because they could. There were a lot of hazing things that happened. It was not grace.

Creepy. Let's tell you over drink more story. Yeah I have like a scar. This one. Yeah. From being zip tied and like left in a dark room. Really not cool stuff. Wow. You just put me off. Yeah. Doing that. Understandably. My gosh. So. And there were just things that were very, I think, inhumane about what they did. But yeah, that was more of a culture shock than anything.

Yeah. And it was also a lot of, so it was a prep school for the academy. Yeah. So people that came in were from all over the US, but then half of it was also a junior college, people who wanted to go not be an officer, but just kind of go into the Army or go. Right.

So there were a lot of people from Alabama and that was a big culture shock. It was just new. And they'd be like, Where's England? Yeah. And I'm sure I was curious. Like they asked my dad at the gas station, are you German? And he's got a British accent. Right. So it was just like the culture shock was just funny, like, where are you from?

Like you're not from around here type of thing. But then going to the University of Alabama was a lot more, there were a lot of people from all over the country and the world that went on, and people were very welcoming. It was great. It was like night and day experience. Loved it, had an amazing time, wanted to stay in America.

But I would say the biggest culture shock was probably I said different phrases. Yes. And I didn't have also the context of being a child in the U.S. Yeah. And growing up in, you know, knowing the book, the show shows and yeah, I had no context. So I think sometimes also I didn't have a thick accent at all.

So they just did not a place. Me yeah. I really thought it was a bit strange, but I kind of just owned that for a while. How about you, when did you move? From Germany. We moved, from Germany to East Texas. Okay. Palestine. Oh, wow. In 1983. Okay. And like you, I was a fish out of water.

I had no, I had never seen Gilligan's Island or the Brady Bunch or any of the things that, you know, the Gen-X kids that, I went to school with, had grown up watching. And they like your experience. Like they couldn't figure out what, are you from out of town? Where? From where? And I would say Germany.

And they'd be like, is that in Texas? That's. No, not Germany, Texas. And it's a legit question. Yes. We've got Paris and Munster and you know all that. You know Italy, right? You burg. Yeah. We got, we got it all so legit. Yeah we do. At the time I didn't know that, but I was like, no, Germany is not in Texas.

Where am I? That's what it is. I'm so grateful because, you know, I made friends there who, you know, saw how lost I was and took me under their wing. That's awesome. And they're still my besties today. I love them, yeah. And how old were you when you moved? I was 12. That's really cool. That's a really cool age, actually, I think.

Yeah, it. Yeah, absolutely. If you're going to make that kind of shift, you know, 12 is probably a good you know, you're starting middle school or junior high or whatever. And you can adapt and but you come in with your own experiences and that's a really cool time. I think yeah 17 was tricky. I was so okay you finish high school at like 16 and then you do A-levels right.

I don't know if it's what they do in Germany. So my parents were like well you can't go to the US for university at 16. Yeah. And so you have to do A-levels. So I did a year. Hated it. Yeah. Didn't want to do it. And I said guys this doesn't even count now towards the US credit system and I need to get a GPA because they don't want me in my system.

So they did agree. But it was a sad process because my family are still there. So it's so at 17 you pack your bags and you move 17.5 across the water to Alabama, Dallas actually to okay, but without mom and dad. Oh thank God. So I did have some family there, which was great. So my grandparents German grandpa.

Yeah. And English, grandma. Wow. And they got my driver's license. I started getting college credits, so I had a GPA, and then, but it was a big culture shock for sure. Right? But I love it. I love the U.S., and it's been amazing. So much opportunity. And it's I, I love going home to visit, but I want them to come out here.

So yeah, I, I never knew they had that in common. I love that, I love that there's not a lot of folks who have, you know, sort of the perspective of here's what they think. And, right. You're seeing the news from that time was probably really interesting from the European perspective. Oh my gosh, so different. Yeah, I still look at German newspapers if I want to, you know like okay.

But what are they saying. Right. And I'm sure you do the same thing. Oh I want to know what is respective is in the UK. Totally. And when I go back it's it's fascinating to hear. And sometimes they have it similar. But a lot of times it's very very different. Yeah. Oh yeah

I was curious what. So what were your family military out of interest or what brought them to Germany. My dad was a Fulbright scholar. How cool. And he, was working on his PhD at the University of Kansas and then had an opportunity to teach English at a German school in, Münster, which is in Westphalia.

And, this is the early 70s. My parents just loved it and decided, you know, let's, you know, he was offered a job at that school to stay beyond his program. And they were like, let's stay another year. Wow. 12 years later, my brother, who today is a three star Navy admiral, had always wanted to attend one of the service academies.

And you know, the Naval Academy in particular. And, well, hard to do that if you're coming from overseas and your congressman has to make a decision with, between one of his own constituents, children and some kid, you know, who grew up in Germany, that's why I moved here at 17. Oh, of course, I needed up for the academy saying, oh my gosh.

Yeah. So GPA, they were like, yeah, well, who are you? And I'm like, I'm an American, right? Really? I don't even know how to read your transcript. Yeah, right. Yeah. How cool I know. Crazy. It's a small world. I know you got a really cool background. You. So what are you. I'm amazed. It's had no idea. No idea.

Well, see, that's the thing that you never know. This is why your podcast is so wonderful. You are so. You know, I really appreciate you coming on. Come on. Thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So how can people find you and the mock one and contact you if they're in need of some of the services that you do? We are at the Mark one group.com, and that's the number one purposely.

And, we are, easily found on social, with the same handle. And, we are very eager to help organizations that have important causes that mean a lot to them. If they want to put them in expert hands, who have all survived the capital in one form or another, whether it's the US Capitol or the white House or, the state capital, we're here to help ya.

Love it. Well, thank you for coming on and sharing your story, and I'm very excited for what you're working on. Thank you. Thank you.

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