The QBS Express

QBS_Ep34
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Introduction and Setting the Scene
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​[00:00:00]

Scott Heidner: Welcome listeners to the QBS Express, the ACEC Kansas podcast. I'm your host executive director Scott Heidner, and we have a super fun podcast for you today. We're actually recording in the evening time in beautiful Manhattan, Kansas. We are at the offices of SMH Engineering with the uh, Western Legend Jeff Hancock sponsoring us here, who's also on the podcast with us.

Thank you El Hefe for having us.

Jeff Hancock: You're welcome.

Scott Heidner: The guest of honor today, we do this every year.

Meet the Scholarship Winner: Matthew Young
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Scott Heidner: We have a scholarship program, which I'll talk a little bit more in a minute about, but Matthew Young is with us. He was one of our scholarship winners this year and is a K State student, which is why we're in the great town of Manhattan.

Recording. [00:01:00] Matthew, welcome to the show.

Matthew Young: Thank you so much, Scott. I'm happy to be

Scott Heidner: You bet. Glad to have you. Well, let me give one little dash of background and then let's get to learning more about you, Matthew. But what brought us here most of our listeners probably know, or hopefully, you know, ACEC, Kansas has a scholarship program. contributed at the state level, and then the best part.

Is if you win, you get sent onto the federal level where there are some bigger pots of money available. And we'll be hoping you score one of those two. But at least at the state level, you were one of our four winners this year and we always like to invite our winners to join us on a podcast just to learn more about you and selfishly.

It's valuable to our members to know, what you're thinking and what your hopes are for in the future and that kind of thing. Because of course, our members are always looking to recruit the next generation of best and brightest. So, for listeners, that's what brought us here [00:02:00] with Mr.

Young as our guest of honor. And with that in mind, let's turn it to you to learn a little bit more about you.

Matthew's Early Life and Education
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Scott Heidner: We always like to start with our guests all the way back at the beginning. So tell us where you were born, where you grew up, where you went to school, what your childhood looked like, all that good stuff

Matthew Young: Yeah, no problem. So I was born in Olathe, Kansas, born and raised actually. For high school, I went to Blue Valley, Southwest High School. I would say I was a pretty typical kid. You know, I played baseball. I enjoyed math a lot in school, which I suppose is what led to the engineering. yeah.

What else can I tell you? My, my parents are both from New England, my dad from Vermont and my mom from uh, basically Boston. So when it comes to sports, I'm a, big Boston fan, which is why I'm kind of isolated every sports

Scott Heidner: but you were born here. They they came here before? Yeah.

Matthew Young: Yeah. So they were, both basically from New England and then I guess when they were in their early thirties or so, they moved out to Nebraska.

'cause my dad had worked out there. And then that's where my sister was born. And then they moved [00:03:00] to Kansas City, which was where I'm from. So what

Scott Heidner: your folks do that brought 'em out here

Matthew Young: they both worked in economics. So my dad is a wholesaler basically, so he'll go. I just saw when I was driving up here actually in Edward Jones, he's the guy that goes to Edward Jones and is like, Hey, you should check out these funds

Scott Heidner: No way. That actually sounds kind of cool to me.

Matthew Young: Yeah, it's pretty cool. So actually when I was picking my college, major economics was at the top of my list when I was thinking about it because I've got the degree or the genetics for it. But yeah. Uh.

Scott Heidner: Doubt. L hefe don't you have Edward Jones? Ken that worked for Edward Jones

Jeff Hancock: I do. My brother's an Edward Jones advisor. My brother-in-law is, I'm the only smart one that went the other direction.

Scott Heidner: I wonder if your people know his people.

Jeff Hancock: I, you know, it's kind of surprising in the Edward Jones world, they don't, a lot of 'em just don't. Know they work in regions and if you're not in the same region, they usually don't

Scott Heidner: Well, it sounds like he may be a multi-regional dude that goes and tells

Jeff Hancock: Oh, maybe.

Matthew Young: Yeah. So my, dad does all the [00:04:00] traveling around. So whenever I say like, oh, I'm going to this small town in, in Iowa, he's like, oh, you should say hi to this guy for me. He knows all the Edward Jones people.

Scott Heidner: How

Did you tell your folks you're gonna be on a podcast?

Matthew Young: I'm planning on telling them afterwards so they can check it

Scott Heidner: well it's your call. You can tell 'em tomorrow or you can wait till you hear it and decide whether you think it's worth sending to

Matthew Young: I might have to give it a look first before I can decide that they're

Scott Heidner: Well, before we get into the engineering thread what else did you do as a kid? What was fun?

Matthew Young: Playing with my brother outside, that was one thing that I can recall every day we'd go play basketball often. We'd like to create our own games, so. I believe there was one game where it was just the two of us, but we really wanted to play baseball. So I would like toss him a little tennis ball.

And we had these different rules where like, okay, if you hit it halfway up, that tree, it's a home run. Or if you hit it down that alleyway, it's foul. But then on the right side it's fair. And then if you could hit a single, there's a ghost runner for you, and so then you're back at the plate again.

Scott Heidner: Oh, I [00:05:00] think

Matthew Young: So yeah, stuff like that all the time. But then also we played plenty of video games as any young boys do in this day and age.

Scott Heidner: That's awesome.

Choosing a Career Path
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Scott Heidner: And what was the trigger that moved you to engineering? Are you gonna go to school? You were thinking about economics, you got the genes for it,

Matthew Young: I have no idea, to be honest. When I was a kid I was, pretty good at school. 'Cause I was always perhaps even a little anxious about like, okay, I need to do well in school. My parents would always be like, oh, you're gonna make a good engineer when you grow up.

And then when it actually came time for me to go off to college, I started my freshman year as a biology major. So not engineering and not economics either. I wanted to do biology because it just kind of interest me. And then after a semester of that I was like, okay, I'm gonna stick with biology and I'm gonna do the physical therapy track.

So I'll finish biology my undergraduate degree and then I'll go off to, I think it's like three more years of school to be a physical therapist, to get that specialized training. Then I would move on and I don't know what happened just [00:06:00] after my first year and a half, I was kind of looking around at like the physical therapist options and it was more time and more money than I think what I was ready to commit to at the time.

Even though looking back, it was like, okay, well that's not that big of a deal. So I thought it was time for a switch. And my roommate at the time was in civil engineering, so I asked him about his classes. I got the typical like, oh, it's engineering, it sucks. Don't do that. But I was like, well, you know, I'm a smart kid and I, I don't want to be born in college.

Like, I'd rather have a challenge, even if it's a little stressful from time to time. So I switched into civil engineering and I found out it was something that I can just do and get my undergrad and then go start working. So I tried it out for a semester and it was a little stressful, but I, I, I enjoyed it and.

It's come to be something that I really love and I think was a really good decision

Scott Heidner: So the rumor mill didn't turn out to be true. It didn't suck to move to engineering.

Matthew Young: I mean, exams are stressful, projects are stressful, but it's college. If you're just like walking through the park in college, then it's probably not a very valuable degree in my [00:07:00] opinion.

Scott Heidner: I tell you what I think is impressive, as somebody that began college with the exclusive goal to get out of college on the quickest possible trajectory, I find it nothing short of staggering that you invested a year and a half of your life and brain power into biology, and then had the courage to just say, eh.

Maybe not, and then start over in something even harder.

Matthew Young: In hindsight, I do wish I had switched over earlier, but you know, when I was a freshman it was just, it was so scary to make that change. And so I think I waited maybe one or two more semesters than I should have, but

Scott Heidner: Did you go, are you straight into engineering or

Jeff Hancock: straight into engineering and I fought tooth and nail to get through it. Yeah. It was ever, it was because of guys like him that I did get through it pretty much and getting help from 'em. Yeah. So, yeah, it was not easy for some of us, just so you know.

Scott Heidner: And you are a senior, is that a true [00:08:00] statement?

Matthew Young: It's partially true. I'm a fifth year senior because of the switch. I had to do some catching

Scott Heidner: So fifth year student. Yeah. Senior of engineering. I

Matthew Young: tell people I'm a senior just to make it simple, like yeah. I'm in my last year.

Scott Heidner: Yeah.

College Experience and COVID Challenges
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Scott Heidner: So, what brought you to K State outside of the fact, of course, that it's a marvelous university. Uh, What specifically? Because you are coming from Olathe, CER certainly wasn't the closest.

Matthew Young: Yeah, I was coming from Olathe, so at the time the decisions, the choices for me were K State or ku basically. My sister, older sister went to ku, so I think she was kind of lobbying for me to go to ku, which I wasn't necessarily opposed to, but. Honestly, in kind of an arbitrary way, I, I came to K State just because my two closest friends from high school were coming here.

And that was like the one year where you weren't forced to live in the dorms your first year. So they just wanted to get an apartment and they invited me to join them. So, I don't know, I just kind of shrugged my shoulders because I didn't really have a preference one way or the other.

which, [00:09:00] you know, it probably was not wise for me to make such a big decision and. Kind of a dumb way, but I think in hindsight it's all worked out and I've come to really enjoy Manhattan and Case State and I, I love it. If I did it all over again, I'd make the same choice, just perhaps for different reasons.

Scott Heidner: well, I think most of us at that age made decisions based on that or less. So I wouldn't give yourself too much static. Ee what else should we ask him about pre-engineering time?

Jeff Hancock: Yeah, I mean I'm maybe not engineering wise, but So did you start school during COVID? Yeah. Like first year was a COVID year, or

Matthew Young: graduated from high school in spring 2021. So it was like the back end of COVID. Like they were just recovering. I recall the friends that I had made that were sophomores at the time, experienced like totally online classes at K State and like they're locked in their dorm rooms and they can't.

But I didn't, when I came to K State, my very first semester, like all of my classes were in person, but we were still wearing face [00:10:00] masks, was the kind of the era where I came in.

Jeff Hancock: I gotcha. I guess the other question I would ask, you said your roommate. Was in civil engineering, did you give any consideration to any of the other disciplines, or that was just because your roommate was doing

Matthew Young: Yeah. Well, let's think, I think I considered architectural engineering. Because I even now, even though I'm civil and I'm kind of into structures, architectural engineering at the time was appealing to me. But I guess just again, arbitrary, I picked civil because it was familiar 'cause I saw my roommate doing it and I was like, okay, well that seems interesting.

And it's also a little more broad, you

Scott Heidner: does Akey take an extra year or is it the same?

Matthew Young: I think the architecture program takes another year, but if you're an architectural engineer, it's just four as any other engineering.

Scott Heidner: know why? 'cause we're more efficient.

Jeff Hancock: The other question I was gonna ask was, you said that it took you an extra year because you switched majors, but maybe it's just 'cause I just wasn't very smart. But when, when I was in school, it was basically considered like a five year program anyway, engineering. Is it still?[00:11:00]

Matthew Young: certainly. A lot of my friends that are engineers are taking another semester or another year, just because it's difficult to do all the classes that are challenging in one semester. But if you look at the flow charts, they, they do have it where you could get through the entire degree program and maybe you're taking 15 or 16 credit hours per semester.

So the roommate that I had, he graduated in four years, no problem. But many, I would say, anywhere from 30 to 50% of the engineering friends that I know are always taking another semester or perhaps another entire year, just because people fail classes, you know, people get left behind or stuff like that.

Jeff Hancock: something that really does impress me too. I don't mean to steal the conversation, Scott, but earlier, going way back in this conversation now. You said ghost runner. I feel like I connect now with this generation. 'cause when we played Wiffle ball with my brother, my brother and I played Wiffle ball. We had ghost runners all the time.

I didn't know ghost runners were still a thing.

Matthew Young: absolutely.

Scott Heidner: [00:12:00] I'm a little surprised to hear it too. We did too. I always envied the kids that lived in town in densely populated areas. 'cause they had enough players that they didn't need ghost runners. We had ghost runners everywhere. There was four or five kids to field two teams, you know?

Matthew Young: You gotta work with what you got, you

Scott Heidner: right. That's right.

Matthew Young: Yeah. I have no idea where we learned that, but it's cool to know that

Jeff Hancock: It's been around for a

Matthew Young: it's been around for a while.

Jeff Hancock: has been.

Scott Heidner: It has. Yeah, I don't know where it came from 'cause I, I can't imagine my dad having talked about Ghost runners when he was 10, but, you know, we did. Yeah. Who knows? Well, one more question before we get into maybe step forward chronologically, but are you pleased with the choice of civil, any regrets and you get more excited as you go?

Or you just kind of, eh, it is what it is?

Matthew Young: I'm very pleased with civil, I would say especially at K State, like maybe if I was at a different university, I wouldn't have enjoyed civil as much, but all the faculty at K State is really [00:13:00] wonderful. I've gotten pretty close with all the professors and like my advisor. Especially the student body.

All everyone I know who's a civil engineer is the most fun person in the world.

Scott Heidner: Very cool. Right? Yeah.

Matthew Young: right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's not to say that you can't be a different engineering and not be nice. I've got plenty of friends who are mechanical or chemical, but, Civil's got a special place in my heart.

Like I would probably pick it again too, just because the, especially right now, the job opportunities are amazing and civil.

Scott Heidner: Yeah, he, he a, is struggling his shoulders like, well, duh.

Matthew Young: Yeah.

Jeff Hancock: yeah. Well, I'm gonna make sure that my wife listens to this now. You heard him say it

Matthew Young: Yeah.

Jeff Hancock: we're the greatest.

Matthew Young: Yeah. I mean,

Jeff Hancock: said it.

Scott Heidner: my roommate in college was a mechanical engineering major and he always used to I'm sure whatever, whatever branch of engineering you're in, I'm sure everybody has something funny to say about the others, but he always used to say. Mechanical [00:14:00] engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets.

That was his, he,

Matthew Young: I've heard that one

Scott Heidner: he thought that was pretty glorious. Well, let's skip ahead and get closer to the part of this that I think our members are gonna be super interested in and, and somewhat from a selfish perspective, but the scholarship itself, the ACEC Kansas Scholarship. How did you hear about it?

Matthew Young: Yeah, so at K State about, a few times a semester especially. During the prime season of the cycle it's very common for students to get emails from like someone in the admissions office about, Hey, this is a, a organization. They're giving away a scholarship, looking to applying.

And so it was just one of those, I just got a random email and I almost thought about not applying because I saw I had to write an essay or maybe not, maybe not an essay, but like a few. Extra prompts, and I was quite busy at the time, but I was like, eh, it's worth a shot. You know, what's the worst I can lose a couple of hours of my time?

[00:15:00] And I ended up winning it, so pretty awesome for me. I was not expecting it to be honest, because I think it was kind of competitive, yeah. Super fortunate for that.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. So you got it by email and you said you get a lot of those. And I'm asking this out of selfish interest 'cause we want as many people to know about it as possible. I mean, is it literally just one of dozens you get that just comes in and kind of a deafening volume?

Matthew Young: wouldn't say it's like, like dozens, like a huge wave crashing. But definitely, you know, when you're in the school of engineering, especially civil, you kind of get familiar with all of these organizations that have three or four letter acronyms, you know, so like, A SCE or I don't know what's the.

Ai. What's the one that's steel? It's A-I-S-S-C. Is that it?

Scott Heidner: Which one, which,

Jeff Hancock: Yeah, I think

Matthew Young: Oh A ISC. Yeah. Or um, my concrete class right now, I think it's ACEC E. So all those organizations give out scholarships basically. Even if you don't go to the website [00:16:00] seeking them out, sometimes the professor for your steel design class or your concrete design class will be like, Hey, go check out the scholarship.

It's worth applying for. I wouldn't say that you need to be preoccupied about that. You know, your email is not gonna get seen. Definitely. Whenever there's money given away to college students, you're gonna see their ears perked up, you know?

Scott Heidner: Well, speaking of that, not to be too indelicate and talk about money, but, but you know, this scholarship is not a huge amount, did you see initially when you were looking at it and making that I guess our members would call it a go no go decision, you're making the same thing really, on which scholarship to pursue.

Did you see? And was it impactful that, hey, if I win here, there's bigger money ahead at the national level?

Matthew Young: a hundred percent. I think that I was not aware of the um, federal aspect of the time. Like if you win the state scholarship, it goes on to the federal.

Scott Heidner: So you did not

Matthew Young: No, I did not know about that. But on the, on the website when I applied, there was, um. four or five of them [00:17:00] that I sent applications to through ACEC ACEC.

And for each one of them, at least for the state reward for winning, you saw how much it was gonna be, which definitely was a motivating factor. 'cause if I saw it and it was like $20, I would not have applied.

Scott Heidner: Did you see some of them, and gosh, I assume they're still doing this. I probably should have fact checked before we got on the podcast, but historically, at least some of the big winners, they not only give you a pretty good contribution, but they fly you to the fall conference, you and your family.

Yeah.

Matthew Young: I was not aware of that.

Scott Heidner: you hefe. Do you remember where it is next year?

Jeff Hancock: I think it's in Chicago, isn't it?

Scott Heidner: Might be, I'm thumbing through my phone right now to see if I've got it in there or

Jeff Hancock: just in San Diego and the year before it was in Austin, so it's usually in some place. Pretty cool.

Scott Heidner: Yeah, it is.

Matthew Young: That's exciting.

Scott Heidner: Yeah.

Jeff Hancock: It's big city. Cool. Anyway,

Matthew Young: Yeah, right?

Jeff Hancock: yeah.

Scott Heidner: Those are you know, hard to come by. I don't want to uh, make you think it's too [00:18:00] likely,

Matthew Young: don't worry.

Scott Heidner: But it happens, and that's a pretty cool thing too. Well, Hefe, anything else you want to talk about before? Well, I guess I did want to ask you about internships. Well, yeah. Anything else you want to ask him about the college experience before we turn to a more work focused deal?

Jeff Hancock: No, I mean other than as a graduate of the same program you're in, it's good to hear that you had a positive experience. Faculty's awesome, and I mean, that's. That's good. Great for me to hear. So I'm really, I mean, I sat on the Advisory Council for a number of years up there and

Matthew Young: Oh, that's cool.

Jeff Hancock: It's always good to hear that people have good experience going through the program.

'cause I did, it changed my life and set me on a career path that I'm been on for 20 some years now, and everything's been positive about it. So.

Matthew Young: Yeah. When I was or I guess not when I still am a student, but I used to be involved in a lot of different clubs like Op Salon or A SCE, so I've done those presentations to the advisor council before. So I didn't know that you were part of that.

Jeff Hancock: prob no, [00:19:00] I haven't been for 10 years, but, right. Yeah. Yep.

Scott Heidner: That's awesome.

Internships and Real-World Experience
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Scott Heidner: What, have you had any internships while you've been a student?

Matthew Young: So my first internship I was so excited about it. 'cause you know, there's like, when you're in college, you go through this transition of like, when you're a freshman, you go home over the summer and you work at the pizza place, and then at some point you do a job that actually pertains to, to engineering.

So my first job was at the city of Overland Park doing just local government work and,

Scott Heidner: Public Works type, government work, or just all government

Matthew Young: like public works. I don't, I don't know exactly how they classify everything, but, but basically my job was I would go out to different neighborhoods and look at the sidewalk and the curb and mark up, Hey, this needs to be replaced. Or like, Hey, this one's okay. About once a week they would do one of the concrete pours at a different neighborhood and I'd get to go and hang out with the construction crew.

And I was kind of like the supervisor, but I think I was 19 years old or 20 years old at the time, so no one took me seriously, [00:20:00] but I was like the,

Scott Heidner: you were able to broaden your vocabulary working with the construction teams?

Matthew Young: yeah, yeah. Well actually, I, I speak a good bit of Spanish, so I always like and all of them spoke Spanish,

Scott Heidner: I, I, I didn't even mean that. I meant more a colorful language. I was having a

Matthew Young: well that too, I didn't, I don't pertain to any of that

Scott Heidner: right.

Matthew Young: language, but

Scott Heidner: I worked construction, construction when I was in college, and I learned a whole new set of words that I had I had never heard

Matthew Young: Yeah. And then the second you stop working construction, you have to learn to not

Scott Heidner: Unlearn them.

Jeff Hancock: yeah,

Scott Heidner: Oh my gosh. That's too funny. Well, anything, okay, we cut you off Mid street there. So, city of Overland Park, Uhhuh, Uhhuh. Anything else?

Matthew Young: Yeah. The more recent summer, which would be this last summer I interned at Black and VE as a structural engineer. So I was doing way different kind of work. I was doing a lot more design and doing a lot of modeling which I loved it was super cool. And, and The good thing about Black and Veatch for me was the city of [00:21:00] Evelyn Park.

The city hall is. During rush hour. It was close to an hour from my house, maybe 45 minutes. But the Black and Veatch headquarters in Overland Park is 15 minutes, 10 minutes down the road from my dad's house. So, So yeah, it was a really easy commute. Everyone there was just

Scott Heidner: what, uh, What type of projects were you working on?

Matthew Young: mostly , wastewater Treatment centers, so they would just give me, you know, it's my first time, so they would just gimme as basic work as I could handle.

So like if they're expanding or building a, a new wastewater treatment center for some municipality and, you know, really just kind of random parts of the country that I didn't know that we did, you know, design for a city in Arkansas, but they would just say like, Hey, there's this um, you know, basin that we need you to design the walls for.

So I got to model it and I got to. Go through the process and pick it out myself. It's funny 'cause I didn't take concrete design before that. I'm taking it this semester, so I didn't have any of that knowledge and so I was just kind of learning as as I went along. But, but yeah,

Scott Heidner: Fun. Fun.

Matthew Young: [00:22:00] super, super fun.

Super fun. Everyone there is really, really eager to teach you stuff. So I appreciate that, especially not knowing much about what it's like to actually work and do design work. So yeah, they gave me a lot of freedom to just be kind of incompetent and ask as many questions as I wanted to do.

Scott Heidner: Tell you what, for all the rest of your career always treasure people that give you space to be incompetence. That's a,

Matthew Young: that is very much

Scott Heidner: that's a gift. Yeah.

Jeff Hancock: space gets narrower over time. Know.

Matthew Young: That

Scott Heidner: is such a neat turn or phrase, Matthew, the space to be incompetent. I love that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna borrow that. Yeah,

Matthew Young: Yeah, go for

Scott Heidner: that was that. So that was just this last summer at Black and Veatch Uhhuh. Okay. And then you're graduating in May,

Matthew Young: Yeah. I plan to, I

Scott Heidner: Yeah, my pleasure. Okay, so internship time, likely done.

Now we're headed for, yep. The big enchilada. Okay.

Landing a Full-Time Job
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Scott Heidner: Well that then takes us to the questions that I think our folks are gonna [00:23:00] really be interested in hearing your answers to. First of all, what do you wanna do when you graduate? Do you have any idea?

I actually already accepted a full-time offer

Oh, no kidding. Well, we'll just pull the curtain all the

Matthew Young: Yeah,

Scott Heidner: Are you at liberty to share?

Matthew Young: I hope so. I, I hope that it's not like. Something I shouldn't be saying, but yeah, I believe so. I just accepted an offer at Black and Veatch full-time to return, just doing the same work. I, I, I interned as so structural engineer.

Scott Heidner: less capacity for incompetence moving

Matthew Young: Yeah. Well, I guess, I guess I'll find out about that. I hope, I hope that still still space for me to learn, but Well, congrats. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I'm super excited. My whole family's really excited for me, so.

Scott Heidner: Well, since Black and Veatch is a long and valued ACEC c Kansas member, we're gonna celebrate this news

Matthew Young: Yeah,

Scott Heidner: you'd, if you'd gone to work for a non-member firm, we might have had a different podcast here, but No, that's awesome.

That's super exciting. And still water wastewater type

Matthew Young: Yeah. Yeah, I believe so.[00:24:00]

What Graduates Look for in Employers
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Scott Heidner: Well, these next questions are gonna be a little bit moot since you found a job, but I think our members would still want to know what your answers would be. So Matthew, you know, we invite scholarship winners on for all the right reasons.

We wanna celebrate and we want to showcase you all but the selfish part of it. Is that, our members are in very intense competition to go out and hire graduates, and I think our members, most of them are asking themselves all the time, what can we do to be more competitive?

What can we do to provide a culture or a type of work or a pay package or whatever it is that is going to, make the best people want to land here? So getting to hear, straight from the source with people coming out of school is, I think of huge interest to most of our members. So you've already accepted a job, but if you can [00:25:00] maybe rewind to some of the questions you were asking yourself before you knew that.

What were you looking for? What mattered to you and what were your priorities in terms of an employer and a career and opportunities and that kind of stuff?

Matthew Young: Yeah, absolutely. So I should preface, I probably can't speak for everyone that is still in, you know, an approaching graduation. I'm sure people have different priorities and different things that they're looking for, but me personally, one thing that I really, really enjoyed was like I just said, oh, I think Isaiah's at the door.

Scott Heidner: Oh, no kidding. Oh, hey. listeners, that's probably a little confusion there. We actually had invited a second scholarship winner to join us, and he is now coming in for the second half of the basketball game. Welcome, Isaiah. How are you, sir? Good, good, good, good. We were actually just getting close to [00:26:00] the end, but Oh.

That's all right. We're

Matthew Young: What's up va? Isaiah, how are you?

Scott Heidner: We're gonna El Hefe here is working on some technical things to, Ooh, I just lost one of my ears working on some technical things to get your headphones and Mike up and running and we'll have you on board here. While he's working on that, I'll maybe background you.

We've been asking Matthew you know, everything about his background, his experience at K State, but we had just gotten to the good stuff, which is. What is it that graduates are looking for in an employer? Like what intrigues you? You know, for some folks it's compensation. For some it's opportunity.

It might be challenge, it might be, you know, what have you. Yeah, that's where we left off. And now we'll have two sets of answers. Matthew, you wanna go first while we give Isaiah a chance to breathe and think about what he is?

Matthew Young: So anyway, like I was saying, I think in engineering in [00:27:00] general, the pay is pretty good. You know, it's pretty. Substantial for me being, I don't know, I'm 22 now, so I don't have these crazy high expectations of pay packages. So though it is nice, I think for me, what really matters more is time.

If that makes sense. So tell me

Scott Heidner: Tell me what you mean by that.

Matthew Young: time with my family. You know, if I, I was thinking if I go to work at Black and Veatch, which is more Overland Park centric as opposed to, deep into Kansas City, I can spend a lot more time with my family. I could even. Live at my dad's house, spend time with my dad as opposed to going out and getting an apartment.

I could spend less time commuting and I value also the time away from work. I think over the summer at my internship I experienced this general feeling of like, it's okay for you to, unplug and you don't need to be working. 60, 80 hours a week.

That's something that's way more important to me than pay is having a more balance between I wanna be able to go to the gym, I want to be [00:28:00] able to cook dinner, I wanna be able to hang out with my friends and my family. I think that that is something that I prioritize way more than money. And the other thing that I care about, perhaps more than money, is general opportunity.

And so at Black and Veatch. There's this program that they have it's like a rotational program. So when I go back full time, I will be doing the same work at my internship that I was doing, but I'll also have the opportunity if I so choose to switch into perhaps instead of structural, I'll do like a little bit of civil engineering or I'll do stormwater it feels like I have a lot more freedom to explore different areas and I have the freedom to express what I want and I will be listened to and respected.

Scott Heidner: Very good. Okay, so Isaiah, before we get your answer on.

Introduction to Isaiah's Background
---

Scott Heidner: What it is you're looking for in an employer, and what would make you more inclined to say yes? Why don't you give us the, brief background. What type of engineering are you studying? [00:29:00] What's your graduation date? Have you had internships that you've enjoyed?

Do you already know your post-graduation plans? Are those pending? What's your short bio?

Isaiah: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Isaiah's Academic Journey
---

Isaiah: My name's Isaiah and I grew up here in Manhattan, Kansas. I'm currently studying biomedical engineering. I'm getting a certificate in film. Certificate in sales. And then I finished my math minor just recently. I love learning. So that's where you see all the different like aspects.

Passion for Film and Math
---

Isaiah: I grew up with a bunch of older cousins and they're all into media, so they create documentaries movie commercials various different like social media videos for companies, for businesses, for productions and set aside. So that's where that passion for film came from. And then I've always loved math.

I feel like you can't really be an engineer without loving math some way, somehow. And then in terms of the sales, I feel like I could use that as like understanding how medical devices pacemakers, prosthetics catheters are sold to hospitals, physicians and just to people who are in the hospitals waiting and like, [00:30:00] just different facilities basically.

Future Aspirations and Study Abroad Experience
---

Isaiah: But I think for me, I plan on graduating in 2027 in May because I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Madrid, Spain. And I, you know, it changed my whole life. And by doing that it realized like it really opened up my eyes to all the possibilities there are out there.

I actually want to live abroad and if possible, be a pediatrician in Madrid, Spain. So it definitely gave me a world of opportunities.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. So you're envisioning not even doing engineering as your full-time profession,

Isaiah: Correct. Yes. Yes. If I had to, I would wanna design pacemakers and potentially work for Medtronic. Is it okay to name drop and put that out there? Okay. Okay. Yeah, they have a rotational program but it's pretty hard to get into and a lot of people who end up working for Medtronic usually don't initially get the job or the role straight out of college.

They usually come back five to 10 years later after they've had their career for a little bit.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. Well that is certainly a pretty rich. [00:31:00] Substrata of things to be studying on top of engineering. I don't think you get math minor and film together all that often. It's kinda awesome. Well, what would be, I appreciate you sharing that background.

Employer Preferences and Work-Life Balance
---

Scott Heidner: What would be your answers to the questions Matthew was just answering, which is out outside of the type of work, you know, designing medical devices versus designing wastewater, whatever, leaving all that aside.

What about an employer or an employment opportunity appeals to you? We were telling Matthew right when you got here that for our ACEC C members, the member firms, they're intensely interested in what can they do to be a more appealing destination. And so they're super interested in hearing from people just like the two of you.

You know, how can they position themselves better to compete for young talent? What is it that you look for in an opportunity or an employer?

Isaiah: just like Matt said, because we're in engineering, the salary [00:32:00] is always gonna be good, but for me, I look for the benefits on top of it. So I want to have a work life balance. I want to. Be able to, like, at the end of the day, put work down and not bring it home.

So eventually when I do start my family, I don't have to be constantly thinking about all the things I have to complete. Granted there are times where during the year, seasons are busier than others, but consistently I wanna have a distinction between what I'm doing for my passion and what I'm doing for a living.

If I could travel, if I could go to a company that has a nice traveling bonus, a nice traveling package where they're like, Hey, we need you to go and speak on this device. Or go give like, not necessarily a TED talk, but go to the conference or speaking of conferences, like if they're able to like, provide resources for me to help me grow, not just necessarily just vertically, but also like horizontally.

'Cause who knows, maybe in 10 years I might not have the same passions as I do right now. So being able to. Switch and pivot within a company. Really I'm looking for someone who's willing to invest in me as [00:33:00] much as I am into the company.

Scott Heidner: What else do you want to ask about their appetites, what they're looking for an employer, that kind of thing? Anything.

Company Culture and Employee Investment
---

Jeff Hancock: Well, I'm just kind of curious, like we spend a lot of time on just trying to get a handle on culture and I mean within a company. I mean, I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts, like what are you looking for in company culture? 'cause it's changed. Over the years, and I mean, the, the thing I tell people is I feel like there's been a change from work to live and instead now it's, or live to work, and now it's work to live.

You know? And so I I, but I'd just kind of like to hear your guys' thoughts on culture. Yeah.

Matthew Young: Yeah, a hundred percent. So I think just what I was saying earlier, just it's, I, I think it's really important to be in a place where. You feel respected and you're in a work environment where you feel if you have any kind of issue, you can voice that and it will be heard and they'll try to do what they can.

I think that the culture in general can compensate for a lot of things. So, you know, if there's any [00:34:00] smaller firms out there that are like really having a hard time recruiting because you know, they can't offer international travel opportunities or they can't offer really glamorous benefit packages.

Just having this kind of sense of. Community and the sense of like, you know, you are a person here. You're not just the work robot who gets this job done. It's okay if you make a mistake or if you don't know how to do something. It's okay if you need to take a couple of days off for this reason.

Something like that is what's really important.

Questions for Employers
---

Scott Heidner: Well, let me ask you one more question then. We'll move to, we always end with what we call the lightning round. That's just random things where we ask you things that are completely random that help us learn a little bit more about you. But before we do, we've asked you a whole lot of questions about your trajectories and what you're studying and what you look for in employer and everything.

What questions, if any. Would you want to take this opportunity to ask of employers, you know, we're [00:35:00] desperately eager to learn about our prospective future employees, but you're on a podcast with the president of an engineering firm and there's gonna be, tons of others listening. Do you have anything that you'd want to ask with that opportunity at hand?

Isaiah: Matt, do you mind if I start?

Matthew Young: Go ahead, please.

Isaiah: Okay, perfect. I always have a few questions in like my back pocket always ask. But one go-to for me is I like asking about the best day and the worst day of work. So like tell me about your best day in your current role.

And then tell me about like the worst day and then like understanding like. What values they have. And what you can kind of give gives a broader view of what's really happening at the company. Like if they said, oh, my best day is when someone I mentored got a really big promotion, or they got an award for something based on our work, then I see, then I can see like, oh, there's a lot of collaboration, there's a lot of teamwork.

There's not necessarily like competition or jealousy within this role, within this company. And then in terms of like, another [00:36:00] question I might ask is just. In terms of like growth, like how does this company invest in the employees? Not just like financially, but in terms of growing where there is like certificates or like rotational programs, how does your company do a good job of maintaining people and investing in who they are?

Scott Heidner: Yeah. Ab, excellent. Matthew, if you want to add a question or two and then Hefe, you can decide if you want to answer any of those or you know, honestly you don't, you don't, you don't have to hefe. The exercise is probably more about just finding out what those questions would be from perspective employers, but yeah.

Matthew Young: Yeah, I think, well, it depends, like if I was, you know, looking at a, a company because I was thinking about working there, one question I would probably ask is like, what are you most focused on? Where's your priorities at? Because maybe this is just the stereotype that I've been hearing as I'm, you know, exposed to the industry.

Or maybe it's the real thing. But it seems that there are, you know, different companies who value different things. So there's certain companies that are [00:37:00] really out to deliver a quality product and they wanna make sure that everyone involved is safe and taken care of. And if it means that it costs a little bit more money or takes a little bit more time, that's okay.

But there's other companies that are really concerned about this bottom line. And they're okay too. You know. Take perhaps calculated risks in certain areas. So that's one thing that I think tells a lot about a company if you're trying to learn about them. But in a more general sense, and this wouldn't be directed at a specific company, but just because it seems there's a lot of uncertainty in this area, and I'm really curious to hear what the leaders of today are thinking about it.

I want to know. Where they envision the future with, technology changing and with so many people using ai, which is kind of, a debated issue. I wanna know what my job was gonna look like in 20 years, which perhaps it's not knowable, but,

Scott Heidner: Yeah. I mean, it might be equally as relevant these days to ask what your job's gonna look like in five years.

Matthew Young: Yeah.

Isaiah: Yeah.

Jeff Hancock: I think as employers, we wanna know what your [00:38:00] job's gonna look like in five years because of ai. It's just happening so

Matthew Young: Exactly.

Jeff Hancock: Exactly. Yeah. And I, Scott knows this, it doesn't matter what conference you go to, it's the at the top. Everybody's talking about it. Yep. So.

Scott Heidner: Don't have to jefe. Do you want to answer any of those questions just for the spirit of the game and the fun of

Jeff Hancock: Just for the spirit of it. Best day, worst day. That's a pretty easy one. Like my best days here are when we see people taking big steps in their careers, whether they're getting licensed. And it's so cool, like I've been here and we've hired a number of people that came in right outta college.

And so when you see those people. Work really hard for four years and they take the PE test, you know, and then they actually get the experience and then they get licensed and then you see that you've handed 'em off to clients and then the client calls you back and says, I really like working with that person.

It's like, yes, we've won, we did the right thing, and we've developed someone into like a, a good person that's gonna [00:39:00] do good things for the company and they're doing good things for themselves. So those are like my best days. The worst days are when we make mistakes 'cause we're human.

So there's always gonna be mistakes. And, but I think one of the questions we ask in the interview to turn it back on to you is when you do make mistakes, how do you handle mistakes? 'cause it says a lot about your character and how you handle mistakes.

Scott Heidner: Yeah, I, amen. I was looking for the right place to jump in and say one of the things that we look for absolutely is not whether or not somebody makes mistakes or how often it's how people react to 'em. You know, somebody that gets defensive and uncomfortable and maybe gets a little.

Prickly when you bring that to 'em, that's bad. But somebody that makes a mistake and is like, yep, I can see I made a mistake. What can you tell me to help grow from it? Oh, you find that that's, that's gold.

Isaiah: That reminds me of the quote, fail soon, fail [00:40:00] fast. Where it's something my grandfather used to say is, the sooner you can make a mistake, the better. So then you learn from it. You're able to pivot from that so you know not to do it again. Also brings me to something else that you would say is like the best type of learning from mistakes is learning from the other people's mistakes.

So you can learn from yours and it's gonna help you, and it's probably going to change how you do things. But the moment you start learning from other people's mistakes, so people who have come before you, your predecessors, then that's where you start taking large steps in your career.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. I think your grandpa gave you pretty good counsel. Fail, fail fast, but. Other than failing slow any day, I'll offer a thought. So my company is not in engineering. We service associations like ACEC, but best day, worst day, worst day's, really easy. Best day's hard though, and this is gonna sound a little cliched, but almost all of them are best days.

They're just, I work with. Awesome, awesome people both [00:41:00] professionally and personally and awesome clients. And I don't know, they just all kind of feel like best days. Worst day we had a teammate who was incredibly young, 40 something and a picture of health and just had a personality. It would fill a building.

Walked into the office a little over a year ago one day, and had a health incident and died right there. And that was the worst day and nothing else even comes close. Nothing. But I appreciate that. And we, we still miss her terribly, but you know, if you take anything good away from it, it's that what we thought were bad days before and, you know, days we might've thought were bad days to come.

They're not so bad, you know, they're not so bad.

Lightning Round: Fun and Personal Questions
---

Scott Heidner: Well, not to end on such a somber note, so let's do some fun questions. We've been at this almost an hour already. Jefe you want to take turns? I'll do, [00:42:00] I'll do one. You do one. I'll do one. You do one.

Jeff Hancock: Go for it. I'll have to you go first 'cause I gotta think of something here. So we're good. All right.

Scott Heidner: I'm an intellectual giant. Like you hefe, you'll have Pulitzer level questions in no time.

Jeff Hancock: All right.

Scott Heidner: What is the best bar in Manhattan, Kansas? Honest? Yeah.

Isaiah: don't really know. I just turned 21. And so, most of the bars in Manhattan, you have to be 21 to be able to enter.

Matthew Young: For me, Annie Maze. Annie Maze, hands down. 'cause you can actually sit and have a conversation. There's not music in your ears.

Scott Heidner: Oh, Matthew, you're just like us. You sound like an old man

Matthew Young: I know I feel old. All my friends when I go to Yard Bar and Tubby, I'm like, no, I don't want that.

Isaiah: Yeah, that makes sense. I heard uh, O O Mals is good as

Matthew Young: mouse. Oh, mouse is pretty good. O mouse is outdoor seating that I enjoy. But yeah, me and my close friends, if you can get just four to a booth at any maze, that's a perfect night for

Scott Heidner: Well, I want to, if you're already at the [00:43:00] point of appreciating a place where you can sit down and hear each other talk. I can't wait to hear what appeals to you when you're 50.

Matthew Young: Yeah. Who knows?

Scott Heidner: That's a scream. All right, Hefe, is that enough time to come up

Jeff Hancock: Oh, yeah, yeah. But I, I was gonna say, that Annie Mays has been here for a long time. It was a long time and when I was in college, I mean you basically had to have a knife to cut the air in that place. It was so full of smoke, but the day they changed it to no smoking everywhere was a great day in Manhattan. So that is a cool place. So I do like MAs. Yeah. And the reason I struggled through college is 'cause I did figure out how to get into the bars when I was not 21.

Isaiah: Oh, okay.

Jeff Hancock: Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. Favorite movie.

Matthew Young: movie? Movie?

Jeff Hancock: It

Matthew Young: might not be my favorite right now, but one that I has stayed with me for so long is Goodwill Hunting. I love that one a lot. Uhhuh?

Scott Heidner: man, that's a great

Matthew Young: Yeah. Young Matt Damon, and Boston Scenery.

Scott Heidner: Robin Williams.

Matthew Young: [00:44:00] Yeah. Robin Williams with a beard.

Isaiah: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I have five.

Scott Heidner: Oh wow.

Isaiah: time someone asks me, I have to list all five. And maybe like a couple years it changes. Like maybe one gets like promoted and one gets dropped.

Matthew Young: it's fluid.

Isaiah: Yeah. Some of, some of them more like fun movies and it's like one of them is more. Yeah, you'll, you'll see the list, you'll hear a list.

So, Jurassic World. My mom was a big Jurassic Park fan, so growing up we used to watch all the movies and we still do every now and again. So, Jurassic World, the first one captain America, the winner soldier, big Captain America fan and Marvel fan. As long as I can remember I can say like all those quotes off the top of my head. Ready Player one. I read the books and I actually enjoyed the movies. Some people didn't care for the movies, but it's like sci-fi basically. It's very futuristic where like, what if their world was set in like the oasis, which is like virtual reality. So everyone did everything in this virtual reality sense, this augmented reality.

Princess Bride a little classic. Yes. Yes. I love that one. I can quote that one very well. Yeah, like, my name is Amigo Montoya. You can my father. Yeah. I love Princess Bride. And [00:45:00] then the last one is in time where time is currency. So rather than like getting money to spend it's time. So like bef, I think it's up to the eight when they turn 25 that's when they have one full year of their life to live before it runs out

Scott Heidner: where they're selling on the black market?

Isaiah: Yes. The time. And it's with Justin Timberlake, Justin Timber, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. I it's, it's stressful for like an hour and 25 minute movie. And that's why I named that one last. 'cause it is probably number one on the list.

Scott Heidner: that movie was so unsettling, just uncomfortable that to even think about

Isaiah: Yeah. Makes me like watch my proverbial watch.

Like how much time do I have,

Scott Heidner: No doubt. No doubt, man. Solid choice, both of you. Outstanding. All right. What about this how old. Do you think you'll be when you retire?

Matthew Young: 40, I hope.

Isaiah: I was gonna say the same, like

Scott Heidner: Uh,

Matthew Young: Actually, let me take that back. I think even if I do have enough money to retire young, I'd like to still be doing things that [00:46:00] occupy

Scott Heidner: yeah. No, when I say retire, I don't mean sitting on the couch and

Matthew Young: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But

Scott Heidner: no longer punching a card for the boss kind

Matthew Young: How old do I believe I will be when I do retire? Maybe let's say 60.

Scott Heidner: Well, there's a huge difference between 40 and 60. What

Isaiah: Well,

Matthew Young: 40 is just my ideal, what I want, but 60 is like, I don't know.

I don't have my dad's gonna listen to this and yell at me 'cause he's works in investments, but I don't have that good of a,

Isaiah: I

Matthew Young: have that good of a sense of, you know. Like what it takes to retire. You

Scott Heidner: Uh, you

Matthew Young: I, I let him handle the investment stuff for me, for my retirement.

Isaiah: I'm gonna split the difference. I'm gonna say, well, realistic, well, hopefully 40, but realistically 50. That's enough time, I feel like. And then by then, your kids are probably grown up a little bit.

So I'm gonna travel the world with my kids, ideally every year. I'm gonna put that out there now. Go to a, a new country.

Scott Heidner: So let me offer a thought and then he hail let you take the last question to, to [00:47:00] take us home. A little bit of a devil's advocate, you know, maybe a bit of a challenging question. And before I ask it, I will say, you know, things are different now than they were when FA and I started, obviously. But I will say.

To go back to your questions of what do you want in a job? And both of you said, you know, work life balance. Don't want to take it home with me, want to travel, want time with my family, like I want to cut it off the office door. I don't want to be grinding, you know, whatever. Which is all totally well and good.

But I will say, and Hefe, I'd be curious if you would say the same thing. 90% of the people that I know that have been able to retire at 40 or 50 or whatever are the guys that were working probably didn't have that kind of work life balance. And were burning the candle at both ends and taking it home at night and, and all of that.

And I think you [00:48:00] know, for a lot of them or a lot of us you had to choose one or the other a little bit? Yeah, I don't know. Hefe, what do you think?

Jeff Hancock: No, I think that's absolutely true, but also I mean, to counter that somewhat is I think the guys that do just work the grind 60 hours a week at the office, 6:00 AM don't leave till 6:00 PM. I think those guys enjoy it. That's part of them. And they enjoy it. I know people like that, that they wouldn't have it any other way 'cause they just like that part of it. And they have absolutely zero desire to retire. So there's, I think there's those too that don't have that, what we would consider maybe a good work life balance, but in their minds it's fine.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. No, that's probably a good point.

Jeff Hancock: Yep.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. Well, all right, Hefe, why don't you give us one more question

Jeff Hancock: will try. Do you guys re I keep remembering it. I gotta remember generation generational differences, but you know what beam me up means, [00:49:00] right? Like you could beam

Isaiah: Like, beat me up,

Jeff Hancock: Yeah. Okay, great. Okay. You could beam to any location on the planet right now. Where would you beam yourself to?

Scott Heidner: Great question.

Matthew Young: You and me first as a.

Isaiah: Yeah, I'm trying to think of like, like temperature wise, where I want to go. If you have one, then you could

Matthew Young: Yeah, I can say maybe somewhere in Europe. I have a cousin who's from Spain, some family in Italy, which would be cool to visit, but I do plan on seeing them as kind of like a graduation trip. So I would prefer, I think, for my one beam to go to South America. I think probably Paraguay.

'cause at K State I don't know if you guys know this, the state of Kansas has this. Sort of partnership with Paraguay. People from the country of Paraguay can come to study at either KC eight or KU or any university in Kansas and they'll get basically in-state tuition. So there's a lot of paraguayans I've come to know and be friends with.

So, I think it'd be really cool to go to, somewhere in South America and just see what it's like.

Isaiah: That is really [00:50:00] cool. I've met quite a few actually, now that you mentioned. I was like, oh yeah,

Matthew Young: Yeah, right. Yeah. You know Baruch? Yeah. I love Baruch

Isaiah: I love, yeah, Baruch is phenomenal. Maybe Brazil. But also I wanted to wait for New Year's for that. 'cause you've seen the, the fireworks and the shows.

So, I don't know. I've always, I have a bracelet where Brazil is like on there's a flag and that's definitely the next country I want to go to. So maybe I'll just go right now and go to the beaches, play soccer with the World Cup coming up, just seeing what life is like down there.

Matthew Young: You gotta think too, with your beam, you don't have to sit through a really long flight, so you might just have to go to the longest. The

Scott Heidner: does change things. A

Jeff Hancock: Guy thinks like an engineer, doesn't he?

Isaiah: Yeah, he does. He does.

Scott Heidner: hefe, what would, what would your answer be? Where would you beam to?

Jeff Hancock: I don't know. I've always, this is gonna, you guys are all gonna think I'm crazy, but for some reason I've always wanted to go to like Antarctica.

Scott Heidner: I do think you're crazy.

Matthew Young: That'd be cool. But you gotta be careful though, you

Jeff Hancock: I know. Not for a long time, but it's just like, no, not very many people go there. It's kind of a unique experience [00:51:00] and honestly, like the people I do know that have been there have said it's just

Isaiah: you know, people that have

Jeff Hancock: a really neat place.

So, my wife and I have a friend that's in the Coast Guard and he was, spent some time there on the Coast Guard. And then I have family members that have just taken the, you can, you can go down there. And so they've been down there and Yep. It's very unique

Scott Heidner: Do you know Carl Reed? He worked for Della Troth and Goodwill for all those years before they got bought. You've probably seen his face. He was at the KDOT Partnering

Jeff Hancock: I don't Oh yeah, I know who he is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Scott Heidner: He's leaving for an Antarctic trip next week.

Jeff Hancock: Yep.

Isaiah: Oh

Scott Heidner: Yeah. These guys were like, oh, that's cool.

I would rather have that water bottle jack hammered through my kidney than go to Antarctica. That sounds horrible. Oh

Jeff Hancock: see it now.

Isaiah: a little cold

Jeff Hancock: On the trip down, it's all salads. It's salads, and we're going to Antarctica.

Isaiah: Mm.

Jeff Hancock: This guy does not like salads.

Scott Heidner: Uh, That is [00:52:00] a true story. I'll uh,

Isaiah: what about you, Scott?

Scott Heidner: Oh gosh, I don't know. Well, maybe I do know. So, wherever the greatest concentration of my friends are, that's where I want to go. I don't really have the wanderlust that most people have. I mean, if I go places, I do enjoy it. If I went to. South America or Europe or anywhere with, you know, lots of history.

I would enjoy it, but I just don't really crave it. My greatest joys are when I'm with the greatest number of people whose company I crave. So, I guess my beam would be. Back to the, I have a little converted cigar lounge at my place and you know, 10 or 12 of my all time favorite humans just hanging out there together.

That'd be mine.

Matthew Young: That's a beautiful answer.

Jeff Hancock: is. That's way better than

Matthew Young: Yeah, I know.

Jeff Hancock: Well,

Scott Heidner: don't know if it's better than uh, you know, Brazil and Paraguay, but it's better than Antarctica, [00:53:00] that's for sure.

Jeff Hancock: It is. I missed a real opportunity to say wherever Jen is, is where I want to

Scott Heidner: Oh, you did, you did. Well, you, we can edit this

Jeff Hancock: It's just,

Isaiah: put it in post, put it in post.

Scott Heidner: Wherever Jen is. Well, we knew that's what

Jeff Hancock: this? Thank you

Scott Heidner: Well, I tell you what, I think we're either at or getting close to an hour, and that's certainly all the questions we had to ask. So, Matthew and Isaiah, thank you gentlemen for being part of the scholarship program.

Congratulations on your wins. We wish you the best in the competition at the national level. And most of all, we appreciate you gentlemen, making some time to sit with us and share your stories and your. Thoughts with our members and our listeners. It's been a pleasure to spend some time with you.

Isaiah: Perfect. Thank you so much for having us.

Matthew Young: fun.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. It's been enjoyable. And Hefe, thank you for hosting it here at SMH Consultants in beautiful Manhattan, Kansas. That's right. Well, listeners, thank you for joining us for the latest episode of the QBS Express. We'll see you next time. [00:54:00]