, , , “Live Storytelling with Corporate Workshop participants MEDA”

Today we feature four storytellers who worked hard during a Tell Us Something corporate storytelling week-long workshop. Members of the Montana Economic Developers’ Association, or MEDA shared their true personal stories from their homes and offices during a corporate workshop hosted by Tell Us Something. The storytelling workshop helped people harness the power of personal storytelling to talk about the work that they do every day. Why is that work important to them, why that work is important to those that they serve and why that work is important to the communities where they live and work across the state of Montana.

The MEDA members who are sharing their stories with you today know that it is with our stories that we can reach people with our mission. They left the graphs and pie charts at the office. They saved the data points for later. Our storytellers today used their true personal stories to share the story of the important work that they do in communities across Montana.

Around 20 or so MEDA members joined me every day for a week. During our two hours every day, I taught them what I know about storytelling. We talked about techniques and structure and helped each other develop and improve our stories. I tailored the workshop specifically for the MEDA members. 

Usually, a Tell Us Something event is focused on a theme. We hadn’t discussed a theme for these stories, but, listening to them, a theme emerged. We can say that the theme is  “Why am I here?” or “Why I do this”. Call it “Passion.” Whatever you call it, you’ll see that these storytellers are personally bonded to the work that they do, and that their passion really comes through in the stories that they share.

Our first storyteller is Gloria O’Rourke. Gloria has been a MEDA member since 1995 and self-employed since 2003. She and her business partner, Mike, share an office and have been married for 44 years.  Mike and Gloria enjoy spoiling their four grandsons and then returning them with sugar highs to their parents. We call Gloria’s story “My Desk”.

To learn more about the Montana Economic Developers Association, visit medamembers.org

Our next storyteller is a world-traveler from a small town. Heather McCartney is a 5th generation Montanan. She works as an outreach and consumer education specialist with the non-profit child care resource and referral agency, Family Connections. Her passions include hunting for good decaf, long reads, and connecting people to great resources. She lives in Choteau with her conservation officer husband, her artistic and whimsical daughter, five freeloading chickens, three cats, and a dog named Bear. Green is her favorite color. We call Heather’s story “Family Connections”.

To learn more about Family Connections, visit familyconnectionsmt.org.

Russ Fletcher is an old retired guy who escaped from San Francisco 25 years ago to live in Missoula with his retired attorney wife, Alexis.  They have two children. His son lives in San Francisco and works for Google. His daughter has “Come Home” from L.A. and works for Hulu. Russ spends a lot of his day looking at a computer screen, drinking coffee, and pondering the future of Montana. Russ calls his story “How I Found My Last Best Job in a Missoula Dive Bar”.

To learn more about Russ’s passion project, Montana Associated Technology Roundtables, visit matr.net.

Teresa Schreiner is the Investment Director at the Great Falls Development Authority. She’s a former ‘Butte Rat’ who teases that she came ‘kicking and screaming’ to Great Falls with her husband, although loves to sell folks on the Electric City. Teresa just celebrated ten years with her larger than life husband, Casey, who equally challenges her efforts. Together they have three scrappy and smart little boys that love to give them a run for their money: Aiden, Liam, and Finn. Teresa calls her story “Nose Down Ass Up”.

You can learn more about the Great Falls Development Authority by visiting growgreatfallsmontana.org

Transcript : Live Storytelling with Corporate Workshop participants MEDA

00:00
welcome to the telesumming podcast i’m
00:01
mark moss they had just been
00:04
shafted by the company that had bought
00:06
their company
00:07
so i was buying them their beer
00:10
ironically
00:11
in a couple of years they would develop
00:13
a fully automated
00:14
company that without employees doing
00:16
about four and a half million dollars a
00:18
year in sales
00:20
today we feature four storytellers who
00:22
worked hard during a tele-something
00:24
corporate storytelling week-long
00:26
workshop
00:27
members of the montana economic
00:29
developers association
00:30
or media shared their true personal
00:33
stories from their homes and offices
00:35
during a corporate workshop hosted by
00:37
tell us something
00:38
the storytelling workshop helped people
00:40
harness the power of personal
00:42
storytelling
00:43
to talk about the work that they do
00:45
every day
00:46
why is that work important to them why
00:49
that work is important to those that
00:51
they serve and why that work is
00:52
important to the communities where they
00:54
live
00:54
and work across the state of montana
00:58
big thanks to our title sponsor the good
01:00
food store and thanks to our enduring
01:02
sponsors cabinetparts.com and blackfoot
01:04
communications
01:05
special thanks to our champion sponsor
01:06
truefood missoula and huge thanks to our
01:09
blue ribbon sponsor
01:10
joyce of tile the media members who are
01:14
sharing our stories with you today
01:15
know that it is with our stories that we
01:18
can reach people
01:19
with our mission they left the graphs
01:22
and pie charts at the office
01:24
they saved the data points for later our
01:27
storytellers today
01:28
used their true personal stories to
01:30
share the story of the important work
01:32
that they do
01:33
in communities across montana around 20
01:35
or so media members
01:37
joined me every day for a week during
01:40
our two hours every day
01:41
i taught them what i know about
01:43
storytelling we talked about techniques
01:45
and structure and helped each other
01:47
develop and improve our stories
01:49
i tailored the workshop specifically for
01:52
the media members
01:53
today four of those workshop
01:55
participants will share their stories
01:56
with you
01:57
we did the workshop over zoom and a
02:00
couple times there were
02:01
internet connectivity issues so you’ll
02:03
hear some of the participants drop out
02:05
a few times usually a telesumming event
02:09
is focused on a theme
02:11
we hadn’t discussed a theme for these
02:13
stories but listening to them
02:15
a theme emerged we can say that the
02:17
theme is
02:18
why am i here or why i do this call it
02:22
passion
02:23
whatever you call it you’ll see these
02:25
storytellers are personally bonded to
02:27
the work that they do
02:28
and that their passion really comes
02:30
through in the stories that they share
02:32
our first storyteller is gloria o’rourke
02:35
gloria
02:36
has been a meta member since 1995 and
02:39
self-employed since 2003.
02:41
she and her business partner mike share
02:44
an office and have been married for 44
02:46
years
02:47
mike and gloria enjoy spoiling their
02:49
four grandsons and then returning them
02:51
with sugar highs
02:52
to their parents we call gloria’s story
02:55
my desk do you know
02:59
how many sticky notes are in a pack
03:04
we all use them but do you know there
03:07
are 100
03:08
sticky notes in a pack i go through
03:12
about a pack a week
03:15
why i’m self-employed
03:19
that means i’m my own boss right
03:23
wrong i have a contract and i work for
03:26
meda
03:27
which stands for montana economic
03:29
developers association
03:32
meda has a membership of about as of
03:34
this morning
03:35
253 people and that means
03:40
i have 253 bosses
03:43
so at my desk here at my desk i like to
03:46
think of myself as the communication hub
03:49
maybe a federal partner or a state
03:51
partner has an urgent program
03:53
update and they’ll send it to me gloria
03:54
can you shoot this out and
03:56
or maybe a media member will send me
03:58
something saying hey we’re
04:00
putting on a training or oh we have this
04:02
to offer small businesses
04:04
would you shoot it out so i send it out
04:06
or maybe i’ll get a phone call
04:08
and it’s a business person saying i’m
04:10
trying to start a business in bozeman do
04:12
you know who i should contact
04:14
and so i look at myself as kind of the
04:18
communication hub
04:19
things come in i send them out right
04:22
but i’m not always at my desk one of my
04:25
favorite things to do
04:27
is what’s called immediate community
04:29
review
04:30
um once how it works is a community will
04:33
invite me to in
04:35
and i’ll first start with a small team
04:37
of maybe just three or four of us and
04:39
what we do
04:40
is we listen we listen to a community
04:43
for
04:43
hours we listen to them share about
04:46
what’s important to them
04:47
what problems they’re having what
04:49
challenges they’re having
04:51
and we summarize everything that we
04:54
heard from these hours and hours of
04:56
listening
04:57
then we go back to our desks and i start
05:00
tapping the shoulders of some of those
05:03
253 bosses
05:04
and they say hey i’m this this town
05:07
needs help with small business finance
05:09
or this
05:10
town needs help restoring a historic
05:12
building or
05:13
this town needs help with manufacturing
05:15
or this town is looking for a co-op
05:17
for a store so then we work together
05:21
to help that community take action on
05:24
their action plans
05:26
a perfect example of this is the
05:28
community of lockwood
05:30
several years ago big sky economic
05:32
development
05:33
and beartooth rcnd invited a small meta
05:37
team to come in
05:38
and listen to lockwood and so we
05:40
listened
05:42
and we listened and we heard three main
05:45
pretty heavy burdens the community of
05:47
lockwood had
05:48
um one was they felt like they were the
05:51
ugly stepchild
05:52
of yellowstone county they felt their
05:54
voice was not heard
05:56
another one was they realized they had a
05:59
large dropout rate
06:00
that they had these kids that grew up in
06:03
lockwood went to school in lockwood and
06:05
then suddenly
06:06
it was time to go to high school and
06:07
they were shuttled to different schools
06:09
in the big city
06:11
the third major problem they wanted to
06:15
address and it was quite tragic
06:17
was they had several deaths in their
06:20
community
06:21
because people had been killed there was
06:23
no
06:24
safe streets no safe sidewalk no good
06:27
lighting
06:28
for the people to walk on and so
06:31
the team after we listened we came back
06:34
to our desk we tapped shoulders of those
06:37
253
06:39
media members we worked again with big
06:42
sky eda and beartooth and we held a huge
06:44
town hall meeting
06:47
and as a result of that our
06:50
our media members bringing their
06:52
expertise to the table and
06:53
local people of lockwood stepping up
06:56
i’ll never forget this young dad stepped
06:58
up
06:58
and he said i want my boys to be safe
07:01
when they walk to school
07:03
so the people of lockwood came together
07:05
and
07:06
they really went to work on their action
07:08
items so
07:09
a few months ago we were back to
07:12
lockwood and we wanted to hear what
07:13
happened
07:14
and what we learned is lockwood has
07:17
incredible momentum
07:18
now they no longer feel like the ugly
07:20
stepchild
07:22
they through working through legislators
07:25
they change state law so that they now
07:28
had the right to vote onto whether or
07:31
not to build a high school in lockwood
07:33
and they now have their own high school
07:36
and
07:36
best of all they were the first
07:38
community to pass a levy
07:40
to pay for sidewalks and streetlights
07:43
and so this huge momentum monumental
07:46
shift has happened in lockwood
07:48
so back at my desk with my
07:52
my oceans of sticky notes
07:55
i’ve realized something and that is that
07:58
there is no self
08:00
in self-employed i can’t do it on my own
08:04
and i like to think you can’t do it as
08:07
well
08:07
without me and so working together with
08:11
my 253 bosses who really aren’t bosses
08:14
you are really my partners
08:16
working together we are making a
08:18
difference in our communities
08:20
and building a great place in montana
08:23
for people to work
08:24
play and live thanks gloria
08:28
to learn more about the montana economic
08:30
developers association
08:31
visit medamembers.org
08:36
our next storyteller is a world traveler
08:38
from a small town heather mccartney is a
08:41
fifth
08:41
generation montanan she works as an
08:44
outreach and consumer education
08:46
specialist
08:47
with the non-profit child care resource
08:49
and referral agency
08:51
family connections her passions include
08:54
hunting for a good decaf
08:56
long reads and connecting people to
08:58
great resources
08:59
she lives in shoto montana with her
09:01
conservation officer husband
09:03
her artistic and whimsical daughter five
09:06
freeloading chickens
09:07
three cats and a dog named bear green is
09:10
her favorite color
09:12
we call heather’s story family
09:14
connections
09:15
i am driving down 89. the sun crests the
09:18
eastern horizon
09:20
and the light is blinding so i pull my
09:22
visor down push it to the side
09:24
no need to start a migraine this early
09:26
in the day
09:28
light flickers off the refuge waters as
09:30
i look in my rear view mirror
09:32
my little passenger looks dreamily out
09:34
her window
09:36
look mama i see a dragon maybe a dog
09:40
i follow her gaze into the puffy clouds
09:43
uh-huh i see what you see i also see a
09:46
blue heron fishing
09:48
over there do you see it yes and
09:50
pelicans too
09:53
she explains her head back i’m tired
09:56
mama
09:57
she murmurs me too sweetheart
10:00
why don’t you pull your pillow over to
10:02
the door and have a little nap
10:04
she settles herself against the seat
10:06
ponytail flopping over as she leans into
10:08
her pillow
10:09
and pulls up her blanket
10:13
i count myself fortunate to live here on
10:15
the crown of the continent
10:16
our little bungalow sits in a tree-lying
10:18
town in the shadow of the rocky
10:20
mountains
10:21
the backbone of the world the
10:24
front actually known as a cornucopia of
10:26
flora and fauna
10:28
on a given day you’ll see silver-tipped
10:30
grizzly bears
10:31
grazing on black choke cherries next to
10:34
freshly moan hay fields
10:36
next to mountain streams that water an
10:39
otherwise arid plain
10:41
in the town of shoto the deer regularly
10:44
grazed down my sunflowers
10:46
and the elk bugle at the city limits
10:49
neighborhood children play from house to
10:51
house the schools are top notch
10:53
and as garrison keillor would say all
10:55
the kids are above average
10:59
60 miles later i pull into a quiet
11:00
neighborhood
11:02
slowing to go over a speed bump i see a
11:04
lively elementary school around the
11:06
corner
11:07
and gaze wistfully at a for sale sign on
11:10
a modest home
11:12
i stop as claire gathers her backpack
11:14
and hops out
11:16
i meet her on the other side of car we
11:19
kiss through our masks
11:20
love you mama love you too zugs i say as
11:23
i squeeze her in a hug
11:25
i climb back into the car and stare at
11:27
her back
11:28
and she heads into someone else’s
11:30
capable hands
11:33
15 minutes later i pull into the parking
11:35
lot in my company designated space
11:38
as i turn off the engine i feel the heat
11:39
of the day coming on
11:41
i hate my commute i hate all the hours
11:44
lost to transition when i’d rather be
11:46
relaxing
11:47
catching up with friends heck even doing
11:50
chores
11:51
anything but sitting in a car my back
11:53
and legs getting tight
11:55
i hate that clara strapped to a seat
11:57
belt for those same hours rather than
11:59
running with the sun on her hair or
12:01
climbing into a treehouse to exchange
12:03
secrets with friends
12:05
i especially hate that because my
12:06
commute to child care is so far
12:08
and high quality care is so expensive
12:11
that i will have nothing to show for my
12:13
eight hour day plus
12:14
two and a half hours of travel my entire
12:16
paycheck will have been cashed into
12:18
making sure my daughter
12:19
has great care and learning while i work
12:23
yet i’m doing exactly what i love
12:25
i’m an influencer for positive change
12:28
change
12:29
i deeply gratified helping people solve
12:30
problems and communities rally around
12:32
solutions
12:34
like you there really isn’t much i
12:35
wouldn’t do or haven’t done to help
12:37
these good developments along
12:39
i mean you know the drill cups of coffee
12:42
at community tables
12:44
op-eds to regional papers sitting on
12:46
boards
12:47
volunteering for anything on a saturday
12:49
and then biting your tongue as a group
12:51
moves in a different direction
12:53
leaving your hard work in the dust like
12:55
beer cans after a rodeo
12:58
but this this depleting of my personal
13:01
resources to care for my child
13:03
so that i can help other families and
13:05
communities care for their children
13:07
this is pulling at me like attention
13:09
wire fascinating me to two worlds
13:11
professional and personal sitting here
13:14
in the august heat reminds me of the
13:16
pressure cooker i’m in
13:17
i desperately want claire to have a
13:18
carefree childhood full of rich
13:20
experiences
13:21
and i’m also eager to work to help solve
13:23
montana’s child care crisis
13:26
i’m educated and employed and i’m at
13:28
risk of leaving the workforce
13:30
i live in a childcare desert and i am
13:33
digging wells for other communities and
13:35
their child care oasis
13:37
last night’s call from a panic provider
13:39
wondering how she’ll finance next
13:41
month’s expenses haunts me
13:43
families are desperate for child care so
13:45
they can work uninterrupted
13:46
yet with pandemic variables many have
13:48
pulled the kids home
13:50
taking precious cash flow with them if
13:52
she can’t put together financing
13:54
she’ll join the 10 that have closed
13:56
their doors this year
13:57
adding to the already 40 shortage we had
14:01
in the state
14:02
last week’s blowback from a county
14:04
commissioner’s meeting asking them to
14:06
allocate funds to develop child care
14:08
that had me ready to quit hot tears
14:11
stream down my face why don’t people
14:12
want to support families
14:14
would they rather not have staffing at
14:15
hospitals kids in schools
14:17
volunteers or even talk tax dollars
14:20
towards infrastructure
14:22
what the hell am i doing fighting for
14:24
others that they may enjoy
14:26
high quality affordable and available
14:27
child care for
14:29
which i’m not attained for myself this
14:32
is fraying the very fiber of my being
14:37
i am driving down 89 as starlight
14:39
illuminates the last of the night
14:41
grazers
14:42
my view is framed by oncoming headlights
14:45
in the highways
14:46
still slumbering at home clara dreams of
14:48
her day at school
14:49
full of friends and learning her dad and
14:51
dog will walk her down the idyllic fall
14:53
boulevard
14:54
kicking leaves and stopping to pick up
14:56
her favorite rocks
14:57
and what am i doing like you i’m going
15:01
to work
15:03
thanks heather to learn more about
15:05
family connections visit
15:08
familyconnectionsmt.org
15:11
russ fletcher is an old retired guy who
15:13
escaped from san francisco
15:14
25 years ago to live in missoula with
15:17
his retired attorney wife
15:18
alexis they have two children his son
15:21
lives in san francisco and works for
15:23
google his daughter has
15:25
come home to missoula from l.a and works
15:27
for hulu
15:28
russ spends a lot of his day looking at
15:31
a computer screen
15:32
drinking coffee and pondering the future
15:34
of montana
15:35
russ calls his story how i found my last
15:38
best job in a missoula dive bar it was a
15:41
dark and stormy night 20 years ago
15:44
there was a waiter listlessly clearing
15:46
dishes from the table where
15:48
the 10 or so people that i invited to
15:51
dinner
15:52
had finished eating our greasy burgers
15:54
and drinking bud light
15:56
i’d invited them there to ask a single
15:58
question
15:59
something that i’d found since i’d moved
16:00
from silicon valley it was what the
16:02
prison sheriff on cool hand luke stated
16:04
when they dragged paul newman back
16:06
from an escape attempt what we’ve got
16:09
here
16:09
is a failure to communicate why didn’t
16:13
montana communicate
16:14
we did in san francisco it was just me
16:17
and
16:18
and we’ll call them bud and lou we’re
16:20
left drinking our last can of bud
16:23
there probably was a wet dog laying by
16:25
that back door
16:27
they had just been shafted by the
16:30
company that had bought their company
16:32
so i was buying them their beer
16:34
ironically
16:36
in a couple of years they would develop
16:37
a fully automated
16:39
company that without employees doing
16:41
about four and a half million dollars a
16:43
year in sales
16:45
they would put a phone in their little
16:47
tiny office on higgins
16:50
that would go to the phone tree of all
16:51
the services
16:53
and bud had to go in occasionally to
16:55
sign checks
16:56
and sometimes he’d like to pick up the
16:57
phone so one day he’s in there and the
17:00
phone rings he picks it up and he hears
17:02
hi
17:03
my name is susan smith and i’m from and
17:05
let’s call it giganto corporation
17:08
he immediately slammed down the phone it
17:10
rang again
17:12
hi my name is susan smith and i’m from
17:14
gigento
17:15
he so calmly said thanks susan we’ve
17:18
already got all the computers we need
17:20
and he hung up the phone the phone rang
17:23
again immediately and he picked it up
17:24
now he heard in a rush
17:26
hi my name is susan smith i’m with
17:28
digento and we want to buy your company
17:32
time they got better attorneys and sold
17:34
it from mid-eight figures
17:36
now back to that uh back room with those
17:39
soon-to-be multi-millionaires
17:41
we’d had a few beers and we’re getting
17:43
down to the nitty-gritty
17:44
we’d all come from techy backgrounds in
17:46
silicon valley
17:48
and in that in that environment i had
17:51
always told my employees
17:52
please get out of the office at least an
17:55
hour a day
17:56
you have to get out you can’t just sit
17:58
in your office you’ve got to see what’s
18:00
going on
18:00
who are new competitors who might we
18:02
collaborate with
18:04
what’s the new technology i also had
18:07
told them that if they were over 45
18:09
i wanted them to find a 25 to 30 year
18:12
old
18:13
mentee not a men excuse me a mentor not
18:16
a mentee
18:18
someone who they could work with someone
18:20
who they could teach
18:21
who could teach them about what tensions
18:22
and technology were happening
18:24
they had to realize that it was they
18:26
were not the future
18:28
it were the it was the younger people
18:30
it’s all
18:31
and still is all about networking the
18:34
three of us lamented the fact that
18:35
missoula
18:36
wasn’t talking to bozeman wasn’t talking
18:38
to billings
18:39
wasn’t talking to great falls etc it
18:41
seemed like they all thought each other
18:43
was competing
18:44
it was the same for montana’s companies
18:46
they weren’t talking with each other
18:48
to see whether it might be collaboration
18:50
um
18:51
it wasn’t it wasn’t montana it was the
18:54
world how could i address this
18:56
they both looked at me in very calm
19:00
and humorous gazes said why don’t you
19:03
just build a website
19:05
i was running a company at the time but
19:07
i said hey let’s give it a shot
19:09
so i knew two guys they were brilliant
19:11
techies john and steve they founded mod
19:13
west
19:13
which was an incredibly successful isp
19:16
with i think clients in 56 countries
19:18
they agreed to build a website that
19:21
would become the montana associated
19:23
technology roundtable
19:24
matter because the economy does matter
19:28
i’ll never be able to thank them enough
19:31
john’s now
19:31
in uh truth or consequences new mexico
19:34
running a brew pub
19:35
so there is the career after technology
19:39
the site started modestly i started
19:41
holding monthly roundtables which i’d
19:42
done in silicon valley
19:44
people would get together we’d have a
19:45
topic or a panel
19:47
and people would just talk and they
19:49
seemed to be really
19:50
wanting to to get can get communicating
19:54
with each other
19:54
learn what was going on i really felt
19:57
great about these roundtables they were
19:58
a lot of work
20:00
but i enjoyed them we had one that i
20:03
think i’ll always remember
20:04
the t1 lines was taking 13 14 weeks to
20:07
get one installed for a new company
20:09
this was just you know inconceivable so
20:12
i said let’s have a round table
20:13
i got a call from senator baucus’s
20:15
office he said he would like to come and
20:17
speak because he’d heard about this
20:18
problem too when he arrived he
20:20
apologized he said russ sorry i can only
20:22
stay a few minutes after i give my
20:24
little speech
20:25
he ended up staying for over an hour as
20:28
he listened to the challenges
20:29
of the business community i would like
20:31
to think that this event had an impact
20:33
on him as he announced his first state
20:35
economic summit a few weeks later
20:37
matters all free
20:38
as you all know i rely on the huge
20:41
personal satisfaction i get from doing
20:43
matter
20:43
not the funding it generates it’s
20:45
certainly not the 34 cents an hour i
20:47
calculated i earned sitting on my butt
20:49
and answering the phone
20:51
while supporters and sponsors are
20:53
greatly appreciated
20:54
i’ve never focused on monetizing it in
20:56
spite of my wife’s concern
20:58
and frequent recommendations that you
21:00
should be charging for that
21:02
to me it’s all about montana an example
21:05
was a ceo i was talking to
21:07
he was having a hard time finding a
21:08
company to collaborate with they needed
21:10
some technology skills
21:12
i asked him have you walked across the
21:14
street he did
21:16
he found the company that fit his needs
21:18
that company didn’t have a sign on the
21:20
door
21:21
they competed for the contract they
21:22
didn’t get it but it really showed to me
21:24
the fact that we really needed to get
21:26
out of the office and talk to
21:27
our neighbors it’s been about 20 years
21:31
of updating the site
21:32
i produced three newsletters a week i
21:34
talked to thousands of wonderful people
21:37
and i have to thank montana and media
21:40
for helping me enjoy the best last job
21:42
i’ve ever had
21:44
i hope that if you haven’t already maybe
21:47
someday
21:48
in some dark back room of a dive bar you
21:50
can find your
21:51
dream job as i did maybe it just takes
21:55
communicating with the right people like
21:57
bud
21:58
and lou and john and steve and everybody
22:01
at mita
22:02
thanks russ to learn more about russ’s
22:04
passion project
22:05
montana associated technology
22:07
roundtables visit
22:09
matr.net teresa shriner is the
22:12
investment director
22:13
at the great falls development authority
22:15
she’s a former
22:16
butte rat who teases that she came
22:18
kicking and screaming to great falls
22:20
with her husband
22:21
although loves to sell folks on the
22:23
electric city teresa
22:24
just celebrated 10 years with her larger
22:26
than life husband casey
22:28
who equally challenges her efforts
22:31
together they have three scrappy and
22:33
smart little boys
22:34
that love to give them a run for their
22:36
money adam liam and finn
22:38
teresa calls her story nose down ass up
22:42
my dad has a small business in butte
22:44
it’s a dental practice
22:45
although i probably wouldn’t call it
22:46
small because as far as i remember it’s
22:48
been
22:49
probably the biggest practice see so my
22:52
dad’s practice let me tell you a little
22:53
bit about it
22:55
it is the practice that as far as i
22:57
remember we always had
22:59
the phone number listed from our house
23:01
in the white pages if you guys remember
23:02
the white pages
23:04
it’s the one because my dad remembers
23:06
what it’s like having a toothache
23:07
growing
23:08
up so he would always allow people to
23:09
call her home day and night
23:11
going to be ringing off the hook he’s
23:13
always the one that takes referrals from
23:15
the police department the er
23:17
any clinic indian health things like
23:19
that nature so he sees folks of
23:21
every stripe he’s also not a formal guy
23:25
just like his practice he’s unassuming
23:28
humble and larger than life
23:30
so people never call him doctor it’s not
23:32
even dr mike
23:33
he’s always been known by his high
23:35
school nickname beets
23:38
and my dad would always get home later
23:41
than
23:41
probably scheduled or he ever wanted to
23:43
be and
23:44
later than anticipated but he would pick
23:47
the four of us up
23:48
when he got off work he’d come rumbling
23:50
down the dirt road in this old beater of
23:52
a pickup truck and he’d lay on the horn
23:55
it was the signal for the four of us to
23:57
pile into this pickup truck
23:59
and go clean the office so we get in the
24:02
truck
24:03
we’d turn around and he’d head on back
24:05
to the office
24:06
he wouldn’t stay though because he would
24:08
just be dropping us off and he’d head
24:10
to doc’s place doc was his dad he’d
24:13
probably go have a beer and they’d
24:15
rattle off
24:16
war stories about some toothache that
24:18
day
24:19
and before we get out he turned to us
24:21
and he’d say
24:22
nose down kids ass up and i remember
24:25
thinking
24:25
that’s a strange way to clean because i
24:28
didn’t really know what it meant at the
24:29
time
24:30
but as i’d learn over the years he’d
24:32
tell us that all the time
24:34
it really meant nose to the grindstone
24:36
and do the hard work
24:38
now if any of you have kids grandkids or
24:40
even uh
24:41
you know nephews or nieces of your own
24:44
you probably know what it was like
24:46
when you would arrive back to a scene
24:48
leaving four rambunctious children
24:50
probably the oldest ten
24:52
uh to their own devices i don’t know
24:54
what my dad envisioned i don’t know if
24:56
he was picturing some sort of mary
24:57
poppins scene
24:58
leaving the four of us to clean the
25:00
office but really it was more like
25:02
something from one flew out of the
25:03
cuckoo’s nest
25:05
because what would happen my brothers
25:07
would haul out this really
25:08
large auric orange vacuum plug it in
25:12
and start it running then the two
25:14
brothers would start
25:16
i think negotiating who was going to
25:18
clean negotiating would escalate into
25:21
wrestling
25:22
wrestling would start yelling and then
25:24
somehow the two of them
25:25
would start deciding hey let’s have a
25:28
let’s have a water gun fight
25:30
so then they would go into the two
25:32
operatories or two of the operatories
25:34
they would take the dental squirt guns i
25:36
think you know what i’m talking about
25:38
and then they would start positioning
25:39
the squirt guns water would be splayed
25:41
out between operatory walls
25:44
my youngest sister would be lounged back
25:46
in a dental chair reading the latest
25:48
issue of highlights magazine
25:50
music would be blasting from the
25:52
laboratory usually it was doors my dad
25:54
was a big break on through album fan
25:56
and i remember myself really the
25:59
suffering middle child of it all
26:01
always the responsible one would be
26:03
clutched holding a broom or a mop
26:05
you know orphan annie style just
26:07
pleading with all of them
26:08
oh my god you guys help me he’s going to
26:10
be back soon
26:12
and he’d arrive probably about a half an
26:13
hour later to the scene
26:15
and even though everybody referred to my
26:18
dad as beats the four of us
26:19
affectionately called him beats a dead
26:20
horse
26:21
because he would follow us around the
26:23
office and he wouldn’t give in
26:26
he would just lecture us until we got it
26:27
done right
26:29
eventually we would learn that if we did
26:31
it right the first time
26:33
it would get done faster and the sooner
26:36
we actually got it done the sooner we
26:37
would be home
26:38
playing ninja turtles or street fighter
26:41
on our nintendo
26:43
now me being the suffering middle child
26:46
i
26:46
stayed with my dad on through college
26:48
and grad school and i worked with him
26:52
i remember throughout these years that i
26:54
was pretty embarrassed that we drove
26:56
these beater old trucks in all of these
26:57
old cars
26:59
and i asked my dad about it and i
27:01
learned that my dad because he takes
27:02
patients of all stripes
27:04
would tell me quite a few things in
27:06
addition to the nose down ass up
27:08
work ethic that my dad has he would tell
27:11
me more meaningful things too
27:13
he would often say that the
27:16
banker’s spouse takes care of the
27:18
widow’s heart condition
27:20
you see teresa beets would tell me that
27:23
a rising tide does lift all boats
27:26
it’s not about being the richest man in
27:27
the cemetery
27:29
after all you don’t see a hearse hauling
27:31
a u-haul
27:32
which is why he takes care of everybody
27:34
that he does
27:36
so my dad instilled in me this work
27:38
ethic but he also taught me
27:40
in this nose-down ass up attitude
27:43
that we’d better leave this place better
27:45
than we found it and my dad also taught
27:48
me that
27:49
throughout these years anytime i was
27:51
complaining about the social ills of the
27:53
world
27:54
i better be a part of the solution and
27:56
not the problem
27:57
so my dad’s diatribe continued to beat
27:59
through me like a drum
28:02
which matters because i think this is
28:04
why we are all doing what we do
28:07
and anytime i found myself progressing
28:09
throughout a career if i was unhappy
28:11
with it
28:12
i couldn’t go complain to my dad because
28:14
he would tell me
28:15
nose down ass up teresa go find the
28:18
solution
28:19
don’t be a part of the problem if you
28:22
find yourself being a part of the
28:23
problem
28:23
go find that solution so anytime i did
28:27
that i’d have to move up throughout this
28:29
progression
28:31
and i continued to ask myself what is
28:33
that man behind the curtain what is that
28:35
jack of all trades in the community
28:37
and i think we all know what it is it is
28:40
community development it is
28:41
economic development we are the end of
28:44
the yellow brick road
28:45
and now more than ever it is personal to
28:47
me
28:48
because about seven months ago my dad
28:50
actually called me
28:52
my dad who i have seen as this
28:55
true end of all being
28:58
called me at the beginning of the
28:59
shutdown
29:01
and he said i i don’t know what to do
29:04
i’m shut down
29:05
my dad hasn’t worked with a banker a
29:07
personal loan officer
29:09
since he’d opened his business he was
29:11
nearing retirement
29:14
and now my brother my younger brother
29:16
this man who i remember holding sport
29:18
guns
29:19
was looking at buying out his practice
29:22
but my brother had also seven hundred
29:23
thousand dollars in student loan debt
29:26
and had a baby on the way so
29:29
he didn’t know about the ppp loan he
29:31
didn’t know about the idle loan
29:32
wasn’t familiar with succession planning
29:35
he knew
29:36
what i did but didn’t know what i did
29:38
quite frankly
29:39
so because of the small business center
29:41
because of what we do as economic
29:43
developers
29:44
he’s been able to safely shut down he’s
29:47
been able to capitalize on ppp
29:49
loans and idle loans secure both of
29:51
those things
29:52
he’s been able to actually successfully
29:54
re-engineer his business and remodel his
29:56
business during the shutdown
29:58
and he’s been able to restore his
30:01
business
30:02
i can’t imagine what would happen
30:05
without my dad and my brother’s practice
30:08
in the community of butte so i want you
30:11
to remember that i want you to remember
30:12
the impact that we have
30:15
in the state of montana so i want to
30:18
leave by saying nose down people
30:20
ass up thanks teresa you can learn more
30:23
about the great falls development
30:24
authority by visiting
30:27
growgreatfallsmontana.org thank you all
30:29
for listening and supporting our
30:31
storytellers today
30:32
and thanks to all of the storytellers
30:34
gloria
30:35
heather russ and teresa if your
30:37
organization would like to learn how to
30:39
tell better stories
30:40
drop me a line at mark telesumming.org
30:43
that’s marc
30:45
tell us something dot org you can learn
30:47
more at
30:49
slash telesumming.org next week on the
30:52
teleslimming podcast we’ll hear from
30:53
nerma
30:54
dobre chanin a tell us something
30:56
storyteller who shared a story
30:57
in november of 2018 but
31:00
here there was nobody not even a car
31:04
to to go past i was thinking
31:07
what what is this resident evil or where
31:09
am i
31:12
i caught up with her last summer via
31:14
zoom to chat about her tell something
31:16
experience
31:17
and what it was like visiting the united
31:18
states from montenegro during her study
31:20
of the us
31:21
institute on secondary education through
31:23
the university of montana
31:25
tune in for that next week at
31:27
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31:29
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