Two Years for IALR President Telly Tucker

IALR President Telly Tucker returns for the one-year anniversary episode of Inside IALR to discuss the biggest successes and lessons learned from his two years with the organization. As IALR continues to grow, Telly explains the level of growth and impact not only regionally but nationally and internationally in areas such as GO TEC, ATDM and Applied Research. Telly also highlights his vision for IALR two years from now. 

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Caleb Ayers 0:09

Welcome to another episode of Inside IALR. Um we have been doing this show for about a year now, and we are bringing back our first guest. We have our president, Telly Tucker. Telly, thanks for being here. Thanks, Caleb, for having me. What I really want to do is talk about your what what you've seen so far as president of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. I know you just hit your two-year mark. A lot has happened and changed during that time. So I just kind of want to walk through what some of those things are, what what some of those things we've gone through, some of those things you're seeing for the future. So I guess to start, we have grown a lot in the last two years. What has been your approach to sort of managing that level of growth for our organization, both in terms of people, in terms of programs, in terms of buildings? I mean, we were growing in all different directions. So talk how do you how do you manage that kind of growth?

Telly Tucker 1:06

You're exactly right, Caleb. When I arrived in May of 2022, ILR had somewhere around 50 employees. Um today we have about 130 employees. Um so to say, you know, you've more than doubled in size in in 24 months. That kind of growth, many businesses and and organizations wouldn't be able to sustain um themselves. And you know, I I think from a business standpoint, oftentimes you hear about businesses struggling because they don't have enough business or they're not, you know, generating enough um activity or revenue. Similarly, businesses fail because they grow too fast sometimes. And I think that's a um that's an interesting conundrum that um obviously we can't afford to let happen. The Institute's 21 now going on 22 years old. And for the lion's share of those those 20 years, um, we've been a, you know, uh an organization with 50 or less employees. And in this past year, um, this growth, as you mentioned, not only in um staff, but also um opening up the Center for Manufacturing Advancement uh, you know, about a year and a half ago, and now with another federally funded building, um, the National Training Center to support ATDM is under construction and scheduled to open phase one in January. Um it's a tremendous amount of pressure on any organization. Um, the administrative side, when you think of all of the support functions that um it takes to run a successful business, everything from human resources to finance to IT to facilities, maintenance, um, and many, many more, and each of those departments have been um significantly stressed because of the growth. And so we've we've been very um intentional about adding staff in some of those places as well and doing our best to um automate processes to look for more ways to streamline to become more efficient because it can very quickly become overwhelming in terms of the amount of work that it takes and with a staff that that maybe is not growing um on pace or on par with the growth that we have. How do we support that in a smart way? Um similarly, you mentioned um how do you manage a you know the culture of an organization? The ILR culture has always been one of um, I think that's we're we're an employer of choice, very uh professional work environment. We we have fun, we we are challenged to be innovators um and to be collaborators and conveners. And with the pressure of growth and expansion, we we can't afford to lose that because I think that's part of our DNA. It's what makes the work we do so rewarding and it's so impactful. The fact that we have so many partners, um, and the more people you bring into the mix, the more difficult sometimes it is to continue to manage those relationships. So we've been very intentional about that. We um I'll commend um LaShawn Graham as VP of HR. Um, one of the things that we um decided to roll out were cultural competencies of the organization, um, which are aligned with our Board of Trustees um strategic plan that they approved just before I got here. And to make sure that those those cultural competencies are really important to ILR stay at the forefront and the center of attention for every employee that comes on. They understand what makes us unique, what makes us special, how have we created um value for not only for the region, but for the state and for the nation. And let's make sure that we don't lose those. Um, so so very intentional about that. Um the last thing I'll mention in terms of managing growth, uh, we just went through an exercise. The majority of our growth is happening in the manufacturing advancement division. I would say that first, and then secondly, with GoTech as well and the advanced learning division, and we can talk more specifically about those. But one of the exercises we went through that that was really um enlightening, um, I would describe it as a process mapping where every task that gets done um within a team or within a division gets put on uh in a spreadsheet and we kind of align those tasks sequentially in order of where they happen, and then we look for gaps and we look for um overlap. Is there any duplication of effort? Um are there things that could be streamlined if we take certain tasks and group them with one team versus having them spread across three or four different teams? Uh so we went through a two-month exercise where we we mapped thousands of tasks on the manufacturing advancement team. And um as a result, um we recognized that we could probably create some more efficiencies there and hopefully give people back some time so they have better work-life balance. Um, with that, there were some recommendations that came out on restructuring and reorganization within that team. And um, so we've just rolled that out. That's a that's a way that an organization that's growing like ours continues to be flexible, be nimble, respond. Um we have to make changes as we continue to grow. We can't keep doing business the same way we always have in certain ways, tactically, um, because of the amount of activity, the amount of students we're serving, the amount of people that are coming in our doors. So, how do we look at our processes, our procedures, um, our standard operating practices for um just efficiency gains, um, much like you would do if you were in a manufacturing environment. So the the the training that we we we train people on, we need to be employing those best practices as well. And that's been um very intentional from where I sit and we'll continue to do that going forward.

Caleb Ayers 6:45

When I think of the growth, you know, yeah, naturally, I think we we go to the ATDM program partially because that wasn't here three years ago. You know, that kind of has has all happened in the last three years. Um but you're right that all of those support services have to have to grow as well so that that that growth can happen and they can support the entire the entire employee base. Um what do you think have been some of the biggest um I guess successes or or or moments that you're the most proud of over the past two two years leading IALR?

Telly Tucker 7:17

Um it's hard to pick one. Um I can honestly say that every division at ILR is having success um right now. And I would say meant much of it's unprecedented. It's never happened before. Um you know, our our Institute Conference Center division um three-quarters of the way through the year had really met their their revenue targets for the year. We're seeing uh growth on the conferencing center side and megabyte side that exceeds pre-pandemic levels. Um it's really exciting. Um, of course, Tracy Fink is the new VP there of ICC. She's doing a fantastic job and kind of come in and hit the ground running. Um really proud of that success. I'm I'm proud of uh GoTech. Go tech will by the end of this year, we anticipate GoTech will be in 52 middle schools across Virginia. That number just keeps going up. The number keeps going up, and the phone keeps ringing um about more communities that want to know how they get in go tech in their middle school or in their as part of their uh career technical education program. And uh Dr. Julie Brown uh brought on Angela Rigney. We were fortunate enough to to hire her, given her lengthy background with being a principal and being the director of CTE programs at Pennsylvania County. She's now managing that growth and to have someone there who understands uh at the at the ground level the importance of career technical education and how that education meets industry needs um has really been critical. So I'm really proud of the growth that they're experiencing. Um and also in the um in the advanced learning team, the success that we're having now as the uh apprenticeship um coordinator uh for the region. Um you know I I Tori Neal's doing a fantastic job there. Um I I get calls all the time with people raving about her work, and and so really just really proud of that entire team and what they've been doing. Um similarly, I I could jump over to Applied Research, uh, Dr. Scott Lohman's team. Uh they seems like they've been on a world tour recently. He's been traveling um all over the states and even some internationally to talk about the work that's happening in Controlled Environment Ag. Uh, and in this fall, of course, we'll be hosting the um indoor agcon East again, um, where we'll bring people from all over the globe to Danville, Virginia to talk about the future of controlled indoor environment agriculture. And so it's it's would as people look to a community like ours as innovators and really being cutting edge and leading the path of future, um, things that are going to change the globe, um that's that's really heartwarming. I think it's exactly why IALR was created to be this um to be this think tank, to be this convener of of uh people, really smart people. Uh I describe it as creative collisions, bringing people together, and not that we know all the answers, but um let's put really smart people in the room and come up with innovative ideas about how we're gonna solve um challenges. And then lastly, the manufacturing advancement division, really proud of the how they've managed this growth because it could have been very easy to become overwhelmed and get burnt out. Um, but we've got a great team of people who are managing the budgets, um the staff, onboarding, um, really delineating processes on how you do everything we do, knowing that ultimately um we may be tasked with helping stand up other training centers in partnership with DOD and Navy around the United States. Um, we're already seeing some of those requests come in. And that gives me it's a validation of sorts that we are doing things right and we are meeting the expectations of our customers. They're happy with with what they're seeing coming out of ILR, coming out of Danville, uh, and that they want us to do more of that. And um that's a that's a testament to not only ILR's leadership, our board of trustees, um, they empower um me and our team and and help us advocate for resources to make sure we have everything that we need to execute. And then um we don't do this alone as well, with many partners in the community, industrial, industry partners, uh, government partners, academia partners. Um it they all share in our success, honestly, um, because we couldn't do it without them.

Caleb Ayers 11:44

You listed some examples of um, you know, GoTech going around the state. ATDM obviously is having uh a national impact, Scott, uh, you know, traveling around around the world to talk about our our work in controlled environment agriculture. You know, our work is very much going beyond Southern Virginia. Our mission statement is you know involves Southern Virginia, but our our work is very clearly going beyond that. How do we balance those two things as far as you know, we are a regional resource, but are we also doing things that are benefiting serving other parts of the state, other parts of the nation? How do how do we balance those two things?

Telly Tucker 12:18

So the beautiful thing is those two things aren't mutually exclusive. We don't have to choose between only benefiting the region or benefiting uh the nation or the world. Um I firmly believe you can do both. And what's happening here is as evidenced by what typically starts regional, like GoTech, for example, starting in Danville, Pennsylvania County, is um now expanding all over Virginia. What that does for us, it's a it's a validation of um the thought leadership that's happening here. But as we expand these programs, it also expands job opportunities in the region. So now the GoTech team, I believe, has some 10 to 12 employees that are all ILR employees, uh many of which are housed right here in Danville, but some around the other parts of the state. So when we look at the economic impact of job creation uh here and kind of the the administrative hub for programs like ATDM and uh GoTech and others, we are um, as industry would, if it made an announcement here, we are creating jobs and um at wages that are above our average prevailing wage. We are driving both direct and indirect um impact, induced impact for um for the region in terms of tax revenue, job opportunities, um uh additional spending um by way of visitors, guests, conferences, um, students who travel to the region. And and I I didn't talk about our economic development team. Every time we have a prospect visit, which seems like we have them almost every day now, um, when they come through and they see the activity, when they see, you know, the students who are in STEM camp and when they see the activity that's happening in the in the training, you know, teacher training in the GoTech classroom, and certainly the activity that's happening in the manufacturing advancement division, it gives them confidence that this is a region that I want to be a part of. There's something special going on here. There's a real tangible momentum you can feel, and that's part of our mission as well, to support economic development growth. Um, so every, you know, every asset that this region has in Southern Virginia plays a part in its future success. It's not just one of us independently, but it's really all of us putting all of those assets together to say if if you are engaged with Southern Virginia's region, your your company, um, your entity, your business can have global success. And that's that's I remember very early on in my economic development days, we had a slide that we would present um for some of those um international prospects that came here. And it was, I can't remember the exact tagline, but it was the the effect of it was um, you know, business, operate your business locally, but have success globally. And it was that kind of tagline, and and you can do that from right here in Southern Virginia. So we are a living example and embody that as well in ILR. And um I I'm just tickled um that I'm fortunate enough to be in this position to lead such a dynamic and team and a group of talented individuals.

Caleb Ayers 15:42

It's cool to see the impact and how how geographically how far far it goes, but even just the diverse areas that our our teams are impacting. I mean, when I when I you know I'm giving tours and talking to people, I'm explaining that we are have contracts with AmeriCorps or we have AmeriCorps grants and contracts with the Department of Defense. If you look at it from that angle, it's like that's those are two things that are very different and and on the surface shouldn't necessarily like you wouldn't think those are run by the same organization. Um but it's really cool to see that that diversity, both in both in the geography and in the types of things we're we're running. You've seen you know the the growth over the last two years. What are what's sort of your vision for the next two years? Where do you see IALR two years from now?

Telly Tucker 16:49

That's a really good question. Um and occasionally I have to to pause to to think about um strategically where the organization is going and and so that we end up in the right place. Um two years from now, we will be um approaching 25 years old as an organization. Uh I I would like to have um uh economic impact analysis on the 25 years of uh activity that's happened at the institute in this region and what has that meant um completed. We will uh probably be somewhere around 150 employees, if I had to guess at that point. Um we should be at a at a steady state in terms of training 800 to a thousand people in the ATDM program. Uh the new uh National Training Center building will be completed, which represents our um sixth building uh on campus. Uh that'll be training 24 hours a day, five days a week with between instructors and staff. That that team alone will probably have 100 employees. Um and uh we kind of hit a steady state. So I do I think we will continue to grow exponentially at the rate we're growing today. Probably not. Um it would be really difficult to sustain that, you know, year after year after year. I think you hit a uh you will hit we will hit a point where we get to uh what I would describe as a steady state where um we're able to um effectively manage uh everything that we've been asked to do. And and I want to make sure we are successful that we don't take on too much, that we can't be successful at the things we've been asked to do. So it's responsible growth, uh, but at the same time, we want to be opportunistic because uh in our mission statement, the regional catalyzing of economic transformation, we have to be opportunistic and look for opportunities to continue to grow the region. Um if we're not if we're not moving forward, then we're regressing. And and honestly, our experience has been the better that we execute those programs and tasks and initiatives that we've been asked to do, um, the more opportunities present itself for us to continue to grow. So will there be growth? I think there will be continue to be growth, maybe not quite at the pace that they are today, but I fully expect this organization to be very healthy two years from now and and even beyond. Um I I would imagine programs like GoTech will be um close to statewide within the next three to five years, if I had to guess, uh thinking about strategically how do we sustain sustain them financially as a commonwealth, um, and that how do we make sure we have enough staff here to support that a statewide program from Southern Virginia and the administration of that. That's a key um challenge for us that we're we're already thinking through. Um from the conference center standpoint, we are we are exploring an opportunity to maybe add hospitality on our campus. Um, we're working with the city on a feasibility around uh maybe a hotel slash extended stay. I'd love to see in two years uh us to have a a hotel extended stay offering in Cyberpark that really supports the conference center and supports some of our student needs. We we do have some students who uh out even outside of ATDM that come in um either from other states or some even internationally, and they want to do research here or they want to um maybe do an internship here or a work study uh program through a university uh fellowship type type um experience, and having somewhere on campus for them to stay would would support our continued growth and programs as well as supporting the Institute Conference Center to be able to be more attractive. We we know with what's happening in the region from a tourism standpoint that there are going to be more people that are coming through Danville, and we wanna be we want to make sure that we are positioned to benefit from that growth as well. Um so I can see that happening. And uh, you know, with with ag research, I think we'll continue to be um, you know, the the sky's the limit uh in terms of where the research is going to go with our beneficial bacteria repository, um, with the controlled environment ag. I mean, that's growing by leaps and bounds. Most uh environmentalists and agriculturalists will tell you that the the world's population won't be able to be supported by um traditional farming, outdoor farming in the future. Uh, and as such, they'll be looking to entities like us on how do we how do we produce enough food to sustain the Earth's population in environments like controlled environments that that where we can um have faster growing cycles and we don't have the the um the risk of um the natural elements of weather and natural disasters and um we don't have to use things like insecticides and pesticides on our foods, which which ultimately drive a healthier, um, more sustainable agriculture um growing season and and hopefully healthier people, right? As we consume um, you know, all of our fresh fruits and vegetables and those things, we we really want to be at the cutting edge of that. So we're thinking about uh where we should be positioning ourselves as that industry will inevitably continue to grow over the next few years.

Caleb Ayers 22:23

I think it's really important to go back to something you said about opportunistic. You know, I think if you had said two years before two years before you got here, I don't even think ATDM was a thought at that point. You know, we didn't know that was coming, and then that has, you know, led to this amazing impact and growth and um obviously impact on on those students and the companies who are hiring those students and ultimately our national defense. And I'm sure I'm sure there are gonna be more opportunities like that that pop up that we don't even know what they are yet. Um you might know what they are, but yeah, I'm sure you might not. Um but I think that's that's very important what you're saying. That you know we're we're and you use the word nimble too, that you know, we we're flexible, we can we can move around. And that's I think based on what I've seen, that's a real real strength of IALR is that we can be flexible, go into different industries, go into different um Yeah, go into different sectors and and really make an impact in in a um responsible, but also uh in a fast, you know, we we can move fast to make that happen.

Telly Tucker 23:23

We were one thing I'll mention, um Kev, you made me think of we were we were created to be a political subdivision for that reason, to give us the um ability to be flexible and responsive to industry needs. You're right, uh you know, four or five years ago, HEDM didn't exist. It was um, you know, the original white paper that we submitted um to the Department of Defense under the NIST, it's called NIST, the National Imperative for for Um Industrial Skills. It was a response to helping find a challenge to needing um skilled trades workforce to support the defense industrial base. And people often ask, well, why Danville? Why did that happen here? Uh particularly with the partnership with the Navy, we're we're four hours away from water. Um what was the deciding factor to to have that happen here? And this is what I mean when I say it's not just about ILR. Um, one of the things that the folks from the Department of Defense and from the Navy saw here was they saw a community had invested in self over the last 20 years. They saw a community had invested in schools and CTE programs, they saw a community that had invested in innovative programs like GoTech. They saw a community that had built a new electronic instrumentation technology um building, um engineering building on the campus of Danville Community College and a brand new welding building. Uh and they saw a community that had invested um world-class machining and automation and robotics and IT classrooms at the high school level in Danville, Pennsylvania County. Um they saw um an investment in the um integrated machining technology, the IMT, third-year capstone machining program here. And so while we thought about as the region invested in some of these programs, thinking, oh, we we are going to uh train the next generation of students to be ready for good jobs, and and this might have uh an appeal for industry, it also had an appeal in it to the DOD and to Navy because they saw a community that invested in and had spent, you know, 60, six, seventy million dollars and investing in itself, and they wanted to co-invest with us. Had that investment never happened by all of those other disparate entities in the region, I don't think that we would have been successful in getting ATDM. And so did any of us ever think 20 years ago or 10 years ago when we were making those strategic investments that it would result in a partnership with DOD and Navy, I would be 99% certain that no one thought that that would happen. Um so to go back to your opportunistic um comment, you just have to be ready because you never know what might come your way. And, you know, the cliche that sometimes it's better to be lucky than good is really um true. And I don't want to say this was luck because they were there were really um some influential leaders in the community that made difficult decisions to invest money at times when when every other community was deciding to pull back and kind of hold on to their resources because they were they weren't sure what was gonna happen in the future. This community really doubled down and they really invested in their future, and we're reaping the benefits of that now. Um so it's not that Tully Tucker is the smartest guy in the world and he knows you know how to um make lemonade out of lemons. It's that this community has chosen to be very deliberate and intentional about investing in the future that it wants to have and setting itself up for us to be opportunistic today. And so we want to continue to do that.

Caleb Ayers 27:17

Before you go, I know we've we've talked about a lot of those programs like ATDM and GoTech and um even what's happening at the Center for Manufacturing Advancement that are sort of, you know, those are the things that are grabbing a lot of the attention, those are the things that are growing the most. Um what's one thing we do here that you that you wish more people knew about, whether that be here in the community or even outside of outside of Southern Virginia? What's one thing we do here that you wish was more people knew?

Telly Tucker 27:44

You know, I that's a tough one because I I wish that people um Yeah, all of it's not the right answer. Yeah. Um if I had to choose one thing that um I wish people knew more about the work that we're doing. Um not a lot of people know that we're involved in a regional health collaborative um partnership that um you talked about our Americor earlier, some of our AmeriCorps volunteers are are um really engaged with trying to think regionally about solutions to improve health outcomes for uh the residents in this region. It's hard to think about better economic outcomes if you don't have a good health outlook. Uh, and so um part of the economic transformation mission is to make sure that um our our regional health care uh collaborative um is working together uh to complement each other. Um and that's everybody from you know training partners to service providers to um community health care workers and the like, making sure people have access to that so that they can be healthy to take advantage of some of the jobs that are available in the region. Um similarly, industry, when it looks at a region and it looks at whether it wants to locate here, one of the first questions that it asks is tell me about your local health care system. Um and you may not, you know, to the average person who doesn't work in economic development, you might not think there's a a correlation between the health community and whether an industry decides to locate there, but it it absolutely does because they want to know if they move their employees here, their leadership here, um, that people have confidence in the the regional healthcare system. Similarly, if um if there is ever a need um or an accident or something that happens, does the region have the ability to support any any of their health care needs if somebody should be injured or or um have a an accident that that was unforeseen? And so that's work that the advanced learning team is involved in that I would think not a lot of people really uh realize that we're we're involved in. Um so if people want to learn more about that, they can certainly go to our website and and uh look for the REACH uh collaborative initiative under the advanced learning team and learn a little bit more about what's what's happening in that space.

Caleb Ayers 30:15

To go back to that idea of geographic diversity and programmatic diversity, you know, that one. Yeah, again, you say we're working with AmeriCorps and healthcare and also working with the Department of Defense. It's just a great that's a great one line Yeah, if you need a good elevator pitch of what we do, maybe that's it. We work with Americor and we work with the Department of Defense and a lot of other organizations. Um But Telly, I appreciate the time. You know, I I think it's really cool to see. I've enjoyed, you know, from from working here for the past year and a half now, the to see the the growth that's happening, to see the the impact that we're making and how that impact is growing. And I think, you know, this this organization, as as you said, we've positioned ourselves for this type of growth, for this type of impact. And um just happy to Air, I'm excited to see what the next two years hold. So I appreciate the time. Thanks so much.