Tri-cities Influencer Podcast With Paul Casey

Isaac is the president of Wake up Nation Foundation. A fun fact about Isaac is that he eats way too many cookies and must have his cookies and milk before bedtime! Wake up Nation Foundation raises money for kids who find leadership opportunities. Wake up Nation is his speaking company. Isaac travels all over the Pacific Northwest to speak to kids in school. Isaac is spread thin as he is also VP of Marketing for a growing medical company. Isaac was raised here in Richland. He believes that pouring his heart and his message into this generation is so important because there are a lot of distractions that are trying to deter this upcoming generation from its course. He feels like it’s our responsibility as an older generation to pour into them. When putting together a team, he must know who they are as a person. He needs to know that they have integrity and a servanthood mentality. You must identify your why and align with people that share the same passion. They need to be bleeding his vision. Isaac was so eage

Something funny about them is that they once shared an office and it didn’t work out so well. Gigi likes to work in silence and Tony likes to tap his pen, listen to music or podcasts. They started a business called Contenders Boxing which was created originally to keep kids off the streets. While watching businesses in the old downtown Kennewick area come and go, they decided to capitalize on Gigi’s talents, which are marketing and social media. This is how their business Two Wicked Geese was formed. They have a passion for serving other small local businesses. While building Two Wicked Geese, an opportunity came along for them called Rock Steady Boxing, which is a non-contact program for patients with Parkinson’s. They started with a group of 7 patients and grew very quickly over a year to 25 patients. When adding members to their team they look for individuals that can follow directions, are coachable, a good listener and a communicator. They also look for someone who takes the initiative. They encourage th

Maronda is the owner of Consider it DONE! Personal Concierge, and a fun fact about her is that she and her family talk in movie lines. Maronda was raised by parents who are entrepreneurs: her father owns North East Carpet Company and her mother started Consider it DONE! 25 years ago. Consider it Done was named by Maronda’s oldest son when he was asked to color pictures for his grandmother’s refrigerator; he replied “Consider it DONE, Grammy!” Maronda started working at the age of 13 as a busgirl for her mother who was a restaurant manager. Her mother taught her how to be a servant-leader. A leader is someone who is willing to do what others are not; a leader is someone who serves. Throughout her teenage years she also did work for her mother when she started Consider it DONE! After Maronda suffered a neck injury at a manufacturing company she was approached by a friend who needed a personal assistant after his wife had passed away. That is when she decided to bring CID to the Tri-cities. Serving her community

A fun fact about Gary is that his 10 year old doesn’t ever think he sleeps because he only sees him when he is awake and Leslie can’t go to sleep if there are dishes in the sink! Leslies journey began with working in advertisement and marketing with newspapers for 15 years right out of college. After leaving that career she took a position at a marketing innovation consultant agency where she was able to blend strategic thinking and creative thinking. When she was working on a campaign for Kellogg for new waffles she felt like her creativity and skills may be better used somewhere else. That’s when she got the call from Gary to join him at Chaplaincy. She felt right at home and was grateful to be there helping people in need and not having to come up with new versions of waffles! Gary followed the traditional path of accounting background, accounting and finance, finance analyst, all the way up to business development but there was always a feeling that something was missing. He enjoyed the work and did the w

Heather is the founder and facilitator of Ascent Solutions. A fun fact about Heather is that she turns everything into a song in her head while people are talking. In the early 90’s Heather was working for Blue Shield/Blue Cross where a position as a trainer became available. She struggled with believing in herself but with her family’s belief in her, she applied and was offered the position. Throughout the years she has climbed the latter to bigger positions and attributes her success to other people’s belief in her. While working at Charles Schwab, she went from a training position that was full of fun dinners, networking, and personality tests to being a Broker Trainer in a small room with lots of applications and technical components. It was not at all where she wanted to be, but she knew that she had to challenge herself if she wanted to get to that senior management position. She brought her knowledge to the table and combined emotional intelligence with these processes she was training--it took her to

A couple fun facts about Michael is that he hates the sound of quitting and he’s a rock n roll drummer, being in a band since he was 15. He started working when he was 10 yrs old for his father’s family business. He was the only 10-year-old that he knew that had a paycheck and business cards. Early on in life his father instilled in him a strong work ethic and imparted to him that no one is going to hand you anything; you must go out and get it. He worked all positions in the family’s communications support company. He later went on to manage all positions and then became CEO of the company. He transitioned the company before leaving to a marketing company. He then took a position at the Tri-Cities Cancer Center that he was qualified for, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He requested a position be created for him on the senior leadership team, and, given his past performance, it came to fruition. His marketing background was a huge asset to TCCC, and as a result there was a 54% growth in patients in a 4-mo

Brad Sawatzke is the CEO of Energy Northwest. Something funny about Brad is that he has been blessed with many things in life and being a Minnesota Vikings fan is not one of them! Prior to his current position he worked at Montecello nuclear power plant for 30 years and was going to retire. He was recruited to his current position and since his kids were grown, he thought it would be a great part of the country for him and his wife to live. In your career, be open. He was going to continue his path in operations in his earlier career when a colleague pulled him aside and said, you really need to broaden your experience base if you want to be a plant manager one day. He took that advice and switched from operations to maintenance and it was the best decision he ever made career wise. When hiring the team that will surround him, Brad looks at attitude, and what are their thoughts on leadership? How do they treat their people? With encouragement, there is lasting results. He looks for people that are willing to

Brian is the CEO of CI (Columbia Industries) and Jeff Thompson is the Director of CI. A funny thing about Brian is that he has 3 candy dishes that he uses to lure people into his office for discussions. One of the candies always has to be Swedish fish. Jeff got the fever for derby racing when he was a kid! He raced in 3 races and is now retired. Brian was born the youngest of 7 kids in an Irish Catholic family on the East Coast. Being the baby, he was very independent. He went to college, worked on Wall Street with Morgan Stanley, andwent back to school to get his MBA from Harvard. He went into the venture capital and the private equity world. What he learned was that he likes to operate companies. He learned how to do that the hard way by operating companies that were failing. In the process he learned how to fix problems, building teams and running the companies they bought. The approach for turning a failing company around, start-ups, and any other company is the same. He is now giving back by working in t

Matt is the managing partner of Blue Rudder. When asked what was his journey that lead him to where he is today, he says it was not a planned journey. Matt went off to college at Gonzaga where he got a couple degrees. He then went out into the business world where he bought, ran and sold a few businesses. It was then that he got an itch that he wanted to teach, so he went back to school to get his PHD in Leadership Studies. He came to teach here at Columbia Basin College for six years and went on to teach at Heritage University by Yakima where he has been there for three years. He has had a calling for leadership for the last 10-15 years. His advice about advanced degrees and education is do it while you are young. Being married now with three little kids, there are too many financial commitments and other distractions now! He would tell his 20-year-old self to find a good mentor. He has been very fortunate to have a few really great mentors. When you are 20 you feel like understand the world and that you hav

Podcast 15 Rebekah Woods Dr. Rebekah Woods is the President of Columbia Basin College. A fun fact about her is she hates putting the leftovers into the containers when she goes to a restaurant, or she promised her husband that one day she would be in a Hall and Oates cover band. Paul and Rebekah met recently at a TC Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Being a person of faith, she knows that her journey was planned and she knew early on that she wanted to be a doctor. While in college, she decided she did not want to be in school that long and after her undergrad, she decided to go to law school. Nobody ever says, “I want to be a higher ed administrator,” and no one even realizes that these jobs exist. While practicing law, she decided she needed another challenge and started working on her PhD. It was then that she started learning about community colleges and their mission. She fell in love with the focus of helping people reinvent themselves. She felt that she wanted to be a leader in the community colle

Tyler Best is the President/Owner of Abadan. Fun fact about Tyler is that he is an Alumni of Whitworth University where Paul’s son attends college, is also an avid sports fan, and he says he is going to have to start scaling that back as he gets older. Paul met Tyler at the Edge events that he and Preston House hosted where they brought 4 speakers in to inspire audiences with mini talks on leadership. Tyler was born into Abadan. His father worked there for years and then bought out the Tri-Cities branch. From a young age Tyler would come down to the office where he would run the halls, make a mess and then having to clean it up because his father doesn’t like messes. He would do janitorial work, cleaning the building, organizing, and started working in the copy center where he was mentored by another manager. Throughout high school he did odds and ends jobs at Abadan, and every summer during college he would learn different skills. He would learn to fix the copiers which did not come naturally to him. The sum

He is the owner and broker of Basin Pacific Insurance. He is quite the jokester in the family along with his 2 sons. His wife offsets the sarcasm in the house. One of his sons is funny, the other one is funnier, and he is the funniest! He also said he gets up at 5:00am whether he likes it or not without an alarm clock. He was raised on an orchard ranch in the Yakima Valley. Both his parents worked in Yakima and at the age of 11, being the oldest boy, he was given all the responsibility of taking care of the orchard ranch. He learned about hard work and accountability at a very young age. That has carried him all the way through his life. His parents couldn’t afford college; so he worked his way through college while attending WSU. After WSU he worked as a professional with The Boy Scouts of America. He then became a banker and that is what brought him to the Tri-Cities. He was an Ag Lending Officer. He promised his wife they would only be here for 2 years and that was 40 years ago…she has forgiven him for tha

She is the Executive Director of Tri-City Residential Services, TCRS. A funny fact about her is that not only does she talk to her bull dog, but she gives her dog personality tests! Her personal mission statement or what guides her in serving others is her faith, loving and serving others as Jesus did. Her decisions are filtered through her faith and prayer. Being a leader can be lonely sometimes; so you need guidance, a moral compass. She could not be the leader or servant without her faith. Practicing patience often will then create patience in all areas. Success to her is making a positive difference in someone else’s life. As long as you have that goal daily, then everything else falls in line. Budget, staffing issues, etc. will all fall into place if you are leading from this place. She enjoys the relationship side of leadership, figuring out what makes someone tick and getting to know who they are. The mentors in her leadership journey have been a group that help TCRS support adults that are mentally ha

Eric & Laura Hsu are Digital Marketing Empowerment Strategists. Their mission statement is We build digital marketing short cuts for businesses. How it guides our decision-making is that with everything we do, we ask ourselves Have we hacked this down enough to make it very easy? We create value for others by realizing entrepreneurs don’t have time and want the bottom line up front. What was the process when naming your business? We asked ourselves who really are and at the heart, we are communicators. Hacking is an en vogue work and means creating a shortcut. That’s how we came up the name Communication Hackers. Our focus is empowerment. When teaching small business owners, we use many checklists so that clients have exactly what steps they need to take. We also do instructional videos, screen captures, and a lot of communicating so that they know our brand as well. You can hack videos down with an app and a cell phone. While building their business Tim Ferris is their greatest mentor. The biggest game c

Join us as Paul chats with Holley Sowards about running a funeral home with a smile on your face, advice for seeking legal advice on major decisions and more! Holley covers issue's she's faced in the business world running Einan's Funeral Home and assuming positive intention with the people we work with. Holley identifies her top two favorite traits of successful leaders and how to be successful no matter the environment you're in. 

Join us as Paul interviews Brandon about his life, professional and personal and dive deeper with us as we cover subjects such as Brandon's early leadership, family struggles, staying positive and making the most out of life. Brandon covers how to stay motivated and live out his personal mission statements: 1. "He want to be the person he has the potential to become", 2. "Be the dad his kids deserve and the husband his wife wants to love" and 3. "Be financially independent so he can focus on the things that matter most in life" 

Join us as Paul interviews Lynn about her life, professional and personal and dive deeper with us as we cover subjects such as her early leadership, involvement in education and marriage counseling. Lynn shares with us why it's important to have a personal definition of success and why it's important to make sure all your actions are in line with that personal definition. We also get to hear about Lynn's tips on efficient meeting management, buying in on an idea and meeting people halfway when they disagree. 

Luke’s life quote is "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." -Mahatma Gandhi Luke is a lifetime learner—that journey has led him to try just about everything--at least 13 jobs at last count. From jobs as a paperboy, janitor, farmer, painter, sales clerk, sports writer, software and international salesman, food bank guy, fundraiser and youth advocate, Luke continues to learn a LOT. Over the past year, Luke has served as the Downtown Pasco Development Authority’s director and he is excited to share what he has learned on the job and how you can get involved in creating a downtown that ALL of us can be proud of. Luke is the proud father to two amazing girls and loves spending time with them. He also loves kayaking, camping, travel, festivals and serving in the community.

Dee is Chief of Staff at CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company, a prime engineering and environmental contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Hanford Site. In her current role, Dee manages government affairs and strategic projects.   Dee’s background includes business management and strategic consultation. She has served in various leadership roles within large companies as well as supported business development in small businesses focusing on engaging relationships. Dee built her own company and served as a communication consultant for CH2M HILL’s leadership team prior to coming in as a core member of its contract transitions group. Prior to that role, Dee served as Chief of Staff to the Chief Financial Officer of Fluor Hanford. Dee is a strategic thinker, motivated by challenging roles that bring teams together.  Her strengths include organizational communication and bringing business strategies to fruition. Her passion includes facilitating teams through challenging concepts. She holds a Bachel

Join us as we chat with Todd Halterman. He is the founder of Pacific Crest Planning.  He began his career in financial services in the 1990s after seeing his two grandmothers struggle with the financial impact of losing their spouses in retirement. Todd grew up in both the Tri-Cities and Yakima communities.  After graduating from Eisenhower High School in Yakima, he enlisted in the United States Navy.  He is a veteran of the First Persian Gulf War,  and was deployed to the Middle East and Asian on an aircraft carrier.    After his career in the Navy, Todd served the public as a paramedic and firefighter before losing his two grandfathers in the same year.  After losing his grandfathers and assisting his two grandmothers with their deceased spouses’ estates, Todd felt the financial services industry was too complicated, complex, and frustrating to navigate for the average person.  This lead to his decision to leave his career as a firefighter and paramedic and join the financial services industry with a missio