Recruiting for Jobs of the Future: A Biotech Update

This episode of the HR Happy Hour is brought to you by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and software solutions for businesses of all sizes. 

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This week, we met with Johnny Caupert to discuss the importance of biotech research in making our world a better, more sustainable place to live.

– What is the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center, and why is it important?

– Technology advancements in farming, and recruiting strategies into the biotech field

– How government policies impact technology

Thank you, Johnny, for joining the show today!  Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript follows:

Steve 0:25
Welcome to the HR Happy Hour Show with Steve and Trish sponsored by our friends at Paychex. Today we’re going a little bit of a different direction, we are going to bring back one of our guests, who’s episode just released a few weeks ago. But this time, we’re going to be talking about something a little different for us, the importance of biotech research in making our world a more sustainable and better place to live. I like zagging a little bit from the normal, you know, let’s talk about employee engagement. You know, we’ve done 100 times. So this is going to be really, really fun. Trish, before we get to the show, because we know our guest, he’s coming back to the show for the second time. And I know that he grew up on a farm, Trish. So my question for you today, Trish, if you could become a farmer? What would you grow and why?

Trish 1:12
I would grow potatoes. I don’t know why that just popped in my head. But I love potatoes. There is nothing you cannot do with a potato. I feel like I could just I don’t know, be really successful. I feel like I could be a good farmer too. I wouldn’t say that before maybe this age, but I feel like I could do it. I think I could go on YouTube with some pointers. Maybe get some pointers from our guests.

Steve 1:35
I’m sure for sure. It’s that simple, watch a couple YouTube videos.

Trish 1:43
I really feel like at this age, you know 51, I feel like I could totally go get a whole new career and something by just watching YouTube. I don’t know we’ll see. Maybe I should probably try and like grow them in my yard first.

Steve 1:55
You start small with some herbs in the window sill.

Trish 1:58
I do that! What would you grow? You don’t even have to grow something ,you could be like a pig farmer or

Steve 2:06
I could, I don’t want a ranch. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work. I would I feel like I would want an orchard of some kind because I like the way that sounds. So I think I would go apples probably.

Trish 2:17
Is that a farm? I feel like an orchard is not a farm.

Steve 2:20
I think so, growing things out of the land for consumption you harvest them. You harvest apples just like you harvest corn or wheat. Okay, calling it a farm all right, I go for apples.

Trish 2:33
We’re gonna ask our guest because he’s actually from a farm. He will tell us whether that’s a farmer.

Steve 2:39
We’ll find out what he had at his farm in his youth and maybe still today. So our guest is returning to the show. He is Johnny Caupert. You might remember him from the show we did around schools and education and kind of educators and parents adaptation to the pandemic and just kind of navigating everything that was happening in schools, which is a really fascinating conversation. But he has a full time life outside his role as a school board member. Johnny Caupert is the Executive Director of the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center. And Johnny as I said was born and raised on a grain and livestock farm near Pinckneyville, Illinois. He’s degreed in agriculture, economics and agricultural policy. And this focus at the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center is focused on the commercialization of products and technologies in the biotech industry. Johnny, welcome back to the show. How are you?

Johnny Caupert 3:33
Thank you, Steve and Trish.

Steve 3:36
We didn’t really scare you. Awesome. So, the farm Johnny grew up on his grain and livestock what was what kind of lifestyle like?

Johnny Caupert 3:44
Well, well, first of all, let’s let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat. An orchard is a farm.

Steve 3:50
Okay, thank you.

Johnny Caupert 3:51
It’s absolutely. I mean, you’re harvesting your fruit, just as you said, Steve.

Trish 3:58
You just have to have a tractor. I don’t think that’s a farm.

Steve 4:06
There’s a level of scale though. Trish, we’re talking scale here.

Johnny Caupert 4:08
Yeah, USDA, you’re talking about culture defined a farm in terms of dollars of products sold. So the truth of the matter is Trish, depending on what you grew in the backyard, what you grew back there.

Trish 4:22
You might be able to find a lot of mints and a lot of blackberries and tomatoes. I’m good at tomatoes too.

Johnny Caupert 4:30
So, there you go. Okay. All right,you’ve got the basics down. Farmer in training, FIT for short.

Trish 4:41
I love it. Okay, there we go. Good deal. Now we know.

Steve 4:44
So Johnny, welcome back.

Johnny Caupert 4:45
Thank you.

Steve 4:45
So tell us about the national corn to ethanol Research Center. I must confess to not have ever hearing of this before about 10 minutes ago. So, I imagine a lot of the folks listening to the show are not familiar either. Maybe just give some background.

Johnny Caupert 4:58
Yeah, yeah. So It’s National Corn to ethanol Research Center. It’s a mouthful. Therefore we call ourselves NCERC for for short. But what what are we? How are we created? Where are we located? So the National Corn to ethanol Research Center, we’re a biotech nonprofit research center, located in the beautiful 300 acre University Park owned by 709, University Edwardsville in Edwardsville, Illinois. We were created by United States Congress something that a lot of folks don’t realize, we were one of the original public private partnerships, meaning the United States Congress, they created us in the 1996 Farm Bill, but they created us for utilization by the private sector. So what the heck does that mean, at the end of the day, what it means is the taxpayer built us for utilization by the private sector. And today that is our primary focus, working with companies in the private sector, from startup companies, you know, two guys from the Bay Area in California that are startups, all the way to multinational Global Fortune 50 companies, we work with them in the commercialization of their products and technologies.

Trish 6:11
And how did you get into this? I mean, obviously, you grew up on a farm, could you give us maybe just a brief little summary of how you got where you are? Because I think a lot of people who listen to the show, or people who are recruiters who are hiring who or maybe they have students themselves, who are, you know, high school or college age, trying to figure out what to do in this world. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to have you on just to give people exposure to this other whole industry and career path. So how did you end where you landed?

Johnny Caupert 6:41
So, how did I end up there? Well, as Steve said, in my intro, my Bachelor’s degree is in agriculture, economics, my master’s degrees in agricultural policy, I had about five minutes where I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. And then I got kicked in the head by a mule, and that desire to be a lawyer quickly went away. So I stayed in things primarily related to agricultural policy. I spent a couple years with a national nonprofit trade association. It was an agricultural commodity trade association. And what we did at that commodity association was was worked primarily almost exclusively with farmers in the United States that that raise corn that produce corn. Ironically, the common theme here that the foundation that connects the two is a work for a trade association focused on corn. And then there was this nonprofit research center established that happened to have corn and its title. Since the research center was created by Congress, the executive director position was not one by which you applied for right. It’s not a job that showed up on indeed or monster.com, you had to go through a formal nomination process. without me even knowing I was nominated for the position went through a very extensive interview process. And Monday, October 16, of 2006. I became executive director of this nonprofit research center. That’s how it happened.

Trish 8:06
Wow! So serious question here, is your favorite song Corn by Blake Shelton? Because I feel like I’ve seen you post a lot about corn. You’re passionate about corn.

Johnny Caupert 8:18
I post a lot.

Trish 8:19
I play it a lot in my household.

Johnny Caupert 8:24
I don’t think that it is my favorite song. And it’s probably because Blake Shelton. I just can’t get over him and Gwen being together. She’s too good looking for him. And his hygiene doesn’t appear to be great at times. So yeah, so I can’t like the song.

Steve 8:47
Yeah, I’m not sure where to go after that. There’s a heck of a lot of corn, I know that. And I apologize Johnny to put you on the spot.

Johnny Caupert 8:58
You know, it’s the number one farmed product crop. It is the number one agricultural commodity and in the United States, and in terms of the state of Illinois, where we’re geographically located. Illinois is the number two corn producing state in the United States right behind Iowa. And, Steve, it’s interesting that you that you ask about corn, because one of the reasons that this national center that was established to focus in the beginning on the conversion of corn into ethanol, which is a fuel additive, one of the reasons that this was created was we have this increasing supply of corn being produced in the United States on fewer and fewer acres. Well, what are we going to do with all of it? And ethanol turned out to be an incredibly good outlet for all this increasing supplies of corn. It’s just an incredible product corn as well over 600 different products we utilize, as consumers in our day to day lives is made from corn.

Trish 10:10
What is the status today? I mean, I know that farming has gone through the decades through many kind of iterations and and struggles, but where like right now? Is the corn farming industry something that’s thriving, is that something where we’re really trying to get younger people to continue the kind of the, you know, decades and maybe centuries long practice of growing corn?

Johnny Caupert 10:37
So we’ll go, we’ll go in reverse order. First of all, you know, farming in general, I mean, I’m 54. Now, I cannot wrap my head around the fact that I have a five in front of my age, especially when I truly feel like there’s still a three in front of my age. But for those of us that are what I call products of the 1980s, the overwhelming majority of us, we didn’t return to the farm, we saw what the agricultural financial situation was like the economy, agriculture economy was like in the 1980s. So the majority of us left and didn’t go back. So now there’s this real age disparity, there’s this gap. There’s, you know, an aging farm community folks like my parents, who are 79 and 82 years old, respectively. So to get that next generation, meaning a generation younger than me, that left the farm, how do we now get these younger folks back on that back on the farm? I think it’s why, you know, the on farm population in the United States now represents half of 1% of our total population.

Steve 11:47
Yeah, if you go back a person out of 100 only have to go back 120 years or so. And you probably talking about half maybe I’d have to look that up. And it’s been a dramatic shift in a relatively short period of time.

Johnny Caupert 12:02
Absolutely. I do a lot of public speaking. And one of the areas that I do public speaking is in schools, public schools, K through 12 schools. And my favorite question to ask in every class from kindergarten through 12th graders is, you know, how many of you live on a farm? And depending on the community that you’re in, more than likely there will be zero hands that that go up. But then you ask the next question. How many of you have a parent or a grandparent that was raised on a farm? Oh, my goodness. Now, Steve, to your point, yeah, all of a sudden, the hands start going up.

Steve 12:40
Yeah, it’s relatively rapid the shift between both population and certainly employment, right? Because, you know, better than us, Johnny, like the technological advances that have impacted every industry across the board, certainly impacted farming. Whereas you get as you said, you can grow more and more corn or probably lots of other crops as well, on smaller and smaller pieces of land due to technology, we understand the soil better, understand the weather conditions better, predict better, their fertilizers, better seeds, etc, etc, the productivity, I guess my point is probably gone up quite a bit, sort of per acre.

Johnny Caupert 13:18
Absolutely and I know for instance, whenever I do return to the farm, I mean, if I climb into a combine cab or tractor today, I don’t even know how to turn the silly thing on. Right? I mean, I feel like you have to have a degree in computer engineering, just to just to know how to operate this piece of equipment.

Steve 13:34
Have a quick aside here, just Johnny I was watching a friend of the show, Trish, Ravin Jesuthasen is a future of work kind of expert. We had him on the show a couple times. He spoke at our HR tech conference a few months ago. He was featured along with some other folks on PBS on a series like the future of work. And I was watching it because I wanted to see Ravin because he’s someone I know and is a really cool guy. And one of the segments on this future of work in the PBS series is about technological disruption changing work. And there was a very long segment about farming and there was a woman farmer I don’t know where in the Midwest somewhere getting into this huge John Deere combine which she literally was not driving she was sitting in and but the combine was driving itself. Yeah, self driving using GPS, auto steer, you do everything and she was just there to guide. I’m just monitoring it, but I don’t really do anything. And it was an incredible piece of machinery. And she was really just talking about how if you want to be a successful farmer today, among many other things, you really need to understand how these things work. Otherwise you’re you’re not gonna be able to keep up.

Trish 14:42
It’ll be a draw though. I wonder for this, this younger generation coming up now. I mean, we just had Ian Schrader on the show, you know, a little while ago and his I think he said he’s majoring in or intends to major in agriculture. So it could be because we’re from the Midwest and that is maybe more likely that that people are exposed to those sorts of things. How does that affect, where you’re working in terms of getting people involved in wanting to work in the corn and you know, biotech industry in general, is that something that you’re having to really do a lot of outreach?

Johnny Caupert 15:15
Trish, it’s a really great subject matter to talk about one of the things that we, you know, my research center have started doing extensively over the last six months to a year is kind of kind of dropping back a little bit. And actually getting in high schools, and into, you know, middle schools and junior high’s, and exposing them to this world, but 99.5% of them have no exposure to whatsoever. And it’s amazing to watch these young folks, these kids just just light up because they all love technology, right? Some of them. I mean, I look at my own daughter, sometimes I think that her cell phone or her iPad, or whatever is just a fixed, it’s like an appendage on her. So for these kids who did, or just being raised on technology, but yet at the same time really liked the idea of working with their hands, maybe not even getting their hands dirty, working with their hands. This new ag biotech space is the perfect, perfect outlet for them. And we’re seeing that happen.

Trish 16:23
Do you have any videos that you would point people to? Because I know I’ve been on YouTube? I know you’ve been interviewed many times, is there any one or two, or maybe we could link it in the show notes that because there were I was really surprised from watching them, you know, maybe a year or so ago, and it was just like how high tech it is. And again, maybe you know that you’re right, going in at the junior high level, because I think if people meet someone who’s passionate about their career, whatever the career is, right? It gives them someone to kind of look up to and be interested in. Is there are there videos? Or are there other websites where you point younger people or people maybe looking for that career chain?

Johnny Caupert 17:00
Right? So I think in my self absorbed vested interest, the first website I would point to is mine. At work, ethanolresearch.com because on there we’ve got a number of videos, you know, primarily focused on fermentation and things like this, well, what the heck is fermentation? Well, fermentation is taking an agricultural product, it might be corn, it might be an apples seed, it might be your potatoes, then raising his potato farmer Trish, and how over a 48 to 72 hour time period, how that thing that starts is a kernel of corn and apple off of a tree or potato out of the ground, how it goes through this biological process, that then is converted maybe into a fuel that we utilize in our car, maybe it is converted into something like a a polymer, what the heck is a polymer a polymer is a direct one to one replacement for petroleum based plastic. Right? These are things that are ending up and being the liners in diapers that we’re utilizing on our infants and toddlers. They’re the things that we’re going to be drinking water out of, in the not too distant future. And again, when young folks when they see this, when college bound students see this, they’re like, You know what, this, this is a field that I see myself. And then when you complement that by what these new technologies are doing for the environment, and creating a cleaner, greener world, not only for our generation, but for generations to come. This is where you really connect.

Steve 18:33
Yeah, that’s an interesting point. Johnny, I’m glad you brought that up. Because one of the things I wanted to ask you about is I imagine in this I know it’s a nonprofit, but I’ll just use your business literally, in this business, you’re also suspect to and could be impacted by disruption and technological change. Let’s say for example, the the growing popularity of EVs, right? Correct cars and trucks, right? So that may be could impact the demand for ethanol or other or other fuels in general products. So at the nonprofit and see ERC do you guys think about that in terms of, okay, we’re helping produce these things today and helping companies learn how to produce these things, but that these things that we’re producing these innovations may not be in demand forever. So what’s the next thing? Are you guys on the lookout?

Johnny Caupert 19:24
We are looking ahead. Depending on who my audience is, I’m required to inform folks that I’m a registered federal lobbyist, and I file my quarterly federal lobbying reports so on and so forth. So I spent in a non COVID year, I spend a fair amount of time in Washington DC was just in Washington, DC because we stay in front of policymakers to talk about things like technology, and how their policy decisions, the things that they’re focused on a policy how that impacts technologies. And you bring up you bring up EVs, one of the things that the current ethanol industry has itself positioned in, we have ourselves perfectly positioned to be the pathway of a low carbon, sustainable future. EVs aren’t going to happen overnight. They’re coming. But they’re not going to happen overnight, the infrastructure, the technology is not there. So it’s utilize the technology that we have today, technologies that are proven to serve as the pathway for EVs and other technologies of the future.

Steve 20:32
Great. Let’s take a break here, Trish, and thank our friends at Paychex. I think they have been so good to us, and I can’t thank them enough for all the support. One of the things we want to mention Trish is that financial capital has long been established as a key driver of business performance. But today, business leaders are increasingly recognizing the importance of their human capital and driving success. Download Paychex latest guides discover by breaking down the silos between HR and finance can result in better business strategy and growth, as well as sportin simple HR metrics your team should be tracking and why to download the ebook, please visit pyx.me/fdmresearch. That’s pay x.me/fdmresearch. Thanks to our friends at Paychex, hope they’re not buried under the snow in lovely Rochester New York weather.

Trish 21:20
I mean, you used to live in Rochester.

Steve 21:22
I don’t check anymore because I don’t live there.

Trish 21:26
Always, you know, by this time of year, at least two feet of snow.

Steve 21:33
They’ve been so good to us. And thanks for the question I had Johnny, I thought about earlier when you mentioned NCERC was started in 1996. As part of the Farm Bill, and I can’t promise you I know anything that’s in the Farm Bill other than established this nonprofit. I got to believe the Farm Bill was about support for farmers. So do you sense that and you mentioned Washington into that? Do you sense that as a country as a government? I don’t want to talk about political things that are just right. Just are we supporting our farmers at large? Which is your opinion? Are we supporting our farmers in the way that we should? For what they do the importance of, you know, basically feeding us right and feeding half the world?

Johnny Caupert 22:22
So there’s there’s a couple of things that I think, you know, average Joe consumer, if you will, is just completely unaware of whenever it comes to things like the the Farm Bill. Steve, you know, your your reaction, your response, the comment that you made, you know, Farm Bill, that’s, that’s related to farmers. Yes, it is. But every single one of our nutrition programs that we have food assistance programs, these are all part of the Farm Bill, one of the challenges that we’ve seen over time, is that with fewer and fewer folks coming from rural America, with only half of 1% of America’s population now being on the farm, we now have fewer and fewer representatives in Congress that either have a rural background, or a farm background at all. So those of us that have spent decades in this industry, one of the areas that we feel is our key responsibility is to educate, motivate and inform our policymakers on agriculture. And what’s important in something like a Farm Bill.

Steve 23:28
Yeah. Because to me, it’s a matter of national security, right? Like, sure, if we don’t make I don’t know, televisions anymore in the United States. We there’s none of them made here anymore. Zero. Okay, that kind of stinks. And okay, we’ll get our team in somewhere else. But you can’t, if we don’t have enough farmers, you know, growing the food that like you can’t just say, Oh, we just got it from somewhere else. It’s not that simple. Right. And so I think it’s different.

Johnny Caupert 23:52
Yeah, if a country I mean, if when you look at a lot of developing nations, but especially third world countries, one of the major major challenges is food, and food supply. I do think at times, we take it for granted, right? We walk into the grocery store, and there’s there’s food there on a shelf. There’s something that right that we can buy, not every country around the world has that privilege that we have here. And that’s something that I think we have to remain conscientious of.

Steve 24:17
Oh, yeah. When you see when you read any of those articles, like you know, I’m an Australian, and I came to America, what surprised me the most or whatever country they came from, they almost always invariably have an item out. You go to the grocery store, and there’s an incredible array of foods and products like it’s overwhelming, right compared to almost anywhere else in the world. Yeah, it’s incredible.

Trish 24:38
I’d be okay if there were fewer options. I think something that’s a little too much.

Steve 24:44
So, Johnny last thing for me. This HR Happy Hour we talk about workplace and talent. And lately we’ve been talking a lot about the labor market and it’s hard to find talent. I know we talked about this a little bit today, but would you say in general biotech, can you find the people you need? Like today and even cultivate the people? If you will use a farming analogy, cultivate the people you’ll need going forward? Are you concerned as the executive director?

Johnny Caupert 25:15
Well, you know, it’s my single biggest challenge right now. Oh, well, and the 32 years since I graduated from colleges, and under undergrad, I’ve never seen the hiring challenges, like I’m seeing right now. And the 15 years that I’ve been the executive director of this research center, I’ve never seen the hiring challenges that I’ve experienced over the last year to 18 months. I’ve turned away millions of dollars of contractual research just from the challenge and finding a qualified and competent workforce. This is something that we’re taking extremely serious, not just for the near term, but for the for the longer term. Again, I go back to this is why we’re going to non traditional routes, not just showing up colleges and career fairs, not just relying on headhunters and staffing agencies. But we’re getting into into K through 12 School and we’re introducing them to this industry to these technologies, you know, from seventh grade up at this point, because it’s a challenge that I unfortunately don’t see going away in the very near future.

Trish 26:21
What are some of the degrees you need to have? Or if not a degree, what are some of the skill sets that are that you’re looking for? And my second part of the question is, are there people out there maybe with who already worked in the work world, you’ve never worked in this industry before? But that would be sort of an ideal crossover candidate?

Johnny Caupert 26:38
Yeah. So skill set, thanks for asking about the skill set. My HR folks would be like, there goes Johnny, again. I do have a huge bias towards folks that are either raised in rural areas, that doesn’t mean they have to come from a farm but you know, rural areas, smaller towns, and why is that? Here’s the reason why if if you give me a 20 year old that was raised in a rural community, a smaller town those folks they tend to just have these just natural born in hard work ethics. willing to listen, willing to learn. I do need a couple of big city 20 year olds to come and work with me.

Johnny Caupert 27:56
So what are the things that I look for I can tell you one of the last things that I ever, ever look at, on a candidate, GPA, nice, kind of don’t care, kind of don’t care about about GPA. And I’ve hired hundreds and hundreds of folks, I’m looking at the person. What did you do while you’re in college, besides sit in a class, right? And accomplish a, you know, a 3.5 or 3.8 GPA? What were the extracurricular things that you were involved in, you know, one of the things and my my life away from Executive Director, you know, being involved in education as a school board member. Sometimes folks like to beat me up because they’re like, Johnny, you care more about athletics than you do academics. I say, not true. What I care about is extracurricular activities. Why? For some students, for some young people, for some adults, that’s where they excel. That’s what develops them as a total person. And at the end of the day, that’s what I’m hiring as an individual, a well rounded person.

Trish 29:13
Yeah, that ties into our interview we did with Ian Schrader and Tony Irovic a couple of weeks ago, where they were talking about, sometimes they feel like they’re just being taught something to take a test whereas they felt like they were getting more value sometimes from the teams they weren’t heard of, or the clubs they were part of whether that was you know, when they say National Honor Society or student council or a sports team, because they felt like they were figuring out how to do something.

Steve 29:42
Factor in that these two guys, Tony and Ian, just decided to create their own podcast right just because they felt there was in starting to get popular and there it’s creative. It’s initiative. They’re going out there selling sponsorships, which they’re donating to charity. They’re going door to door around local businesses and getting sponsorships that they’re converting into a charitable donation, which is a really cool set of behaviors. So I don’t really care what their GPA is. They’re my kids, guys, but like, if you learn that about a person or I totally, Johnny, like, that’s the kind of person I think would be successful in a lot of things, right?

Johnny Caupert 30:20
We spent probably as much time on soft skills, as we as we do those hard skills. How do you deal with others? How do you deal with conflict? How do you deal with that co-worker that frankly, you maybe don’t like? Maybe you have a personality conflict with them and that’s why again, I’m such a firm believer in the well rounded individual. Trish, you asked about degrees, right? So heavily STEM. Now as part of my employees or workforce, I have folks with degrees that range from accounting, to wastewater management, and kind of every degree in between? My director of business development, client relations, has her bachelor’s degree in public relations. And she has an MBA, right? I have folks with degrees in environmental science, but again, at the end of the day, when your resume comes across my desk, I’m going to be looking at at that degree, but you know what, I don’t look at that. First, I look at the experience. What are the extracurricular activities that you did? Did you do an internship did you volunteer in your community do or do other types of volunteer work? It’s why I’m also a tremendous advocate for vocational schools, community colleges, because do an incredible job of teaching and training. Some of our four year universities get so entrenched in educating, right because a bachelor’s degree that’s a pathway to a master’s degree, a master’s degree is a pathway to a PhD. Well, not everybody’s going to get a master’s degree or a PhD. So I look at the whole individual, whenever I interview a candidate.

Steve 31:58
Yeah, good stuff. Last thing for me, Johnny, maybe give me a follow up if you can pick up one. We didn’t really get into this too much in the notes, but within the notes, it mentions that you’ve been a part of the commercialization of over 80 technologies, generating billions of revenue center. What’s one thing one commercial thing besides they say the corn ethanol and we talked about that’s coming out of NCERC maybe we wouldn’t know that’s kind of interesting and cool.

Johnny Caupert 32:26
Cosmetic products for human utilization.

Steve 32:31
Really? Okay. There can be corn in your lip gloss Trish.

Johnny Caupert 32:36
It could be corn, it could be imported Brazilian sugarcane but, we’re going to reform it.

Steve 32:50
I can use the help from any source.

Johnny Caupert 32:53
And then whenever you get you know, done with the product, that container that it’s in, you can it can safely go to a landfill and send it since it’s 100% biodegradable. Mother Nature’s going to break it down.

Steve 33:06
Perfect. I love that, Trish get some of that stuff.

Trish 33:09
I’m going to, I’m gonna research that.

Steve 33:11
This is great stuff, Johnny, thanks so much for coming back to join us. Ethanolresearch.com You mentioned is there anywhere else that folks can go to learn more about about the organization and what you guys are up to?

Johnny Caupert 33:21
Ethanolresearch.com. You can find us on our website, you can find us on Twitter at biofuels research, you can find us on Instagram, you can find us on LinkedIn, you can find us on Facebook. We’re pretty easy to find.

Trish 33:38
We talked a lot in the last couple months about the great resignation and people are just sort of tired maybe of where they’ve been working. These are opportunities that you might not be thinking about. It sounds like you’re looking for all sorts of people.

Steve 33:54
That’s what I’ve heard.

Trish 33:56
That’s another Blake Shelton song, see how it all circles back to Blake Shelton.

Steve 34:01
Okay, good. This has been really fun. Johnny Caupert, thanks for coming back to the show. I really appreciate it. Trish McFarlane, good stuff. Good to see you again. Thanks to our friends at Paychex of course check them out at Paychex.com. Alright, I think I’m tired. My name is Steve Boese. Thank you for listening to the HR Happy Hour Show. We will see you next time. And bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai