Energy 808, the cutting edge, here we are on a given Monday morning on ThinkTech, and we have on the phone from Hilo, Hawaii, we have Marco Mangostoff, a Provision Solar. Welcome back to your show, Marco. The words of our dear friend, dear friend Mr. Rogers, it's a wonderful day in my neighborhood whenever I get to spend time with my neighbor, Chief Hidalgo, always a pleasure, thanks so much. Keep thinking those thoughts. The next extreme weather is on the way, and that will not be a beautiful day. Anyway, so Marco, we're going to talk today about Molokai, the friendly island, because you spend plenty of time there, you have projects there, we're calling this show Focus on the Friendly Island, and there are new developments from Maui Electric on Molokai, and you are equipped to tell us about them. So why don't you start now, and then we go through whatever is going on in Molokai in terms of renewable energy. Sure, it's always a great pleasure for me to be able to talk about an island that is so near and dear to my heart, and just as I've probably told you, and I'll repeat myself, I first visited that island with my pops back more than 50 years ago when we went fishing, you took me fishing on the east end of the island, we went and did short casting and also reef walking, and some of the most wonderful loving memories I'll ever have of him, and it really planted the seed. It seems for me to feel a connection to that island very early on, and I've been very fortunate to have had a chance to kind of nurture those seeds, which have now blossomed and done a number of projects on Molokai Solar Electric rooftop solar going back 12, 13 years. So yeah, I recently spent a week there, came back last week and thought, you know, it would be a good idea to give people an update because I see Molokai as having the potential to be the most renewable energy energized island, so to speak, in the Hawaii Island chain. I think over the next several years, there will be kind of a race between Molokai and Kauai in terms of which island we'll be able to get to 60, 70, 80% renewable, and those two will be far ahead of Maui proper Oahu and the big island. So the interesting timing is, and unfortunately I was not able to meet this community meeting last Wednesday, but the folks at Half Moon Venture, which started a company called Molokai New Energy Partners, and they received public utilities approval last year to move forward with the, will be the first utility scale PV project plus storage on Maui, excuse me, Molokai, in the months and year ahead, which will play a very big part in moving that island to a much higher level of renewable penetration. So I came up with a number of illustrative slides, so maybe if we could get the first graphic there on the screen. Yeah, one thing though, Marco, is that I paid a trip to Molokai year, year and a half ago and I found that there was plenty of fossil fuel going on. There's an old-fashioned diesel plant there, which has been there for many years, and there's also a biomass plant that I saw that was impressive from the point of view of biomass, but I didn't see a lot of renewables on that trip. So how far down the pike are we right now? We didn't get into that and I, if we maybe get the first slide there, that'll help to kind of illustrate so we can go from the macro to the, to the Marco, to the micro. So I see the slide there now, so thanks for posting that. So let's kind of do a little bit of, the slide's gone now, a little bit of kind of overview first and if you look at the total power generation potential on Molokai there is a total of 12 megawatts of peak capacity that that plant has and by the way there's only one and only one power plant, Mico power plant on the island, so that differentiates Molokai from the other islands which have multiple power plants spread out across the service territory. So Molokai there's just one, so there's 12 megawatts of peak capacity in terms of output. Now that said Molokai peak demand is substantially less than peak capacity which is usually the case or always the case and that is a peak demand of approximately five and a half megawatts. Now this particular slide is several years old so the current figures may be a bit different but not tangibly different. So let's go to the, to the next slide when you get a chance please. So is that floating up again? Let's just kind of keep the numbers straight here. So 12 megawatts of generation capacity, max capacity on Molokai demand peak of 5.5 megawatts and again a megawatt being a million watts and what is being produced now already in terms of renewable energy this is according to Hawaiian Electric Zone data. So as of a couple weeks ago the total solar capacity in in terms of approved rooftop solar systems or and or existing PV systems on Molokai was 2.85 megawatts, 2.85 megawatts which is a substantial percentage as you can do the math of the peak demand of 5.5 megawatts. So to answer your question there is already on that small island a substantial amount of rooftop solar and in fact that has created significant challenges for formal electric over the past several years in terms of during a nice sunny day across the island from east to west north north south since typically demand for electricity is lower kind of in the midday and early afternoon hours because people aren't home and so forth. There's been surplus of solar power and the question has been what to do with that surplus of solar power and relatively recently the folks at Maui Electric came up with essentially a load bank which is a place to effectively kind of dump the surplus solar power when there ain't nowhere for it to be used and unfortunately it's not it's not a battery so it's not something you can charge up during the day and discharge but it at least allows and has allowed the folks of MECO to clear up the net energy meter in queue which you have people who were waiting waiting to go NEM and that for you know this program ended back in 2015 but waiting to install their NEM system the past several years and to MECO's great credit they were able to get creative and find a way to accept all those long-waiting NEM customers so yeah so I've seen that in fact in fact we included that on our tour it's right at the at the diesel plant just across the way in a kind of white container right right next to the Maui Electric control room control building right there in Kanaka Kaima right? No you're not Jay and what you are referring to is a battery lithium Titanate battery by Alternano Alternano that was installed several years ago as part of an HNA grant and DOD money if I'm not mistaken and that is a battery bank there in that container which you are referencing which is different than the capacitor bank which is much more recent so that battery bank which MECO essentially got for free that allowed for greater stability to be provided to that island grid and also kind of a collateral benefit although wasn't designed to do this the collateral benefit is that it allowed some of that surplus solar power produced during the day to be absorbed by that lithium Titanate battery so both of those facilities are working now yes good yes so that means there's no additional capacity for solar development then correct correct and maybe now's a good time to go ahead and start the slide deck which the folks that the Molokai New Energy partners were able to present before the Maui excuse me the Molokai community last Wednesday at a community meeting so I give my my gratitude and thanks to the folks at MNEP for providing me with with the slide deck which we're going to take a look at now it's on the screen okay so what's really exciting about this particular project is that this is going to be as I mentioned before the first utility scale solar plus storage on the island of Molokai and it is a fairly big project especially compared to speaking to the small grid side so let's go ahead to the the next slide you get a chance please and if that comes up I'll give you a few details of this project again keep in mind some of the numbers I stated before which were peak demand on the island of roughly five and a half megawatts okay now this solar array will have a DC rating what's known as the standard test condition or SDC DC rating of 7.5 megawatts we have names on the screen of the principles of the company I'm not sure that's the slide you want when we go to the next yeah we can we can continue on to to the next slide after that which is a slide number three which says major events there yes right so I'm not sure I thought a little bit there but you can keep in mind the DC that the array size of this this new utility scale array is seven and a half megawatts and the actual output when you have the figure in the inefficiencies and the DC basic conversion is going to be somewhere over five megawatts so we're talking five megawatts from a new solar power plant that will be feeding into a grid that has a 5.5 megawatt peak demand that already has 2.85 megawatts a rooftop solar now I'm not asking you to do the math but the math is pretty easy to calculate which is that there is more and more and more and more solar going in to this island grid and the question is gee how can the grid take that it has to go somewhere and one of the key components of this project from Molokai New Energy Partners is not only a seven and a half megawatt solar array but also 15 megawatt hours of state-of-the-art brand new Tesla mega pack battery storage okay so this gives kind of a quick overview of this particular project timeline so they receive PUC approval back in July 18 so more than a year ago and there was they were trying to incentivize or trying to reduce the cost of the project to ultimately benefit the consumer by using various tax credits so it noted that the so-called new market tax credits were no longer available do some type of reclassification of Maui County which effectively kind of brought up apparently the income level of Molokai so the new market tax for us are no longer available but the existing or still existing tax credits state and federal the federal investment tax credit 30% and also state tax credit is still available so let's move on to slide number four their 2019 major event okay we're on that now okay so one of the big parts of kind of this the presentation of last week or big news was the Tesla has now taken over for the previous company S&C so Tesla's now as I understand of the general contractor of record and they will be working with other contractors to put this into effect and the good news I think about that no full disclosure I'm a Tesla certified installer so I have a you know propensity to be favorable towards Tesla but they have shown their creds over the past years in terms of being able to install substantial size utilities scale solar plus storage on the island of Kauai so I think it's a very good thing that they are able to step in and kind of take over here with a target operation date of approximately a year that made pushed out some but probably not too much later so we can go to the next slide that describes the Tesla system and we're on the next slide now okay it's important to note here again is that when you're dealing with a system the size of seven and a half megawatts feeding into a relatively small grid that already has a whole bunch of solar the battery storage has to be substantial in terms of volume so the 15 megawatt hours apparently with the same storage they were going to have when the PPA was approved by the Commission last year providing Mika with the same advanced features as previously planned for grid stability compatible with the new phase two RFP issued on August 9th that's the second round point electric is doing for storage PV plus storage across its service territories and Tesla as well existing plant microgrid operations right away for added reliability service that simply means that they already have a strong presence here in the state and will be around to be able to take care of things on an as-needed basis so we can go to the next and Marco we're going to take a short break this Marco Mangostoff our provision solar and Hilo I'm Jay Fidel this is think tech and energy 808 the cutting-edge we'll be right back after this short break. Aloha my name is Mark Schlaufe I am the host of think tech Hawaii's law across the sea program my program airs every other Monday at 1 o'clock on think tech Hawaii most of my programs deal with my own life and law experience recently I interviewed Alex Jampel who I have known for over 30 years about his voyage across the sea as a lawyer from Tokyo to Hawaii those are the type of stories that I like to bring and like to talk about human stories about law and life Aloha. Hey Aloha everyone and welcome to the think tech Hawaii studio my name is Andrew Lanning I'm the host of think tech Hawaii we air here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know issues that can protect your family take yourself take our community protect our companies the folks we work with please join us and I hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer Aloha. Okay energy 808 the cutting edge here on a Monday Monday my guess it's the Monday morning with Marco man goes off from my provision solar and he load joining us by phone and talking about Molokai the friendly island talking about some of the really big projects that are happening there that are likely to make it at least put it in competition for the number one island that reaches 100% of renewables so I'm talking about Tesla specifically and Marco you wanted to go to your next slide on Tesla. Yeah just to show kind of conceptually what this new Tesla what they call megapack for utility scale storage look like looks like it's essentially from what I can tell the size of a 40 if not 45 foot container with power electronics and battery storage within the container which can essentially be outfitted at a factory and brought over as you would ship over any container and pop it in place and go ahead hook it up wired up and commission it's in a pretty pretty really quick fashion so I'm not really sure at this point how many megawatt hours or kilowatt hours fit in one container but I got to believe that at least a megawatt hour probably fits in a container or in that megapack container of a battery storage so again kind of the big takeaway here is that when you are putting more and more solar and hooking it up to the grid you are trying to on some level force feed more and more electricity more power input into a grid that has of course the finite ability to be able to to accept more more power and as I've been telling people for for years you cannot put an infinite amount of power into a finite grid otherwise you run into problems in terms of grid stability and the quality of electricity so having adequate storage especially in the case of a small island like we have here with one one power plant is absolutely critical in terms of being able to manage the surplus of solar power effectively from rooftops from utility scale solar which will be going in from the Molokai New Energy Partners folks and also one of the early community-based renewable energy or CBRE projects that would that was approved by the Commission is another 250 kilowatts of solar without storage which will be going in in relatively close proximity geographically to that one and only power plant east of or excuse me west of Conakakai so my macro point here coming from Marco here Jay is that this is really Tara in Cognita when you're dealing with such a small and finite grid and the demand or the there's the movement in a strong motivation and impetus to put more and more solar and reduce the consumption of renewable excuse me of petroleum energy especially on that island is that having all the pieces fit and fit so that they work harmoniously with each other and fit so that there aren't hiccups and fit so that you don't have too much power and fit so that you have enough stored power when the sun don't shine all of that is an enormously complicated jigsaw puzzle to get right so I have some questions about that I mean yeah so if you go to Kawai you see actually there's there's two there's two solar and battery facilities one of them is Tesla and it was the first one the other one is AES by the way yeah and the Tesla facility is the same it has the same look as the slide you just showed us it's like a shipping container and one side of the shipping container opens up and presto there's all these racks of batteries in there so the actual batteries are small like a like a small desktop computer they're not they're not that big and you can see them all when you open the steel doors and and this these it's a series it's probably my recollection maybe half a dozen of these big you know container size units but down down the hill okay is this huge and I mean huge biggest one I've ever seen you know solar facility with all the solar cells and racks and and what have you a huge and this this facility the storage facility slightly up the hill manages to save about eight hours as I recall of the energy that's generated by only solar cells what what I heard you describe however it sounds to me like the Tesla facility may be further advanced more intelligent in Molokai and it it not only covers you know one field one solar farm but other sources as well and so they all feed into this Tesla system then Tesla is able to store and balance and I wonder where the brain is for that this one question and I wonder how much how many hours of energy can it store for the entire system on Molokai I think a small correction here as far as I understand this this megapack battery which effectively is the aggregation of a bunch of Tesla power packs is what you saw there on Kawhi they decided to aggregate them you know by 20 X or 30 X or however many X and then called them a megapack but the main it's what essentially one on the same type of technology and design that battery storage is only as I understand it going to be paired with this new seven and a half megawatt solar array that M&E P Molkai new energy partners will be installing it's not going to be a battery for the whole Molokai grid per se but it'll be specifically attached to and paired with and work in tandem with the new solar array and the utility-scale solar ray that will be going in next year so when you talk about the brain I mean you've got this separate project and system where you have the new solar array and the new battery pack and that's feeding into the MECO grid now the brain of making all the pieces fit with the existing combustion generation from the MECO power plant with the new utility-scale solar cluster storage with the hundreds of existing rooftop solar systems that are already feeding into the MECO grid and then add into that the CPRE project to 250 kilowatts that's where the brains of the control room men and women have to come in as they're looking at screens on a 24-hour a day basis making sure that the grid stays stable making sure that there's not too much power being generated in any given time so when you say the brains you know to what extent computers are doing this aided by human beings or the other way around I'm not in a capacity to say but there's obviously a lot of cooperation that necessarily has to take place between the grid operators actual people and then all the equipment and the pieces of puzzle that they're keeping an eye on second by second hour by hour day by day making sure that the lights stay on and the grid stays stable that all happens in the in the control room center near Kanaka Kai right the ones that I did say and where and where is this big solar farm going to be located the one you're talking about right by the right by the power plant it's going to be spitting distance of the MECO the same area then it's all in the same area yeah it's going to be on land land that's owned by Molokai Ranch which is I believe the largest private landowner of 22,000 I think acres on that island and they will be doing a long-term lease with the Molokai New Energy partner folks so you know there was there always is some pushback from the community and Molokai is no stranger to that how does the community feel about this I mean you talk about presenting these slides and you know presenting this project kind of reaction is everybody cool with this well I think everybody cool with the chase is too high a bar but I think from what I gather the large majority are cool with it I mean certainly no comparison to the pushback that the notion or the proposal of putting up dozens of 400 plus foot wind towers along the west end on the ranch land was you know there was tremendous pushback rightly so as far as I'm concerned so in terms of how that island can be I want to be diplomatic here heck can be kind of finicky when it comes to opening its loving arms to outside ideas and and and projects I think overall the response from the community has been quite good and positive and and you know you can imagine what their number one issue is which is what's it going to do to my electric rates are they going to go down and the reduction in rates I don't believe is going to happen immediately or maybe in the short term but when you're talking about putting in a project that is under a power purchase agreement where the price is fixed at somewhere around 18 cents a kilowatt hour for the next years that is an enormously positive hedge against the possibility more like likelihood of the price of petroleum continuing to go up which affects of course the amount of money that people are paying on their their their MECO bills so I believe one can legitimately and honestly make the case that projects like this where you've got a fixed price contract for renewable energy source for 20 or 30 years will over time lead to lower than otherwise expected electric rates that people are paying for their monthly bill you know one thing it came up in the question of discussion on Malachi with far as I was involved was the notion that the community had some expectation that they would be a part owner or have some sort of part interest in this project and at the very least they would have some level of control over the management of the project where is that now did that happen or not in terms of ownership I know no plans that would essentially would offer shares of this project I don't believe that that's in the works I mean it's conceivable I remember the discussions of earlier on a number years ago is that once the power plant is fully depreciated which typically happens and I believe no less than six years that once the tax credits are taken fully once depreciation has been fully once the facility has been fully depreciated then it's conceivable that you would have a plant like that's less storage which would have a fair market value of acts the X to be determined you know in the course of negotiations so it's conceivable that the project owner in this case and more like any energy partners would be open to a hui of local interested parties who would come up with X number of million bucks and say we would like to own this outright yeah you know that that takes quite a bit of effort and energy not to mention money so you know that that remains to be seen but I don't see any change of ownership possible and at least the first until the first six years play out so how far along are we when this project is finished and how much has will then yet have to be done and is there any plan to do it well I believe the plan is breaking ground either by the end of this year early next year according to their presentation last week they were projecting a completion sometime July of 2020 I think you know it's entirely possible that could be pushed out of ways I mean I've done work on that island over the years and I fully realize how challenging it can be from a manpower people power logistics perspective so I think having it done and you know actually producing power by some time second half of last year or last year that's going back in the past the second half of next year is entirely possible so they answer your question I would first see this plant being fully online sometime in the third or fourth quarter of next year and what follows are the projects in the pipeline what two other things as follows I mentioned before the CBRE community based renewable energy which kind of to go back to one of your points earlier which does have the opportunity for essentially fractional ownership by the community in terms of being able to that was the whole notion behind CBRE is to allow those people who don't have their own you know juicy roof and their single family dwelling to put solar that they can be a participant of a community based solar project so that 250 kilowatt project will hopefully be going in next year as well and then you've got this new RFP which was recently issued which is specifically asking for proposed projects of renewable energy plus storage for all of the five islands that how wine electric companies cover including me including Maui, Maui, Molokai, Lenai. Yeah that's in play right now that's in play right now wine electric was on the show and talked about that. Marco we've got to go now I'm so sorry we've got to go because we've only scratched the surface on this I hope we can discuss more of it I hope we can talk about the status of energy on Lenai which was you know very controversial for a long time and I don't know where it went but I think you can help us understand on a later show. Anyway Marco thank you so much we've had macro Marco and micro today on Molokai that's 4M's it's been a 4M show thank you so much Marco. You're very welcome just a little teaser I hope to have our friend my friend Mary Powell in two weeks Mary Powell is the CEO of a fantastic company of Vermont called Green Mountain Power and she's just a super phenomenal person and I really look forward to her sharing her experiences in the utility realm and being on the cutting edge there at the opposite end of the country of where we are Jay but you're fantastic and thank you so much for having me. Thank you Marco. Aloha till next time. Rock thank you.


How is your role as vice president in, in charging policy in Ukraine, in your son's job in Ukraine? How is that not a conflict of interest? It's not a conflict of interest. There's been no indication of any conflict of interest from Ukraine or anywhere else. Period. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna respond to that. Let's focus on the problem. Focus on this man, what he's doing, that no president has ever done. No president. Well, the fact is, I was unaware of his investments until it occurred, and I've never discussed what my son's business with him because I didn't want any conflict. The mayor of Moscow's wife gave your son three and a half million dollars. That's not true. What did he do to deserve it? That is. What did he do with Paris? None of that. 180 or 3000 dollars. None of that. This is the same garbage Rudy Giuliani, Trump's henchman.  As of November of 2022, 62% of likely U.S. voters approve of the House GOP's investigation into the Bidens. If we were living in a healthy republic bolstered by a fourth estate that held power to account, this would be a journalist's ticket to a Pulitzer Prize. But unfortunately, we don't. Instead, those same journalists are left-wing, Democrat voting, fiercely partisan, agenda-driven, or working for the government. And sometimes you got to be an authoritarian propagandist like you're a character out of the book 1984 in order to win. It's different when they do it because they're doing it for good reasons. That's not hyperbole. I'm serious. Not a joke. Not only did CNN and the rest of the CIA operation known as the U.S. media purposely deceive the American public about Biden to sway an election and help to censor online speech to that end, but now they're doubling down and they're treating any investigation of the Bidens as another terrorist act by white supremacist radical right-wingers.  The right-wing is going crazy with all sorts of allegations about Biden and his family. Too disgusting to even repeat here. I mean, some of the ones I've seen from the president's son and some of the president's supporters are just wildly unhinged. Wrong. He would never have been right. Now Tapper's just continuing to do his job as a paid government liar for the Biden regime and is doing his best to discredit these investigations by simply deceiving the viewer. You sent them here to hold Hunter Biden and Joe Biden accountable. You think that voters sent the Republican majority to the House of Representatives to hold Hunter Biden accountable? We got you. Unfucking real. Notice Jake Tapper's sleight of hand right there. Congressman Ronny Davis said that the Republican voters wanted Joe Biden and Hunter Biden held accountable. Then deceptive Tapper responds, quote, they wanted Republicans to hold Hunter Biden accountable and a very dismissive condescending tone. To hold Hunter Biden and Joe Biden accountable. You think that voters sent the Republican majority to the House of Representatives to hold Hunter Biden accountable?  By the way, has Jake Tapper ever once complained about investigations in the Trump or Republicans? Of course not. You think that voters sent the Republican majority to the House of Representatives to hold Hunter Biden accountable? In their districts, they're very Republican districts, absolutely. But we won the majority by winning districts that were won by Democrats. They were won by Joe Biden. The Congressman just explained to Tapper that not only did Republican voters win by and held accountable and they voted for that, but they won in districts that were won previously by Democrats, meaning they weren't Trump people.  Oh, hell no. Yeah, um, Abby Phillip, I mean, maybe it's true that there are a lot of voters out there who are in these 11 districts who think that the business of Congress is to investigate Hunter Biden.  Nope. Instead, he continues to obfuscate and mislead by again stating that this is about Hunter Biden when it's about Joe Biden. The Republicans were even quite clear that this was all about Joe Biden when they announced the investigation. This is an investigation of Joe Biden, the President of the United States, and why he lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family's international business schemes. You think that voters sent the Republican majority to pass the representatives to hold Hunter Biden accountable? Who think that the business of Congress is to investigate Hunter Biden? So what can be done? Well, one thing that you can do is not spend money on the companies that sponsored these lies. In this case, that's car shield and progressive.  We can also call out their lies like I'm doing here and just hope people listen. You can help me do that by hitting that like button, sharing this video, and leaving a comment to join the discussion. I appreciate all your support. Thanks a lot.


follow a spiritual practice, meaning actually practice the spiritual practice. What you find with people who are actively spiritual is that they're significantly healthier. They report to be significantly happier. They're less depressed, less anxious, they're less likely to go to jail. And then my favorite ones, the more likely to volunteer their time, give to charity and help others. Now, here's the other part of it. This is something that humans have found incredibly valuable for thousands and thousands of years. It's very arrogant for people now to be like, well, they were dumb because now we know things and we don't need that. Oh no, you do.  It's usually money, power or fame, honor, maybe it's pleasure, but whatever is your top value becomes your spiritual practice and your purchases, your behaviors all point to that thing. So in one way or another, you are gonna follow a spiritual practice, but what we're saying here is like intentionally do it and has a tremendously positive impact on your health.


Good morning, how are you doing today wonderful excited about what? Thank you. Well, so exactly Well, it's a both way win-win So I'm chemlish Rob Lani come from Phoenix bright sunny Phoenix Arizona In USA and I'm gonna talk about is your organization ready to scale agile How many of you are? practitioners Particularly in the scaled domain Work with large programs multiple teams or use some type of framework Wonderful keep your hands up. Yeah Wonderful, how many of you are you are certified? Please raise keep your hands up if you are certified in some type of scale framework some type of okay wonderful and How about rest of you guys who are totally new to scaling? And how many of you who are new to scaling are in some type of leadership manager? positions Okay, wonderful. So the idea is That we're gonna discuss how Evaluate whether your organization is ready to scale or not or do you really need it? So question one is why scale what is what is the need to scale? within your Division group organization or it, you know Business unit wherever you are what's the need to scale? Is it because everybody else is doing it? Let's do it. Is it a you know latest buzzword, you know COC I heard somewhere at the Gulf With their peers colleagues and they say well, they are doing it. Let's do it, too So, how would we take a minute write down a what is the need? Within your context if you work with a company great You have a very specific context if you are a consultant, you know coach or kind of a trainer you work with multiple Multiple organizations, they may be asking you to bring your expertise or knowledge about scaling So take a minute write down. What's the need? What's your vision about it? Please? Yeah, write down on a paper. That's okay. You don't need sticky for this And if I could request you both of you to please join one of the team that would be great Does anyone here not know what do I mean by scaling agile? Or have no idea


Every month we try to bring a speaker to the Capitol to talk about an issue of importance to not only government employees but also just citizens in Vermont. We're very fortunate to have partnered with Orca Media who records the lectures and then disseminates them through the magic of the cable world and all of that fun stuff. It is my pleasure to introduce Laurie Stavron today. So I have a little bio here for her. So the topic is really a focus on Vermont refugee populations and resettlement programs here in the state. The Vermont, let's see, you are the Community Partnership Coordinator at the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. Yes, and this is part of a national network and what I sort of really responded to was the sort of mission to break through social, cultural and economic barriers for newly resettled populations. So it is my pleasure to welcome her on behalf of the Department of Libraries. Thank you for joining us today. So I put this poem up on the screen because I think it really speaks to a personal experience. If any of us did become a refugee what would it be like for us? And I think we would find that our culture, our history would continue to be very important to us and the older we are, the more significant that would be. So if you take away political rhetoric and a sense of judgment and you think about it on a personal level, I think this poem speaks very well to that. I would like to speak today about who is in Vermont? Who are refugees in Vermont? Why are they refugees? How did they get here? How does it work when they get here? And then what difference does it make to them and to our community? I'm here as a member of the staff of USCRI Vermont. I am not representative of our staff. Most of our staff are from all around the world. And I would like to start by showing you a very short video so you can hear from people directly. My name is Safari Pilino. I'm from the Democratic Republic of Congo. From South Kivu, that's the part of East of Congo. We have border with Tanzania, with Burundi. And that's where I was born and raised there.  You know, when the group of rebels invited your country, it's really a disaster. Those people who are guns, they are the king of the jungle. They control everything. We flew the country without anything. We crossed a lake called the Tanganyika. That was a disaster. We crossed from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Tanzania. That was almost five hours. And we were crossing night because you came on horse. In the morning, you can be caught by the rebels. They were everywhere in the lake. We went to spend a long time in a refugee camp, almost eight years. Life refugee camp is really a disaster. There are some people who spend there more than 20 years. And they have some kids to bomb there, rest there, they marry there. Now they're still there. We went through the process of immigration. And those process took almost four years. And in 2004, we got a letter from American Immigration saying, OK, you have asylum to America. And then everybody was happy to live the life of struggling, life of... I don't know how I can explain. It was really sad to see people how they live there. It's really complicated. Yeah. My name is Shilor Mu. I am from Thailand, a refugee camp. I moved here in 2011 with my family. In 1997, there was a war. The Burmese came to the village and just burned places and just started killing people, right? Out of nowhere, just civilians, innocent and civilians. The ethnic cleansing, Muslims, every ethnic group is not just Koran, there's Chin, Sean, Arkan, so many ethnic groups. They each have their own land, but the Burmese want to take over all the land, so they kick them out of their land. But those people fight back. And the civilians end up dying because they just started shooting and dropping bombs in people's houses.  They're still killing people until these days. My parents, they have to move out of their original land and then they couldn't go back because it's dangerous. They could be killed at any times. There was no security whatsoever. So my parents, they ran with my sisters. They stayed between borders for two years and then they came to the camp in 1997 and they resettled there two years that I was born. They give us bamboo and trees to build a house. We have a bamboo house and a little garden to grow food. They give us rice, beans, a little salt, oil, no income, no job, so no money. A few years before I came, they started requiring students to pay for school. So that's when a lot of students started quitting school because their parents can't afford paying for their education. It was hard to get out of the camp. They grounded the camp with like a metal, so it's not easy to get out. But some people, they still do get out because they don't have enough food and they need more food. So they find ways to get out. But when they get caught, they get punished very bad. Hello, I'm Melita Sedic-Lotten. I'm from Bosnia and I was born in Croatia. And I grew up in Yugoslavia, former Yugoslavia. And now it's unfortunately split into seven different countries. My mother was an archaeologist. She worked in an archive. My father was an ethnologist and he worked as a curator in a museum. And they had pretty stable life. And my sister and I, we grew up, we had a great childhood. We lived in a two bedroom apartment. And I grew up with a lot of neighbors who came from different backgrounds. Some of them were Serbs, some of them were Croats, some of them were from other origins. And some of them were religious, some of them non-religious. We were all considered Yugoslavians at that time. So when nationalism started happening in former Yugoslavia, people started to be more focused on their ethnic group and their national origin. Then suddenly people started like just by hearing each other names, figuring out who you are in terms of like your background and the fear started spreading around and that created animosity and fear. And it just was very uncomfortable place to live in at that point. The war definitely was an aggression from the Serbian side. They occupied places in Bosnia and their army which kind of became the army from the Yugoslavian army kind of started like becoming more of a Serbian army. And then they occupied all the places in the city where I grew up, Banyaluqa. You could feel something in the air and you would see soldiers coming in and calling their families from the post office. You would never see so many soldiers and like tanks and like all these army equipment was just kind of coming and accumulating in the city. And to me that was really weird. And I talked to my parents and since they're historians they were able to explain to me what was going on. But many people didn't believe like when my parents told them like we're gonna have to move and we're leaving the country. We don't feel comfortable here anymore. Something's gonna happen. People would tell them, you're just adventurers, you know like you're not really, we can't like split. Bosnia is so mixed with so many ethnic people and we're all together and there's no way somebody can like split us up or separate us. But my parents, you know, knowing the history what happened in the past, they predicted. So my parents literally like left their jobs. They said, you know, we're leaving in like 10 days. We need to pack and we need to move to a different country. My parents didn't feel safe because they both were targeted because of their background. My mom is a crud, my father is a Bosnian Muslim. We took the bus ride that was I think one of the last bus rides that you could take.  And kind of had a little like grin on his face. It was very frightening to me. And I was 17 sitting with my mom and my sister in the bus and didn't know like, you know, where are we going? What's happening? Later on, a lot of people had to move from the city and they didn't have place to go. And a lot of them were taken to concentration camp and tortured. So. Those three people that you just heard from are all Vermonters. And their experiences are unique to them, but there is a lot of similarity to people who come from the same cultures that they've come from and there's similarities and differences between them. I think it's important to understand who a refugee is. This is not somebody who has just made a decision that they're going to change their life. This is somebody who has to flee for their safety. And by definition, this is an international legal definition, they have to have fled their country in order to be eligible for refugee status. There are many people who are displaced who have had to flee their homes for different reasons. At this point, 2017 is the last time that the UNHCR was able to put all the numbers together. So there's a little lag in that. But the 68.5 million includes refugees and includes asylum seekers. These are people who do not have refugee status but are going to a country to seek safety and asylum. Initially, a refugee is someone who has sought that safety, that asylum, but hasn't gotten it and instead has been given refugee status to basically be in a legal limbo in a country outside their home country. And IDP, an internally displaced person, is someone who hasn't been able to get out of their country to get safety. So they've fled for the same reasons but they're still in their country, they're still controlled by whatever forces are in their country.  Probably they should be able to get refugee status but they haven't for either reasons of politics or funding not gotten that. So they don't have a country. They're living on the margins. They're living and hiding. Palestinian refugees, that's a whole other class, that's a political decision. And then returnees, these are people who have gone back to their home country and once people go back it is not the same as when they left.  This just gives you an overview of where the US fits within the world in terms of the number of refugees that we have in our country compared to the population of our country. The first choice that people have and the first choice of the UNHCR and the countries that are members of the UN is for people to go back, to go back home because they never wanted to leave in the first place to return to their country, build their country. The second choice is local integration and that's something that you hear a lot about why don't refugees just stay in a country near their country, wouldn't that be a better solution? Oftentimes the culture, the languages, the climate are more similar but they're not the same. That is the second choice. It's often not, most often not available. And then the third choice is resettlement and this is only if repatriation and local integration are not a possibility is resettlement offered. And it is not offered to all refugees. As you can see less than 1% are resettled, that's because there just are not that many opportunities to be resettled. In the US, our government decides how refugee resettlement works. Each country that resettles refugees has their own way of doing things. The public-private partnership is actually a very strong model. It enables people to integrate into the community. It enables everybody to invest in community together. USCRI Vermont is part of a larger organization we're a field office of USCRI. We had been known as Vermont Refugee Resettlement but we have changed our name as people would recognize us to being USCRI Vermont. Being a field office of a national organization gives us a tremendous amount of strength, experiences, resources that in a time like today when refugee resettlement is under attack really gives us some continuity and ability to serve our clients and our alumni much better than we could otherwise. You can see how refugee resettlement has changed over time in Vermont. So this year, today, until today, since last October 1st, we've resettled 105 people. This is far down from what we had been doing, what our capacity is. The list of countries where refugees have come from, these are countries we've been resettling people from in recent years. You'll notice that we don't have arrivals from Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria because of the travel ban. Most of the people who are coming from DR Congo are coming because of conflict 20 years ago. So it's been 20 years since they left home and they've been in a refugee camp since that time. The same thing for Bhutan. The people coming now, this gives you a good sense that it's families coming. Most people are either working age or they have children who will soon be working age. There are some older people, there are not many older people in a family for various reasons, including health and access to medical care. If you're thinking about who a refugee is and what their life is like, in the news, in the media, there's a strong focus on that initial transition time, which is difficult. People have to come here and hit the ground running because in the United States, refugees are expected to be self-sufficient within three months. That tells you a little bit about what we have to do. What would you need, what help would you need in order to become self-sufficient in another country, another culture, a different language? The people coming knew everything about their culture. They were self-sufficient before so they're not learning to be self-sufficient for the first time. It's just learning it in the context of Vermont and the United States. Our case management program is very important. These are the people who are from the different countries and they really understand what it means. Most of them are former refugees, have a refugee background themselves. So they're able to meet and greet people usually in their first language and have some idea of what the challenges are people face so that they have empathy and they also can help people see the long view. Our employment department, as you can imagine, with the three-month deadline is incredibly important. People come here, they've worked before. If they've been in a refugee camp, they've had to figure out how to find work, make work because they haven't had opportunities. People who were older before they became a refugee will have had careers. Some people might have managed to have a career in the camp if they had an education that allowed them to say work for an NGO. But once people are here, they're working hard because they've come here for their family, for the future of their children and they want their children to have the opportunity to become an educated, well-respected giving member of the community. It's tricky because people have to be learning English or improving their English. They need access to public transportation. If they have young children, then we have to help them figure out childcare. Oftentimes, parents are working different shifts so that one of them can always be with the children. And sometimes we have opportunities for job training so that they are able to take their skills and then apply them in North America. A good example of that is the people who are now going into construction jobs. Construction is different in different places in the world. We do provide ongoing support to our clients and also to employers. The English language program is geared towards people who are multilingual. The concept of people being solely English language learners is a little bit of a misnomer. Most people who come to the US with a refugee background, they speak two languages, maybe they speak as many as seven languages. So they're gaining strength in their English language here. It helps them support their kids, communicate with people, engage in the community and helps them get better and better jobs. The refugee strengthening program we have acknowledges how stressful it is to be a refugee, to come here to start out a new life. If you think about what are some of the most stressful factors in someone's life, it's money, it's being able to manage your budget. The refugee program in the United States is set up to help people at a poverty level when they first come. It's very short term, very minimal. Oftentimes people will start at a manual labor job until they've kind of gotten their feet on the ground. They have to do a lot with very little. The cost of housing in Vermont is very expensive. So it's a very stressful start. So we're helping people in this program with strategies to take care of themselves and to take care of each other. Community partnership program, this is just a list of some of the activities we've had, some of the partnerships we had in fiscal year 2018. This enables us to really connect with the community. We engage people as volunteers, as family friends, as tutors, as youth mentors. We also collaborate on a lot of different projects. So for instance, you'll see that we collaborated on Babylon, which is a Sandglass Theater play. They interviewed our clients. We assisted them in writing that play, and we are now assisting them in taking that play around the country. So that expands our educational outreach. Another project here is Mosaic of Flavors Cookbook. We have ongoing cooking classes. We do in partnership with City Market, and it's a great way for people to connect with people and see the strengths that they have, and just come together around food, and we wanna share that even more in a cookbook. The youth program is where we really see a lot of need and a lot of growth in our program. If a family is coming here because of their children, you don't want the kids to miss opportunities. The systems are different here. Educational system, employment, finance, everything is different. So helping people understand what's possible, helping people understand what makes sense to them, what they might like to do, and then figuring out the steps of how to do it, and to feel good about who they are, what they're bringing to the US as a teenager, you get pushed and pulled anyway. It's even more extreme if you have a different culture at home than at school. So our youth mentor program is very important for helping kids be centered and to move forward. Interpretation and translation services are very helpful, especially in medical appointments. With school communication, especially with parents, without interpretation, it would be impossible to help people really make a life here because people need to understand how things work, understand each other, and the need for interpretation is something that's greater in the beginning, lessons over time. It really makes a difference for us being able to do a good job and to be welcoming. What is the future of the program in Vermont? It is tied to what's happening at the federal level. We receive people, we do not bring them, so we have no control over how many people come or where they're coming from. So we depend on the State Department and the President to provide new Vermonters to get settled here. At this point, there is some talk of zeroing out refugee resettlement for this coming year. There's a lot of pushback across the country. The reason is that immigration, refugees in Vermont, refugees in the rest of the country are incredibly impactful. They bring so much more than they take. One of the principles of an elementary school in Burlington was telling me how refreshing it was to her to have kids who couldn't wait to go to school instead of playing hooky. They really wanted to be there. The parents, this was their dream for their kids to get an education. So yes, generally kids want to be in school, but this is a different level of passion that these kids and these families bring to it. And the economics of it are quite clear. There's a lot of businesses in Vermont that have grown in ways they couldn't have grown without people working for them who have refugee backgrounds. And there are a lot of businesses that people have started, former refugees themselves. We have clients who have become landlords who are giving back and supporting people coming. It's really, it's a full circle. People come and then they pay back. This is an image from a world refugee celebration. And you can see the diversity and just the sense of community that we have in this celebration. We do this every June, International Refugee Day is in June. And it's important for us to come together and celebrate people being safe, people having a future, and also to remember people who haven't been able to come. One of the hardest things with what's happened with refugee resettlement in recent years, when it became political, when it had been a purple program, Republicans and Democrats had supported it, now that it's like a football being thrown back and forth. What that means is that people are separated from families, their families can't come and join them. And what it means is that some people just never even get that chance. So the numbers are not, it's not an abstraction. These are real people and it is significant. I'd love to field some questions if people have any questions. Yes. Refugee status, are they? So refugee status is one type of immigration status. So there's certain rights and responsibilities refugees have. They have been invited to the U.S. When they arrive, they are immediately eligible to work. So that's a privilege. It's also a responsibility. Not all immigration status, that doesn't extend to all immigrants, when they first come. After a year, refugees are expected to apply for permanent residency. And then at that point, they're no longer refugees. They have lost that legal status. They have a refugee background, but they're not a refugee. At five years, they're expected to take the exam and become citizens. If they don't, then a lot of the privileges that they have disappear. So there's a lot of pressure. The refugee program is focused on building citizens, building community members. It's not a transitional thing. This is permanent. People are making their home here. We also work with asylum seekers.  They have not been invited by the government to come here. And once they come on many different kinds of visas, and they can then apply for asylum, they have to prove their case to the U.S. government. While they're waiting to be able to prove their case, after approximately four to six months, they're able to work. Before that time, they have to be able to support themselves. And then they have to keep reapplying for employment authorization until they're able to get asylum. Once they get asylum, then they're eligible for all the benefits that a refugee has. Do you anticipate that with the change in administration at the federal level, that the amount of refugees coming into the U.S. will change? It depends on who comes in. That is our hope. There has been an anti-immigration movement that is gaining strength and is incredibly well-funded with sustainable funding that is working against refugee resettlement and other forms of immigration.  So it's really important that we focus on what we want the policy to be and not think it just comes down to one person. There's no guarantee because you still have Congress that is a factor. When Obama was president, that was when the Syrian crisis was happening. It's continuing to this day, but Obama was increasing the numbers and then it was a sharp change when Trump came in. So everybody had really worked hard to be able to be helpful to a greater number coming. And so the change was all the more drastic because it went from a momentum of building forward to sliding back. Yes? Those graphics showing the economics of immigration to Vermont, those available on your website? No, but I could post them. Or put them on Facebook, yeah? Useful information to share the dollars. I'm not constantly doing that. I've worked with refugees from Bosnia myself. So it always saved the impact on the economy and it was greater than it was taxed. Every study has shown that to be true, yeah? Thank you for the suggestion. I have another question if you're a lot calm. Do you have a sense as to why this, it seems to be this national, I'll say fever of anti-immigration perspective is growing in this country so rapidly? In 1965, there was a law passed that changed immigration to this country before the immigration law in the 60s happened. Most of the immigration had been from Europe and it was changed to open our doors to the broader world to Asia and Africa. And so immigrants started looking different. And that was a point in time where people were starting to take notice. There was less interest for other people to come here at that same time and there was a lot of pressure from other parts of the world, especially where western governments had colonies because a lot of the issues we have now come from the colonial era, problems that were starting back then. As the number of immigrants have come and increased a number being non-European, some people have gotten concerned, worried. They're not seeing themself. And so a lot of specific focus groups have started. There's a renewed interest in eugenics and proving that people who are not European are subhuman. So it's a very complicated problem. I think the fact that our birth rate is slowing down and our population is raging and aging, not raging. Well, it's a little bit of both right now. It's also a factor. So there's this fear of scarcity. You know that there just isn't enough. A lot of times older people are more concerned about scarcity. So I think that plays into this. I don't think there's any one element that you can tease out. The percentage of the US population that are immigrants has increased since the 1960s and so it's become more evident to more people. And then people not looking, talking, acting exactly the same way makes that larger percentage all the more evident to people who are focused on fear. Some people think that a refugee is a certain kind of person. Like someone is born to be a refugee, there's something about them that makes them a refugee. When you look at the numbers and you see how entire populations have had to flee, it's clear that a refugee, it's not a nationality, it's not a descriptor of who somebody is. And one of the things that has been important in refugee resettlement in the US is that the people who have been coming are coming from cultures that are collectivist. So they really are focused on being helpful to one another. Within a family, the children, the parents, the grandparents, they function as a whole unit and they make their personal decisions in part based on what they need to do to help other people. It's different than the US culture where we're so individualistic. I think we would have harder time being refugees because we wouldn't be as helpful to one another. Sometimes there's a lot of urban myths about what kind of assistance refugees get. Each refugee who comes to the US at this point in time receives $975, that's it. So that's not a car, that's not a free apartment. You know, it's a little bit of money to work with to put together as a family to be able to rent an apartment, put down a security deposit, first month's rent. But what you see is that people work hard, they help each other and they save money so that they can get a car, so that they can buy a house, they can start a business. And when it's happening as quickly as sometimes it does, people think that there must be some magic and it's cooperation within the family that makes that happen. The educational level of refugees is actually pretty high. It's a good deal for Vermont. We haven't had to pay for the education of all these adults coming, the children coming, already have some education, that's free to us. Just looking economically, these are people who are joining our workforce. Yes, they are continuing to get educated in Vermont but they're already bringing a lot. College is about the same between people who have been in Vermont and college level, I mean. And refugees, the high school graduation rate is actually higher. So a lot of the factors that, a lot of the measurements of how people's lives are going here, I think bode well for how they're going to be contributing to our state over time. Yes. And to add to that though, I've seen many cases where a degree that someone has in another country isn't recognized here as a degree, so it doesn't qualify them for position whether or not they have English or that their girls are not. So there are creative ways of overcoming that. People be able to pick up their career, the professional career here that they've left behind is extremely difficult. And so it's actually relatively rare that a doctor can become a doctor here so they would generally work in the medical field but not necessarily in the same role that they have before. A few people are able to overcome all of the obstacles there are. There is a sense that in the United States, we're better the best, we know everything and you kind of have to prove yourself and become doing things the American way before there's some value to what you know. And that's a pretty stubborn trait we have that would have to be overcome to get over some of those hurdles. We have, for instance, now we have a client who, two clients who are studying accounting and I'm pretty sure they're gonna get back to working in accounting at the level that they were before. One of the factors that is very difficult for people to be able to put the time and energy into getting re-certified is that they have to support their families. And it's so much hard work for someone to do that and keep their family going that oftentimes people just consider that as a price they have to pay to get their family here and be safe. And what often happens is we see that their children then achieve what their parents had before and often exceed that because that is a drive of the whole family. If there are ways that people can be helpful and would like to contribute to helping people return to their field, that would be very welcome. Some states are doing much more than Vermont is doing. Yes. I had another, just another quick question. So what about your budget? How are you raised funded? Most of our funding has come from grants. From the federal government. Some of those grants are tied specifically to the people we're resettling. So it's, you know, they come with each refugee. They're eligible for certain programs. So therefore they come, we can get that funding. Other programs are competitive and through the years we've been pretty successful of expanding what we're able to offer to our clients and gain some of those grants. Some of those are federal. Most of them are federal. Some of them are private. All of that though is reduced as we have fewer clients coming in here. Going back about 10 years, we've really been building our fundraising effort to get more private donations, more private grants because there's so many things that are important that are not funded by the federal government. So the State Department and Health and Human Services have grants that support refugees. They're not focused on youth. That really is one of our major drivers now, like how can we be helping youth? How can we, which is helping the family? So we've been doing a lot of work to increase funding to support case management, employment counseling, academic counseling for youth. And I'm sure we're gonna, our dream is to bring that to the same level that we're able to provide services to parents and adults. For us, our staff is down from what it had been. And our staff are having to diversify what they're doing. So it's a lot harder if you're wearing more than one hat to do the work you've been doing. But people don't want to leave their jobs because it's a commitment they've made. It's a humanitarian commitment they've made to their work. So the people who are still there are, it's a sacrifice for them to stay. We really hope that we don't have to lose more staff, but we might have to. Some refugee resettlement programs have shut down entirely because they haven't had the diversity programs we've had. A lot of the work we do supports people who are already here. It's not tied to just the first three months or the first year. And we want to continue doing that work. It's important to our alumni and it's also important to the community. So it's a big concern for us now. And it's a concern that we could use the institutional knowledge, the talent, the commitment. You don't just post a job and automatically get someone who can be a refugee resettlement case manager. We have people who have been working in that role for 10 years or more and they're priceless. So we really hope that Vermont will recognize that. I know the state of New York has actually been funding programs for refugee resettlement so that staff can be maintained and programs can be maintained for the long term. And it's not paying people to sit at their desk. It's paying people to do really good, strong, hard work and keep the core group of people intact and be ready for the future. Because if you have somebody else come into office you have a different Congress and suddenly the doors are open, who's gonna do the work? You need to do the work well. And Vermont is special because we're a small community and the way we approach our work is neighbor helping neighbor. That's one of the reasons we have such a strong volunteer program. We have what's called family friends so you could be connected to someone who's come here an individual to an individual or a couple or family and you help each other just like you would your neighbor. It's not hierarchical. That's not a federal program. That's a program we have to fund entirely by donations and we do it because we're Vermonters and this is what it means to be a Vermonter to help each other. The same thing with the Youth Mentor Program. What it requires of people to educate somebody who comes from another culture or another educational system where English may not be their first language is to have an open mind. You cannot put students in a box. You can't say, well this student didn't speak English therefore I'm not gonna expect anybody to speak English or you can't say that they can't do math because their English level is low. So it's really helping our youth program is helping youth figure out where they are. What are their strengths? What are they bringing? Helping their parents understand what their strengths are and then helping them interact with the system in a way that the opportunities are expansive. They're not limited and part of that is it's just that personal one-on-one work with educators, with systems, that's really important to do. You can't say to a student, it's okay to speak up or a parent speak up if they don't even know what they can speak up about. So that's a direction we're going in. And I see the schools wanting to go in that direction also but it's hard work. So we need to be mindful and work together and it takes some resources but the payoff is tremendous. So please go to our website, like our Facebook page, see what's going on, I have some cards here if you want to get in touch. We are resettling refugees in Chattanoag County now and we'll continue to be doing it there. So if you want to get involved, hands on, face to face, that's where you'll need to go.


Everybody forced here gripping the sports card almanac multi-sport personal box edition volume 4 Sean s with one box here. It's box number 70 Number 70 best of luck. Sean. Thank you for the order. We've got instant memorabilia redemption last trivia question of the night Last trivia question of the night Okay, so this is the hint. It's a little A little broad I'll say I might have to narrow it down, but Here's a hint. This player is a predominantly right-handed But throws the ball left-handed this player is predominantly right-handed throws the ball left-handed I Don't want to if I can give it hand. I don't give it way like immediately though Yeah, rich is right rich is right No one in twitch has even guessed yet Yeah, twitch might be just gonna be done. There's 36 people there One wants break credit. Nice job rich Nobody all right, I'm gonna go get the jersey. No captain keep going Left-handed who throws left it. Thank you. There you go. There you go cap. There's your Jeff Jeff got him my homes Yeah, it's to a tongue of a loa All right, Sean. Here's to a jersey for you Sean might wear it. Yeah, I'll do my best to keep him from putting it on All right, is a She made a Nike game jersey to a tongue of a loa whoo, uh, wait, that's upside down Let's go dolphins Fanatics to a jersey Big game Sunday chargers That's an awesome one jealous dude go Sean. Thank you again. We'll get that out to you


I got a team around me that handle my contract situations and my future and all that. So I'm focused on training them, focused on getting ready for the season. I'm on a plan with, I've been talking to Coach Raeb and Todd and everyone. Like you said, I'm unavailable to practice out here if anyone wanna ask that. But I just been on a plan with them to focus on how much can I improve, not just doing drills right now, but in the film room, in the weight room or anything like that. So my focus is not on my contract. That's why I got a team around me to actually, they can focus on all the contract talk and whatever it may be if it is contract talk. So like I said, my focus is on football right now. Williams said you're not hurt, so if you're focused on football, how come you're not on the field? Because we are on, I kinda just said that me and Raeb and them came to a plan where they think best for me right now and that's where I'm a player and I believe in Coach Raeb and I believe in Todd and them that since I've been here, they've been putting me in a great position to be the player I am today. So we're just, I'm on a plan with them right now. Unless it's over his contract. Well, I'm not, like I said, if it is about contract, I don't know because I'm not talking about, I'm not talking to them about my contract. I have a team placing that if it is about contract, they gonna talk about it with whoever upstairs. But like I said, Raeb don't handle the contract. So I think, like I said, my job is to be a player, be a leader in the, not just on the field, but in the weight room and the locker room or whatever it may be. So like I said, I'm on a plan. I'm sticking with it and I'll see you guys in camp. What have you done, Jeffery, I guess over the last couple of months, maybe to kind of start gearing up for the season? Well, I mean, it's just been a lot of things that me personally that I want to work on to take my, take my game to the next level. And that's, you know, if it's, you know, just trying to be more disrupted, get up to feel more, you know, try to keep my feet moving, not just in the run game or not just in the pass game, but also in the run game. I think a lot of speculation around that, you know, I'm just working on a lot more pass rush, which I'm not.  Even in the run game, how can I keep my feet moving when I make contact and stuff like that? It's just a small detail that could take my game to the next level.  This is why you missed the sack. So I think that just been my biggest thing this off season. How can I speed my footwork up? How can I, you know, take the small things to take into my game to actually make them, you know, tactful also sacks. So. Where does the weight reduction play into where you're trying to get as far as taking your game to the next level? I think it's, I mean, not just, you know, on the field.  I think take a toll on your body. And I think, you know, if I could keep playing at a consistent level, I mean, weight that, I think that it helped me, especially later in the season from getting even banged up or whatever it may be. And I think that just, you know, with me, you know, I feel good when I'm like, I feel good, you know, cause I feel, I still feel strong. I still feel like myself. So I think just me getting down and being consistent at, you know, right around, you know, maybe two, nine and five, but right around 300 in that range, I think that'd feel good for me. And I'm just being able, you know, to help the team the best way I can by staying healthy. So. How was it with Vaughn Miller, the past wrestling summer? How was that for you? Oh, it was great.    I think it was like three or four guys that in a hundred sex range. And of course, it's a pattern of something. So, you know, I'm all ears to it. And also, it just went on the field. It was also, you know, we did, went to the film room. So I think that was my biggest thing to get around them guys, to see how they think, you know, how to do a approach, you know, certain blockers, if it's a jump set or whatever it may be. So I had a great time just to learn. You know, I took a lot of notes. I made sure I had me a notebook and pen. So I took a lot of notes from them guys. And, you know, it was just great to be around all them vets. What would you play at last year, Jeff? I was, I would say I was up like 312, 315.  I think that's where I said, the consistent of with my weight, I guess watch what I eat later in the season would help me out as well. Aaron Donald's been the standard for a decade on the defensive line. Do you think in your mind, you can be that next guy? I mean, everyone played a game different. And I can say when I, when a lot of guys, and I get asked a question like that all the time, you know, I'm my own player. You know, I feel like I played a game different than Aaron Donald or whoever the next guy may be. So I think that just when, when I'm playing the game, you know, I want to, I want to be around the ball. I don't want to just make sacks or tackle for loss. I want to chase the ball down the field. And a lot of people ask, how do you separate yourself? I say turn on the field and see that. Like I'm, I'm, I like to chase the ball. I like to be around the ball.  And that's fun, both of whatever it may be. So, you know, pick up a thumb and somebody knocked the ball out. So I think with me personally, you know, I try to separate myself by doing the other things from that I see, you know, like I said, I must respect to all them guys, you know, that like Aaron Donald, you know, you know, he lists that the best, best player in the league.  So, like I said, I consider myself as a different player, you know, than Aaron Donald, of course. So like I said, my, my job is to be the best version of Jeffers Simmons for the Tennessee Titans. What do you think? Pay attention to the contract extension that he got, though?  You know, that's why I got a team around me to handle that. Like I got a, like I said, the team that I have, you know, I know that they want the best for me.  You know, that's for them to handle. I think that's why they get paid the way they do to go talk to them guys upstairs. So, like I said, I have a team in place to, you know, when it's time to talk contract, they'll be ready to talk to them. The reason, Jeff, that as far as we know now, do you think you'll start training camp on time? Is there any reason to think you wouldn't start training camp on time? My goal is to be here when they tell us report.  I'm, I said, I'm, I'm been on the plan with Coach Ray, you know, telling me, like I said, when it's time to report, my plan is to be here. You've done something like Kay, that you was talking about, who did that? Just to make sure that consistency stays throughout the season? Yeah, I think with me, like I, I think my biggest thing is just being able to, I guess, not cheat with it. You know, you have them days where you just want to say, forget it, you know, especially late in the season where you're like, I'm feeling good at this weight. It's no sense of trying to do extra. So I think my thing is just staying strict on myself, you know, because I think been going, trying to stay strict or, you know, having a Dodd. I don't think I wouldn't call it a Dodd.   So I think that's my biggest thing. How can I just stay, you know, consistent with what I put in my body? Who loves ball and talked about how much you love ball, how difficult is it for you? You have the plan, but you want to be out there, right? How difficult is it for you? I mean, it's always difficult not being on the field, no matter if it's OTAs, mini camp or whatever it may be, you know, it's always great to be around your teammates. And I think, you know, building a team, not just on the field.  It's in the building, you know, in the locker room and not just at the football facility. How can we get together? You know, we've been, I talked to a couple of guys this week. You know, how can, what can we do to, especially, you know, on defense, that's where I'm playing at. How can we get together on defense, especially the front four, to burn more? Because that's one of the things that I talked to, you know, some of the vets at Van Miller Camp, I was talking to Justin Heason, he was like, he was just telling me, man, y'all got some special, you know, y'all got, you don't want to lose that because y'all don't jail together. And that hit me because I'm like, you know, we do have a special group, but you know, we're not going to jail all together just on the football field. How can we, you know, get away from the building, join together, you know, fellowship together outside of football? And I think that's, you know, where that coming play at. You know, I want to be on the field true enough, but, you know, it's not about just being on the field. And I think that's what I've been doing since I'm not on the field, bundling with them guys in the locker room and, you know, hopefully outside of the building. This team, a contract was a part of that. Honestly, man, that's, I'm my own player. You know, we're going to miss AJ right here, but I mean, that's, that's don't have nothing to do with me. I think my goal is to do my job. And I don't play receiver. I play D-line. So, you know, I'm still here. I got to still be a leader for this team and just play my role. Christian, you're only going into your third year, but all of a sudden you're one of the more experienced guys in the room. All of a sudden, how does it feel to be maybe giving some advice to a lot of the younger guys and less experienced guys? I mean, it's cool. You know, it's a cool thing, cool feeling. It's cool. Because, you know, like you said, it was a new system for me coming in these first two years.  KB, Kenny, when he was here, those guys helped me. So I look forward to it. And I'm just here, you know, to compete with all the other guys, you know, that's the only way we're going to get better is if we compete. So, I mean, it's a fun thing, you know, to help those guys out. Have you found yourself having to be more vocal? And if so, is that something you're comfortable with or something you're trying to get accustomed to? Yeah, I'm still getting accustomed to it. Just as far as like being off the field on the field, you know, I'm vocal, you know, I just have to make the checks. That's what the game, you know, a lot makes me do. But off the field, you know, I'm definitely, you know, still getting accustomed to it.  What was your plan, maybe Christian, maybe this offseason, I still got several weeks before camp starts, but what was your plan coming in at the start and maybe how do you feel like it's going?  For the most part, most of the guys, you know, we play, we got a group that's played together. But like you said, Caleb hasn't played much. Rodgers, you know, those other guys, you know, just trying to make sure that they're caught up, you know, once camp comes and making sure that, you know, we can catch and stay in rolling early so we don't have to make adjustments, you know, when the season comes. And OTA's been a camp you've worked on from a technique standpoint that you focused on? Just being more patient, just trying to take on a bigger role as far as reading the offense, you know, once they come out in the formation, you know, getting my pre-snap reads so I can play fast once the ball snaps, you know, like I said, I wanted to be around the ball more this season. So that's what it's going to take to get lined up, knowing what's coming to me. Pre-snap, that way I can play faster. What do you think of the depth of the cornerback group now? Yeah, the depth is pretty good.  Guys are trying to get a starting spot and just find their roles on the team. So I think I like the group that we have. Very competitive. And like I said, guys that want to have a starting role. Blake, you who played SEC competition, how much does that help going against high class, you know, caliber receivers week in, week out? Does that help make the jump? I mean, it's a pretty easy jump, I would say. It's not easy, but it's easy because you played against some of the guys that you're going against.  He's done that already. The main thing, you know, is just getting the defense down, you know, and making sure you can play fast without thinking. So I don't think he'll have a problem, you know, with the competition that he's going against, because he's played against some of those guys. What do you do between now and the top camp stars? You saying what I'm doing now? What do you do, maybe to kind of get yourself geared up?    And just me with my trainers back at home, so I could be in shape for that 17 game. So I have a few guys back at home in New Orleans, NXT. And I have my trainer, Mo Wells, and Austin. Christian, how do you get the build off of the way you finished last year as a defense and carried over and be even better this year? Yeah, yeah, we all feel like, you know, we were decent.  So we see that there's potential. You know, we see what we brought back this year. Mostly everybody really. So we just want to keep that going. You know, we know we can be a special group. So that's just our challenge to us every day. We're not worried about last year, but we know what we got, you know, the potential that we have. If you reach that potential, how good? Go all the way. That's our goal, you know, that's the best. The best defense usually gets to the Super Bowl. So I think that's the potential. At the DB Room, what kind of, is there a challenge? And we've talked to some of the guys up front in the front set and they talk about how that group, you know, really came into its own last year. What about you guys in the back? Like, what's the feeling there? Yeah, like I said, I feel like the last year that we had what I was playing together, I feel like that would be a big plus for us, you know, because you got to have a lot of communication. You know, guys are coming in. Everybody has a different style, even though you have to play together. But I feel like we all have a feel for each other. We have a great feel for the defense with all of us having a year under our belt. So I feel like that would be, that's very big for us, you know, in the back end that'll help us. You know, I know the front seven is going to take care of their jobs, but it was some games, you know, where we had a bus in the second there. So I feel like that's helpful for us, you know, coming into this season, where we had that experience. And we could talk about those things and we just know where everybody's going to be at. How do you feel about the culture of this team? We still, we're still building our culture.    I think we're headed in the right direction. But, you know, we're still building that throughout this time while we're here. He's on board with a plan with you and everybody else here to, you know, at this point during this mini camp, but is it all designed to help him be at his freshest come training camp in the season at this point? No, just doing exactly what we asked him to do, like everybody else, everybody's got a different plan and that's where we're at right now. What is it that he can accomplish, you know, being in the film as opposed to, you know, not having to fieldwork like some of the other guys? Well, we always ask guys that aren't, you know, practicing to be doing and working just as hard. That's gonna go on through training camp throughout the season. There's gonna be times where guys aren't with us on the field, but we're gonna need them on Sunday or whenever they can come back.  I would say that the guys that haven't been here have gotten caught up, you know, they got caught up pretty quickly. Can players do, by the time they leave here until camp starts, what your message be on how to get? Well, this is the most critical time of the off season. We talk about the nine weeks of OTAs, but, you know, these next five weeks will be the most critical time from the end of the season because, you know, we'll have the rookies here, Jim. We talked about that yesterday. You asked about that yesterday, you know, so Frank and everybody in the weight room will be working hard with them. It'll be hot. That'll be great for these guys to get out and get some of that and training that, you know, but then everybody kind of goes away.  With Traylin where he is at this point, is there a separate plan for him from the other rookies or how are you going about just getting him ready to go this off season? He'll be here on Monday. He'll be here tomorrow. You talked about how guys like Hilliard and Foreman had come in and how motivated they were by having been out of the league and on the street. Do you sense some of that same motivation and hunger in Josh Malone as he's coming here? Yeah, I think so. You know, I think that, you know, we'd all, you know, we're all trying to work as hard now that we have a job as when we didn't. And that's my responsibility to make sure that we're not getting too comfortable and complacent because we do have a lot of those guys that have, like you mentioned, that have come in here, bust their screen and Texans didn't, you know, they parted ways with Zach with Cunningham. There's just a lot of guys that have been, whether they're undrafted or somewhere else that things didn't work out that they've come here and take advantage of whatever opportunity that they've gotten.  Like for the onset, then two, three guys who are in the last month or so that's kind of stood out to you from the under group? You know, the only way that they would stand out is that they would be able to handle the installation quickly, make improvements. And again, physically, I think that that would be hard to determine, you know. So we'll reserve judgment for, you know, when we start playing. Beyond the operational stuff, what kind of strides has Malik made in revising the things that you guys want to? Well, I think there were some good, quick decisions yesterday in the red zone. I thought that there was, you know, did a nice job holding the safety's eyes and, you know, delivering ball on time.  We're doing the jog through to just get, you know, these plays in. And so I think that the timing isn't, it's not fair for the receivers in the quarterbacks.  The closer you get to the goal line, you know, guys are gonna start becoming more competitive. And I just reminded them like, let's just get these plays in, let's get them installed. And, you know, so I was conscious of the pace. You know, we don't have pads on and tight quarters. And so I think some of the timing, you know, down there wasn't very good. And they probably shouldn't even be throwing some of those balls. I just don't want to create bad habits. But yesterday there was some really, really good, quick, decisive decisions in the red zone. How about mechanically footwork, throwing motion? Well, just trying to get some things, you know, obviously when you progress through and you work from one read to the next, everything's gotta be in tune.   And so there's a fine line between both of those. Are you not in the book or...  Or would you like to be more consistent? I mean, we don't want to coach robots. I mean, we certainly want to make sure that that we're sounding what we're doing. But there's gonna be times in every position where guys are gonna, you know, if Harold comes under or gets a sack or, you know, bud runs around the back of the pocket and gets a strip sack. I mean, some of these things, and we've been through it as we're trying to create these poised and instinctive players that, you know, you gotta give them an opportunity to make plays, but they can't be reckless and affect, you know, what the entire team's doing.  You know, we're gonna try to coach them and teach them, but then they go out and play and, you know, make sure that the results, you know, are there. Mike, the money-booker, what do you see as being the next step for him after a full year as a starter? Well, I mean, I think just continue to improve and take some ownership and, you know, continue to cover and, you know, when you have to get matched up with some bigger tight ends and, you know, we ask a lot of them and, you know, I think there was a, you know, he does a lot for us, he plays different roles and, you know, Blitz is and plays in the back part of the field. He's pretty versatile. Is there anything you say to the rookies before you all break, just preparing them for this first time before they go into fall camp and just kind of giving them... I mean, we'll have conversations with them the next couple of weeks. I'll be in here just watching them and, you know, seeing how they do. And, you know, now's not the time to go to the Bahamas and, you know, take long vacations. How big will the room with regard to the soft tissue injuries that we've talked about over time and you've talked about this being a crucial period on that? And I think you have to be able to train. You have to train in this heat. You have to stay hydrated. You have to go out there and, you know, train the way that you're going to practice and practice the way that you're going to play. So, conscious that the volume that they're going to be doing in the off season in those next couple of weeks are there, the speed, you know, we're able to track their speed. We were trying to get everybody up to, you know, at least 90% of their max game speed once a week throughout the off season, showed them the numbers, communicated with the players so that all of a sudden we're just not asking them to to run fast and then, you know, shock their system. So, you know, we took time and we have, you see all these things that are set up so that we can track it. If they're not hitting it in practice, we get them over to the side and get them that speed work and hopefully they're conscious of that while they're away from here. In the last three years in the post season, fans have very high playoff expectations. But what are your playoff expectations for this year? You know, first make them and then and win. It's a lot of the red zone drills. Austin Hooper specifically, from what you've seen here as well as maybe even before, what in your opinion, what's made him an effective red zone player? He's got good catch radius. He really, you've seen those contested throws where he's doing what we asked him to do and go and attack the football. He's athletic. I mean, it's not the fastest tight end, but I don't think you have to be fast to get open. I think you have to be crafty. I think you have to be athletic and use different speeds, use route craft, use, you know, different moves that, you know, match coverage that are going to help you get open. How has it been getting those groups biggest challenge going into camp? Probably just coming in shape, you know. Mike, this has kind of been a construction zone for two and a half years now. Is light at the end of the tunnel at this point and how hopeful are you that the third field? Yeah, no, those guys are working hard. It's going to be great. It's, you know, we're not on the best, you know, land here, but it's going to be amazing. I think that that should be ready to go here in middle of July. Hopefully transition over here, start working on this one at some point in time and, you know, give us, you know, the best surface that we can possibly have in this location. But we didn't mind the construction one bit. We have amazing offices, great place to teach. You know, our coaches are right by the building. We think, you know, Ms. Amy and her family all the time and we have the space, we have our entire organization. I've gotten to meet people that we haven't seen and we've hired during COVID or before COVID that I never got a chance to meet. And now they're in the same building and we have an organization is right here. So are you saying you'll have two fields during camp or are you going to do this one sometime down the road? Sometime down the road, I think, eventually. We're not going to do it during camp. No, we'll still have our three fields and then the bubble in there. Thanks, guys.