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The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
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Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are
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condemned to repeat it. Kevin helen n believes that certainly
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applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at
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W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com
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and now your host, Kevin Helena.
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Thanks everybody for joining in today. I am Kevin Hallanan
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and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on
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W four cy dot com. We are streaming live on
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Talk the number four tv dot com in addition to Facebook,
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and that's at Winning Business Radio. And of course we're
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available wherever you get your podcast content, YouTube by Heart Radio, Spotify, Apple.
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Then the list goes on the mission of winning business
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radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know, is
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to offer insights and advice to help people avoid the
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mistakes of others, right to learn best practices. Those are
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the how tos, the what toos, the what not tos,
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and to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by
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the successes of others. Those consultants, coaches, advisors, authors, founders
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and owners and entrepreneurs, people with expertise. But you know,
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virtually every successful person I've ever talked to has said
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some form of failure in their lives and careers. So
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while we all have to get our knees skinned once
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in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from
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needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so
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we don't repeat it. I've spent the better part of
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my career equipping businesses to grow from solopreneurs to small
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and medium sized companies all the way up to the
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Fortune fifty. I've seen some of those companies win, and
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to varying degrees, I've seen some fail. I've had the
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opportunity to rub elbows with some of the highest performing
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people around and with some who probably should have found
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other professions and my own businesses. I've had lots of success,
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but some failures too. I like to think I've learned
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a lot from those experiences. So you're going to hear
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from me, but mostly you're going to hear from our guests.
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Those experts, consultants, coaches, advisors, authors, founders and owners and entrepreneurs.
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And today my guest is Warren Rutherford. He is founder
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and president of Rutherford Advisors DBA The Executive Suite, and
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here's his bio. Warren Rutherford returns for a second time
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to Winning Business Radio. He was here in twenty twenty,
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bringing with him decades of insight into executive leadership and
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such strategic talent alignment. Since founding Rutherford Advisors, Inc. DBA
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The Executive Suite in nineteen ninety seven, he has specialized
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in executive search for private and family owned businesses across
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the US and internationally. His work goes far beyond recruitment, though,
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helping organizations reimagine their leadership, team teams and ways that
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drive long term growth, cultural fit, and strategic execution. Warren
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partners with businesses to design growth driven executive search strategies
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rooted in a deep excuse me in a deep understanding
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of their strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and desire results. His approach
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ensures that leadership transition transitions I can Talk Warre are
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not just about filling roles, but about aligning vision with
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the right talent to elevate performance. As a one page
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business plan consultant, Warren works with business owners to develop
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strategic and actionable business plans. He also plays an active
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role in shaping the Cape Cod, Massachusetts business landscape. He
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currently chairs the Cape Cod Economic Development Council and has
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served as the founding board chair of Leadership cape Cod.
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His additional leadership and advisory roles include Provisors New England,
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the Exit Planning Exchange That's XPX, New England, Rotary International,
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and E for All Mentorship program. He holds a BA
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in Political Science from the un University of Massachusetts amherst
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Ura and a Master of Public Administration in Public Organization
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and Management from Northeastern University. He's provided leadership training to
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industry exits and Qualaum Poor Malaysia, run team building training,
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management and leadership training, customer service training to multiple organizations.
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He's published with others eight webinars on topics ranging from
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banking to business succession and planning. He's published an HRTech
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outlook as one of the top ten talent management Companies
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twenty twenty, identifying the best person future fit candidate made easy.
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A challenging aspect of Warren's executive search work involves working
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with business owners to equip their business with strategies that
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incorporate AI and digital modernization that can bridge the gap
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between retiring business owners and incoming entrepreneurs developing and excuse me,
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an effective bridge will require existing owners to prepare their
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businesses for executives who expect effective digital integration and modern
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operating system systems plural. Warren lives on Cape cod with
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his wife Carol. They have two adult kids, Kevin and
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Carrie Warren. Good to have you here, Welcome to Winning
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Business Radio and TV.
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Kevin, thank you very much and thanks for that overview.
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Based on what you've said, I guess I'll answer some
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questions from you, and it was pretty thorough. Thank you.
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Where's you? Let's start with background? Okay, I'd like to
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look at somebody's background so the audience really gets a
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flavor for how you got to where you are and
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kind of what makes you tick? Where'd you grow up?
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Grew up in Worcestern, Massachusetts.
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The center of the state, well little east of the center,
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but it's kind of the center of the state, right.
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Part of the commonwealth, Yes, but that's the logo school system.
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And then, as you mentioned earlier, went to you mass
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Amhurst and had fun doing that to bring Polly SI
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and went on to Northeastern at my MPa.
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Your MPa, you can and be a Masters in Public administration,
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right correct?
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Yeah, My focus all along was to be a city manager,
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and there's very few of those in Massachusetts, but I
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was on that management track and spent a good twenty
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five years in public management systems, so learned learned a
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good amount about how to manage and motivate people.
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How towns work. And you're all it's well, some paid staff,
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but a lot of volunteers on committees and working in
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the communities.
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Right yeah, and working with a lot of boards, which
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is very analogous to boards of directors and the owners
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executives of private companies.
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Hey, before we get too far, tell us about Carol
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and Kevin and Carey.
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Carol, I'm she's We've been married now thirty some plus years.
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Thirty yeah, yeah, now about thirty eight years and the kids.
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Kevin's thirty four, Carrie's thirty one. Carrie is creating a
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little bit of antsiness and Carol because she's vacationing in
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Hawaii and today she's trying snorkeling. Nice, that's on a
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sailboat for the first time. Well, that's fine, but good
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kid's great wife and lovable Golden retriever at home.
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What's Kevin up to?
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He's five eleven six feet.
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I've actually met jess Myran.
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Yeah, he's a good guy. He's in between public management situations.
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But he decided years ago that he wanted to be
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a city manager. And I always ascribe it to him
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sitting across my desk when he was little eating peanut
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butter and jelly sandwiches while I was running the town.
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That's pretty cool. What were your early interests and how
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did you get I know that's not your career now,
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but you spent quite a bit of time there. How
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did you get interested in public management?
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So when my first real job was when I was seven,
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delivered the morning Wester telegram. I had fifty some odd customers,
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so you know, you get up at four o'clock. You
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get the paper and you start deliver in them, and
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in between homes, I got to read the front page
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and more. And it always every other day there was
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an article headline about city manager Francis Mcroth. So I
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got initiated into what initiating into public management by just
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reading the paper every day.
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And you got your degree, Let's see, graduated UMass seventy eight.
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You're a very interested in political science, and so that
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makes sense. Let's see, you started working for a company
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called McKinnon Training Center. Tell us about mccrinan.
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So McKinnon Training Center. If for those who may remember,
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back in the name late nineteen seventies, the government, federal
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government put together a program called SITA Comprehensive Employment Training
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Act and as part of that, when I was with
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the McKinnon Center, we were responsible for thirteen communities in
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south central south central mass headquartered in Southbridge, and my
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job there as planner was to write manpower plans to
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take the unemployed people, train them, educate them, and get
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them work. So we did that. I did that for
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six years, worked with fifty other folks, and my job
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as planning director was to find out how we could
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improve our job placement rates. So when I started there,
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we were I laughed, Kevin, but we were placing one
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out of ten people in jobs. Wow, it was a
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great record. So I took eight months talked all my coworkers,
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found out what they did, why they did it, how
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they did it, what they'd like to do differently. I
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asked a lot of questions, which is part of what
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we know about each other. We asked questions, and based
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on that, I put together several manpower plans for the
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following year, and I projected weeds. At the end of
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the year, we placed four out of ten. So my
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boss didn't like that because he thought it was possible.
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But you know what, at the end of that first year,
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we placed forty five percent of the people we trained,
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and it was more than a four hundred percent increase
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and we kept that up. And the key the key
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to that, though, is real simple. I asked my coworkers
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what they wanted to achieve, and I wrote the plan
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around them. So I was only the vehicle to write it.
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They were the instruments to complete it. And I've continued
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that throughout my whole career. I've worked with every organization,
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private or public, asking my fellow employees what it was
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they wanted to achieve in their vision of excellence and success.
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So strategic planning, planning has always been part of my
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experience and asking employees and understanding what man what motivates them,
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helps them to manage themselves and may the manage the whole.
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That's outstanding. You were at a relatively young age when
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you became the town executory executive secretary for Canton UH
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and then that was about five years and then the
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town manager, the head guy for Barnstable. What do you
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attribute that to that you were still relatively young and
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you were a town manager when most of those guys
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are in their uh sort of mid career maybe later career.
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I had a vision, I had a purpose and as
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I said to the city council Town council in Barnstaol,
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I wanted to finally implement and do what I had
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been trained to do in my MPa program thirteen years before.
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So had an opportunity to do that, had a great
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staff to work with, and it's managing leading working with
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others is all communications. Listening and listening and listening and
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then doing and acting.
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So did Barnstable or does Barnsable have a select board
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or a mayor?
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No. I was their first town manager under a town
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council form. So they went from those who aren't familiar
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a representative town meeting, which was three hundred and fifty
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people elected by their peers out of ballot. They were
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the representative. They were the legislative body. And then it
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was governed on the executive level by three full time
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board of selectmen, no town manager at all. So I
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was the first and replaced the boards of selectmen the
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executive and then the town council City council replaced the
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town meeting. So it was a total change of government
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under a charter form. And I worked in Barnstville for
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seven years.
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So then in ninety seven you founded Rutherford Advisors. What
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was behind that move? And then I'll ask you, well,
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I'll hold that second question, what was behind that move?
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Ready for a change?
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Yep?
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Quite honestly, some would say I wore out my welcome,
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but most first time managers in a new form of
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government stay for about a year and a half. I
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stayed for seven years and implemented a number of different
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changes that are still being implemented today and followed through.
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I wanted to change. I wanted to break out on
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my own and be my own boss. I've been that
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way since ninety seven.
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Oh, you're still married. So just pointing out that carrolls
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in the mix somewhere there. Hopefully she's listening. I can
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call you up every day. She's in the mix. Now
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did Rutherford Advisors start out doing different work than you're
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doing right now? And if so, what was that?
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To some degree? Excuse me? To some degree, it was
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management consulting and coaching. And I worked for a bit
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of time in ninety seven ninety eight with the Mass
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Power Options helping It was a division of at the
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time Mass Healthy Education Facilities Authority, And what we did
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was we worked on with the legislature and then developing
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electric competitive electric supply and then selecting a supplier for
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all of the colleges, universities, hospitals and nonprofits in the state.
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So it was Power Options was the vehicle. And then