142: Closing the Gap: Aligning Education and Workforce Systems with Angie Besendorfer Chief Impact Officer at AstrumU

Holly Owens (00:00.923)
Hello everyone and welcome to another fantastic episode of EdUp L &D. My name is Holly Owens and I'm your only host today. Unfortunately, Nadia couldn't join us, but we are still very, very excited. We have a wonderful guest with us today. We have Dr. Angie Besendorfer. Did I do that right? Pretty close. Okay, you correct me. And she has a very cool title. She's the chief impact.

Angie Besendorfer (00:22.83)
Pretty close, that's good.

Holly Owens (00:30.107)
officer at Astromu. Angie, welcome to the show.

Angie Besendorfer (00:33.934)
It's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Holly Owens (00:36.635)
I'm super excited. I was exploring Ask From You prior to our conversation just to get a feel for your products and what you offer. And I can't wait for you to share it with the audience. But before we jump into that, we wanna know a little bit about you and your story. So tell us, how did you get here? What is your background? Give us all the details about your journey into the space.

Angie Besendorfer (00:59.406)
Well, happy to do that. I will tell you that my journey is not a traditional journey, which I think aligns very well with...

Holly Owens (01:03.675)
You know, everybody says that it's funny, but yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (01:07.822)
Well, I'm probably in the tech space. You know, we kind of wandered into this in lots of ways. But as I thought about this and I thought about like, I'm talking to a tech audience in that sense is that I kind of thought about how did I get to here? And so I'm a teacher, I'm an educator. That's who I am at my core is I'm an educator. And so I've been a teacher and a principal and a superintendent, but tech innovations was always part of that. And in fact, like,

Holly Owens (01:12.443)
Yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (01:34.382)
my students were preschool students when I started off teaching and I had the best Macintoshes in the district. Now the business teacher at the high school once told me about that. That was back in the day where like a Mac was a big deal thing, right? Because I am old. But then I ended up in a classroom with fourth graders with one computer for every two kids before that was a thing back in the 90s. And so like technology was always kind of a big part of what I did.

Holly Owens (01:41.115)
I love it that you're, we were a Mac school. That's awesome.

yeah. yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (02:02.286)
And in fact, even in Joplin, when I was assistant superintendent, when the EF5 tornado ripped through our school district and we had to start back after school, we had to think about like, how are we going to rebuild? And what's a 21st century high school look like? And we went textbook -less. So we did one -to -one with Macbooks, which we didn't have at that point, but we went to that with no textbooks, not even digital ones. So technology has always kind of been that innovative push kind of component of what

Holly Owens (02:08.955)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (02:32.174)
what drove me, but when I left the K -12 sector, I went to Western Governors University and I was chancellor for WGU Missouri and then regional vice president. And that was kind of like...

Holly Owens (02:42.427)
I didn't look much into your background, but now I'm definitely going to your LinkedIn after this.

Angie Besendorfer (02:46.766)
So, but that wasn't like a normal progression to higher ed, right? That's not what we're talking about.

Holly Owens (02:49.979)
Right, no that's like Chancellor from educator to administrator Chancellor, that's like a huge leap. Wow.

Angie Besendorfer (02:57.294)
But it aligned with my why, and I think that's probably an important thing. In my K -12 time, I was always in high poverty areas, hoping 12 years mattered. That was my goal, that this education was going to set these kids in a trajectory that was different than the one that they were living. And I went to WGU because WGU is the most tech -oriented university, fully online, clearly a disruptor in the higher ed space with the competency -based learning model and...

And in three years, by the time somebody found out about it and finished on average, they could get a degree. So the parents of all those kids that I had been really caring a lot about, if I could get to them, then I could change those kids and they didn't have to live like that for 12 years. And then, you know, fast forward from from WGU to, you know, another little stop. But then Astromu found me and I'm at Astromu because that same individual that I've always been passionate about and breaking poverty cycles and all of that.

Holly Owens (03:31.931)
Right.

Angie Besendorfer (03:51.182)
I learned that they have real struggles in getting hired, that the current systems are weeding them out because they don't have a traditional journey. And so Astrum U is working to level the playing field through the technology at that point. And so I really feel like that through technology, we can break poverty cycles by helping people be seen. And that's why I chose to join the team at Astrum U and

And, you know, it is a fun title. We kind of made it up. It was like an opportunistic hire, I think for them is what they would tell you. And, and it's been fun. I'm, I'm the educator of the group to that's bringing this amazing technology team that we have at Astromu and data science team that's building this new stuff. And it's, it's a ton of fun.

Holly Owens (04:17.979)
I love it.

Yeah.

Holly Owens (04:32.763)
Yeah. I am. I love your journey. It is. That is amazing. And what I'm sure you're super like grateful for like all the experience. Like you've had multiple large careers throughout throughout your journey. And I think it's so so I'm a former educator. I've been in the K through 12 space. I left transition before was with all the cool kids were doing. And Nadia is a former educator too and now she works in.

She works in industry and I work in corporate ID at Amazon. So, and they need education. These people, the ed tech industry, they really need the educator passion to kind of level up what they're doing. And I think that it's so important to really, like, I think about some of these ATS systems where they just spit you out. I'm not gonna lie. I apply for jobs that I know I'm qualified or overqualified for.

And I have like almost 20 years industry experience. And within an hour I have a rejection email and I'm like,

Angie Besendorfer (05:38.126)
You know, it's the system's not working. They were built for when talent was flush and talent's not flush, but they're also not seeing people for what they can do. And the best example I have about that is my very own daughter. So my daughter, traditional student, went out of high school to college, ended up going into nursing. And so great field, she's gonna get a job, right? So she worked through college. She was a...

Holly Owens (05:41.531)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (05:47.867)
Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (06:01.275)
Right.

Angie Besendorfer (06:04.014)
a student of WGU's nursing program, because we believe that that one was the best, in all honesty, the way they do clinicals was so much better. And so she worked at WGU while she attended WGU, which was a great thing for us, right? But when she paid her last tuition payment, she's like, I'm going to the hospital now. And so she had, you know, like five months left of her degree, and she would be a BSN prepared nurse. And so she applied for patient tech jobs, way overqualified. She figured it would give the flexibility to finish her her clinicals.

Holly Owens (06:26.587)
Wow.

Angie Besendorfer (06:34.126)
and she had plugged in multiple systems and didn't get one interview. Five months from everything that they're crying about, and they're also crying about patient tech jobs, right? But they don't even see her. And so the system is broken and it's time for a real overhaul with that whole piece.

Holly Owens (06:34.267)
Right.

Holly Owens (06:43.707)
Great.

Holly Owens (06:47.867)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (06:52.059)
I agree with you. I do, I don't know if you saw this on LinkedIn word, I do job postings every Monday and Friday for domestic and every Wednesday for international. And like I read through them and I'm like, sometimes I'm taken aback by when it says entry level and it says three to five years and they're paying people, they want three to five year experience, but the salary that they're paying people is not a livable salary. It's just crazy all the different things like that the industry in some cases is trying to pull.

when it comes to that, because people are desperate. People are getting laid off. We have all those things. They're like, I'm going to just take whatever comes at me, and I'll take a pay cut because I need a job. I need health insurance. I need to take care of my family. OK, OK, I'm going to stop myself because I know we're going to go down this path, I promise. But I want you to tell the audience about

Angie Besendorfer (07:36.525)
No, but I'm with you. You're preaching to the choir. I'm with you on this.

Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (07:45.947)
Ask from you. So tell us about the products, the services you offer, education institutions, corporations. Tell us all about it and what you do.

Angie Besendorfer (07:54.446)
So we are a technology company, but really we consider ourselves a data and insights company. We're working to level the playing field, but particularly in the skills economy. So we help individuals be seen for what they can do through a verified skills profile. And that's the real component that launches anything else that we do is starting with making sure that we get a verified skills profile at the individual level.

and being able to take that individual and help them to be seen for what they can do. And so we work then with learning institutions and employers, and we work in the LER space as far as like learning and employer records. I mean, our verified skills profile is considered an LER. We also are working with API integrations to work into current systems so you can enhance those.

through our API integrations that bring AI solutions that can result in a deeper understanding of skills at the individual level for organizations. And that can be used for many purposes. It could be used from things at the education side of it, like related to enrollment or persistence or what's happening with job opportunities and careers, or it can be used by employers to help them see their individuals, like either at skills -based hiring kinds of things.

I think that's a piece of it, but also just the upskilling of talent and planning for what's the next roles that we're going to need and who do we have already that we could upskill to get to there. And so looking at their own talent and investing in their own talent is another component, but being able to see people in a different way that's not just self -reported is where we're at.

Holly Owens (09:19.835)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (09:32.603)
Yeah. And I think that I tell a lot of people, I get a lot of questions about, and this, it happens across the board about like, how do I update my resume? How do I stand out? And I'm like, the resume is such a static document. It really doesn't show who you are and like what, what you possess. Like us having a conversation. I'm learning more about your personality. I'm learning more about your background. Like I probably wouldn't get that from just looking at your resume or you're necessarily your LinkedIn profile.

Angie Besendorfer (10:02.798)
Well, and often the people who have non -traditional journeys have a lot of different kinds of skills that they're bringing to the job opportunity component that's not even touched in that resume piece. And we also have to realize that the resumes are self -reported and that there's a definite game with the technology side of the systems, like we were visiting about before Holly, is that knowing the right words to say matters.

Holly Owens (10:09.371)
Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (10:28.379)
I know.

Angie Besendorfer (10:29.07)
And so part of the concept of leveling the playing field is helping those individuals that don't know the right words to be able to have the right words because it's about your experiences and the skills that you possess. And so the skills taxonomy that we have is so important. And by the way, we can use your skills taxonomy if you want, but that normalizing based on the skills taxonomy so that if you and I had the same job,

Holly Owens (10:36.123)
Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (10:44.955)
I love that. I'm writing that down.

Angie Besendorfer (10:54.83)
and we had it for the same amount of time and all of that, then there should be the same skills that come up on our skills profile as verified. Even if I didn't describe mine right, if we have the same job title and we've got that information, we can help me have the better language, because I didn't know what to say, right? So that then we're seen as an equal in experience and that side of it. And I think that that's what is missing is the opportunity to see people not based on

Holly Owens (10:59.739)
Mm -mm. Yeah.

Holly Owens (11:11.643)
Right.

Angie Besendorfer (11:23.534)
whether they knew the right things to write or say, but what they actually can do.

Holly Owens (11:28.539)
It's a performance for sure. It's a dog and pony show when you get into them interviews and it's so draining mentally. It's like, you know, like how am I gonna tell everything that I've done in the past two decades or however many years in 30 minutes? And that's not even all focused mainly on me and my experience. It's focused on you asking me questions that could potentially.

lead me out of the process if I say something that's not aligned with what you're thinking.

Angie Besendorfer (11:59.566)
100 % and absolutely, but that is if you can even get to the interview. The problem is the systems are broken upfront so that people aren't even getting aren't even being seen for what they can do to be able to get to the opportunity to showcase themselves.

Holly Owens (12:03.707)
That's true. Good point. Yeah.

Holly Owens (12:16.219)
So I would say, let's do this in like a two part question, because all these things are running through my head right now. There's a lot of transitioning teachers in our industry. I'm an instructional designer and that's a big one where people are going and you're working in ed tech, so that's a big one people are going into. If you had to offer some sort of advice for people getting into these spaces.

as a transitioning teacher, maybe two or three things you would say that they need to consider before they jump into these spaces. I know like there's going to be a teacher shortage. If it's not already happening, there's a nursing shortage. There's going to be if it's not already happening and there's going to be a lot of shortage of some of these other jobs like plumbing, mechanics, all that trade industry stuff. So for those people who are transitioning out into different roles, what do they do?

Angie Besendorfer (13:08.558)
Yeah, you know, there's so many different answers to that. You know, the TikTok answer is you just copy and paste what it says in the job description that you're trying to apply for. You just insert that in your resume and you make that all it's white text so that the computer sees it, but the humans don't, right? That's probably not the right way. But it is what people are doing to game the system today because the system is broken in how they're being seen.

Holly Owens (13:10.875)
Yep.

Holly Owens (13:15.867)
Hahaha

Right.

Holly Owens (13:24.027)
Right.

Angie Besendorfer (13:33.742)
What I would say is, is that you have to work a lot of different angles. And so you need to know, like, do you have anybody in your social network that is connected to that company? And can you follow up and chase it with that in addition to the application?

When you apply, you know, there are key things that you can do with your resume and in using the words that are used in the job description in your resume, legitimately, not with white text, but like there's ways that you can do that, but you have to think about how are you going to present yourself differently? And the thing is like when I was young and I was finding my first jobs,

Holly Owens (13:59.835)
Yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (14:11.182)
There were all kinds of crazy things about how you could become a teacher. You know, drop off a shoe that's like, somebody actually said that, like paint a shoe that represents you and you drop it off to the school principal. I thought, well, that was creativity. I never did that one, I will say, but there were creative ways because it was human at the time. And now it's not human. You know, I'm visiting with CHROs that are getting 40 ,000 applicants a month. Well, if you get 40 ,000 applicants in a month,

Holly Owens (14:37.243)
Angie Besendorfer (14:40.686)
you're not, no humans are looking at those, you know, and there's, there's, you know, things about how people see their resume and it's a seven second look. So be careful about thinking about what you want them to see and jump out on the page. So that's a, that's a piece that I would say. And, and I would also say there's a lot of traps. Like when you're out there looking for a job, there's also the traps of, Hey, pay us, we'll help you redo your resume. And I think it's, it's easy to go like, yeah, I need that help because you're feeling insecure because

what you've done in the past and you put your resume out there and you know, like, I have skills, I can do this. This is even if it's directly related to what you've done in the past, they still aren't seeing you. They're giving you that rejection notice, you know, an hour after you've submitted everything. So I'm not, I think that we've got to fix the system rather than that we got to game the system. And right now the people who are getting through our gaming the system is better than the other people, honestly.

Holly Owens (15:35.867)
Yeah. And that's so unfair too, because they've, they've like figured it out. They figured out like, you know, if there's algorithms to certain social media sites, like some people have become, you know, wealthy and popular and that creates like, I always think back to like, when I was learning about history and the, the caste system in India and how that all worked. It's like the haves and the have nots. And that's what it feels like. It feels like that sort of situation from a historical perspective is that we're, you know, kind of like.

how the United States treats celebrities like royalty and then there's this middle class of the road people, like just struggling every day to figure out like what their next step is, how are we gonna retire, how are we gonna buy a house, how are we gonna do all the things? And I think there's so many people are at such disadvantage where they need support with figuring out those things.

Angie Besendorfer (16:11.95)
There's, yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (16:26.926)
And the disadvantage is a lot about their social network. And so if you know somebody that can help you put the right words in and to describe your work better, then you have an advantage. I had a different CHRO from a healthcare org who said that his daughter has an amazing resume because he helped her with it. And he knows what to say. Like she did an afterschool camp that she worked at and it says that she manages compliance with rules, right?

Holly Owens (16:30.235)
Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (16:45.723)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (16:56.718)
And so like he knew the word compliance was the right one to use. Well, if I was doing after school, you know, I wouldn't describe it that way. And so it is about how the technology is reading and the keywords that are there. And we need a way that we can level the playing field that it isn't about what your social network was, whether you are treated as an equal to somebody that has an equal experience to you.

Holly Owens (16:56.731)
Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (17:03.483)
Right.

Holly Owens (17:19.323)
Right. Yeah, I feel, yeah, if you don't know how to navigate that space, it's really, it's really rough for you. It's, it's, I mean, like I could, people ask me all the time to do resume reviews and I'm like, I'm not a resume reviewer.

Instead, what I offer them is a conversation. So we have a conversation about what their goals are, who they are, what they think they should include, where they're going. Because I feel like that's part of the process too. Like the resume, the portfolio, whatever else that comes secondary to knowing where you want to be.

Angie Besendorfer (17:51.106)
Absolutely. And then once you do get that interview, it's the how do you tell your story? And it's the confidence to be able to talk about things you actually have done rather than what you believe. Because anybody can believe things. You got to talk about what you've done. And so I interviewed every teacher that was hired when I was a superintendent. I interviewed every teacher at the last step.

Holly Owens (18:01.111)
this conversation is giving me goosebumps. I love this.

Yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (18:14.318)
When you come in and you say, I love kids, that's what everybody's answer is. Why is it that you want to be the teacher? What's the real deep thing? You need to be able to say the real things and tell your story in that interview process. But it's hard to show that in the paper part of it because the systems aren't reading for that.

Holly Owens (18:18.011)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (18:21.883)
Right.

Holly Owens (18:29.531)
Mm -hmm, it definitely is. No, they're not. Like you said, they're reading for those keywords. So one of the things that I'm interested in, and it's probably because I teach in higher education and I've completely gone off script with the questions, don't worry, you'll get to share whatever. I knew this was gonna happen in this conversation, is how higher education and education systems are connecting with the workforce. I feel like they're disconnected.

Angie Besendorfer (18:42.926)
fine.

Holly Owens (18:56.955)
in a lot of cases, I feel like there's not a lot of alignment there. Like it's like K to 12, then you go to higher, the post -secondary education, then workforce, but there's no real alignment there or connection throughout the process. And I mean, even at the younger stages, like we can connect them to different things when it comes to workforce, or upskilling when it comes to technology. How does Ashton, you help that or give me some of your thoughts behind that.

Angie Besendorfer (19:26.085)
Yeah, so first, I love where you went with this because I do think it's time for us to overhaul K -12 high school and then beyond. JFF, Jobs for the Future, they have a whole project right now called The Blur, or The Big Blur, I think, and that's what it's about. So I would encourage listeners to go and check that out because that's pretty cool. But what I guess I would say what we're doing is we're looking at

Holly Owens (19:44.923)
We're gonna put it in the show notes, because you just said it.

Angie Besendorfer (19:53.006)
this as an ecosystem play. So it has to be about closing the communication loop across all the players. So we put the individual at the center and that's really important to us. We're very much about the individual. There's a whole lot of data and insights companies, but they look at the aggregate and they start with the aggregate and they say, well this, and so you want something, so you probably. Well, we say you and therefore,

this, you know, so that we actually are making sure we're starting with the individual. So, but the ecosystem play is really important. So that's why we're both in the education and the employer space, because we feel like that there has to be communication across. And so the example that I'll give you, Holly, is that we have a project right now with two partners that I can't yet announce because we're just this close doing it, but I can tell you that there's going to be a big announcement next month. But it's, it's, we're, we're looking at

Holly Owens (20:36.539)
No problem, no problem.

Holly Owens (20:42.331)
Sweet.

Angie Besendorfer (20:45.998)
working towards getting 10 million students across a thousand colleges and universities that serve diverse populations into verified skills profiles where they can see their journey and what's happening and that the universities can use that to help with enrollment pieces, with they can help with with looking at persistence and who's needing that it will help with persistence because this the individual students will be able to see what are the skills they're gaining as they're moving through their

their pieces and how does that align to careers? And so career insights and all of those kinds of things are part of that at the higher ed space. But then on the other side, what it is giving that's not in existence today is a talent capability map so that employers can look down to see what talent is coming. And that's a really big difference. I mean, I've mentioned some of the CHROs that I've met with. I have a friend who was a CHRO in a healthcare system in Missouri and

Holly Owens (21:30.491)
Hmm.

Angie Besendorfer (21:44.462)
She talked about how she knew the names of people who were not gonna have jobs in like three years because they were implementing a new technology. And what she was visiting with me about when I was at WGU was how do I help upskill these people so that I don't put them on the street? How do I help to get them into a space where it's going to be a new job that's gonna have security for them and all of that now before their jobs are no longer? And so...

Holly Owens (21:57.755)
Yeah, right.

Holly Owens (22:09.851)
I'm obsolete. Yeah.

Angie Besendorfer (22:10.542)
employers are looking far into the future about these kinds of things, but they have zero visibility into what's actually coming. So that's one piece that I would say. The second component that I would say is that I think that there's a missing communication component right now with what are in -demand jobs. In -demand jobs tend to be defined by who has the loudest megaphone. And what I found in one of my jobs, I worked in a workforce development space and developed

Holly Owens (22:14.939)
Mm -hmm.

Angie Besendorfer (22:40.622)
build a workforce program that was training that was a year or less that led to jobs that paid more than 45K. So it was like, let's get these people out of poverty, right? And within that, the key thing was, hospitals are saying, we need CNAs, we need this. They're like saying, I've got 50 openings right now today. Well, if we trained 50 people and they hired those 50 people, there's gonna be some churn, but they're not gonna have 50 openings again, right? And then, so I think that...

Holly Owens (23:06.203)
Right, right.

Angie Besendorfer (23:08.782)
what is an in -demand job and what's actually out there is often based on autopsy data. It's based on old data. It's based on job postings from two and three years ago, not today's job postings and the jobs that are the current jobs of today. And so there's a disconnect that's happening because we're not using technology to the best that we can. Yeah, we need the data of what's available today. And we need a way to also figure out like how many jobs are there really.

Holly Owens (23:15.291)
Ha ha.

Holly Owens (23:28.123)
You need that hard data.

Holly Owens (23:32.571)
Mm -hmm.

Angie Besendorfer (23:37.07)
So if systems are posting in multiple different places, it looks like there's tons of job postings for this, but it may be the same job because an organization, a company might be posting in multiple places, right? So you really don't have a good way to know how many job openings are there really. And so the signals that go down to education, workforce development and all of that are not really clear. You know, I work with three different

Holly Owens (23:49.979)
Right. yeah, they definitely do.

Angie Besendorfer (24:05.166)
short -term training programs for technology right now that I've been visiting with and they're all having trouble getting placement for people who have earned a credential. So not a degree, but a credential in IT. They're having a hard time getting placement, but then you hear all this chatter about we need people in IT. So there's a disconnect and it's not working.

Holly Owens (24:24.603)
Yeah. Yeah, there definitely is. And I'm pretty sure we could lengthen this conversation and have another one, which I hope we will do in the future because I definitely want to dive more into this. And just being in the education space, being in the higher ed space, being in the corporate space, like huge disconnects all around. I don't understand why that's a thing. It seems pretty simple to me if we talk to each other and we communicate about what our needs are, kind of like in a good relationship.

you'll figure it out and it will be so much more seamless than what it is now. I'm happy there's a problem that we can solve, but I'm not happy that it's putting a lot of people at a disadvantage who are qualified for positions and roles and they're not getting through these systems. It's really disheartening.

Angie Besendorfer (25:10.35)
Absolutely. We've got to find solutions and Astromu is prepared to be part of that solution. But we can do the tech side, but we have to have some dreamers with us that are willing to jump in and try this new stuff because it is a next practice. It's not a best practice. And that's a really hard thing to get people to do that. The best practices that we use today.

Holly Owens (25:27.611)
I love that. It's a next practice. You're just, you're disturbing. You're just, you're disturbing, disrupting, whatever they say nowadays.

Angie Besendorfer (25:36.878)
Yes, so we are. We're out there trying to get people to believe in something that they're really having a hard time conceptualizing. I mean, because it's AI and it's all this black box stuff. And so we try to make it transparent, but it's still a big leap to try to think about these things differently because it's hard. When I'm trying to hire every day, how do I embrace this new practice? Because I don't have time. Those HR groups are really tough. And higher ed, we already know, is a tough thing to make change in, right?

Holly Owens (25:58.747)
Right.

Holly Owens (26:05.595)
Yes, yes, yes, definitely. And corporate hazards, strawbacks as well. I mean, nothing in any industry is perfect. There's always room for improvement. But I think they could learn a lot from each other, if I'm being honest. Conversation again for another day. So we're coming up here on the end of the episode, and I could actually talk to you for another hour, probably.

Angie Besendorfer (26:19.47)
It's time to do it.

Holly Owens (26:28.155)
Last couple questions, what I wonder if there is anything that we miss, anything else you'd like to share with the audience about yourself, about Ask From You, and you can share where they can find you. All of the stuff is gonna be linked in the show notes about where to connect with you and everything, but anything else you wanna share with the audience.

Angie Besendorfer (26:46.574)
Yeah, I think the only thing I would say is like follow us on social because there's big things coming. In fact, I'm now over marketing for organization. And so we're currently getting ready to launch a new website. So I think our website has some it's again, it's a next practice and it's hard to explain. And so stay tuned and watch us with that too, because that's coming out in the next like six weeks, we'll have a new website. And I think that'll be a better understanding of what we're trying to do and how we're putting individuals at the center.

Holly Owens (26:52.059)
Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (26:59.547)
Ooh.

Holly Owens (27:09.851)
Okay.

Holly Owens (27:14.491)
I'm putting it on my calendar because I want to see it. I want to see it. Yes, then we can talk again.

Angie Besendorfer (27:16.814)
Yeah, that's great. Then we can talk again. And by that point, the big announcement, the big announcement will have taken place. And so we can talk about how we're really trying to change lives in that one.

Holly Owens (27:26.171)
I think that the audience would love it if you did like a live demo of the product and what it all is and what it does. We get a lot of interest in like, well, we've learned about the technologies. We've heard you talking to the person about it, but we would love to see it live and how it all works, you know, kind of get the.

Angie Besendorfer (27:43.406)
Yeah, so it's an interesting piece because what we do is not, we don't have a live product except for one example that is like something that is end to end to show because what we're doing is we're building APIs that work with other people's systems. Yeah. So.

Holly Owens (27:50.619)
Mm -hmm.

Holly Owens (27:54.811)
Yeah.

Ooh, yeah, that's awesome. I love that too. I love that too. So we could definitely do a library, explain all of that. And I think there's a larger conversation definitely to be had about people and how they can be supported throughout the process of all this. So thank you so much. yeah, I was gonna get into that. And I think that's definitely something that I have a question about, but I'm gonna save that for another episode for us.

Angie Besendorfer (28:09.934)
Yes. And there's a whole equity component to Holly.

Holly Owens (28:22.971)
You know, we did touch a little bit on the ATS and all the inequitable stuff and like people, if they don't know how to write a resume or they've like, seriously, like why does a mechanic need to know how to write a resume? Like they were, they, you know, it's just some stuff just doesn't make sense to me. to me it's logical, but for other people, it's like they, they have to do this. I don't know. Definitely going to open a can of worms or some of the things I'm saying on this episode. So the NGI.

Angie Besendorfer (28:35.406)
Mm -hmm.

Angie Besendorfer (28:45.358)
Right.

Holly Owens (28:51.899)
Yeah, I so appreciate your time and I definitely want to keep in touch. We do we love aware of they now episode or if you have an announcement and you want to come back, we love doing that stuff and letting our audience know and we will put everything in the show notes about where to contact you and where to connect and also where to find us from you. So thank you so much.

Angie Besendorfer (29:09.39)
Sounds excellent. Thank you, Holly.

Angie Besendorfer (29:18.194)
Maybe me too.