startup community. You could have a great building, but if you don't have the right people in it, it doesn't have the vibe necessary to kind of build that. People in Indiana love being from Indiana. It's like weird, but it's cool. I'm thinking about moving to Indiana. Like, where should I look at?
It makes me so happy. We can create, you know, a high quality of life that everybody [music] has access to benefits that spill over to everybody. What was kind of the [music] first couple dominoes that had to fall to help revitalize a district within uh a community? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. [music] Today's episode is powered by the Kelly Evening MBA program as we talk to Hoosiers like you across the state.
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iu. edu/kelly eveningmbba. Now, let's get into today's episode. My guest today is John Fernandez and he is the CEO of Amplify Bloomington, a nonprofit civic platform focused on economic growth, entrepreneurship, and talent retention in Bloomington. And if you're watching at home, you can see that today we're not in the studio. We are down in Bloomington for this interview.
Now, John previously served as mayor of Bloomington and later as assistant secretary of commerce for economic development under the Obama administration. I'm really excited to dive into what's going on with Amplify Bloomington. the startup ecosystem down here in Monroe County and really just dive into all the cool things that are happening in Bloomington. John, welcome to the show. Thank you. How much time do you have?
There's a lot of cool things going on here. That is what I hear. We pulled up outside and I was like, what? We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. This place is so so cool. Yeah, that's rocking.
So, tell me about where we're sitting at right now. Yeah, so right now we're in a building called the mill. Uh, it is the epicenter of the trades district, which is Bloomington's innovation hub. So this area was a long time ago it was the showers furniture factory uh which at the you know back in the heyday they were the largest producer of furniture in America. they went out of business. The properties went through, you know, a couple of changes ownership.
Eventually, the city of Bloomington acquired all this property. It's a 12 acre site and they um had a vision for creating a more urban kind of innovation district. And so, you know, fast forward uh today, uh the mill's been in operation since 2018. It's a entrepreneur support organization. We have uh co-workers here, remote workers. We have um uh lots of companies that are founded here and operate out of the mill.
Uh so it's really the heart of what's going on in the trades district, but there's a lot more as you saw when you came in. Uh there's a building next door called the Kiln which was privately owned. Uh there were a group of entrepreneurs who the founders of Paragraph uh venture studios. uh they're a bunch of serial entrepreneurs and they created a number of companies uh throughout their uh engagement and now they uh took remodeled this building. They have their headquarters there. Uh they uh have started several companies and they have a couple of really hot ones uh in the market right now that they're working on.
Uh we built a new building uh with the city support and uh a grant from the EDA of all things. I had nothing to do before I got here. Uh so [laughter] uh uh the uh new building is called the Forge. It's 21,000 square ft. It's brand new uh class A building and it's u essentially fully occupied. Oh, and it was designed to uh accommodate companies that might quote unquote graduate from the mill as they start to expand, get traction, they need more space, uh as well as attracting more mature companies uh who are already uh rocking.
But we're very particular in terms of uh tenant recruitment. We want to have companies that are innovation forward. We want to have leadership in those companies that understand that we're trying to build a community here and that we want them to be active players in the ecosystem so that their talent engages with other people here uh to create some of those spontaneous things that happen. I mean so so cool. What what's the population of Bloomington? Yeah, somewhere around 80 80,000 like for a for a city that's under 100,000.
population. There just seems to be a lot here. I'm so impressed. So, you said the mill started in 2018. So, let's go back 15 years ago. What What was the site that we're standing on?
What did it like? And paint the picture for me so like the the listeners can visualize cuz now it's beautiful and everything looks pretty brand new. What did it look like 15 years ago? Well, I'd go back even a little bit further. Okay. Uh so you know back in the day uh you know when I first got involved in uh Bloomington as a city council member and then uh the mayor uh this whole area was called the levy.
Uh this was all a bunch of empty warehouses. Uh pretty nasty. Uh some of the roads that you see out in front of the mill didn't exist. Uh there were bigger buildings that were more like warehouses. Uh not a whole lot going on. Um you know most of the uh redevelopment stopped at College Avenue.
Uh but then back in I think it was 90 must have been like 95 94 uh the city partnered with Cook Group CFC and Indiana University to uh remodel and uh do an adaptive reuse of the showers factory the really big one that's like 150,000 square ft. Uh that partnership was kind of broke the seal in terms of pushing redevelopment west. Um back then there was still a um [clears throat] an active railroad. Oh. Uh before uh you know the Beine Trail was built. Uh so you really did have the other side of the tracks uh in Bloomington.
But then things started to move, you know, once the uh city hall moved in. You started to see a lot more uh development with some of the multi-use apartment buildings just to the east of us. Uh and things started happening. Then uh Mayor Hamilton uh really leaned into the trades district uh made the investments for the infrastructure uh built the uh trades district uh garage and was the one who uh had the vision to uh create this space here at the mill and then we've just been taking it forward. Yeah. I mean incredible.
If there are other leaders listening that might have that levy style area within their town. Um, I know that there are, you know, whether it be Muny or Marian or Southbend or there's a lot of people from across the street that listen to this to get ideas of how to make their place a little bit better. If there are listeners that are in communities that have those levy style places, what was kind of the first couple dominoes that had to fall to help revitalize a district within uh a community? It's a public private partnership. I mean, you have to have strong uh corporate leaders who are willing to lean in uh to invest, co-invest, you know, mayors, you know, there's a lot of elected officials in a city and they all have important roles, but at the end of the day, uh if you look at cities who are really moving forward and doing these kinds of initiatives or other kinds of uh uh strategic economic development projects, they're led by the mayor.
I mean, you got to have a a mayor who really is leading. when you were the mayor. So that was from uh 96 to 2003. The end of 2003. To the end of 2003. Who were you looking up to?
Like who was your mentor in the space when you were the mayor? Well, it's kind of funny. I mean there were people here in Bloomington. I mean my predecessor Tommy Allison uh was a tremendous mayor. Yeah. She was the mayor when um the city did the uh redevelopment of the showers building.
And you know there were some other local uh leaders. I mean Bill Cook was amazing. uh he was pretty generous with his time and he certainly had a lot of opinions. So [laughter] yeah, how how important is the Cook Foundation, the Cook Cook Medical in general to Monroe County? Massively important. And I use um the Cook Group as an example all the time about why we're trying why we're so focused on an entrepreneur centric economic development strategy here at the mill.
You know, that's a company that I mean, literally was born in an apartment building on Second Street here in Bloomington and it grew to be the um What was the first thing that like really took them to the next level? Uh they were doing, you know, I forget what it was, but it was like a a cardio um um I would call it like a thread, you know, they started doing some of those really early medical device development. He was an engineer and and really super brilliant dude. Um, but that company, you know, became the largest privately held uh medical device company in in the world. That's crazy. So, I'm not saying that, you know, we have the Nets Bill Cook in this building today, but we might.
Yeah. And and that those companies become incredibly important because the impact of uh the Cook is way more than uh just the jobs that they create or the taxes they pay as a company here with property taxes, income taxes, which are substantial. Uh it's the investment, it's the, you know, just the passion about the city they live in. I mean, you can't look at a quadrant of Monroe County without seeing some aspect of the Cook Group making investments like the downtown. I mean, I mean, if you go back uh 1979 when they uh filmed Breaking Away, that's always my kind of milestone. Uh I tell people go watch go look at that movie because it has a a lot of uh shots of downtown Bloomington.
It was pretty shabby. It was pretty rough. uh there wasn't anything close to what you see today. And then the Cook Group took on the u the south side of the square, that entire area, and made a massive investment to redevelop it and put retail in it, offices in it. And then they were some of the early pioneers on housing downtown. And you know, those are the kinds of things, whether it's the uh historic museum, what they do at Indiana University, uh the housing that they invest in, those are just massive, massive impacts on a community.
Well, I think it's super interesting to draw the line between municipalities, cities, and communities that invest in entrepreneurship. Like if if let's say you attract industry, you know, uh automotive, the eastern part of the state so good at attracting huge automotive manufacturing, but when times get tough, are they going to protect the people in Detroit or are they going to protect the people in Newcastle, Indiana? And you've seen that time and time again where if you build up entrepreneurs, they're going to protect the space in their backyard. Correct? It's like you think about the ball organization in Muny, you think about the Cook group down here, you think about I mean back in the day the Studebaker in South End. Like there are some I mean Lily in Indianapolis, same thing, right?
Like if you if you go to these communities, you can see that like there's a a pinnacle, you know, family-led business that really invested in their community to help, you know, with things like, you know, parks and development and attraction retention, all the stuff. The examples you used are really good because there's also a um you know a through line there too about you know some caution right uh if you're a one company town and the economy changes things change and it can leave a massive hole. Uh so a diversified economy is incredibly important. Uh so having multiple uh midsize to large uh homegrown enterprise is really important so that you do have a diversification uh and you're not too beholden to a a single when you I I do want to talk about the work you guys are doing within Amplify Bloomington and how you are one uh giving the resources to entrepreneurs to build businesses and what the feedback you're getting like when you try to attract or convince people to build their tech company, to build their innovation forward company in Bloomington.
Like, how are you changing perceptions that this is a place you can grow and thrive? Well, it's a challenge. I mean, to be honest, um I mean, there's a lot of people here who have uh deep connections. Either they went to Indiana University or they grew up here or they lived somewhere else and came back. We have several of those kinds of folks who are uh building companies here. What's exciting to people is that uh for the size of our city uh the richness of the assets that we have are pretty extraordinary.
uh whether it's in culture, whether it's in environmental kind of outdoor vibe, uh there's a lot of stuff. There's amazing amount of activity that um you know, you can look at the macro where there's the big obvious things going on, you know, with IU sports or uh some of the arts. Um but there's also all these little micro niche things. I mean, there's just an incredible number of unique groups that you can find yourself here. Like is this the the like Daly Lama's cousin or brother has like a temple or something? Well, yeah, they uh yeah, there is a monastery monastery on the south southeast side of wild the amount of people that have said like that's what you need to go like this is a place of peace and reverence that you need to go check out.
I'm very excited. Yeah, it was his uh brother was a a professor of history here. I mean, when you talk it's it's almost like, oh, this is a lifelong Bloomington resident. But your journey didn't start in Bloomington. You're not born and raised in Monroe County. You started in Cookamo.
Yeah, I was born in Ohio. We ended up in Cooko when I was um uh four years old. So, I grew up there. Um I have two uh older sisters. They both went to Purdue. Uh so, you know, Cooko was pretty much a Purdue down town.
You only went to IU if you're going to be a lawyer or a doctor. Everyone else went to Purdue to be engineers. Uh so, I broke my dad's heart and didn't go to Purdue to become an engineer. Uh so, uh and I didn't go to school right away. I worked for uh two years uh after high school as a janitor at a hospital uh before I came to college. No way.
Yeah. Wait, why? Like you were you just wanted to join the workforce or you need to make money or why did you become a janitor before going to college? You know, I did fine in school. Um but I wanted to like work and I wanted to have my own independent uh bank account uh to do things that I wanted to do. Uh so I started working when I was 16.
I had jobs since I was 16 years old and I started working full-time. I had a part-time job at the hospital. Uh my mother uh had um she worked there as a nurse. Uh and then I uh had a part-time job. There was an opening for a full-time job. So I started working full-time on the afternoon shift uh my senior year of high school.
So I'd go to school, then I'd leave school and I'd go to the hospital and work from 3:00 to 11:00. No. No way. Yeah. Yeah. I saved a bunch of money.
And so, you know, when I um graduated, uh I applied and and remarkably I was accepted into the uh engineering program at Purdue. Uh then over the summer, I was just like, you know, I really don't want to be an engineer. And I was playing in a rock and roll band. I was doing all kinds of fun stuff. And so, I decided I didn't didn't want to go. Was that a hard conversation to have with your parents?
You're like, "Oh, you could go be an engineer at Purdue." And you're like, "I'm playing in a rock and roll band. I'm not going to college. I'm just going to keep my gig as janitor. Yeah. Yeah, it was rough.
No, they I mean, in retrospect, I think they I mean, part of my argument to them is I I I just didn't feel it, you know, and I didn't really want to waste money, uh going to Purdue and and failing. And so, uh you know, it took me a couple of years and then, uh you know, I obviously, you know, didn't want to continue to do what I was doing forever. Uh, truth be told, I started dating a woman uh in Cooko. She was home from uh college for the summer and I was like, I'm going to I'm going to IU. Yes. I mean, it's honestly gotten true.
Hey, you know, sometimes you just need that uh that little like thing to push you over the edge. So, you then come from Cooko, you wind up in Bloomington, and what was what was it about Bloomington that just wrapped its arms around you and and kept you here and didn't let go for a long time? Yeah, you know, it took a while. Um, you know, I really loved the community. I mean, I loved the music scene. Uh, there was a lot to do here.
I didn't really get into the whole political thing until probably my end of my sophomore year. Um, I always had an interest. My family, um, you know, politics, nobody was politically active, but they were politically engaged. Uh, I'm a first generation, um, Spaniard. Uh my family immigrated um at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Uh so there's a deep history.
What time period would that be? That would have been in the early 30s. Early 1930s. Okay. Yeah. So my uh my mom's father is one that disappeared, you know.
So we were on the losing side, my family. Uh so they were always uh with my grandparents, my parents were always really uh very engaged around the reality of being living in a democracy, having a choice, having a vote, not having a fascist uh dictator run your country. So we always had that kind of engagement. Uh but it came to life uh when I was a end of my sophomore year, I started getting involved in student government. uh started volunteering on some uh campaigns around here. What was the first campaign you volunteered on?
Congressman Lee Hamilton. Oh yeah, that that's what were you doing for uh Congressman Hamilton, whatever they needed, putting up yard signs, knocking on doors, stuffing envelopes, you know, that was back in the day where you didn't like have digital anything. Uh so lots of uh licking of envelopes. [laughter] There you go. Uh, and that kicked off your that was kind of your first fora into politics. How long after you graduated did you end up running for mayor?
You know, I was a late bloomer when it comes to going to college, but then I really got into it uh my junior year. Um, I discovered the public policy school. Back then it was called SPIA. Now it's the O'Neal School. You know, I really had some fantastic professors and folks were like, you know, you really ought to think about getting a master's degree. So, I went straight into graduate school.
It was during my um second year of grad school. I ended up running for city council and got elected. I also when I graduated, I I really never thought about staying in Bloomington. I loved Bloomington. I had a lot of um friends here. I was getting embedded in the community.
Uh but I had a great professional opportunity. Um so I stayed. Yeah. And that's, you know, if you just sidebar here, I mean, that's kind of what we're trying to do here with Amplified Boomington. How do you uh try and retain talent especially in that 25 to you know 45 year old demographic which is the core of your workforce. Uh we have a challenge there and so creating opportunities for people to be here is what this is all about.
I was fortunate enough to have one of those opportunities. Yeah. Like I was a part of the or fellowship. It was the coolest opportunity. So I'm from a rural town in northern Indiana where uh it's called Bourbon. It's right by Plymouth or Warsaw if you I know Plymouth and Warsaw.
We're 1500 people. bourbon. I don't think of an Indiana town. Well, that's like the that's like the future goal is like, you know, build it up and then we're going to make it like a distillery town. You know, I got to buy a full city block. Yeah, it's perfect.
Bourbon, Indiana. Come on. Um but uh going from there and then to depcast and then winding up in Indianapolis or fellowship was an awesome way to get opportunities as a 22 23 24 year old where they opened doors and made introductions to people that you know like I didn't I didn't grow up you know with my dad playing golf with some guy or you know my mom being part of an organization that would you know create contacts. So having or fellowship was uh an incredible thing for me and so being able to give opportunities to these recent college grads to this younger talent where they can come in and actually make an impact in their community. I think that is like there's a stickiness there. There's totally is and and just you know coincidentally we're we're having conversations with some of the um organizations like Techpoint and others on how we can uh build a more robust system for doing that here in Bloomington.
Yeah, there's you know I mean it's kind of interesting because on the college scene there's a lot of uh requirements now for experiential learning uh but we've not built the framework and so for you know a lot a lot of the um at least from any university's perspective a lot of those experiences can be you know virtual internships etc. What we want to do is make a platform here uh so it's really easy to connect that talent to some of because there's some amazing companies in in Bloomington and Monroe County that are doing cutting edge uh work and we just need to expose because if you're I mean you're graduating from college you're thinking you know the world's an oyster um I'm going to um you know think about exciting places I can go uh because you don't know that there are some really interesting companies here that are doing uh worldclass research. So, we want to make it easier to connect that talent and opportunity and hopefully get our hooks in these folks.
Well, they don't want to leave. Yeah. Well, and you're going to find the right subset of people that are driven by impact where it's like I can be 25 years old or even, you know, a grad student and I can run for city council and win. I can come in and, you know, be a employee three at a startup that's going to change the world. Those are the people who are going to not only make big impact on the business scene, but also on the community scene. They're going to be the leaders at for the local nonprofits or, you know, whether it's the run clubs or marathon or whatever it might be.
Those are the people who are going to be like some of the best community members in general. When I talk to uh people who are contemplating moving here from somewhere else, um you know, they're being recruited to work at one of the local companies. Um, you know, one of the things I always talk about is like how easy it is uh to plug into to Bloomington. It's super easy. Uh, there's lots of opportunities, lots of different interests uh that you can tap into and you can just, you know, like when we moved to Bethesda, that's where we ended up living when I was working for President Obama. Um, you know, that's a hard town to just kind of build community.
you end up building it around, you know, if your kids are in school, you start to meet with parents, but that's about it, right? Um, you know, to get into the civic environment, it's really hard. Here, it's so easy to plug in. Like I bet if someone that's watching this was considering moving to Bloomington, they're like, "I'm thinking about it." And they shot you a DM on LinkedIn or shot like a hundred people citizens of Bloomington DMs on uh LinkedIn. I bet 85% of them would respond and say like either respond and say, "Let's meet up and talk or give them their advice of moving to Bloomington."
Like people in Indiana love being from Indiana. It's like it's like weird, but it's cool. I love it. [laughter] Like I think it's super cool. Like when people reach out to me or saying, "Hey, I'm thinking about moving to Indianapolis or I'm thinking about moving to Indiana. Like where should I look at?"
I love it. It makes me so happy. Well, I tell you, you know, I mean, and and it's it's Indiana definitely. It's the Midwest. Um, you know, when I worked for, um, when I was running the EDA, you know, I traveled all over the United States, and you really do find very distinct cultures in different regions of our country. I mean, our country is so big in terms of land mass that it's almost like you have, you know, 10 or 11 different countries cuz they're that different.
The Midwest definitely has a unique culture in terms of the hospitality, in terms of the just kind of humble humbleness. I mean, there's not a lot of bragging going on. People, you know, we we brag about football when we win, but other than that, you know, it's a pretty, you know, hardworking, good values, um, kind of place to live. And it's a very different experience when compared to some other regions in America. Yeah, I think that's really interesting thinking about the almost the the microcosms of uh the United States and where the Midwest stacks up versus the West Coast versus the Northeast versus the South. Where do you think the closest parallel is to the Midwest?
like as you were looking at the entire country where you're like, you know, people in Indiana, they're a lot like the people in so and if you were drawing threads parts of the northeast, uh like the Pennsylvania and you know, there's some really big cities there. But as you go into, uh part um I would say like the upper state New York uh where you had the roots of um you know, some of the companies up there and just the culture of the people who had as they migrated, you know, if you get into I don't know what you would technically call it. I mean, it's kind of the center of the country with like uh Nebraska and Iowa. There's a lot of similarities there in terms of just the mix of, you know, a makers of things like manufacturing. I always think that it's so cool to come from a place that has such a history of making things. Yeah.
You know, there's a a real stereotype about startups. You know, it's like all the tech bros. You hear all the stuff about the valley and people just, you know, chasing money all the time. And venture capital is a really important asset uh for certain kinds of companies. That's really important. But there's a lot of companies around here that are very proud of being bootstrappers uh and they want to build the company.
They're not chasing the nets, uh, you know, funding around. They're like trying to chase customers and get revenue. And so we, you know, as we're thinking about um the focus of the programming here at the mill, we're really interested in scaling companies, not just starting them. And as you start to scale, I mean, our mantra is like we really want to help create well-built companies. Uh because it's about the product. It's about, you know, the customer uh delivery of value.
Uh not just am I going to get, you know, another funding round. And so that that's kind of the mentality we have. I'd love to learn about some of the the like darling sweetheart companies that are being built right here in Bloomington. Are there a few off the top of your mind that you're like, man, you need to know about this company? Second Site, I'll just say that they're an insurance tech company um doing incredibly well. You know, there's a sleeper here that people kind of know about uh called Bloom Insurance.
uh they are um heavy into um in many ways health insurance tech. So they're a tenant of the forge at about 4,700 uh square feet. They were founded by a a local entrepreneur grew into this massive company serving a large uh insurance companies particularly in the U Medicare and marketplace. you know, they've grown to be just unbelievably what they provide services for health insurance companies on sales end and uh they track a lot of the regulatory issues related to how you engage customers. I mean, it's just these little under the radars. Um, you know, there's a a company that was founded a few years ago by a guy named Katon Turner.
It's called Turner Mining. you know, they've created a service platform for mining companies. Um, has tons of potential. I mean, so it's all these little sleeper things. Cornerstone Information Systems, they've been around for, I think, probably 20 years. Started out as a platform to help uh uh support travel agencies and they've grown and of course they have to, you know, continue to innovate in that space as things have changed, but they continue to grow and they're very successful.
right across the street is Solution Tree. They're kind of an edtech company. Uh started out small, became a big uh they, you know, operate around the world now. Uh so there's all these little things that people don't know about. Are there any stories of entrepreneurs that have started in the mill or started here at because it used to be the mill for just that was just it's still the mill. Now Amplify Bloomington is like the umbrella over the Exactly.
Okay. So, are there any entrepreneurs that started in the mill that have now grown their companies into like scaling behemoths or have sold their companies? Uh, they're still in the scaling phase. So, yeah, there's a company called Folia. Uh, oh, yeah, I know. They were here.
They're across the street now. Is that uh Robbie Bot? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. his company, you know, he he started to build the company, had the idea, got it going in Chicago, then moved here, operated out of the mill for several years, and then now kind of graduated.
Um, you know, so um, another company is um, Vivom, which is going through a a little bit of a a pivot but stronger. Uh, that was running out of this space. Yes. And when they moved across the street, uh, we moved our team into this office. I love it. I want to talk to you about a company that just quietly does things the right way.
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Find Burn at your favorite farm or sporting goods store, or head to burn apparel. com and shop right now. Durable, affordable workware right here in Indiana. Now, let's get back to the show. When you're talking to these entrepreneurs in the Midwest and specifically these entrepreneurs in Bloomington, what are the challenges they're running into and how are you guys finding creative solutions to help solve those problems? It varies.
Depends on the company. It depends where they're at along their journey. I think um the things we hear the most are right kind of engineering talent. I I don't know how long they're going to be saying like the right kind of engineer like you don't need 50 engineers anymore. You just need one one person that knows what they're doing on cloud and they can figure it out. I think it's a little bit more than that.
I mean there's a lot of system integration and um and you know you need to have talent that has an engineering mindset too when you're building. Um I think talent is always an issue uh always going to be an issue. Uh access to customers is becoming easier. So we're trying to build uh more bespoke kind of uh services if you will you know peer-topeer. We have like a founders group that we bring together so that they can have very candid uh conversations uh where they don't feel too vulnerable about saying hey I'm having a problem with this. uh they can say it to a peer group of people who are probably having similar issues.
Those are it's all about building that community, you know. Yeah, those are really popular whether it be like small groups or you know online communities or just like the idea of having a peer group where you can kind of like hey this is what I'm going through like does anyone have experience with this? Those are very popular. Yeah, absolutely. because um you know being an on a startup a founder you know it's a pretty lonely gig and it's a it can be a terrifying gig. Um I remember years ago um there was a local you know entrepreneur who's done really well and he used to have a group of people that hung out together uh this was before there was a mill and they called it their informally it was like the no net group you know cuz you're on a tight rope and there's no net below you man.
It's like you got to get it done or it's a problem. Uh but there's, you know, great serial entrepreneurs. I think of like uh J. R. Ricker who's here in the mill. He's on like his second company that's just like a skyrocket.
Um he can be very helpful for some of the new founders because he's done it. He knows what the, you know, some of the challenges are. And like even when you're early on in a company and you start to get wins, it's just more fun to win with people like when you have even if they're not necessarily co-workers, but they see the work you're putting in and they see like the investment. They're like, "Oh yeah, like let's get high." And when you're like when you you take a lump, it's like way more uh tolerable to take a lump when you have some people around to catch you and to be a little bit of that net. I also like that you think about marketing, the no net work.
That's a there you go right there. Come on. Um trademark. If there is someone out there that sees this and is listening, let's say they are not in tech, they're not entrepreneurship, they are uh maybe an hourly employee at a local factory. Why is the work that the mill and Amplify Bloomington doing important to the hourly worker that lives in Monroe County? The more innovation you have and the more growth you have of these kinds of companies that are doing uh cool work, it attracts more companies and more u opportunities and career ladders for folks who uh might be working in one of the local factories.
There's not that many factories here anymore. Uh just to be clear, I mean when I was um mayor there were 11,000 uh people working in manufacturing. Yeah. It's a lot less than that now. So, what would be the like um let's say the more laborer like maybe skilled labor jobs around Bloomington? Construction.
Yeah, some big companies here that do incredibly well like HFI, Wel Brothers, they've been around for a long time. uh but in that kind of assembly if you want to call it that or uh uh advanced manufacturing uh because you you think of companies like uh Symmetra which is in the pharmaceutical world they do a lot of the fill for and finish uh of you know drugs uh they're growing like crazy and those are you know those are really good jobs but you know you don't necessarily have to have an advanced degree but they can train you up too uh Novo Nordis I mean they, you know, they've having a little, you know, issues here recently, but they acquired Catalin, which is kind of funny because Catalyn was uh the product of a a spin out of Cook called Cook Pharma. Oh, and then Catalin acquired, you know, talk about successful exits. Uh that is a massive one. So, you know, Cook Group spins out creates uh Cook Pharma as a uh contract uh manufacturing organization uh in the um uh pharmaceutical world.
They do really well. Then Catalin acquires them. Uh that's a significant exit if you will. Yeah. Catalin was acquired by Novo Nordis. I got you.
And that's what gave them a a presence here in Bloomington. Yes. Okay, that makes sense. you know, economic development. The more you can create uh wealth, uh that creates opportunities for more investment in many of the u programs, activities, uh amenities in this community that those workers uh who might be, you know, at Cook or at uh Tasus or others, they they want and they benefit. We can create, you know, a high quality of life that everybody has access to, everybody can benefit from.
So the more we can do to grow our economy, it creates uh benefits that spill over uh to everybody regardless of where they are in the workforce. It's interesting to get that to make sense to everyone. Like I think Indianapolis has us a lot with you know we just hosted Final Four not too long ago and it's like you know there's some feedback of like well why do we need another big sporting event and why are we investing in stadiums and and then when you think about like the economic impact of hosting Taylor Swift of hosting a final four and it's like not necessarily new tax revenue per se like in that sense but it's like well sales tax and it's people spending their money on hotels food yeah I mean massive spill think about all the businesses downtown There was like a hourong wait at like a chain like Dick's last resort. Yeah. Like all the other sports bars to watch the games were so full that I was like I guess this is the shortest line.
We're going to watch the games downtown at Dick's last resort. Well, absolutely. Like we went to um some friends and I went to the um Big 10 Championship football game. It was that way. Yeah. Coming out if you didn't have a reservation, you were screwed.
Yeah. [laughter] And you think about like the whether it's a first like an early concept or someone who has a one familyowned restaurant down there, it makes a huge impact cuz you know then you have extra tips going to their servers and bartenders and then they're going out and spending their like it's that like second and third degree of bringing in these big conferences, bringing in these big um events for you guys like bringing in companies that are going to bring more workers that are then going to spend their money out at the upstairs pub or you know what kills in town. Yeah, there's so many independent restaurants and retailers, uh, not just restaurants that benefit from that kind of influx. Uh, as you may notice when you're in town today, I mean, there's a significant expansion going on of our convention center. Um, you know, Bloomington is like when people talk about where they want to go to host conferences in Indiana, uh, Bloomington's like number two, but we don't have the capacity.
Uh so um the leadership of the community got together and they're doing a a significant expansion of the convention center, creating a new one that's going to be really nice. The the older building is going to continue to function. They're connected by a skywalk. Uh but that kind of stuff creates a tremendous amount of u economic activity. Just the building of it alone, uh the amount of trades people and folks are involved in building it and then operating is pretty significant. let alone the, you know, the people that come here.
I love it. If you were picked up and planted somewhere else and said to, "Hey, let's start to build our entrepreneurship and economic development engine and and build a robust entrepreneurial community. Where would you start?" I think a lot of people think you need, okay, I got to go out and find, you know, $20 million to have a fund to start investing money. And where do you start? And then how what steps would you take to build a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem?
Yeah, you know, um, well, I had the benefit of inherit inheriting the incredible work that Pat East did. So, it was a little bit easier for me to step into this role, although I'm, you know, we're doing um, you know, similar just building on that kind of foundation. But, we do get uh, contacted quite a bit by other communities and you know, I'll go visit them or they'll come here. And the thing I always say is that the most important part of it is the entrepreneur community, the startup community, the people who are actually building companies. Uh you have to have them involved uh because they have the credibility, they have the experience, they know uh what some of the challenges are uh not just in terms of creating a company but uh in that particular community. Um, you know, you could have a great building, but if you don't have the right people in it, it doesn't have the vibe, doesn't have the authenticity, the energy necessary to kind of build that.
So, um, you know, we talk a lot about, uh, the Trades District and particularly the mill, it's not about the real estate, but it's about the community and the connections that you're uh, facilitating that happen in the spaces. And that builds that kind of momentum, that kind of camaraderie, um some collaboration. Uh once you get the people together, then you start thinking about um you know, how do we invite more people in uh and what do we have to offer them so we can offer them you know programming where there's some kind of you know support you know how to get an idea into you know action uh how to scale uh capital can be important. So, if you have a a network of uh angel investors, that can be super helpful. We're fortunate uh you know, we created a thing called the Flywheel Fund. Um we're on a six fund.
I'm going to steal Eric Steals's thunder here, so I hope he doesn't get mad at me, but uh the managing director, but you know, they just made their 100th uh investment. So, they've deployed a little over $4. 3 million into uh Indiana uh tech companies. Yeah. And that's not like I mean 4. 3 million is a lot but in the terms of venture investing it's not like you need an insane amount of money and it's not you have to write insane checks to get businesses from like that that beginning early preed seed stage.
Exactly. And that's that's that's where we play with flywheel and but it sure as hell is helpful. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. That's that's really interesting to think about.
Where do you see the trajectory of Amplify Bloomington going five years from now when we come back and do a little reunion podcast? Where's it going to be at? I mean, our mission just flat out is to uh position and establish Bloomington as one of those premier places in the Midwest where innovators can build things and be successful. uh we want to be in the same sentence as uh Ann Arbor, Boulder, other kind of university cities that are known for having a really strong startup community and entrepreneurship environment. Um we have all those ingredients. Uh we actually have uh a lot of alignment uh among the leadership of the university, our corporate community, the mayor and others.
We can do this uh where there's just a ton of energy around it. So, you'll come back. The Trades District will be built out. You know, we do have a a premier hotel that's going to start construction later this summer. Uh that's going to take about an acre and a half. Uh we have 4 acres left that we're working on uh developing and and trying to attract the right mix of people.
We want this to be a neighborhood that feels unique, has its own identity, uh that that demographic that's not in school, uh feels like they got a home. Uh we want you know our simple goal I mean you talk about 5 years I mean the the flag we have planted in the ground here at Amplified Bloomington is that we want to help 10 companies get from a million in annual revenue to 10 million in annual revenue by 2031. So that that is it's a big hairy audacious uh goal but that's what we want to do because we know the impact that could have. Um, you know, Bloomington, uh, you know, one of the most important things we can do with Amplify Bloomington is is do better at storytelling, uh, to so people do feel like this is a place where they can build something meaningful. And that's what we're all about, you know, whether it's a company, whether it's a life, uh, there's a lot of ways to get here and do something really cool.
I mean, that's what I've noticed just through our travels of the state of Indiana is a lot of times there's really cool stuff going on, but it like Indiana and Hoosiers are not braggadocious. So, getting on and being like, "We've built this insane, you know, uh, trades district down here in Bloomington, like that's just not authentic." But when we get to learn about it, you're just learning cool stuff happening here. Yeah. I think there's a fine line between um being bombastic and actually being just a proud champion of your community. Yeah.
And I want to encourage others to join us and be part of this platform that is proud of what's happening here and they want to tell those stories. Not to be, you know, exagger exaggerating it, not to just being, you know, a-holes about it, but actually to be proud of it. Yeah. Uh because they should be. I mean, it's a great city. Has a lot of potential.
It starts with the way you talk about your home. So, let's say you're traveling from Bloomington. Let's say you're you're up in Ann Arbor for a game and you oh where are you from? So often people will be like look down like I'm from Indiana like I'm from I'm from Bloomington like but and you're just like short selling yourself already like because the perception and it's like if you just change that and you just have a little bit of you know being the home of Indiana University makes it a heck of a lot easier. Uh I mean we have you know the largest living alumni in America um you know over 800,000. Yeah.
the alumni foundation or the alumni network is it association. The alumni association I heard this and it was a true story. This is a true story is like um they're everywhere. So when I was the the assistant secretary of commerce, you know, like I said, I traveled all over the country uh doing speeches and promoting uh growth, recognizing companies, uh giving out grants, doing really cool stuff. Uh, the guy who traveled with me is a guy named Reggie Love, or not Reggie Love, he he was Obama's guy, but Daryl Scott, who was Reggie's um, best friend. He traveled with me, and he's a Duke guy, and everywhere I'd go, someone would come up after the speech and and say, "Hey, I went to IU."
Or, "Hey, my kid goes IU." Everybody was connected. And it got to the point that it was so annoying for Daryl uh that um we'd be talking after I gave remarks, I'd be talking to some people and he'd see someone come and he'd look at me and go, "Here we go." You know, so they're everywhere. So it's easy to talk about Bloomington because people know about it. And uh you know, we're proud of it.
I mean, it's exciting. It gets a little trickier when you get out of uh uh the United States. I mean, I was a chief innovation officer for a global company, uh, a big law firm, and a lot of people don't know where Indiana is, let alone Bloomington. But, but the the tie to IU Bloomington and the the every IU alum, I feel like Bloomington is so special to them. Like, they had a great four years and it's like you're not going to get all or six or Yeah. You know, a couple [laughter] or a couple of them won.
I had a I had a great semester in Bloomington. uh you're not going to get all 800,000 to stay in Bloomington. No. But if you can get, you know, percentages of that alumni base to just love Bloomington enough to stay and make it better. Yeah. I can't remember the numbers, but there's been some recent research on that.
And uh there is a significant percentage of of undergrads who are graduating that if they had the opportunity, they would stay here. And you know, if you think about it, it's just small number. So, another one of our uh goals with Ampli Bloomington is, you know, to get to the point where we're retaining at least 250 of the top tier uh students graduating from my you start doing that every year, it starts to really add up. That is a state of Indiana issue as well, right? We bring in so many students to get their education in the state of Indiana, we just export a lot of them, you know, every year as well. And how do you flip those numbers and you're bringing people in?
and you're using these amazing universities as kind of like our uh like kind of like a little carrot on the stick to bring them in and then you just got to put your arms around them and keep them here in the state. Well, you got it's it's placemaking, Nate. I mean, you got to have a a a wonderful place. It's got to be a kick-ass city that's got cool stuff going on that appeals to that demographic. Um, you know, and you got to have really good career opportunities. So, we have to keep investing in what's next and doing things like uh Elevate Ventures, competing uh for some of the greatest uh innovators and biggest minds to build what's next.
Yeah. And um you know, the status quo ain't going to cut it. We're in a hell of a competition. And it's not unique to Indiana. It's everywhere across the country and other western uh countries around the world. Uh demographics drive everything and birth rates are going down.
population is an issue. So we are literally in a major uh competition for talent and we have to do better. We have to build places that people see themselves living in, want to live there, have many opportunities uh to do things uh if they're have family opportunities for their kids. You got to have great schools. We got to keep investing in public education. We got to keep investing in universities.
You got to build, you know, that kind of ecosystem that people want to hang out in. And if you don't do that, you know, even if you have a great job opportunity, people might go, I just don't want to live there. You know, I mean, that's a reality. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Well, we've come to the end of the show where we get to talk all fun things in Indiana.
So, this question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homejart. com. I actually think they do have a couple properties or at least a property here in Bloomington, which is fun. Yeah.
So, my question for you, John, why do you call Indiana home? Well, I've lived here for a hell of a long time. That's why, you know, my my family's here. I grew up here. I've planted a flag in this place. Yeah.
Okay. I want to know when you got called up to be part of the Obama administration. Like, was that an email? Was that a phone call? like take me paint me a picture of what it feels like to get called to work for the president. It was a phone call.
Uh and um it was for me it was exhilarating. I I never wanted to go to Washington. I really didn't. I'm a local government geek. Uh so um I told the team that there was one job that if I could do that I would go cuz you know everybody wanted to go join the Obama administration the first term. It was historic.
It was fabulous time. Right. Um, but I told him if if I could go run the Economic Development Administration, I would go uh if I got confirmed and all that. Uh, because I was a customer and I knew we could do better. Um, so it was pretty cool except it was a really hard conversation with my wife. Uh, we had two little kids.
Uh, you know, I was in the private sector. The federal government doesn't pay a lot. Uh it's expensive as hell to live uh in uh DC. Uh but it was pretty exciting, you know. Definitely. I you get a phone.
Who's on the other end of the phone? Uh it was the uh white white house liaison. That's pretty cool. White House liaison here. We'd like to offer you a job. Like that's I don't know.
That's like a crazy experience that not that many people get to do. Yeah, that's a start. The next question is okay, we're going to do a um you know security. [laughter] where you got to go through security and that's you know and and you want to keep this stuff under wrap es because you know when you're in those uh roles um and you're going to appoint someone especially uh a presidential appointee that's senate confirmed you don't want to embarrass people uh if it doesn't happen. So you got to do all this stuff on the down low. And so, uh, we were really good at keeping on a down low until, um, I won't call anybody out, uh, but someone, uh, leaked it because the FBI's in town.
They're going around interviewing people, uh, just making sure I can get a security clearance. And one of the people I talked to, you know, said something to a reporter, and my kids didn't know about this. No way. I was so pissed off. Oh, my my wife was just livid. Uh because my kids find out about it before I tell them, you know, that was just shitty thing to do.
Yeah, that's that's so tough. But it was cool, man. I mean, it was pretty awesome. I mean, this was kind of cool. Like it's like, oh yeah, the FBI's in like that kind of story gets leaked and it's like, oh yeah, the mayor of Bloomington potentially moving to Washington. Pretty wild.
But it was cool. I mean, it was a great experience. I mean, I had a lot of u reverence for uh the opportunity. I mean, um, when I got there, my office was across the street from the White House, and I would tell my team when we were walking to meetings, going across, it's like, if I ever get to the point where I'm not just sitting here in awe of what we're doing, tell me because that's when I need to leave. Yeah. Uh, because it was just such an incredible honor to be able to do that, to try and serve in a role that could make a big difference.
I love it. That's so cool. Okay. If someone brand new was coming, you're hosting someone in Bloomington and you wanted to make the greatest first impression ever. You get one thing, they come into town, drive right to you. Where are you taking them?
How do you make the best first impression in Bloomington? Well, it depends who they are. Me? I come into town, you're my tour guide. Where are you taking me? Well, I'm taking you probably to uh the library.
What is the library? It's the little uh speak easy over by um upstairs pub. Yes. You would dig that. I'm in. I'm in.
We're going there this afternoon. Let's go. I love it. What's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten for working in local government? From a Republican candidate for mayor uh way back when I was uh running for city council the first time. Uh was a local realtor, a guy named Tim Ellis.
He was running for mayor against incumbent. And we were talking. He was a great guy. And um he said, "John, don't ever run for," he gave me two pieces of advice. said, "Don't ever run for an office you can't afford to lose. And don't spend your own money."
Because he said, "If you're if you're funding your own campaign, you lose all objectivity. If you can't raise a money and people aren't investing in you, that's a message." So, that was great advice. See, that's that's really interest. Wait, don't don't run for an office you can't afford to lose. Yeah, that's that's interesting.
And then that kind of flipped my perception cuz I was like, you know, oh, put your own money. be willing to put your own money up, but you do lose. You're not necessarily doing this to benefit the people. You're doing this cuz you have invested, you know, $100,000 or whatever into your campaign. Well, think about it at a federal level. I mean, you know, it's insane the amount of I mean, there's a benefit of being able to selfund a campaign.
you don't have to spend all the time raising money. But the flip side of that is and and it's different when you get into statewide or national uh because of the magnitude of of um the challenge. But when you run for local office, I mean, if somebody gives you a dollar to support your campaign, they're invested. They're going to vote for you. Yeah. You know, so the more that you do that kind of grassroots work and build that kind of support, shaking hands, kissing babies.
Right on, man. All right. These are the final three questions we ask every guest who comes on. They're all about the state of Indiana. I mean, you've, you know, worked for a president. You've been the mayor [clears throat] of Bloomington, global companies.
You've been all over. If you could shout it from the rooftops, what's one thing the world needs to know about Indiana? It's a crazy place, man. It's like South Ben is north, North Vernon South, and French Lake isn't as crazy as it sounds. I love that. That's one of my favorite lines.
Absolutely great. Okay. No, it is a cool place. Yeah. This is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to know about. Could be a place, a park, bar, could be anything.
What is a hidden gem in Indiana? Monroe County. Yeah. I mean, people know about Bloomington, but when you get outside of the city, uh there's all kind I mean, you can go find a trail if you like that uh within probably a a 15inute drive from where we're sitting every weekend and go to different places. There's so many opportunities for that kind of outdoor engagement, the lake. I mean, uh, it's a pretty cool place that people, you know, they know Bloomington, but they don't know as much about the rest of the area.
I love it. Great, great hidden gem. Finally, this is where we get other guest recommendations and learn about Hoosiers that are doing cool things. Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. In the political world, I'd say pay attention to the mayor of Terra Hope Sackman.
Oh, yeah. He's an IU grad. He is. He was a guest on the show maybe 9 or 10 months ago. Great dude. You know, there are a lot of young talented people who uh have what it takes.
Yeah. Um and so I would say there's a class of people to keep an eye on. I respect you taking an IU grad that does not live in Bloomington and using that as like that way you don't ruffle any feathers like you know you do cuz I mean he's 28 20 maybe 30 years old at the max and he's doing amazing things in your house. He's super he's really good dude. I just thought of one more question uh that I have to ask. Where were you when IU won the national championship?
I was at my house. Oh you okay at home just like in I was in the zone. I was stressed out and I didn't want to be around too many people. So, it was just a few people and it was crazy. Wild like unbelievable. It was believable.
I mean, what was unbelievable is Signetti did such an incredible job his first year and uh had the good fortune of going to the playoff game in South Bend. Uh and it was just incredible to watch this whole thing evolve and then you know the way they were winning throughout the season, it wasn't unbelievable. I mean, by the time they got to the championship game, it was like, "Hell yeah, we're going to win that." You know, I was so nervous. There was like a time in the fourth quarter, it was like the game was sealed and then someone jumps off sides and I was like, "Stop." Like, why why are we making this a game still?
Like, why? It was wild. But an incredible run from literally the most losses of any uh division one football team to national champions in like two years. Yeah, it was a hell of a ride. You know, that was really fun. Well, hey, this has been a pleasure.
Thank you so much for the time. Thank you for sharing what makes Bloomington and Monroe County so interesting. I love the work you guys are doing to Thanks for doing this. Yeah, of course. To support entrepreneurs to build up local businesses, help them scale, give them the resources that they need to build cutting edge innovation right here in the Hooser State, right here in Bloomington. Incredible work.
If people want to learn more about Amplify Bloomington, if they want to connect with you, how can they do that? amplify bloomington. org. There we go. And we have to give a shout out to our friends at Make My Move. They're the ones who helped put this whole thing together.
They're helping people uh relocate across the country to places like Bloomington. So, if you're out there and you're considering, you know, moving from out of the state of Indiana into Bloomington, go on Make My Move. Check it out. Absolutely. Yeah. We have some of the folks out here are Make My Move movers.
Oh, founders. Let's go. Kicking ass and taking [music] names. Come on. Bloomington could be the spot for you. Thanks all for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
I say this show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik [music] Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
