Step into the world of innovation and excellence with “Industry Champions”! Join us as we celebrate the trailblazers who are redefining success across diverse industries, sharing their journeys, strategies, and secrets to thriving in competitive landscapes. Today our host, Chris Budihas speaks with Angie Reno of NDTA JAX Chapter
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Chris
Welcome to Industry Champions. I’m your host Chris Budihas. Joining me here in studio is Angie Reno with National Defense Transportation Association Jax chapter. Angie, good to see you.
Angie
Great to see you, Chris. Been a while. It’s been it’s been a while.
Chris
Yeah. So this is like take two. Yeah. Let’s talk about, like, people see the Saint John’s River. They see, you know, the Atlantic Ocean, obviously. Well, I sure people realize. Yeah, we got a lot of shipping. We got a lot of maritime here in Jacksonville outside of the Navy. Can you can you give us kind of an overview, like what’s going on in Jacksonville in this space?
Angie
Well, I mean, tying it to the NT Jax.
Chris
Yeah, let’s talk about that first and then we’ll jump into it. Yeah. What is NctA.
Angie
National Defense Transportation Association. And they’re headquartered in Washington DC. And they what they do is they provide collaborative collaboratives. They provide spaces for industry and defense, military acquisition personnel to talk, you know, what is needed in the transportation space.
Chris
Yeah.
Angie
And interesting. And interestingly enough, we have, I think, for corporate members of NctA right here in Jackson. Oh, really?
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
Angie
Tote is one.
Chris
Okay.
Angie
AAC is another. I mean, it just we’ve got a lot of players here in Jacksonville and I don’t people I don’t think people realize that I agree.
Chris
Yeah it’s my wife says she’s from San Diego. Jacksonville is the city of unrealized potential. There’s a lot of opportunity here. But, but but we’ve been married for 33 years and she’s seen the city, you know, grow, change and morph, though there’s a lot more potential to be realized in the future. But this is an area that occurs.
Chris
You know, I talk to a number of folks, both in government, outside government business here in the region is the fact that when you look at Jacksonville, you got to really zoom out and look at the whole map, in my opinion. Yeah, because the world’s interconnected economically, security wise, diplomatically. So how are we part of that bigger piece of that picture?
Chris
So people talk about Philadelphia, you know, you but you know he’s different shot in Norfolk. Norfolk I, I’m a Chiefs fan. So I’m very disappointed. And then I’m I mean you got to root for the Jags too. Yeah I get to root for the Jags too. But no you when you look when you think maritime like Long Beach spent a lot of time you spent nine years living in California.
Chris
Yeah. The think that where we we’re not necessarily equal right now but we have the potential to to definitely increase in this space. We actually.
Angie
We do. You mentioned a couple of things. Saint Johns River. But I’m going to go back to Philadelphia really, really quickly. Yeah. Who bought the shipyard. They’ve done some great things there. So you know you’ve got to acknowledge that. But also I look at that competitively. Yeah. You know what a great bar. What a what a great thing to look at and and hopefully achieve the same.
Chris
Oh yeah.
Angie
Yeah. Right. But Mayport also you know Saint Mary’s Georgia, we have this submarine, base there.
Chris
Ironically, my first duty station. No way. Yeah. I enlisted in the Marines. The away from Jacksonville. My first two station was Kings Bay, Georgia. I’m like.
Angie
That’s ironic.
Chris
Haha. God playing jokes. But anyways. Yeah, yeah, but Saint Mary’s. Yeah, exactly.
Angie
Yeah. And then Mayport on Island and then you have, you know, Jax port. So there’s, there’s just a perfect scenario here to do a lot of things both commercially and, and defense wise.
Chris
Yeah I love that. And then for, for, you know, we want to pull in the right type of talent companies here in the Jacksonville. And if you’re in this space, you think about it. You know, the maritime vessels come in, but you have to be able to discharge that supply or logistics inland in many in all cases actually, even if it’s going 20ft, it’s probably got to get off something.
Chris
Moving on to something to get into that facility. So but I think about and I-95, you think about I-10 corridor. You think about I-75 up towards Atlanta, kind of getting the center of the country. And then, you know, Jax Airport, you know, there’s the opportunity out there with the land. So absolutely. Yeah.
Angie
So one of the things going back to the associations, right? We have International Propeller Club here. Right. Transportation of Jax. And Jax in these organizations offer chances to network. Yeah. There’s a couple of people that are in real estate. You know, they’re part of International propeller Club. They see things happening before a lot of people do. So I can tell you without a doubt, we have foreign investment coming in.
Angie
Yeah. You know, Europe especially from Europe. So these things that we are talking about today, these clubs around Jacksonville that not a lot of people know about. Yeah, they’re at the front end of these things. So that’s one of the values of and.
Chris
You know that’s that’s awesome. Yeah. And as I mentioned previously, you know you guys are in my opinion it sounds like you guys are either air traffic control or connective tissue.
Angie
Or connective.
Chris
Tissue. You can connect other folks from industry thought leaders. Government, academia is another piece. I think people forget, you know, our, you know, academia locally we got ju we got obviously UNF you know great partnership. You guys out with those folks Florida.
Angie
College.
Chris
Florida college. Yeah yeah Florida State College of Jacksonville Edward Waters you know there’s other folks in this space. And you guys do take a look at workforce, development to to get people in this space because it’s it’s been a, a great career chooses.
Angie
State college also has a logistics program where they’re actually teaching sounds. I mean, how to drive a forklift, right. Because right now there’s a lot of technical part of it. Yeah. Yeah. So little things like that.
Chris
Yeah. It’s funny because people are, you know, that’s not age of the robots, the very opposite to everything. Well you’re still you still have to train the robot and the software specifically to do the things that humans used to do. So yeah, it’s not a dead skill.
Angie
It’s not. Yeah.
Chris
You’re going to need a you don’t need some form of pork. Love to do that type of stuff. And then, as I was watching this about a year ago, the longshoremen in New York were, you know, they’re unionized, were protesting for higher wages. And then I was watching in China what they’re doing. So some of our longshoremen type duties are a couple decades behind with the Chinese were doing where you had longshoremen down doing that nitty gritty type work.
Chris
And God bless them, thank, thank God they do that type of stuff. Then you have Chinese longshoremen inside of a building telling the computers to tell the machines to do the work, which is less dangerous, less and less. And less dirty, if you will. So, but, but it’s interesting to see you guys in this space. And, you know, how do we shape the future of Jacksonville, you know, in the ETAs in this space, too?
Chris
I think it’s because of conversation.
Angie
Yeah, I’m always conversation and always the the commercial industry has to bring the best of the best to, you know, our defense colleagues say, hey, this is what we can do. And then acquisition decides where they want to go.
Chris
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well I appreciate you coming in as as we wrap up and I’m going to take our previous show and put it in our show and our in our comment section here because they can learn more about the upcoming event. But talk to us about, 22nd April.
Angie
It’s currently 22nd April at University of North Florida at the Adam Herbert Center. Yeah, we’re going to have a maritime industrial based symposium, three panels. You’re host of one of that. Yeah.
Chris
Thank you for that.
Angie
And we can’t wait. We want everybody to come out and learn what the what the region offers.
Chris
That’s awesome. And how can folks find in DTA Jax chapter.
Angie
Go to our website at DTA jax.com.
Chris
That’s wonderful. It’s just good to see you. Absolutely right. Hey folks check out what in DTA Jax chapter is doing. Connect with slash and myself on LinkedIn. We’ll see our next segment and remember a live have an attitude of gratitude. All right. See you.
