Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Richard Miles: Inventivity, what does it mean? The state of being inventive, creating, or designing new things or thoughts. Hello, I'm Richard Miles. Welcome to the Inventivity Pod. Join us as we speak to inventors, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are using Inventivity to change the world. They'll bring us alongside their journey as they share their personal stories from start to finish, including the triumphs, the failures, and everything in between.
[00:00:33] Richard Miles: Hello, and welcome to the inventivity pod. I'm Richard Miles. We finished 2023 with our Blue Economy series, and we are grateful to the amazing guests that joined us. These conversations were fun, inspiring, informative, and showcased inventivity in the blooming blue economy. We thought you would enjoy some selected highlights from those conversations. Our, uh, first clip is from cleaner water with Serg Albino. The important work done by surge and ecospheres to clean up forever chemicals is work that has been recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency in the form of an EPA comfort letter. Listen as Serg explains what that is and the benefits that come with it.
[00:01:09] Serg Albino: Yes, so that was actually in January 2020, when we. Right before the world closed down, we received our EPA comfort letter for our ecoAINA, uh, soil washing process, which basically meant that EPA recognized our solution for self implementing programs and risk based programs, so that when we have, uh, our clients, they would always want to ask, well, does EPA federal know about this? And do they approve it? Here's the letter. Um, so once we've gotten that, we were able to kind of manage through essentially what would be a longer term sales cycle with that comfort letter, because now they understand clients and, uh, environmental consultant groups that represent the clients all understood that EPA is aware of what we do and our solutions, and what could be a roadblock now just got flattened out because of that comfort letter.
[00:02:07] Richard Miles: In our kickoff episode for this series, connecting the blue economy with Katherine O'Fallon, Katherine gives us a crash course in the blue economy. But in this highlight, she explains the simple ways anyone can be a steward and have meaningful impact.
[00:02:20] Katherine O’Fallon: So those little tweaks of your company and how you're dealing with things throughout your company can make a difference. And I think that's a big piece that people don't realize that you can do. You don't have to be, uh, a crazy, out of the box new idea innovation. It can just be a little tweak that makes your company and your environment more sustainable and more resilient, and just getting involved, seeing where you can get involved. If it's from beach cleanups to waterway cleanups. As an educator and working with kids all the time, we try to just say doing your part is going to matter and that one part is going to lead to another part and then to another. And that bigger impact of everything and just reaching out into your community, connecting those dots. If you know somebody who knows somebody, make an introduction to them, because that's where this ecosystem is going to build and it's going to thrive. People know everybody. They just don't always know how one person is going to impact the other.
[00:03:19] Richard Miles: And last but not least, in Forrest Gauthier in a new ocean perspective, Forrest's story illustrates the importance of embracing your inventivity, and that it's never too late to do so.
[00:03:30] Richard Miles: And my dreams had to go on hold to some extent. Now, don't get me wrong, I loved working. I loved my career. I loved the jobs that I have. Not every day, not every single piece of it. But later on, after I had built several companies, taken a few of them public, found myself with a financial flexibility. I then was able to resurrect passion and say, what is it that I really, really want to do? Yes, maybe there's some interesting plaques on the wall, but those may not really be me. And again, it's easy to say, what do you want on your tombstone? And whatever I wanted on my tombstone, I hadn't accomplished yet. And so when my friends started calling me a hypocrite and I realized that I was expressing a passion and I was expressing a concern and I was expressing a change, I wasn't doing anything about it. And I had to look in the mirror and say, either shut up or get active. Either do it or stop talking about it. And that's when I created blue 71.
[00:04:47] Richard Miles: Be sure to go back and listen to those full episodes, to really immerse yourself in those conversations and be on the lookout this year as we deliver you series based around smart home technologies, transportation innovations, and as always told through the lens of inventivity.
[00:05:07] James Di Virgilio: The Inventivity pod is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles and me, James de Virgilio, are your podcast hosts. Podcasts are recorded at the heartwood soundstage in Gainesville and edited and mixed by Rob Rothschild. Be sure to subscribe to the inventivity pod wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a comment or review to let us know how we're doing. Until next time, be inventive.
