What happens when your company culture embodies your mission?

What happens when an agency's mission to "move people" meets a passionate commitment to gender diversity? Magic—and measurable success. 

Dave Smith, CEO, and Stephanie Miller, President of Penna Powers, join WLI's Pat Jones to reveal how their 40-year-old communications firm has thrived by embracing women's leadership. With 64% of their staff being women, they've created a culture where diverse perspectives aren't just welcomed—they're essential to their success.

The conversation takes us behind the scenes of memorable campaigns like the "Knights of Scamalot" fighting consumer fraud and the transportation initiative during the 2002 Winter Olympics. But the most compelling stories emerge when discussing their internal culture. Dave speaks candidly about how women bring "grit" to challenging situations—even chasing down bike thieves in high heels!—while Stephanie shares how psychological safety empowers team members to voice their concerns and ambitions.

Their discussion illuminates the practical benefits of gender diversity: better communication with female consumers (who influence 85% of purchasing decisions), improved employee retention through flexible policies, and the invaluable perspective diversity brings to creative work. Dave's natural allyship of women shines throughout, demonstrating how men can effectively champion female colleagues.

Whether you're leading a team, building a business, or simply interested in creating more inclusive workplaces, this conversation offers tangible examples of how embracing gender diversity creates better outcomes for everyone. Listen now to discover how aligning your values with your mission can transform both your workplace culture and your impact on the community.

www.wliut.com
@utwomenleaders

Transcript

Introduction to Penna Powers Leadership

Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to the Elevate podcast. Well, linda Gates has said when women are in leadership, the whole world benefits. Today's conversation showcases the truth of that statement. Hello and welcome to Elevate, a Women's Leadership Institute podcast. We are very grateful for our two guests today and our special guest, pat. I always love it when Pat Jones, our founder and CEO of the Women's Leadership, joins us. We've got Dave Smith, who is the partner and CEO of Penny Powers. We also have Stephanie Miller, who is the president of Penny Powers, and Dave was just newly brought onto the advisory board at WLI and Stephanie was newly promoted into her role. So we're excited about our conversation today and we want to welcome all of you.

Speaker 2 0:50

Glad to be here.

Speaker 1 0:51

Thank you so much. Absolutely Always, to start out, we love to say share with us your background, your professional background, a little bit about Penn and Powers for those who are not familiar with it, and then also we love to know a little bit about you personally. We've had backup dancers, we've had yo-yos you know national yo-yo people. We've had, you know, camping enthusiasts, all kinds of things.

Speaker 4 1:18

You mean yo-yo people or yo-yo play. I was like what is the?

Speaker 1 1:22

right, what is yo-yo champion? National champion.

Speaker 2 1:27

It's impressive it was impressive.

Speaker 1 1:29

It's always interesting to know what people you know like to do in their spare time. So that was a tall order. So I'll just say it again who you are, what you do and something that you love, so the audience can get to know you.

Speaker 2 1:43

Well, maybe I'll jump in first and then let Stephanie introduce herself. Dave Smith, again partner and CEO of Penna Powers. We're a local full-service communications firm. Last year we celebrated being 40 years in business.

Speaker 2 1:57

Congratulations and we called it you know, we are staying strong because we have staying power. We are staying strong because we have staying power, so we had fun playing with our name and we do everything from A to Z in communications, but we really focus on advertising, both in the digital area and traditional media, public relations Social media is a big emphasis of what we do, as well as websites and other digital mediums, and we consult, from helping companies to brand themselves to better communicate with their customers, with whatever their product or service may be. So the one thing that we love about our jobs is every day is different. We're not doing the same thing day after day after day. What I did yesterday, I'm doing completely different things today because of different clients' projects and different things that we're working on. So Stephanie and I also get to work on the administrative side of things, which can sometimes be takes away from what we really love to do, but we have great people that work for us, and so it's rewarding working on that side of things as well and seeing their growth and maturity.

Speaker 2 3:10

A little bit about me as I said, we celebrated 40 years at Penn Powers last year. I've been there for 32 of those 40 years this year, so I started when I was 10, and I just never found a better place to go to. I have loved all 32 years that I've been at Penta Powers. I started as an intern 32 years ago out of school and I'm still there today and for 31 of those years I've worked with Stephanie. So we've had the opportunity to work together for a long, long time. Had the opportunity to work together for a long, long time and I credit a lot of my success to the influence and what I've learned and gleaned from Stephanie. So she's amazing. Something interesting about me, if you want me to continue, is I do have a few side hobbies that people may not realize. Pat knows one of them. I am a basketball referee in high school and small college, so a lot of people might recognize me from high school gyms around the state.

Speaker 1 4:14

They might be mad at me Half of them like me.

Speaker 2 4:19

half of them don't like me, depending on what call I make, but it's a passion and an avocation that I love. And then, in addition to that, I coach my kids' soccer teams and have from my first child to my last one that I'm coaching now and have a lot of fun doing that. So I'm both a coach and a referee, just different sports, wow.

Speaker 1 4:41

So, as a parent who has never coached the soccer teams of my kids, thank you for being someone who's willing to step in and do that. And with basketball? Did you play basketball?

Speaker 2 4:53

I did. I always loved the sport of basketball and played it when I was younger and just thought fishing would be a way to stay connected to the game. And it has been, and it's been wonderful. I've had an opportunity to work in a lot of gyms and a lot of arenas and in a lot of fun and intense situations.

Speaker 1 5:10

Yeah, wonderful, thank you.

Speaker 3 5:13

And Stephanie Well, thank you for having me and I was. As Dave said, we've been working together for 31 years now and Dave actually hired me as an intern at the agency and it has been such a great experience. We've worked on so many different projects together. That's one thing that is fun about working at an agency is you don't have to change jobs because your clients change all the time, so you're always learning new things. You get to grow with the way that media is growing and different ways of communication. It's always something really new and fun, and I agree that on the administrative side, we've done a lot of things to help grow the agency and we have some big plans for the future and we have great people. It's a great place to work and clients have been really helpful for us in being able to see what a great place it is to bring them into the agency too and show them our culture and how we work and how we want to help Utah.

Speaker 3 6:16

We work on a lot of projects that do help Utah, from safe driving to safety for kids, for helping people to protect themselves from being scammed Just a lot of good things. We had one of our partners say it's not about selling hamburgers and cars. We're actually doing things that are good for Utah. I love that spin. Yes, okay, and a little bit about me. I actually started in radio, but not on the talent side. I was actually a producer and copywriter, working for a magazine show with Danny Kramer on Q-Talk and Q99 or K-Talk and Q99, five years ago, and then came over to Pennipowers and I love to do bar workouts and doing home projects around the home, from drywall to tiling to all that fun, crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 7:08

So can people hire you to do that? No, okay, so don't even think about that.

Speaker 3 7:12

No, I have to motivate myself to do those now, after doing it once. It's fun to learn, but when you're in the thick of it, yeah.

Speaker 1 7:19

Or it doesn't go the way you thought, yeah. Oh there's a lot. I don't know if people would want to hire me.

Speaker 4 7:33

I'm not an expert, I'm a DIY for sure. That's great. Thank you, and Pat, always welcome. What would you like to share with us today? Well, it's so fun to hear my friends talk about their agency, because when I was in market research for so many years 35 years I had the pleasure of working with Dave, in particular, but Pen and Powers and you know many ad agencies would hire me to conduct their focus groups and I loved that profession. So I had the opportunity to work with many, many agencies, and Pen and Powers was always one of my favorites because they were true professionals and still are, and so I value the years that I spent in front of the glass and, dave, you behind the glass, eating peanut M&Ms, I remember, which is a standard fare.

Speaker 1 8:19

Is that an agency thing like standard fare, or just dependent powers?

Speaker 2 8:22

No, no, no, it's everybody. It's all across the board. It's all across the board.

Building a Mission to Move People

Speaker 4 8:25

Yes, it's all across the board and, uh, I saw him once. Uh, we worked quite a few years together, but then I saw him once when my daughter was playing basketball in high school and he was the ref. I'm like you, you ref too, and I you know, now you know to not see you with your stripes on.

Speaker 2 8:41

It was hard to recognize and let me just say I'm always glad I was one behind the glass and Pat was the one in front of the glass because she does a fabulous job.

Speaker 1 8:51

Yes, pat is an amazing moderator and reader of people. Yeah, thank you. I love hearing about Penny Powers. I love hearing about your enthusiasm, how you talk about each other, how you talk about the organization, how you talked about the organization. One of the things in our pre-show conversation that we talked about is, with the Elevator Challenge, which is our cornerstone product, we help companies change and embrace the value of gender diversity. And one thing that came out in our conversation is alignment of values and your own experiences of Penny Power aligning your values and your mission and then what that did to your internal team and being able to walk the talk. I'd love you to just share that process so, as companies are looking to align more and work through that. What is the how of that Like? What were some successes, some hard parts? What did that look like?

Speaker 2 9:46

that's.

Speaker 2 9:46

That's a great question, and because we did go through it ourselves.

Speaker 2 9:51

I mean, we do this a lot for clients and and what we found as we worked with clients was it was it wasn't hard to, after doing the research and working with them, to come up with a recommendation for this is what your mission or vision says, and so this is what your brand should be.

Speaker 2 10:09

But we realized, after all the years that we'd been in business, had we really done a good job of establishing our own mission and vision and our own brand. And it really came about because for years, the agency just reflected the last names of the partners and the market and the people who knew us would truncate that from four names, five names, a long name down to what was easy for them to say. And so we went through a rebranding process ourself ourselves and at the time, said we need to revisit and really establish a mission and vision that's timeless, that reflects what we do and reflects what our capabilities are and what we do for our clients, and we want to infuse this across the entire agency. So it's not just something that is on paper, but it's actually.

Speaker 2 11:02

We're walking the talk and we're doing it internally and then also helping our clients.

Speaker 2 11:08

So we spent a long time looking at this and we came up with something that we felt was pretty simple but timeless, and, as part of our rebranding, we unveiled a new mission and vision, and our mission was simply to move people. That's it to move people. And we do that through our vision of creating meaningful connections with you and your customers, whoever your customers are. If there are people who are coming and looking to pick up a meal on their way home at a local grocery store, or if they're looking to avoid being scammed, or if they want to promote better air or to wear their seatbelts, how do we create a meaningful connection between our clients and those customers or the people that they serve? So this mission of moving people and creating a meaningful connection we felt like could be a lasting legacy for what we do at Penna Powers, and so, as we rebranded ourselves and cut our name down to something that we were already being referred to, Can I ask what the name was before?

Speaker 1 12:20

Oh, there was many names before. Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 12:23

And there was many names after Penna Powers and clients would truncate it themselves because they didn't want to say the whole name.

Speaker 1 12:29

Okay.

Speaker 2 12:29

And so we're like we think the market's telling us something, and so we actually listened and did some research and followed that and said this is the last name change that we will have. And it has been so. Partners are now come and gone and we haven't changed the name and we really tried to instill moving people and creating that meaningful connection. And I think it's been great internally as a culture because it's something that we can all get around on. Whatever project we're working on for our clients. How are we trying to move people for this client? How are we going to create that meaningful connection? It helps everyone get on the same page and brainstorm and strategize and come up with solutions that overcome the challenges that a client has to be able to accomplish that Internally, I think it creates a culture of unity and we're all working together for the same cause.

Speaker 2 13:28

And so when you have people from different disciplines inside of the agency Working together whether they're those on the creative side of things copywriters, designers, producers, etc. And those on the account side strategists, planners, project managers they all come together under this umbrella of we are trying to move people for this client and make those connections and we can, and it takes all of us to do that and do it successfully. So I think it's been a great culture builder for the agency. But, steph, what would you say in addition to that?

Speaker 3 14:06

I 100% agree with that and I would say it has also helped as we are working with different clients on their different campaigns. Campaigns. We try to channel the different people that we're talking to the audiences, because that's why people hire us to reach people and to move them to do something, as Dave was saying, to buy something, to change a behavior, to protect themselves from being scammed, whatever it might be. And so if we can channel those different behaviors and those motivations and get into the heads of the people that we're trying to reach, that really is the secret sauce of being able to then move someone to do something, persuade them, encourage them, change of behavior. It really is important, and so it sounds like it's a very simple type of vision to move people that it goes in so many different directions and it's so deep and it's so transformative that it carries over almost anything that you can apply it to.

Speaker 4 15:05

So Patty, if I could ask them a question, because you have worked on so many interesting campaigns and I've been lucky to be involved in some of them, but what are some of the more memorable, specific, if you will, companies or organizations that you have worked with and the outcomes of that?

Creating Campaigns that Transform Communities

Speaker 2 15:27

I'll share just a couple of quick examples that I've had to work on, and then Stephanie can share a couple, and she's working on a great one right now with with the state and protecting people from scams, so she can speak to that. But I'm going to, I'm going to pick a legacy one first, so this will date me explain what legacy is.

Speaker 2 15:47

It means I'm old, oh, it means I'm old because I'm going to.

Speaker 2 15:50

I'm going to reference back to 2002.

Speaker 2 15:53

We had the opportunity to work with us all, like Olympic Committee and the Utah Department of Transportation, to run the transportation information campaign during the Olympic Games the Winter Olympic Games of 2002.

Speaker 2 16:05

And we ran a campaign called Know Before you Go to help people who are coming to the state know where to go to visit the venues and then to work with people inside the state to know what to avoid. Work with people inside the state to know what to avoid. So it would open up the roadways and bus systems for those who were coming to go to the games and make for a much better functioning transportation system than had been experienced in past Olympic venues. We studied past Olympic venues and what went right and what went wrong, and then we took that and implemented it here from an operational standpoint and then our job was to communicate it and that was one of the most successful fun campaigns and efforts that I've worked on in my career to host the world and help them get around and have a wonderful, fabulous experience. So we'll take a little bit of credit that the Olympics are coming back because the first experience was so good.

Speaker 1 17:00

And that is what people said too what locals knew not to avoid and what people knew, coming into the state, how to do it. So I remember that I came here for the Olympics with NBC and so that's cool. I didn't realize that was Penny Powers.

Speaker 2 17:15

Yes, yeah, it was. That was a wonderful campaign. More recently and then I'll let Stephanie speak I had the opportunity to work with the governor's office on the social harms campaign and to help educate parents as to the harms of social media and what too much time spent on social media can. The ill effect that it can have on kids, especially those teenage minds that are still developing yeah, effect that it can have on kids, especially those teenage minds that are still developing, and still they're still learning, they're still growing and they aren't able to process all the time all the information that they're receiving and what it means. And so we were able to launch and run a very hard hitting and successful education campaign about protecting your children against the harms of social media. And now you see a movement across the country that is really looking at how do we protect, you know, those kids among us and educate them and parents as to how to utilize their time better than spending it all on social media.

Speaker 4 18:11

And that's one of my favorite parts of what you do is you, as you mentioned, stephanie, you do things that help communities, help the state in the long run. It's not just making money for certain commercial companies, which is good, but it's helping you know, understand and communicate the things that are really important, that we should all know, and you do such a great job with that.

Speaker 3 18:34

Oh, thanks, pat. And building on that, some of the campaigns that we love to work on as well. For a couple of decades now, we've worked on zero fatalities. Almost everyone is a driver out there and we know that people are not doing their best on the roads, and so it's our privilege to work with UDOT and DPS and the zero fatalities program to help people to drive focused, drive alert, drive aware, drive sober. You know these are things that we need to do. We have a big responsibility every time we get in our vehicles to make sure that we and everyone around us is getting home safely. So that's an important campaign that we work on and we take it really seriously. And the other one that Dave alluded to was one that we're working on right now. We just did filming and production last week and it will be launching here soon, so I hope people will watch out for it, but we work with the Department of Commerce.

Speaker 3 19:28

Sadly, there are scammers out there that are taking advantage of Utahns. They are losing millions of dollars or they're having home projects where they're being fleeced, whether it be driveways that are not being done or pools or home projects. There's just so much going on Investment fraud. So we created a kingdom called the Knights of Scamalot, and so we have different knights for different scams, from Sir Smart Wealth to protecting us from investment scams. Our new queen that we're introducing right now is Queen Trustworth, and she's geared toward talking to our seniors specifically about romance scams, because that's big right now, or sales scams, because that's big right now, or sales scams If someone's coming to your home to sell solar panels or plumbing or anything like that.

Speaker 3 20:24

I want to hear about the romance. That's intriguing. The online romance scams where people are trying to get you to send Venmo or gift cards or give them money to come and visit you, but you've never met and so you know they're really scamming you. Or the tech support scams are really big now, too, where people are contacting you to say there's something wrong with your computer. I can fix it for you right now.

Speaker 1 20:51

Yeah, I love that in your campaign you have that little bit of levity, because being scammed is no joke. On the drive down here I had my the Davis County Sheriff's Office call me and say you missed both of your court appointments and I was like I didn't have any. Do I have any court appointments? And so then I was like oh, it's hard to hear you. You're breaking up. And I hung up so I could give myself a minute to think about it. Looked up on the website called the actual Davis and she's like no, we would never call you. But I mean, I feel like I'm a pretty informed person and I was still like, had a panic because I'm like is this for real? So I thank you so much for doing campaigns like this. Right, they are needed.

Speaker 4 21:34

I had one this morning too Was it, the sheriff's office?

Speaker 1 21:37

No, oh, my goodness.

Speaker 4 21:39

But it was the Mr Reuter company. Oh, they say we'll be there in a half an hour. I'm like where? Yeah, I didn't call you, but they had the wrong name. So yeah, I mean. But I thought it was a scam too, yeah, so it's like it makes you fearful of everything that even might be legitimate. That's so true.

Speaker 3 21:59

And they sound so real.

Speaker 1 22:00

They do, they're so good.

Speaker 3 22:02

Well, I'm glad you two protected yourself.

Speaker 1 22:05

Thank you and thank you for social media right, because it is a needed and necessary part, especially in PR and marketing and advertising. And I have teenagers. They learn a lot, some of the things I don't want them to know, and sometimes I'm like, hey, I can see your brain leaking out your ear. It's time to turn the social media off.

Speaker 1 22:28

So it's powerful when you can take those messages and move people, help them feel something right, because when people can feel something it changes their behavior. And that ties in with your story of the vision of Penn and Powers and changing your own internal culture. So I love that we've come full circle on that. Stephanie, anything else you wanted to say about the culture or about campaigns you've been excited to work on, I'll just say our culture.

Speaker 3 22:59

I'll just say our culture. It's interesting at Penta Powers, as we were just going through, you know, celebrating women for the month of March, 64% of our agency is women.

Speaker 3 23:07

And so it's a fun place to work. We're very diverse culturally at the agency, as you can imagine. We have people of all walks of life, and so it makes it really fun. We have all those different voices at the table and it's so important to listen to them, as I was talking about channeling into different people's motivations to get them to move people. It's great to have all these different points of view around the table in our agency so that we can get so many different things just internally before going out and doing external research or something else. But it's really helpful to start on the ground floor to have such a mix within our four walls Well, and Dave, I've known you for so many years, and Stephanie too.

The Value of Gender Diversity in Business

Speaker 4 23:51

But I've known Dave a little bit better because we've worked together so much, but you've always been one that championed women. I just know you for that, and one of the reasons I asked you to be on our board is because I knew that. I knew what a great person you are and just how genuine you are and authentic about so many things. But I'd like to ask you to follow up on what Stephanie said. But I'd like to ask you to follow up on what Stephanie said. What value have you seen from having a more gender diverse culture at Penna Powers?

Speaker 2 24:25

Oh, it's been the secret to our success. I mean I totally echo what Stephanie said. I mean we did some fun. You know posts. Around 64% of our staff are women and when we promoted Stephanie to be president of the agency, we had a standing ovation. All the women jumped up and just cheered and Stephanie's not a big hugger, but they were hugging her and I hugged right back. She hugged right back.

Speaker 1 24:57

Because that just happened. Right, that's pretty recent. This just happened in.

Speaker 2 25:00

January, but it's been a long time coming and Stephanie has demonstrated and showed over her years of experience her capability and expertise in our industry but, beyond that, her ability to coach and mentor and lead teams inside of the agency, and so it was not a hard decision for us and it was fitting that it would be Stephanie who's dedicated so much of her career at Penna Powers For me personally. I thoroughly loved that moment of seeing the reaction to someone as qualified and amazing as Stephanie get the recognition that she deserves Because of that diversity that she spoke about. We don't operate in an echo chamber. A lot of times in management you can operate in an echo chamber because you're just listening to yourselves talk and you don't understand or see other perspectives right. We've always had women as a part of our leadership team, but now to have Stephanie at a step higher than that and helping to set the course in the future of the agency is just going to help us be better and stronger.

Speaker 4 26:12

One of the things that we teach with the Women's Leadership Institute is to help people understand that women make or influence 85% of the consumer decisions, and so, where you're dealing with a lot of products and services, I would think it would be very smart to have women as part of those decision-making teams.

Speaker 2 26:32

Absolutely A lot of the campaigns we run, when we're doing our research and finding out who's the decision maker or who's the influencer, and when that is a woman who's making the decision, whether as a mother or as a professional. Whatever they are, we have to know how to communicate with them, and that's what I love about the diversity that we have at our office is we can get all those viewpoints and, plus, the women of our agency are so incredibly talented. They're smart. They get things done. Stephanie can do more in 15 minutes than I can do in five hours.

Speaker 3 27:12

Oh, that's so true, it's totally true.

Speaker 2 27:15

So we know where the effectiveness comes from and she's amazing. And, besides, she's also the one that we hold up to everyone at the agency when they ask us what our dress code is.

Speaker 4 27:24

Say look at.

Speaker 2 27:25

Stephanie. She's the best dressed in the entire agency. If you want to know what our dress code is, just look at her.

Speaker 4 27:31

Well, we also find that with gender diversity that the ROI is impacted in a positive way for companies. The ability to attract and retain talent is increased and the employee morale goes up. And so have you seen that at Pennipowers, because of the gender diversity that you have.

Speaker 2 27:52

I think so. I mean, I'll let Stephanie speak to that, but I think that when we are in the hiring process, I think people look at us and say you know, who do they have working for them and how diverse is it? And because we're in an industry where we require diverse thought and diverse approaches, and it's really about understanding who we're trying to reach, because all of our clients have different target audiences and different customers, and so how do we get in the in their minds and understand that persona, um, so I think it's definitely had an impact and I have always felt that we are better because we have so many women working for Penna Powers, um, and that we we provide a better product because of that.

Speaker 3 28:44

And we're very friendly to women too at Penna Powers. I mean, when people go off and have a baby, which you know most women do, that we provide for them that they can work from home more than they could if they were not, you know, just having had a child. So we typically work two days a week from home, and some we, so we give some flexibility there.

Speaker 3 29:08

So because we value the women that we work with and we know that what they bring to the table and so we want to give back to them too and show them that they are valued and at Penner Powers, wants them to still continue to work at Penner Powers because of the value that they bring and it's such a cost saving If you can retain talent.

Speaker 4 29:29

it saves millions of dollars for organizations when they can just bend over a little backward in helping men and women actually with some family policies that can make them want to stay there and come back when the time is right.

Speaker 1 29:44

And feel valued that you'd want them back.

Speaker 3 29:46

Yes, right After that transition yeah, and I will say about our team too, both the men and the women. But the women have grit. I mean, they get in there, they do the hard stuff. What does grit mean?

Speaker 4 29:58

You're smiling.

Speaker 1 30:00

She's like oh, that's right.

Speaker 2 30:02

Because I'm in total agreement.

Speaker 4 30:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:04

Because I'm in total agreement. They don't back down from anything and if there's a hard challenge or hard meeting to be have or difficult situation with a client, many will raise their hand and say I got this. And that takes grit, that takes courage, that takes stamina and to be brave to go in and handle those situations, particularly if you're walking into a company that's dominated by men or in a men-centric workplace and there's no fear, there's nothing but grit. So I totally agree. I love that word. I think we'll work that into our values.

Speaker 1 30:42

Yeah, I would love to pause and talk about that just a little bit. What you said about women having the grit and the confidence to have those crucial conversations, especially when they walk into a room full of men or male-dominated industries. How do you cultivate that at Penny Powers? Do you hire for that? How do you cultivate it? Was that a learned trait for you? What does that look like?

Allyship and Supporting Women Leaders

Speaker 3 31:06

I think a lot of it is inherent, so, but we again, at the culture that we have at Penna Powers, we are able to help support that and bring that forward and make it a safe place that it's okay to speak up, it's okay to come to the table with a difficult conversation and bring your viewpoint that everyone has a voice. You're not going to be shut down or be ostracized, and so having that in the workplace helps you then to take that out into the client atmosphere. That you have the confidence that you can do it, that your voice matters. You've thought this through.

Speaker 3 31:45

You have a contingency plan of if something doesn't go the way you want it to, but that you're prepared and you go in and you voice it and I think that that again, in turnaround, the client then respects you more and puts more value in you and working with you, because you're shown to be able to come in and have those tough conversations, and that's as important as cheering the successes.

Speaker 1 32:13

Absolutely. Thank you for taking a moment on that, Dave. Do you have something else you want to say about it?

Speaker 2 32:17

Yes, Part of the reason why I was smiling when Stephanie said grit is we have a legendary story at the agency and Stephanie said grit because we have a legendary story at the agency we have our office is not in the greatest part of town but it's a little more lower rent district which works for us, and we've remodeled and restored our building and it's wonderful and the environment inside is great. Outside sometimes it's a little suspect. Uh, we did have someone walk in our front doors one day and just steal a bike that was one of our employees bikes. That was sitting there in a bike rack and stephanie, hearing the commotion from her office, charged down the stairs in her high heels down out the door and was chasing this robber across the street until they wait, where were you?

Speaker 1 33:16

are you watching? I'm watching this out my window across the

Speaker 2 33:20

street until they dropped the bike and kept running because they heard Stephanie coming after him. That's grit, that is grit, that's inspiring.

Speaker 3 33:29

You know, they're not going to take advantage of our people. Come on.

Speaker 1 33:35

I love that story. Something that has been so apparent to me in speaking with you and Pat introducing you, david, the board and your relationship together having worked so much, is the allyship that you have, and something that WLI talks about often is how important allyship is between men and women. I'd love you to talk about that, how that empowers you, and Pat mentioned that when she asked you, dave, you said, well, we should have Stephanie, and we said that's awesome. Well, you should tell the story. It's your story. Do you want to tell the story?

Speaker 4 34:14

Well, you know, when I was thinking of, we had some people roll off the board and the Women's Leadership Institute, half of our board is comprised of men, and we do that intentionally for certain reasons, but it's been very valuable for us. We consider men as allies and advocates of women, as you know, and so I thought who, what men do I admire, that would be a really good fit on our board. And I thought of Dave and I approached him and asked him to be on our board and he said that. In fact, he said, well, you really should ask Stephanie. Because he said that, in fact, he said, well, you really should ask Stephanie because you know, I think assuming you know, it's a women's board and I had to I'd love to have Stephanie.

Speaker 4 34:55

We're full in terms of our number of women that we need right now. We would like to have some men on the board and then engage Stephanie with everything else that we're doing. Which I found really interesting is just that you were a champion again, continued to be, of women and being able to see talent in women and, stephanie, your ability to step right into things, which is oftentimes women just don't feel comfortable doing. We're finding so many women, you know, don't see themselves as leaders and they are reluctant to step up. Have you found that to be the case in any of your situations?

Speaker 3 35:34

Well, I'm going to credit Dave, right back with being able to step up, and our other partners, who are men, that Dave is the first one to say to a woman you've got this, you go take this. I trust that you've got this and you're going to get it done. If you need me, I'm here to help, but I have faith in you that you're going to take this, you're going to put your own spin on it, your own thought on it, and it's going to be great. So Dave, from the day I met him, has been challenging me, giving me tough things to do, and I've appreciated that because it's allowed me to grow. And he does that with the other women that he works with in the agency too yeah, it's very cool.

Speaker 1 36:20

I mean there are more and more people in utah who feel have that allyship piece and it really does impact companies. But it's just magical. I always love to point it out when it happens, because it is a magical synergy that happens. So thank you for sharing that as we conclude, as we are at this point in our state and our nation of change and the ability to move people, I really love that right, Whether they're moving from a physical location, whether you're moving their hearts and minds. How do we apply that to gender diversity in our state? If you've put on your communication, your thought hat, your experience, like, how do we do that If you could change one thing in our state?

Speaker 1 37:08

what might that be to move people to embrace that diversity of thought you've talked about?

Empowering Women in the Workplace

Speaker 2 37:15

Personally, I would go back to what Stephanie just said about what she's experienced in her career at Penn Powers, and that is to just believe in people and give them opportunities and build them up and support them and provide them with those growth opportunities. Stephanie, it's easy to be a champion. That's why, when Pat approached me, I was like well, I'm happy to do it, pat, because I'm just honored that you would think of me. Well, I'm happy to do it, pat, because I'm just honored that you would think of me. But you really ought to think of Stephanie too, because she's amazing and incredible and all the projects that she and I have worked together have always been better when I've worked with Stephanie and I would work with her in a heartbeat on any project. We don't have the opportunity as much anymore to work together on projects because we're working with other people, but I always try to mentor and coach people to do it like Stephanie would do it, because then I'll know that they'll be successful. So I really believe that you've got to give people opportunities, you've got to build their confidence and you've got to help them know that they can do it. You, pat, you said something interesting that I've heard, particularly with women who may be coming back to the workforce, who have stepped away for a period of time, whether it was to, uh, raise children, or or their life took a different turn, or or they were just out of the workforce for whatever reason. And when they come back, they're like I don't know if I have the confidence to be able to step right back in. I don't know if I have the skill set. I don't know if I've fallen behind.

Speaker 2 38:50

We've hired women who've worked for us before and are now back working for us again, after they took extended period times off to raise a family, and now they're back. And the first thing they said was I think I'm behind. Like no, no, you are not behind. Your brain is still the same. You're still as smart as you've ever been. I know that you have the capabilities and that you will pick up and adapt to whatever's changed since you've been gone, because we know how you are internally, we know how you work, we know your skill set. We want you back here. It's not even a question. Just come back and work for us and you will succeed. And we have a great example of that happening right now at our agency of someone who's come back after years of being out of the workforce and she is doing wonderfully and she just needed a boost of confidence to know that she could do it.

Speaker 1 39:43

Yeah, and an opportunity, and an opportunity.

Speaker 2 39:47

So when someone hears about a job and they say, oh, I don't know if I could do that, you would never hear a man say that. A man would say oh, I'm qualified. Well, I'm here to say women, you're qualified, so just go for it, just do it.

Speaker 4 40:00

That is perfect advice, perfect, thank you.

Speaker 3 40:18

That is perfect advice, perfect Thank you to get something done. And it's also about creating a safe space where they can voice their concerns or what they want to do or their ambitions so that they can grow. So that's a big part of leadership too. You don't always have to come with all the answers. We feel like we do, because that's what has people have the confidence to follow, but a lot of it is people are just wanting that motivation so that they can grow as well, and I think that's one thing that Dave has done so well at Penna Powers motivating everyone. I mean, we're a 40 person shop and people come in and talk with them and they leave feeling motivated, like they can take on the world, and that's a big credit, because that can be really draining when you have 40 people lined up in front of your office to come, motivated, like they can take on the world, and that's a big credit, because that can be really draining when you have 40 people lined up in front of your office to come.

Speaker 2 41:08

I thought they were scared to come into my office.

Speaker 4 41:13

It's that referee suit. Yeah, that's right, exactly.

Speaker 1 41:16

Do you ever put that on at work and be like okay, you too.

Speaker 2 41:19

I get enough harassment on the court.

Speaker 1 41:20

I don't need it at work I love the words, though that keep coming up right Belief, psychological safety, encouragement, opportunity. All those things are really just so much in alignment right With the work that we do and the work that we encourage other companies to do. So thank you for being that kind of company. Thank you for being that kind of company and showcasing that. Really appreciate it. Pat. Do you have anything else you want to ask? I?

Speaker 4 41:47

would just say I'm walking away with a confirmation of the importance of knowing the inherent values that women bring and competencies that women can bring to the workplace, and you just have explained them why. It's important to recognize that it's our key message is to help people understand the value that women bring to the table, and you've just explained why. So thank you for your time and for being involved with the Women's Leadership Institute and for being involved in the community like you are. Thank you.

Speaker 2 42:22

You're welcome, penna. Powers wouldn't be as powerful without the power of the women that drive us.

Speaker 1 42:29

That's another great tagline. Right there, right there. Thank you so much. And if people want to get in contact with you, if they want to reach out to you, how can they do that?

Speaker 3 42:37

What's the best thing? You can come to our website that has all our contact information pennapowerscom. Very cool.

Speaker 1 42:45

Thank you so much. Thanks for coming.

Speaker 2 42:47

Thank you.