Noah Mundt
With a dynamic career spanning over two decades in the energy, water, and infrastructure sectors, I currently lead as a Senior Engineer within the Electric Vehicle (EV) group at Salt River Project (SRP). At the forefront of SRP's managed charging initiatives, my role is crucial in shaping the future of electric vehicle integration. My work is driven by a passion for innovation and sustainability, evidenced by significant achievements, including being named in the Phoenix Business Journal's 2018 40 under 40 for my impactful leadership and my involvement as a member of the 2023 class of the Flinn-Brown Fellowship through the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership.
My professional journey is marked by a commitment to excellence and a deep understanding of energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure development complexities. As a registered Professional Engineer, Certified Energy Manager, and Certified Demand Side Manager, I specialize in leading complex projects to fruition. My approach combines advanced business analytics and systems engineering principles to address the pressing challenges of energy and water resource management. Outside of SRP, I contribute my expertise as the Chairman of the Planning Commission for Gilbert, Arizona, guiding urban planning and community development towards sustainability. Furthermore, as the Founder and former President of Nexus Integrated Solutions, I played a pivotal role in establishing the firm as a leader in sustainability solutions in Arizona. My transition to a private investor and shareholder status allows me to focus on strategic projects at SRP and continue my extensive civic engagement, reflecting my unwavering dedication to making a lasting impact on the community and the environment.
2024 CANDIDATE EDITION
This episode is part of our 2024 Candidate Edition. Candidates' participation in this podcast does not constitute an endorsement, express or implied, by the podcast, its host(s), its sponsors, or its production team. The purpose of these interviews is to provide listeners with insights into the journey, perspectives, and policies of various candidates. All candidates running for Gilbert Town Council were invited to participate. Listeners are encouraged to do their research and make informed decisions when casting their votes. Thank you for listening!
Episode Transcription
Welcome to a special episode of Guiding Growth, Candidate edition presented by Modern Moments, independent news media, Gilbert Independent, Your valley. net and the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce. Candidates participation in this podcast does not constitute an endorsement expressed or implied by the podcast. Its host, its sponsors or its production team. The purpose of these interviews is to provide listeners with insights into the journey perspectives and policies of various candidates. All candidates running for Gilbert Town Council were invited to participate. Listeners are encouraged to do their research and make an informed decision when casting their votes.
Thank you for listening, Guiding Growth, conversations with community leaders in this podcast, we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned, come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and modern moments, an event and meeting venue in the heart of Gilbert and at Gilbert Independent, your valley. net dedicated to serving readers with good community journalism.
The Gilbert Independent is a nonpartisan newspaper, an online site that covers our town's institutions, development and events, subscribe and follow your valley. net daily to stay up to date with latest local news. Noah Munt has enjoyed a career in energy, water and infrastructure. Currently, he leads as a senior engineer with the electric vehicle group at SRP where he has a role in shaping the future of electric vehicle integration outside of SRP. Noah serves as the chairman of the Planning Commission for Gilbert and is the founder and former president of Nexus Integrated Solutions.
He was named Phoenix Business Journals 2018 40 under 40 recognized for his leadership and involvement as a member of the 103 class of the Flynn Brown Fellowship through the Arizona Center for Civic leadership. Fun fact, Noah once immersed himself in the world of powerlifting and he bench pressed over £600 and dead lifted 800. Noah is running for a seat on Gilbert's Town Council. Please welcome Noah Munt. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's very good to be here. We're so glad you're here. Glad to have you. Let's get started with what we call rapid fire. You.
What's your favorite hidden gem in Gilbert that more people should know about? Ok. That's a tough one. There's an awful lot of really great things in Gilbert and the surrounding area too, but you're specifically into Gilbert. You know, I the park system is something that I know that Gilbert has done a lot to build up in the last few years and one that is not in the public, it's actually in my neighborhood which is uh just across from Rulon. There is a very nice park that weaves a sidewalk through and it's very good to walk a golden doodle through at nine o'clock at night and to stay away from the road where everybody has to rev the engines of those four cylinders with the very loud mufflers that they pay to put on.
That sounds like a hidden gem. We'll get more on that later. All right, next question. This is a really good one. If you could have any superpower for a day, what would it be? And how would you use it? Well, I would need a better definition of what superpower is. Oh, come on, you've seen superheroes. Well, if we talk in the modern sense of superheroes or DC comics and things like that, I would say likely the ability to pause time or be very, very fast because that way I could do like the high frequency trading stock market, but I could beat them by that multi second.
And then I like a flash here. What would you consider to be the town's greatest strength? I think the town's greatest strength is the people. I think that Gilbert is made up of a very beautiful fabric of people from all walks of life and that the background coming from the hay capital of the world. And that same type of friendliness that you can find in a small town has now been enveloped into what has become a large and thriving town, almost a city, but the biggest town in America.
All right. So, other than walking your Labradoodle through the little, little stream. You're golden. Thank you. What's your favorite outdoor activity to enjoy in our community? Well, I would have to say I, I coach a little league baseball and so I have two sons and they both play on different teams. They don't like to listen to coach dad, but I also am the person who, when nobody else volunteers there, I am. So I've coached every year that they have ever played and that's my favorite activity. We go out, we do practices and, or games probably 4 to 5 nights a week and if not, we're out in the well, front yard is rocks in the road.
So pretty much we're playing in the road but very safely playing catch. So if our town were a movie, what genre would it be? And why? Well, see, I think that psychologically speaking, that question just goes to the way that I see the world, not just, you know, the way that the movie could be. So I think it would be likely a somewhat dark comedy like the big Lebowski or something. So the rug really pulls the room together. Now, I'm the dude that was actually my golden doodle was Bruce, the dude, month and the dude was spelled dood.
So he was really shaggy. No, es got it. Ok. Um, you could have dinner with any one person alive or not. Who would it be? Wow. Yeah, you guys didn't prepare me for these, uh, dinner with anybody. Well, first I'd have to think about the palate and what I like to eat and I also wouldn't want somebody that would be, uh, equally as hungry as me because I wouldn't want him to take too much. I don't know how much food portions. Uh, you know, I would probably go to my grandfather who, you know, he passed away.
Uh, he, he's an electrical engineer, you know, it was in the army as an electrical engineer died when I was like fourth grade. So I never had any of those real interactions, um, as a, as an adult. And in fact, all, you know, I, I would put all my grandparents because, uh, before I was out of high school we lost them all. So I'd never had any of those adult experiences and I think that learning not only stories about my parents but about, you know, where they came from would have been a, a very great thing to get firsthand and maybe the meal would go long enough that I could get all that.
I don't know. Well, there was no limits in this question. So take it for what it is time if there was your flash boom. If you had to describe our community in three words, what would they be? Three words? Oh boy, exciting, growing sensational who is a leader you admire and why? Well, uh from, from a leadership vantage point, there's of course, personal and professional. And I would take back to, you know, I had a uncle, my, my uncle Wayne, we called him the godfather because he happened to be my godfather.
But uh he taught me early about investing in stocks and he gave me Rick Pitino's book. Uh Success is a choice and he made me read it as a senior in high school and I graduated before he would give me a graduation gift, which was great. Um And, and the book was very good. It was, you know, more or less laying out that every time you make any decision you're choosing whether or not you're going to be successful based upon the effort that you're going to put into any endeavor.
And Wayne was, you know, part he was, I wouldn't say part of he was the reason I moved out here and, you know, began working in energy. And so, you know, I've always admired his leadership and uh you know what he taught me along the way, what would you consider to be the town's biggest challenge? I think the biggest challenge here in Gilbert is trying to keep the mosaic of the very small town as the demographic expands and grows and it needs to add more industry. And the issue is how do we softly move in the right direction to not stifle economic development, nor to disenfranchise any of the voters in order to give the citizens all the amenities that Gilbert has to offer.
And I think that that growing pain is something that is hard for some people, um which I completely understand and it's something that we all have to work together on and, you know, and I think we will because of the character here of the people in Gilbert. Ok. Last rapid fire question. Are you ready for this one? Yeah, so hot. And here's the fan. What's your mantra or words to live by? Well, ok, first of all, I used to say, make it rain a lot, but I don't want to give any negative connotations to that because, you know, certain pop culture may have taken that away from me, but that was more, you know, like make it happen.
But, um I, I think that the, the real mantra that I would have is, you know, it was in a, a Margaret mead saying and it's that, you know, don't ever disregard the fact that a small group of people can make a massive impact. And in fact, it's the only thing that ever has and that it's sort of the spark to a fire, to a flame, to a roaring fire. Is that anything, any idea you have or anything that you think you can do, the more you think about why it won't happen is a, a complete waste of time.
You should just begin because nothing great has ever started with without a very small idea. Moving forward. We'll take that. Well, thank you for rapid fire. It is now our opportunity to get to know you in your journey. And so we're going to start in the beginnings, right? So we're going to go back to land of the Packers Cheese and Bratwurst Green Bay, Wisconsin. That's right. Well, you know, and this is a funny story. I actually grew up in Deeper Wisconsin and Deep Pier is what I would call a, I'm doing hand quotes right now.
A suburb of Green Bay. Now Green Bay is a maybe 100 and 50,000. If there's, I mean, during a Packer game, it's probably 250. But, you know, so it's 100 and 153,000 which in the context of Gilbert being nearly 300 is now half the size yet. They have an NFL team. Maybe Gilbert will get one. I don't know. But so the suburb Green Bay or Deep Pier where I grew up was just outside of Green Bay. And uh a funny fun fact is that in 1980 the year I was born, it had approximately the same population as Gilbert, about 226 to 218,240 and deep here is now probably 240 Ish and Gilbert is, you know, 240 to 210 whatever, a little bigger.
So, you know, and, and anyway, so growing up there it's, it's what you would expect. It's the Midwest. Everyone's. Oh, hey. Yeah. You know, my dad takes, he has the John Deere lawn mower that has a snow blower attachment and he'll be out there and he'll, like, see someone else's drive. He's, I better take care of that. He just drives over and start, you know, it's just, it's true. You know, it's all of the stereotypes about it is very true. And uh you know, and I know I'd mentioned this in my write up, but that was, that was part of what I love about Gilbert is that it makes me feel like that same homeliness, not home in the bad sense of like, but homeyness maybe was the word.
So what did childhood look like? Talk to us about siblings school? So I had a brother that was 103 months older than me. So having two brothers. Um we, we, we like to wrestle a lot and uh I, I always, so as a father, I now look back at having, you know, me and my brother and I think my dad always, I always thought he was mean and angry, but he just wanted some peace and quiet, right? And, and I now I now realize he was just like a happy hippie.
He loved the Grateful Dead. He just loved it. And then we began to terrorize him to the point where he couldn't take it anymore and he just couldn't, you know, I mean, he was fine. He's still fine. It's great. But, uh, you know, we lived on a couple of acres, had a big, you know, half to three quarter acre garden that we would plant every year, lived on a river which was mostly just farm runoff, but I'll call it, you know, East River. It was fun. You could get some big carp out of there, wouldn't dare eat them, but, you know, you could catch them.
Um, and we would, you know, love campfires and, and things like that had a compost pile and, you know, ironically burned garbage because we didn't have, you know, one of the things people think of when you live in an urban areas. Well, of course, the garbage man comes and picks it up that didn't exist. And so I used to have to take in the winter, I'd walk out with this grocery paper bag filled with garbage and a little matchbook. And so that's just one side. But anyway, so my parents were kind of hippie ish and that, that's what drove me into, you know, going into engineering, uh, you know, and focusing into the environmental side.
Um, and then, you know, I, I liked sports. I played wrest wrestle, played football, baseball, basketball, weightlifting, weightlifting. Yeah. Um, let's see, I was a homecoming king. Um, yeah, pretty important. Um, I still love the crown and I took a picture with my daughter with it. So if anyone listens to the podcast would like that, I could possibly share it. Um, and, you know, then after that, are we moving into college or should I stop? Are we going to, as you're growing up in, um, through your high school years, who are some people that stand out as mentors or, or who influenced your life?
Perhaps coaches or? So most people, um, you know, first I'll say it was my wrestling coach, Mr Kelly, Mike Kelly. He, uh, I, I didn't wrestle, I played basketball. I thought I was gonna be in the NBA. Ok. As you guys look at my stature, you're probably like, what, what are you thinking though? There's no way, you know, like 210, I say 2100 sometimes, but, you know, it was probably 21492, 2.5, maybe a quarter. And, uh, you know, but in eighth grade, I, you know, I was shredding some ball. Then I got the freshman year.
I didn't even make the B team and I'm like, what? So then, you know, I had to have this, this personal reckoning, you know, an existential dread and realize I'm not going to make the NBA. And then, uh, Mike Mike Kelly was a math teacher as well, I think trigonometry or something. But he, he took and said, you know, why don't you come out and wrestle, I'm like, whatever, you know, and so I only, I only wrestled for two years but, um, you know, I ended up, you know, going to state and, uh, took fourth and division one and, um, you know, I, I pinned some future NFL players but let's just move on.
It's not a big deal. Um, and, you know, but he, so, and my mother likes to say that he saved my life. You know, a lot of other teachers didn't really understand why it was important for me to tell sweet jokes all the time in class and not, you know, you know, not listen and stuff like that. So uh you know, I when it comes to mentoring, there was a lot of people that mentored me in a way that like another one, Mr Bork, I had some detentions and he made me go on to uh math team in order to erase those detentions and then we won.
I still was like, ok, well, that's sweet. But anyway, so, you know, I had a lot of your homecoming. No, no, no, you never tarnish the crown that stays pure. Come on, Sarah, you should know better than that. Well, I wasn't homecoming queen so I don't know. I don't know. Ok, that's surprising. Alright. So after high school you graduate, um what happens next? Well, this is actually a really interesting story um because I went to people like say I went to a lot of colleges. Um you know, it's like in Tommy boy, when they say, yeah, a lot of people go to school for seven years and he goes, yeah, doctors.
But I didn't go for seven. But I did go to multiple colleges first. I went to Milwaukee and then I was like, yeah, man, I'm gonna go somewhere else. So then I went to, I transferred back home and I went to UW GB. And this is if there's kids listening, just please learn from my lesson here. I uh II I then left. I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna go work. I don't have time for this right now. I'm gonna go work. So I remember distinctly writing on the Monday after I could have gotten my money back on the Friday before I withdraw from my classes on the next Monday.
So I get nothing, um terrible economic decision. Um And, and there was a line that said reason for leaving and I wrote, don't have time, three words. It, I think it sticks with me because it's so idiotic like, really, you're 18. What are you doing? But ok, so then I went to, and I went to Oshkosh, which is another town in Wisconsin that, you know, and then I transferred up to Michigan Tech. So where I graduated from is Michigan Tech. And, uh you know, and that's primarily I had actually visited there straight out of high school almost went.
But then didn't. And, but then you did, then I did. So when you look back even just in that journey, what are some lessons learned? And how did you, how did you still eventually end up earning your degree and sticking to it? How'd you get in all the schools? Jeez. Well, you know, it takes a lot of bribery and my parents had to buy an awful lot of wings of libraries. But uh you know, school, was it my lesson that I learned was that you just keep going.
Persistence is something that's an ongoing theme for me. And what I try to teach my Children is that no matter how talented you are, if you do not have the persistence that the persistence beats talent hands down on a long enough timeline any day. And, you know, I, I would use my story as a reminder that no matter what turns you've taken or whatever, you can still end up making it down the road. And I'd like to also point out that I'm now on the professional advisory board of the Engineering College at Michigan Tech.
And uh I don't want to admit this, but I actually got a, a poor grade in intro to environmental engineering. So it's, it just goes to show no matter what you can always crown does, not just mute effort, you gotta put it in, you gotta go and you, and you know, if if you just keep, you just keep going and don't give up eventually it works out and you just find your next one to move on to. So what comes next? I don't know. This is pretty fun.
We could keep seeing in this area we can, it flows, don't worry. Well, so this is really interesting. This is one. So II, I left school. I had two internships. My dad did roadway construction, so I went and worked with him. So I got a time right after I graduated to work directly with my father, which was, which was fun and also interesting. Uh My dad would always, there was times where he'd be like, that's it. I gotta take a break and you have to get up out of the room and walk.
And then there's little me sitting there with all the state engineers and everyone else because my dad just got, you know, I got frustrated and he knew how to go and calm himself down. It's very Zen tactic. Um And so I did that for a while, which I think was an invaluable thing that not many people get to do. Uh And, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. And then I went and I did some work on the post office, had a program at the time called surface visibility.
It was more in industrial engineering. It was for tracking and barcoding all their equipment because at the time, uh you know, fedex and ups were eating their lunch because the post office was writing numbers on paper as they came out, a truck would have a number guy would write it, then he'd write the cart and pull it off and they'd give that paper to another guy who take it up to another guy who would enter it on a computer. So we had teams of people that went around the country into the large bulk mail centers, implementing all of the bar coding system and then uploading it for them to utilize in their tracking.
That's a lot of work so that, you know, so that's, and that's another one of those lessons where I, you know, I went to school for environmental engineering that none of that roadway construction doesn't have anything to do with that. Industrial engineering doesn't that's process management integration, data integrations that had nothing to do with it. It's all mostly just if you get an opportunity, say yes and you never know what you'll find. Um I'll just keep going. Then I moved to Florida and I did land development, commercial residential land development for a time because this was the early two thousands.
So I was, I was gonna go make some bread. OK? Look, the market's hot. No problem. Just printing money. Ok? You guys knew it here too and grew up in the Midwest like you want to end up in Florida. Well, until you get there and the humidity uh which of course brought me here. But you know, and so it was great up until of course, 2008 and then you're like, oh, ok, sweet. Um But that, that was, and that was honestly, you know, what brought me out here and you know what, it was honestly was in working in designs.
I always noticed that uh life cycle planning and, and this kind of goes into that process management and, you know, the, the things you learn along the way. Um I actually did a speech on being a uh being a persistent and patient tortoise like a tortoise in the hair and it kinda goes into no matter where you're going, just take your time, but also keep pushing. But uh you know, I, I noticed in the design of whether it's water distribution pumping systems, lift stations, uh or other mechanical moving equipment, uh that energy was not take into account the life cycle cost of the energy of the equipment.
They would do a value engineering round. Then they would say, oh, I hit the table. He told me not to sorry, they'd say, OK, we got this cheaper one in the shop. We can use this instead and they'd put it in and it would be $10,000 cheaper. But then over the course of the 15 year life cycle of that piece of equipment, they would pay about 1003 to 3 X in energy because of the mis operating. So that then, you know, spurned my, you know, I came out here and I began a, um, water kind of focused program on pumping and distribution and water wastewater treatment blowers, aeration of the mechanical equipment on a program with a PS as a third party implementer.
And so then I transitioned that into kind of the energy and water world where I have dabbled, played in utilities for, you know, since then. Well, I'm not sure that I would call it dabbling at this point. Um, so at some point you went on to earn your MB A. Yeah, I actually, this is, this is another one of these where more school. Yeah, where you can, you can always learn from Noah. So I went from, uh, you know, I worked at Seamen's where they would have paid 100% of my tuition and I now work at SRP where they also would have, I chose to do my MB A when I was working for myself.
Once again, you go, what, like, did you just do this on purpose or are you trying to teach lessons and all? I, I wasn't, I, it just happened and honestly, here's, here's how that happened. Um, I, I'm in an investment club and, uh, we, we meet once a month, talk about stocks, do stock selection, selection, guide, spreadsheets, cool stuff like that. And, uh, I, so I wanted to take a finance class and the university of Illinois, uh, had started this, they call it the IMB A and what it did was it allowed you to just take any course, any time a as an aside, like you didn't have to register for school.
You just said, oh, I'd, I'd like to take this course and then of course you can. So I just took the finance, um, and finance and investments and because I, I really just want to test myself to say, like, do I actually know this stuff compared to somebody, you know, you'd obviously feel like somebody's got, oh, this guy's got this degree. Oh, what are they learning? This must be so important. And I would take a lot of the online uh open courseware that mit used to offer.
Um And I would read it and I thought, am I actually retaining this? Do I, am I learning? And so I thought, ok, let me go take a course. And then when I did it, you know, I, I think I got like a 98% overall. I got a couple wrong wasn't pleased but you know what I then learned, they're like, well, do you wanna just apply? And I was like, well, I, yeah, you know, they, they more or less made it sound like, well, no big deal. You can just apply just in case, you know, you get in, you don't go, you know, whatever.
And so then I got in um and I got admitted to the program and I thought, well, ok. Well, I'll take couple of classes just to see what it's like. Well, and then I just started loading myself up and I kept going and then I just pounded through it and, you know, just, it was actually under two years. Um, you, I'm curious where, where that level of curiosity and I think it's sort of a theme throughout your life that you are curious and you say yes, where does that come from?
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I come from, I come from a long line of engineers, you know, but then on my mother's side there's also, you know, engineers, you know, and, but she was a nurse so I also have that caring, you know, and that, so I don't know, the, the, I'd like to say that, oh, I read these novels as a kid or something. I didn't read much. Um, I was the poster child for ad D uh I wrote down a lot of things because they would send me out of class to go write down.
I will not do this, a chalkboard down. No, they may write on paper. Um, but, yeah, I don't know. I've just always had this thought of why, you know, and that's what I think the engineering mindset gives you is that, you know, why? That's, it's not just simply ok, you learned this class on, you know, water distribution. We learn this class on air quality or you learn this and now you can do that. It's more looking at a problem and thinking of the inputs and then how you can effectively change that with outputs.
And just always, you know, like you're driving down the road, I'll just tell my kids, ok, take out a stopwatch and let's count from the, the mile marker, count in seconds and then we can determine the MPH. Ok. So I love that you shared with us, um, that you said it wasn't until you got to Gilbert where you truly grew up in the adult sense. What does that mean? Well, that means, I mean, my wonderful wife, Melissa and she's just so great, good in love without her and, you know, more or less it was the growing up because when you're in your twenties, you know, you're in your twenties, you think like when you're a teenager, you see people in your late twenties, you're like, God, that's, that's a grown up.
Then you become that and you're like, no, like, you know, it's, there's, there's a certain element that you just don't quite understand. Um, you know, and I, I did have my daughter Lydia, which was another major life event that, you know, that and she, you know, in Florida, she came and, you know, that I was like 26. And so that became like this, whoa, like, you know, I now have this responsibility life form that is, you know, dependent upon me for, you know, her survival and, you know, she's, she's having her birthday party tonight turned 18.
Um, so that's pretty exciting having a pool party. Um, I'll be going there after I have to make burgers. But, you know, so then I come up when I grew up as an adult, what I mean is, it was more the reasonings behind why I did things. It was all much more clear to me. I always, you know, knew being a good person or whatever. Um, there's a bug, I'm sorry. Um, you know, and, and like having some substance as to why I'm doing things. But it didn't become clear to me that there is a methodical reason behind it and I guess it really just clicked or it made sense why I was doing the things I was doing and that, and that brought me into the volunteering and things like that that I've done where I, it wasn't, you know, to be honest, I used to think it would like, make me appear more cool and awesome and people would be like, oh my linkedin going, oh my gosh, did this guy really?
He's on, you know, he did this volunteer work never happened. Um, but what it did was it taught me a lot of lessons and gave me a lot of good context and context. So as I say before we go into the campaign question things you got. I want to know Mr Homecoming Queen King. Sorry. The Phoenix Business Journal. 40 under 40. When did that happen? Seems like another. So that, yeah, that was, I was at Seamens at the time. I was actually just transitioning out to start my consulting business.
You know, there was, it was very exciting but, you know, I'll tell you the funniest part of it was if you were to have polled every person that when they found out about this, you know, they're like, congratulations. That's amazing, man. But the first thing that they said was, you're not 40 like that. I'm like, what, how old do I look, bro? You know, so I've always had that kind of looking older, but it was, you know, II I had uh gotten nominated and won, which was amazing and it was an amazing class to be in.
And, you know, it was primarily, I think based upon the total savings that the programs that I had been running were able to gather, you know, in energy efficiency, sort of when you save energy, you're able to then offset creation of a new power plant and things like that and then count that in kilowatt hours, megawatt hours and then gigawatt hours. And uh in the, in the context of the several in an annual time, we would do 10 to 15 gigawatt hours of savings, which is quite impactful. And I think that that was part of what propelled me?
I don't know. I mean, they had a deciding body. Iii I just, I'm kind of humble, I guess. I don't know. They thought I was cool. We could probably go on and on with a lot of questions. I have one more question because I want you, you mentioned your volunteerism and obviously you serve on the planning commission. What are some of the greatest lessons learned through your volunteerism? Well, I, so my wife works in the nonprofit. Well, she did. She's with the kids now and also president of a PTO, but she worked at muscular dystrophy and then, uh, the Phoenix children's hospital.
And so having a wife that is working in a nonprofit world, you get volunteer told into a lot of different events and things like that and seeing the impact that those events have on kids, especially that don't, you know, that just don't have the same tools that, that, you know, most of us have in life and being able to get some form of happiness. It, yeah, I don't know. It's a pretty amazing thing and it, and it, it, what I found was that the more you give, the more you get back.
And that's, I know it's cliche and I'm sorry, but it, it's true, you know, that the more of it that I would begin to volunteer, you know, good things tend to happen and that the main lesson that I learned was just to be nice, don't, you know, and if you have a chance to help someone, you should. That's ultimately it. All right. We have drafted some questions that we feel our listeners might want to hear answers to six of them. In fact. So we will start with, what would you consider are your most significant responsibility?
Should you be elected? And what would your top three priorities be? Well, my biggest responsibility would be to ensure that uh I uphold, you know, my pledge to try to bring the voice of all Gilberton ins um Gilbert residents into, you know, the, the chambers into the diocese. I I believe that there is that there's a lot of people that don't understand how local government works or the impact that it has and things like that. And I, I hope that the biggest responsibility I also have is I I have a desire to be able to, you know, do a campaign of, you know, educating about all these processes, you know, whether it goes down to the Planning Commission, how land is developed, how all of these things happen.
There's, I think that part of a lot of disagreements is in uh a misunderstandings. And so, you know, that's one of the things I hope to do top three priorities, infrastructure being as that, I'm an engineer and in water and energy and those are both very important topics here as well as you know, having to just had a water rate hike. Um And we're going to have uh more infrastructure issues coming up over the coming years because of the continued expansion and growth, which is great for economic development.
But there's going to be hard decisions that have to be made. So infrastructure, you know, planning properly and financially sound is something that I hope to bring um local control and autonomy over decisions. You know, the state is currently pushing a lot of as it comes to giving developers the ability to decide how things can be developed without any regard to local planning and city town councils, I think is a mistake. And I think that we as a town should be pushing a little to say no, we, we actually know our town better than you do and we're trying to grow this properly and we don't wanna just have a, a mess.
Well, not a mess but a hodgepodge of just anything going up anywhere we have, you know, there's reasons we plan it. Um And then the, you know, the last one is accountability. I mean, Gilbert's had a lot of, you know, it by accountability. You know, you go into, we had the, you know, the terrible things with teen violence that have happened. We've had a lot of uh disagreements that have happened on the council and ethics things and there's been a lot of things that have caused. What, what I think is a major distractions to a lot of the good things that happen.
And I think that those just and by distractions, I mean, things that we need to, of course focus on, into getting accountable, but not at the expense of saying we're also doing these other good things. And so that, that accountability is something that I think across the board, whether it be in the management uh or in any forms of uh employees at the uh local government that, that all should have some transparency and accountability. Paint a picture of your vision of a well run Gilbert for us.
And how would you contribute to this vision so well run Gilbert. I think I look at local government as a small business. I don't, I don't have a lot of uh major tribal identity, politic themes or anything that are going to come along. I think that having a town as you look at your balancing a tax base that's coming in that also is fed by economic development. You have developers that want to have certain types of uh a demographic of employees that are able to do jobs for them.
Well, you need to have the attraction of that and you need to have this balanced as it's careening forward without tipping one way or the other. So, you know, my, my hope is to bring a pragmatic approach to what I would consider just good business sense as well as a strong community sense to decision making in order to keep uh keep the growth that we've had and not disrupt the Apple Cart as it is, the town is approaching build out and some areas of our community are aging even as others continue to develop.
How would you prioritize the needs of build out with the needs of aging areas? This is a great question, sir. I mean this, this goes into the infill versus Greenfield development. I think that that's something that goes back to the theme that I said of how having some form of growing pains when you switch from being able to just have massive swaths of land done and developers, building certain amenities at the behest of town's request in order to have, you know, that that's one way another way then is when you have the infill, which is you have these small pockets where you can do it.
And I think that in those cases, there's a lot more difficult decisions that have to be made. And what I would lean on is the expertise of, you know, the people in the industry as well as the town staff, which I've, you know, spent a lot of time working with on the planning commission and they spend a lot of time and energy, putting together capital improvement plans and other things, you know, 10 year plans for how, how you know growth areas and things like that. And my focus is going to be on utilizing those to the best capacity possible where they fit and finding ways to, you know, illuminate the reasoning behind it so that, you know, all of Gilbert can understand how it's a good thing for all of us in the long run. Awesome.
OK. How important is it to you that all residents feel represented? Even those who don't share your same values? 100%. II, I, you know, at the Flynn Brown, that was one of the greatest things ever because it's a nonpartisan. And you, you hear from people that are republicans and people that are Democrats. And the, the, the one thing is, is that a good debate I think is something that whether it be social media or, you know, consolidation of thoughts based upon, you know, only having to hear what you want to hear that there's a, there's a part of our community and a part of our society that has put up walls as to wanting to listen to opinions of others.
And that's something that I pride myself on is that having discussions with people that do not agree with. You should not be something that is an impossibility. It should be something that is more sought after because it helps you to understand if there are holes in your own thinking. And so it's not something that should be shied away from. It's something that should be ran after. And so I, I hope that all people, you know, and I say this in the Planning Commission all the time when we have citizen comments.
Uh You know, the unfortunate thing is I'm not able to actually comment on the comments because that's just part of the procedural rules. Um Which, and that's another thing where people, I think sometimes maybe get the feeling that, oh, well, they're not. Why wouldn't they talk about this? Well, you know, and we can't procedurally, but I, I always, I always make the point to say that this is a huge part of what makes the civic process work is having that community engagement and having people come in and voice their opinions.
And II, I think that that's extremely important, not just to be at the meetings, but to also be able to represent whether you send an email, comment on, you know, the social media do something to somehow be involved and to let your voice be heard. Um That's, it's paramount to the success of Gilbert so that nobody feels disenfranchised. Do you have specific thoughts on how you would seek diverse feedback? How, how I would seek it, meaning like actions I would take as I would, how you would seek other people to give you diverse feedback. Yeah.
You know, and this, this goes into sort of, you know, when, when I was out getting signatures, one of the pieces of advice that people smart, much smarter than me had given me uh was go to areas you normally wouldn't go and just walk around and then talk to the people and find out what they have to say. And I think that's part of an exploratory process that anybody should do. I mean, it's part of the American spirit that brought us all over here, you know, back in 1492.
And since that, you know, suddenly you just set out on a voyage to say, ok, there's something over here I could learn and I think that's something that we should all do more often. And so my goal would be just to put myself into positions where I'm normally not. And to listen, I mean, listening is one of the most important things that a lot of people don't spend as much time on it. I know right now I'm just jawing on a podcast. So it maybe sounds like this guy, you can listen.
But uh but that's, you know, that's it. I mean, just trying to put myself in the position and then have empathy and understanding for where they're coming from. I mean, there's, there's times where you might hear an argument from somebody that it's in the grand scheme of things from a town's perspective. It's very, very miniscule. But for them on their land or, you know, the history, they have their familial history there, it's very big and that you need to be able to show compassion and empathy for that and understanding as a governmental agency.
The town is a complex business and major employer with many lines of service and corresponding budgets. If elected, how would you navigate, gaining a stronger understanding of the inner workings of the town to do that? You know, I'm well versed in, in budgets and working in multi departmental organizations and, you know, where I would go into the town, I've had a lot of exposure to. So some of that being on the Planning Commission for five or six years. Um But at the same time, my whole goal would be to go to the front line people.
I mean, if there's, if there's a team of people working on some form of a budget where I have any question on a line item, I would seek to talk with whomever it is that works on that, whether that's directly to a parks and rec you know, manager at a certain park or uh you know, whether it's an accountant that works somewhere else. I mean, just trying to reach into the organization to pull out what I can from the individuals that are there because I believe that's the greatest value that we have.
And so my, my ability to be able to navigate a budget from a mathematical or an accounting vantage point is nothing that I would ever question. It's mostly going to be understanding the personal reasons from the individuals there. And that includes from a managerial vantage point of why we can't do certain things and why we can. And I, I would just seek to talk to them as well as go into the community. You know, people would want to say, well, we want to have certain amenities, but we also don't like Texas, nobody likes that and that there has to be that balance.
And so I would just seek to hear from, you know, discontentment II, I welcome it. I welcome the idea of people not liking something, hearing about their position and hoping that it can help to frame mine in a way that helps us all go along in the future. When you look back on your time in office, how would you measure your success? Basically, I would measure it by the number of times I'm invited back to this podcast. OK. Yeah, I, you know, I it's, it's mostly just in the relationships that I'm able to build and, and sustain.
I mean, as you meet more people along the way, it, it's, it's easy in the uh single serving world that we're in to be able to be a sales type individual and just say here, here's what you need to hear right now. Uh But I hope in the long run that I can continue to accumulate a massive bag of relationships and that I can continue to nurture those and grow them and expand them much like Santa Claus's gift sack that somehow holds unlimited gifts for every kid in the world travels, travels faster than the flash.
But yeah, that's it. It's, it's mostly just the feeling of the individuals that I'm able to impact in any way that I can. And I just hope that that's positive. Noah. Thank you for joining us today before we let you go. Is there anything that you would like to share with our listeners? Well, to, to all the listeners, I would just say if you have any questions or would like to reach out to me. I have a website. It's month for gilbert.com. But I do also put the caveat that anybody can make a website.
I could have put anything on that I wanted, I could have said that I'm a Nobel laureate. But what I would suggest is, you know, when you're researching candidates, Google me, Google, all of us find out what does this person do look into it and then if you have any questions, send me an email, send me a text. I'd love to hear from you. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us today for sharing your journey and answering some questions. I hope it wasn't too painful.
We had a great time. Pleasure is all mine. It is somewhat warm. But, you know, I've been assured that the air conditioning is on, but it's fine. It's really just been, it's a problem. It's usually me. But you know what? I enjoyed this one as well. I know you everybody listening today, enjoy this conversation. So if you want more of these, sign up, get them in your inbox and we will send them to you. Thanks for listening today, guiding growth, conversations with community leaders. Ben, let me ask you a question.
How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast? This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand. Whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it.
We'd love to hear from you, reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.
