This week on the Be Epic podcast, Brent sits down with Nelson Peacock, President and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council. They discuss the council's work in supporting entrepreneurs, recruiting businesses, and diversifying the regional economy. Nelson shares his diverse career path working in government, higher education and economic development and how he made his way back to Arkansas after growing up in Eastern Arkansas and attending the University of Arkansas. During the discussion Nelson shares his focus and the council's emphasis on prioritizing quality of life as Northwest Arkansas faces growth pressures. Brent and Nelson also explore the opportunities for Northwest Arkansas and the University of Arkansas to continue to fuel the entrepreneurial ecosystem and venture capital investment in the region.

But at the same time we're at an inflection

point. And so we have to continue to do that we have to

continue to support entrepreneurs recruit companies,

diversify the and strengthen the economy. But we're also don't

want to lose quality of life.

Welcome to the be epic podcast, brought to you

by the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of

Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll

explore the dynamic landscape of business and uncover the

strategies, insights and stories that drive business today. Well,

today, I have with me Nelson Peacock. Nelson is President and

CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council, and an alum of the

Walton College. So Nelson, thank you for being here today.

Thanks for having me.

Well, excited to have you on and talk about the

council, which we partner with heavily. That's really making a

big difference in our region, in our state. I want to talk some

about like, what are the areas you all are focused on. But

maybe before that I want, I want our audience to get to know you

a little bit. So native of Arkansas, and along with the

college. But tell us a little bit about your history.

when I was you know two, grew up in McCrory,

Arkansas, which is Woodruff County in Eastern Arkansas, came

back, went to Fayetteville came to the Business College, of

course, ended up staying here and going to law school. And

after that, you know, the region was a lot different back then

there weren't as many job opportunities back then. So I've

moved to Little Rock practiced law for about a year and a half.

And they told me I was going to be a business lawyer, but I was

a debt collector. So that was not the way I wanted to spend my

days. And ultimately, that kind of led me to moving to

Washington DC. And I found my way into the Department of

Justice for a few years, ended up on the Senate Judiciary

Committee following that. And then my Senate experience kind

of led me to when President Obama won I was in the Senate,

working for then vice or then Senator Joe Biden on his

judiciary staff. Through that, I met Janet Napolitano who was the

governor of Arizona, and she had been nominated for Homeland

Security Secretary, first woman homeland security secretary. And

they assigned me to help her get confirmed in the Senate

confirmation process. Did that we kind of hit it off. And she

hired me to run her Legislative Affairs for the Department of

Homeland Security. So that agency includes TSA includes,

you know, the Border Patrol, which is gets a lot of attention

now, ICE, FEMA, cybersecurity, it's the lead domestic agency

for cybersecurity, so a lot of activity, doing that work with

her. And it was a lot of fun and getting to see, you know, our

service members. And, you know, what they sacrifice on behalf of

the country really, I think, solidified my idea that I enjoy

public service. And, ultimately, she took the job as the

president of the University of California. And that oversees

all the UC campuses, UCLA, and Berkeley and all of them. And

she invited me to come out with her out to Oakland, California,

and did that and was there for about four years.

Okay.

And then I think.

Doing government affairs there?

Yeah, it seems like knowing you, you and your

family have just really kind of invested deeply into this

community. And in many, many ways.

Yeah, I mean, it's been great. It's the kind

of place where you can plug in, and it's still small enough,

where you can make a difference or feel you can make a

difference, even at some of those larger institutions. It

very senior levels where I worked. You knew you were having

an impact, but you didn't think that it was you personally able

to contribute in any way. And here feels like, whatever you're

interested in, you can find a way to plug in and it's it's

high enough to make a difference, but granular and low

enough where you feel like it's you personally making that

difference. So, so it's kind of a unique place right now, where

we are in Northwest Arkansas.

You know, thinking about Nelson, thinking

about the council historically. You know, it seems to me that

this, you know, the regional cooperation that's happened in

this area, particularly amongst cities, counties, and companies,

has really been key, I think, to the story of Northwest Arkansas,

I think the the council has played a pretty important role

in that, it seems.

Well that's been the role of the council since

the early 90s. You know, the story is, is that Sam Walton got

together with, with Don Tyson, and with JB Hunt, and Mark

Simmons. And really, basically, they all, you know, kind of

decided that, you know, the region, these smaller towns,

which and they were all small towns at the time, have to find

a way to work together better, we need some key things in this

region, as far as infrastructure to help our company so that that

we can grow together. And at the time, it was the airport, it was

getting I-49 completed and getting 412 out to Siloam

Springs completed. And those were the projects. Ultimately,

those happened and the council kind of stayed an institution,

following that following 1998, when I believe when the airport

was open, and kind of stayed focused on highways and roads

and bridges, the airport until around 2010. And that's when

they hired Mike. And they expanded to workforce

development, economic development of this kind of

quality of life bucket that we focused on. And we've kind of

grown and expanded to meet meet the needs of the region since

then. But the key thing that we do is we bring together the

mayors of Fayetteville and Bentonville, we actually had a

meeting just yesterday, with all the regional mayors to talk

about growth and how we're going to handle, you know, up to a

million people over the next 20 plus years. And so that's our

role that we play, making sure that companies are engaged, you

know, with their community and vice versa. So all to towards

whether it's recruiting a company or recruiting talent, or

a workforce development program. It's like how do you make this

the most economically viable place that we possibly can? Can

you recruit a business here? Can you scale your business here?

Can you have fortune one and get the talent that you need here?

It's all of those types of things that the Council works

on. But the main role that we play is kind of the center of

the wheel getting all the right players at the table.

Yeah it's kind of a unique spot that you all

Well it has been it's been the calling card of

sit in, in this in this ecosystem. And I know I know

this region for for the longest time. You know, come here you

you've done you do traditional what we call economic

can afford a house if you're moving from the coast. Come here

development work, but it is interesting to see how how

involved you all are in the quality of life and seems like

those two things I'm sure have to balance one another and they

mixed together I also assume.

you won't have a ton of traffic. You know you'll have good

You know, one of the areas at least where I feel the most

education for your for your kids to go to school. And so that's

been kind of the calling card for Northwest Arkansas and you

know is clearly it's worked. You know, there are deficiencies

with that kind of less urban environment. And you know, we'll

probably talk around some of that around entrepreneurship and

venture capital, and things like that. But that is what we've

always hung our hat on. And I think there's a lot of people

here that people that move here, and also the people that live

here, don't want to lose that as we grow and make sure that we

have an economy that will work for everyone and have an economy

that will withstand any issues and you know, with any of our

large industries, and that includes the University of

Arkansas, you know, what happens, if, if something

happens in any of these large companies that we rely on along

so long, not that there will, but we need to have economic

resilience. And that is really a goal of the council. And it

helps those companies attract talent, if there's multiple

opportunities. There is a thought around you know, kind of

this dinette dynamism, you know, of a place where people can go

and have a great career have a great quality of life. And we

try to balance those things out and the things that we focus on.

connected to what you are doing, it's probably one area where

we've partnered the most is, is on entrepreneurship. So would

love to just hear your perspective, because you do sit

in a unique chair of since you've been here since 2017.

What are you seeing happening in that ecosystem?

Well, a lot when I came here, from, from UC, I got to see what

had happened with some of those institutions, and the impact of,

of an institution of higher education, working with the

business community inspiring entrepreneurs, you know, either

from Berkeley in the Bay Area, or what happened at UC San Diego

with the biotech industry, and really how those institutions

engaged with the public. And one of the the main things,

obviously, the attraction of talent here in providing that

center, but it was the inspiration of students, and

faculty that think that they could go out and change the

world, they're going to get their degree in, whatever, but

they're going to go change the world. And we saw that across

the board. And, and, you know, and so when we got here, it was

really interesting, I knew that the university was going to be

one of these pillars that we needed to rely upon. And when I

came in, it was around the same time, that Ross Devol came and

started Heartland Forward, he had a background in Arkansas in

the role of innovation and entrepreneurship, and, you know,

institutions of higher education in that role. And so, you know,

we really wanted to focus our members on that, and, you know,

the the university really stood up, and really, you already had

programs, and each of those have really grown them and developed

them over the last five years. And I think it's important, not

only for the institution, and the type of students you want to

get here, and can get here, but also for the region, the type of

region that we want to create with this kind of resilience

economically. So, you know, I think both of those things are

really important, you know, and the kind of faculty member that

wants to do research that wants to commercialize, I think that

creates, in my view, kind of a well rounded institution, a well

rounded region, well rounded state. And I think and hope that

we're going to continue to grow those programs, strengthen those

relationships between the university and the business

community, and continue to, to do our part, I think, to help

ensure that, that the University of Arkansas can be the best that

it can be. And then that turns around and makes the state the

best that it can be.

I couldn't agree more, you know, when I think

about our our students, some almost 9,000 of them currently,

you know, I think what what our objective really is in the

Walton College is to input or develop maybe is the is the

better term, an entrepreneurial, innovative mindset, you know,

and then those students, right, there's going to be in our

region in our state, and companies everywhere, you know,

some are going to start companies immediately, some are

going to spend their whole career in large enterprises. But

when they do that, you know, they can cause those enterprises

to grow and morph and be resilient of their own. Some

will start in those enterprises and then come out and and start

their own businesses. So, but it's this, it's this group of

students that I think that really are going to be fuel for

the future.

Not too long ago, I got to attend a lunch

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, for

the college when you look at what you've done in supply chain

that the Council put on that was really focused on trying to get

over the years, I mean, those are problems that these large

enterprises and small are facing every single day. And to have a

set of students with that skill set and an innovative mindset is

really is a significant value add of these companies to start

ups, you know, across the board.

trying to get, I guess, venture capital, private equity firms to

the region and investing in firms that are starting to grow

here. Can you talk a little bit about how you see the capital

landscape evolving, and maybe even your role in it?

Sure, you know, as you know, and I don't know if

the listeners know, but over the last, I don't know, five years,

there have been a lot of there's been a lot of focus on

accelerators and incubators. And coming out of the university,

the Walton Family Foundation has played an instrumental part in

setting up these programs to help the formation of young

companies. And we need that that's a priority. But we've

also found at the same time that that, you know, if they don't

get that very early stage capital, you know, after they've

been to friends and family, but kind of the seed round, you

know, those companies are either going to fall off and they're

these individuals are going to go work somewhere else, or

they're going to take their company, wherever that funder

is, or asks them to go. And so that'd be the worst case

scenario for us is to spend time and effort, incubating

entrepreneurs here, getting their ideas out starting a

company, and then having to go somewhere else. And so we all

know that outside of a couple places on the coast venture

capital, especially early stage is difficult to come by. And so

what we've started at the council, we're not investors,

obviously. But we have been trying to and have started to

focus on firms in and around the heartland, primarily because

there is a coastal bias on what those types of venture

capitalists see is happening in Arkansas, or other states. So

places like Tulsa, places like Houston, Dallas Fort Worth,

Austin, St. Louis, there's a lot of venture capital firms there.

And we're trying to shine a spotlight on what's happening in

Northwest Arkansas, at the University and beyond. And so,

and just basically curating visits for them. And this was

part of the luncheon that you went to, let's make it as easy

as possible for these firms to come here experience Northwest

Arkansas, and meet companies that we think are investable,

and you know, if they meet their thesis, you know, that's going

to be great. Let's get them coming back, it may not happen

after one trip or two. But we're going to try to do that

quarterly, where we kind of curate these visits from these

investors. And so far, we've done two. And they've been blown

away with not only the region and the way it's developing and

growing and the vision for the future, but also the quality of

startups that are here. And for them, they can get this at a

discount of what the same company would be if it were

located in the Bay Area. So that's exciting for us. We're

looking for some of these relationships to bear fruit. The

university is obviously been key to that. When you combine that

with all the programming that you all do, you know, I think

we're really going to see a lot of growth in this space over the

next couple of years.

Yeah, you can feel it. And just at least at

that one meeting, you could feel the the excitement, the

exuberance about the region, some that had never been here

before that just were totally blown away.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, as you as you start to look forward for

the council working with with all of your members, what are

some of the things that that you're working on as you're

going into the future? And then, you know, some of the things

you're excited about for the region?

Yeah, I think you know, what we've been doing.

And we talked about this two years ago, when we released our

strategic plan, basically said, we're kind of at this inflection

point for the region for the last, let's say, 20 years of the

council's existence is been, whatever, what can we do to

grow, grow, grow, grow, let's get the road built, let's get

the airport built. Let's get the workforce programs, let's keep

continue to grow as fast as we can. And that is, by and large

worked. We are one of the fastest growing regions in the

country. And we're going to continue to be as we talked

about the population projections. But at the same

time, we're at an inflection point. And so we have to

continue to do that. We have to continue to support

entrepreneurs, recruit companies, diversify the

strengthen the economy, but we're also don't want to lose

quality of life. We don't want to have what happened to some

other places. Let's take an Austin for example. A lot of

people there feel like Austin lost it's character that people

loved about it, you know, 20 years ago along the way now,

it's a different place and a lot of people love it, others not so

much. I think for us, it's like how do we preserve what people

like about it now? And of course, it's going to change.

But what people like about it now is, it's easy to get around.

It's a slower pace of life in it that you don't have a lot of

hassle factor, you know, you can get to pick up your children

from school, or you can, you know, get from Bentonville to

Fayetteville in 15, 20 minutes. How can we maintain that? How

can our nurses our firefighters our teachers, can they live in

the community where they serve, and if you go to, like, we lived

in the Bay Area, teachers would have to commute two hours to get

to their job. And that's just really the way I think about it,

there's just really no way you would want to live your life.

And it's not what we want, here. And so how do we handle the

growth actually continue to stimulate that growth, but also

handle the infrastructure needs, the housing needs, that will

help preserve the character of Northwest Arkansas?

Well, it is a wonderful place to live. And,

you know, one thing I get to do, I get to meet a lot of

prospective students and their families and, you know, get to

tell them about not only what's great about the Walton College

and University, but what a place to live for these four years and

start your career. And, you know, just the overall set of

opportunities for our students, both quality of life while

they're here, career opportunities is like I just

maybe couldn't even imagine when I was first time I was here in

2004.

Yeah, yeah. Well, when I left in 98, or

whatever it was, there weren't really that many opportunities

here in the same way. And that's what we want is a region and as

a state and when you attract students here, in state out of

state, whatever, we need to keep them here,

That's right.

And that is a function of, I think, their

experience here and what they grow to love here, but also the

opportunities that they have, and we have to do both.

That's right. Well, you've had a kind of

switching back to a maybe almost where we started. So we started

with your background. And it's it's quite very, you know, you

know, you spent time in DC, around the political ecosystem,

you've been in higher ed, you're now in economic development, you

know, so I might get you to think about our students, you

know, that are beginning, you know, the next phase of their

life, kind of what have you, what have you learned by moving

throughout your career, and any just lessons learned that you

would share with them?

Well, I would say, you know, I am a jack of

all trades and master of none really, you know, when I look at

our different work streams, whether it's housing or health

care, or economic development, I'm not I'm not an expert in any

of those. But I think what I've learned to do over my career,

and I think this is the lesson for anyone is, you know, I was

very lucky growing up, or I did, I learned to be a very, pretty

good writer. So I can communicate with people I

learned over time, how to be comfortable with who I am, and

not try to be someone else. If I'm not an expert. And I know

this is really, really hard for me when I was young and moved to

DC. How do you admit what you don't know? So you can seek that

knowledge and get it in for yourself without just pretending

that you don't and, you know, when Joe Biden was a senator and

I worked for him, he taught me a lesson about people's positions.

And like, you know, there is a and this is particularly

instructive now, is like, you know, if someone takes a

position, whether it's political or whatever, that's opposite of

yours, you should never assume bad intent on their part.

Because you don't you don't know where they're coming from. And

he tells a story. I forget, I think I was some senator from

North Carolina, maybe. But at some point, when Senator Biden

was a young senator, they wanted to pass the Americans with

Disabilities Act at the time. So this was, I don't know, early

80s, late 70s. He had just gotten there. And there was a

powerful senator from North Carolina that wanted that

opposed it and was blocking it. So Senator Biden then ascribed

all this, ill intent toward that he doesn't know he doesn't care

where, the other senator was just saying, hey, you know, I

don't believe the federal government should be doing this

thing. So turns to find out that that senator has a disabled

child that is in a wheelchair. And so it was totally his view

was not about empathy for someone with this disability or

condition. It was about the role of government as he saw it. And

so that said, you know, he taught him a lesson about trying

to work through issues and meeting people where they are.

And he says that really helped him over time have all the

legislative successes that he did have, because he tried to,

tries to do that in every situation. So I would just say

that story just as a way of, for your students, if they're facing

a problem or challenge, like, don't take everything at

superficial value, like dig in and figure out why someone is,

you know, doing what they're doing or proposing what they're

proposing, it's probably a really good reason that you

need, whether you agree or not, it's different, but there's

probably a really good reason why they are taking the position

that they are. So I think that's really important, especially as

you grow, and you get on a career path. You know, it's a

small world, and the way you treat people in any situation is

going to follow you, no matter what. I mean, I'm still working

with people I met in Washington. You know, I met some in Boston

the other day, and I needed I needed help from them. And

because I, they always saw me someone that I treated them

fairly, I was actually above them in the org chart. And now I

need their help. Because I treated them the right way.

They're willing to help.

Yeah, what some good lessons one, treat people

around you well,

Yeah.

But then two that first, the first thing you

said, I think is really important as well, particularly,

you're right, particularly when you're early career, you know,

you feel this need to prove yourself, but sometimes proving

yourself is, you know, being willing to say what you don't

know, but that you are wanting and willing to learn. And that

learning mindset is something that is important for all of us

in a future that is going to require learning more than ever

before.

Yeah. And if you have a mentor at your work, or

wherever that person wants to help me or they wouldn't be in

that role. So you know, be willing to ask.

Well, Nelson, thanks for the work that you're

doing in Northwest Arkansas and in our state and, and for the

partnership with the University of Arkansas and the Walton

College. I deeply appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

On behalf of the Walton College thank you for

joining us for this captivating conversation. To stay connected

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