This week on the podcast Matt sits down with Mike Malone, Vice Chancellor for Economic Development at the University of Arkansas. Mike has been very involved in the growth of Northwest Arkansas, serving previously as the VP of Community and Corporate Affairs at Runway Group and President and CEO of Northwest Arkansas Council. The discussion begins with Mike explaining what economic development at the University of Arkansas is and how he intends to use the partnerships of the University to continue creating a positive impact on the state of Arkansas. Mike and Matt then dive into the emergence of next generation mobility and how the University of Arkansas will influence research in this new sector. The episode concludes with Mike discussing the importance of preparing the next generation of the workforce and connecting students with Arkansas-based companies. 

But from a University's perspective, some

of the areas where we can be most impactful are in ways that

people I think, know and generally think of when they

think of university economic development, for example, taking

the research that's done on a campus and creating companies

out of that research, the commercialization of research.

Excellence, professionalism, innovation, and

collegiality. These are the values the Sam M. Walton College

of Business explores in education, business, and the

lives of people we meet every day. I'm Matt Waller, Dean of

the Walton College, and welcome to the Be Epic Podcast. I have

with me today, Mike Malone, who is Vice Chancellor for Economic

Development at the University of Arkansas. Mike has an amazing

background that has really preparing him well for this job

at the University of Arkansas. For almost six years, he was VP

of Community and Corporate Affairs at Runway Group. He was

President and CEO of Northwest Arkansas Council for 10 years.

And he has many other experiences that are relevant as

well. Thank you, Mike, so much for joining me today. I

appreciate it.

Thank you. I'm excited to visit with you.

Well, Mike, you had, you've been around

Northwest Arkansas a long time, obviously. But you you've really

been involved during a time when Northwest Arkansas has

transitioned so much. It's a little hard to believe how much

things have changed. But you were heading up the Northwest

Arkansas Council, which is quite an organization during the time

of tremendous change from 2006 to 2016. And, of course, you

were head of Runway Group, which was having a huge impact on the

region. And now you're you're almost at a year, I believe, as

Vice Chancellor for Economic Development. So it's kind of

nice, because you've seen the development of Northwest

Arkansas from many different angles. But I'd love for you to

if you wouldn't mind before we get into your past a little bit.

If you could share just a little bit. What is Economic

Development at the University of Arkansas?

That's a great question. And it's a story I'm

telling regularly. And so I'm really glad you started with it.

The economic development is about the different ways in

which we can take the talent, the knowledge, the expertise,

the resources, our facilities, our ability to convene, all the

different things that we can do so well on so many different

fronts, and deploy those for use for benefit in communities or

for businesses and industry around the state. Our knowledge

is so deep, our talent bench is so long. And we have so many

people here who I know want to have an impact on our state

through their work. And so a lot of our role is really trying to

find those connections, activate or stimulate those partnerships

so that the University of Arkansas can have an even

greater impact on the economy of our state. It's already a very

massive impact. At this point, the last time we quantified the

University of Arkansas economic impact on the state of Arkansas

it was placed at 2.2 billion annually. $2.2 billion worth of

impact that we have on our state. That numbers a little

dated, one of the things I want to do soon is update that number

and regularly refresh that number. Because I think with our

enrollment growth and our outreach and our initiatives,

I'm confident that that number is going to be much larger. I

wouldn't predict what it is. I'm not an economist, but I do know

it's much greater than what it was calculated at five years

ago. And so we look our team, our different units, our

industry engagement partners look for opportunities to really

connect and extend what the campus and the University of

Arkansas does so well for the benefit of the state of

Arkansas.

Well, you know, what, it's really exciting what

you're doing. And, of course, you're right. We've got so many

resources and rich expertise in areas that a lot of times people

are surprised to learn about when they find out what kind of

expertise we have. I was just thinking, you know, I look at

different colleges, you know, College of Engineering, for

example. There's been many times when I've done seen people that

were surprised to find out that we had rich expertise in some

area. That's happened certainly in the College of Business, the

College of Education, etc, etc, all the colleges. But I can see

why you're well prepared to do this. Of course, you're drinking

from a firehose right now trying to get everything from the

University, but you, you've been around the University a long

time. You know, your role as President and CEO of Northwest

Arkansas Council. Let's start with that. The Northwest

Arkansas Council is an unusually successful entity that

coordinates amongst these different cities, many other

communities have tried to do things similar with not the same

level of success that we've had in Northwest Arkansas. Would you

mind speaking a little bit just about your experience there and

how that is valuable to what you're doing now?

Absolutely. The Northwest Arkansas Council is a

nonprofit organization. It was founded in 1990, by some of the

business leaders in the region, who at the time knew that they

needed a lot more coordination, a lot more support, especially

on on getting some infrastructure projects done

than any of the towns and small cities were able to provide on

their own at that point. And so these business leaders said,

let's get together, pull some resources, form an organization,

set some regional goals. And so they they banded together raised

a little money, it was not a lot of money, but 1990 terms, but

they they pitched in some dues among the different member

organizations. But what they they did that made that

organization work so well was set clear. They were aggressive

goals, but they set clear goals that everyone in the region

could get excited about or see the benefit, if we're able to

achieve them. So it was goal setting function. But then the

other thing they did and this isn't magic or anything secret,

but they hired professional staff, people with policy

experience, with government relations experience that could

help bring different community partners and organizations in

the cities themselves along toward accomplishing those

goals. And the the magic of the place was having professional

staff that woke up each day, thinking about how to stitch

together coalitions find support, find funding for

achieving the goals, the big, audacious goals that were set by

these business leaders that got together at the time. Again, I

said it was about physical infrastructure, Northwest

Arkansas, had a municipal airport that was fairly

unreliable because it was surrounded by mountains, the

Boston Mountain Range in South Fayetteville made created

weather issues. And so scheduled air service was fairly

unreliable and their runway was too short to be able to land

certain planes so the region needed an airport for the region

to grow. And for these industry partners to grow, it seems

simple to say hey, we need an airport. But there have only

been three new airports built in the United States. In the last

35 years, there have been a lot of airports expanded in the last

35 years. No greenfield projects except for Northwest Arkansas

and Denver airports. Another one and maybe one one other example

in Florida. I wasn't around when they they worked on the airport

I came in after that I was the second director of the Council.

But the goals when I was hired were very similar to continue to

work on physical infrastructure projects and build regional

consensus and cohesion. And so it evolved during my time there

but that experience on working across a region to build

partnerships and coalition's were really translates very well

to this job. It's a statewide focus here, the State's

land-grant university, we're looking for ways to have an

impact and add value around the state the entire state of

Arkansas and so that's really been fun for me but my

experience in working with for profit, nonprofit and

governmental entities to build consensus and move things

forward translates very well to this new role.

I would think one challenge in your job is just

becoming aware of everything going on at the university.

There's so much.

Mike, what are some of the things that the University of

That's exactly right. So before in my last

couple of roles, I worked with the university lot and I grew up

in Fayetteville, I spent a lot of time on campus, my parents

both worked here. So I certainly knew some. But job one this past

year, the past nine months, really that I've been in the

role has been to get a much deeper understanding and build

relationships and, and honestly gain trust among partners on

campus, so that they understand what role the Division of

Economic Development can play, and how we can help them better

have an impact even beyond what they're already having. It's

been a lot of fun and learn so much. And, you know, my biggest

observation from my first nine months and deep dive on campus

is we do so many things so well. I want as many people to know

about those things and really feel like people don't have an

understanding is comprehensive and understanding of how good we

are in so many different areas.

Arkansas that you're pretty excited about from an economic

development perspective?

There's some emerging economic sectors and fields like in

Arkansas, and in the middle part of the country that were really

poised to be a big player in. One example, the last governor

appointed a Smart Mobility Council, and they put together a

report on how to make Arkansas a leading state in next generation

mobility. Our researchers and our research facilities and our

areas of expertise, like their expertise, like supply chain

logistics, fits so nicely, already in to making us

competitive in that emerging sector. And with some additional

resources and additional focus, I think we can be the best

university in the country in the area of smart mobility and the

enabling technologies and supply chain and logistics, expertise

that's involved in all of that. So that that's really exciting.

That is exciting. I mean, it's so clear, there's so

many demographic and economic characteristics, changes that

are taking place that really point to the need to for this

advanced mobility. And, and really just the advances in

artificial intelligence, machine learning, those kinds of things,

really make it more achievable, as well.

Absolutely. When we're good at in those areas,

cybersecurity is going to be important to the growth of

mobility and equipment and technology. And we're very good

at that. As we are with research into batteries, electric motors,

just goes on and on, we're already in great position to

have an influence in where the next generation of mobility is

going. And so it's gonna be fun to be a part of that.

Your experience is really interesting. As a young

man, back in 1994 through 98, you held various positions,

including Deputy Assistant to the President, and you've held

positions as Congressional Affairs liaison for the Federal

Emergency Management Agency. You've had various positions in

the White House, Director of Administration, Committee Staff

Member on US Senate Rules Committee, a Minority Clerk in

Transportation, HUD and Independent Agencies

Subcommittee. I mean, you so you do have a lot of experience in

the state of Arkansas, as we just described earlier. But you

also have a lot of understanding of the federal government and

how it works. How does that help you in your role as Vice

Chancellor for Economic Development here?

That's a good question, Matt. I think

certainly understanding the federal budget and how that

process works, and potentially how to have an influence there

will be helpful, in some ways, especially as it relates to

grants. But I think more importantly, those were just

really big, complex environments. My first job out

of graduate school was working in the executive branch and a

lot of acronyms, a lot of different budget, center cost

centers, budgets, power centers, those kind of things. And so

figuring out how to build consensus and drive toward big,

significant goals was really my biggest lesson and learning from

those years that very much helps here, that state of Arkansas

economy is incredibly diverse and dispersed. We're large state

geographically, even if we're not population wise. And so

figuring out how to learn the systems of players and forge

consensus and drive things forward is is definitely what's

most applicable from my executive branch and

congressional days.

It is amazing how you can see, the federal

government can even benefit a lot from some of our expertise.

And I think they don't often know about it. I know, one

professor that I know really well in civil engineering. His

name is Andrew Brown, and he's an expert in pavement and

asphalt. It doesn't sound very exciting to some people. But

when you look at how much our road system and our federal

interstate system, it's so extensive, and so much money

goes into it. And I know over the years, he's always telling

me, if we would only do this, you know, our roads would last

longer, they would cost less to repair on and on. And I said,

wow, I wish I wish people in the federal government could hear

this, you know, we meet about once a month. And so I always

hear I've learned a lot about asphalt over the last eight

years. It doesn't sound interesting, but when you really

think about the impact it has, right, because when roads are in

disrepair, it also affects the cars. So the cost is much higher

than what people often realize. So I'm just using as a sort of a

esoteric example that, you know, if you'd look through all the

research we're doing, at the U of A you may not realize we have

the top expert in the country on this. And, you know, I don't

know to what degree his expertise is utilized at the

federal level.

Yeah. And I know ARDOT partners with the

University of Arkansas on pavement research and other

transportation research. But that is a great point. One of

the things that I love seeing both before I got to the

university, and also during my time here is that our

congressional delegation does know how much expertise is here

and relies on us and puts that expertise to work in solving

problems. So they, they are good at that. But again, it's back to

what I'm finding in my kind of learning journey here in my

first less than a year. And that is there's so much significant

important, transformative work that's happening here. It's hard

to keep all of that in mind or tell that story. Because there's

so much so many great things happening. And so our, our

division will certainly try to play a role in communicating

more and communicating in ways that people can receive it. But

it's it's just hard to keep up with how much talent knowledge

and expertise is here. That's a good problem to have. But it's

still a problem if people don't know it. We can do more if

people know more about our capabilities.

Mike, as we know, we had an economics group

analyze the financial impact of university on the economy here

in Arkansas a few years ago, several years ago and we found

that it was over $2 billion. It's probably a lot more than

that at this point. But what are some of the specific ways the

University of Arkansas impacts the economy?

And economic development can be defined

fairly broadly. And, you know, AEDC recruits companies to

Arkansas, private equity groups create sources of funding to

invest in companies to attract them to Arkansas. And those are

all real important components within economic development writ

large. But from a university's perspective, some of the areas

where we can be most impactful are in ways that people I think,

know, and generally think of when they think of University

Economic Development, for example, taking the research

that's done on a campus and creating companies out of that

research, the commercialization of research, whether it's

faculty led companies that are founded or whether that

intellectual property gets licensed out that that's a

really important way that new companies are started or the

knowledge gets transferred to existing companies through a

license arrangement and that that has a big impact. We need

to make sure that Arkansas companies have it as much access

and visibility into the intellectual property that we

have for their benefit, y'all, I know provide all kinds of

technical assistance and consulting assistance in

partnerships with industry as well. And that knowledge

transfer is key. But one of the areas, I don't want to lose

sight of probably one of the most important maybe the most

important way that we impact the economy, and that's through

preparing the next generation of workforce. We're going to

graduate in six or 7000 more students this year, and every

year looking forward, I hope and those to the extent we're

training students with skills that employers want that have

that are work ready as soon as they graduate and can move into

positions and start to contribute to those companies.

That's a massive economic contribution that the University

of Arkansas and other institutions around our state

make to the economy. So I want to make sure that many of those

students as we can have job opportunities in Arkansas. And

that we can keep as many of them as we can in Arkansas, because

that that really, we we train them, we get the benefit of them

being here while they're in school. But the more that we can

put to work and connect in an Arkansas based companies, the

better because that that workforce transfer is really a

massive way that we impact the economy.

Well, Mike, thank you for what you're doing here

for the University of Arkansas, we really appreciate it. And, of

course, it's not only a benefit to the University of Arkansas,

it's a benefit to the state, as well. And your background really

prepares you exceptionally well for this type of a role. So

thank you.

Well, Matt. Thank you. It's a real pleasure to

work with you and the Walton College and the partnerships

around campus are what makes this work and what makes it such

a great place to be in so thank you for the opportunity and for

the time today.

On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of

Business, I want to thank everyone for spending time with

us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe

by going to your favorite podcast service and searching Be