Manic Energy Podcast

How APEX Is Putting Northeast Minnesota on the Global Map w/ Rachel Johnson

What if the secret ingredient to growing an entire regional economy wasn't a policy or a tax incentive — but a person? A curious, quietly relentless human who just keeps showing up, connecting dots, and refusing to let northeast Minnesota be a flyover? That's the energy Rachel Johnson brings to her role as President and CEO of APEX — and this conversation left me genuinely fired up about what's possible right here in our backyard. Rachel's path is anything but linear. Raised on the North Shore by environmentalist teachers in a passive solar house, she went from shy kindergartner to transmission analyst, chamber membership director, real estate developer, pipeline crossing coordinator, and PR lead — before landing as the third CEO in APEX's 23-year history. The thread running through all of it? Pure curiosity, and a willingness to throw herself in before she has all the answers. What We Get Into: Why diversifying the regional economy means connecting industries most people never think to link — like helium mining and MRI machines How film production is actually manufacturing — and why that reframe changes everything about workforce, investment, and incentives What it's really like to walk into a state capitol hearing on behalf of businesses who don't have time to be there The trade mission to Switzerland and Germany — and the sustainable aviation fuel deal being built between a German company and a northeast Minnesota timber producer Why APEX is now linking arms with economic development orgs across the entire state to pitch Minnesota as one unified economy Favorite Quotes: "If you have concerns about something, get involved — so you can see what's actually going on, and put your purpose into making sure it gets done right." "Things are grown or they're mined. We just don't think about that when we pick up our iPhones." "We're not trying to recruit a thousand-person company. We have a history of being makers, builders, and good stewards of our land." Chapter Markers:  00:00 — The kid who barely talked becomes the connector  02:57 — Passive solar, pine trees, and a non-linear career  07:08 — Real estate, Enbridge, and the full circle of energy  16:46 — What APEX actually does  26:00 — Robots, film studios, and the industries nobody expects  36:45 — Inside a state capitol hearing  41:31 — Trade missions and linking arms statewide Your Turn: Where are you staying on the sidelines of something — because you don't feel ready, or it doesn't fit how you see yourself? What would it look like to just show up anyway? About Rachel Johnson & APEX Rachel Johnson is the President & CEO of APEX — the Area Partnership for Economic Expansion — a private sector-led economic development organization serving northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin.  Since 2003, APEX has impacted over 4,340 jobs in the region and contributed to over $24.5 million annually in state and local taxes. Rachel leads the charge on business attraction, regional advocacy, and connecting the people and industries that make the Northland grow. LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/apex-area-partnership-for-economic-expansion] Learn more at https://apexgetsbusiness.com/ Links & Mentions: Lake Superior Consulting – https://www.lsconsulting.com/ [https://www.lsconsulting.com/]   🔥 If this episode sparked something for you, please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with a friend MB01BPBLPC7FNES

Resilience, Not Dependency: A CEO-to-CEO Conversation on People, Culture, and Growth

What makes a company truly healthy, the balance sheet, the products, or the people inside it? I've been asking myself that question a lot lately, and this conversation cracked something open for me. I'll be honest, Derek and I barely knew each other before this. We'd bumped into each other a few times at holiday parties through my partner Anne Lang at Lake Superior Consulting. But one pre-show call turned into an hour and a half of, "wait, you deal with that too?" That's the kind of conversation that reminds you why expanding your circle outside your own industry matters. Derek is the CEO of CuraLinc, one of the largest Employee Assistance Programs in the United States, serving 22 million people across 200 countries with a team of 700 and a network of 90,000 mental health professionals. What makes them different isn't just scale. It's that when you call CuraLinc, a licensed clinical therapist answers the phone in nine seconds. We went deep on mental health, leadership, performance, empathy, and the thing no one really talks about: how much of the performance problems in your company might actually be yours. Key Themes + Takeaways Mental health lives on a spectrum. Life stressors build into mental health challenges which can evolve into diagnosable illness.  Answering the phone in nine seconds isn't just a metric, it's a philosophy. When 20% of your callers are in some form of crisis, you can't afford to route the "easy" calls first.  Resiliency, not dependency. One of the things Derek said that stayed with me: we're starting to create mental illness out of life stressors instead of building resiliency.  Low performance is almost never incompetence. When I hear that framed so cleanly, it's disarming.  The fish stinks from the head down. The challenges showing up in your organization are often reflections of you as a leader, your priorities, your behaviors, your blind spots.  Empathy for the individual, accountability to the collective. This is the real tension. Being too compassionate to one person can quietly hurt the entire team.  Stop chasing margins, start chasing value. Whether you're selling EAP services or energy consulting, the revenue you command should reflect the value you create, not your cost structure. Our Favorite Quotes "It's almost never incompetence. It's almost always misalignment." "Your job is to have empathy for the individual and manage the performance of the collective." "We're creating mental illness out of life stressors instead of resiliency." "When somebody starts to underperform, I'm maniacally myopic — I have my top five and that's all I'm working on." "The fish stinks from the head down. The challenges in your organization are often a reflection of you as a leader." Chapter Markers 00:00 — What Makes a Healthy Company? 07:10 — What CuraLinc Does (And Why Nine Seconds Changes Everything) 11:00 — Life Stressors, Resiliency, and Getting People the Right Care 18:28 — The Hulk Story: When Derek Got the Feedback He Needed 24:30 — How to Lead Through Performance Problems Without Losing the Human 36:00 — The Mirror Moment: When the Problem Is You 43:40 — Innovation, EBITDA, and Why Value Is Not Your Cost Structure Your Turn This week's reflection: Where are you addressing the symptom instead of the problem — with your team, in your business, or with yourself? Links & Mentions: Lake Superior Consulting – https://www.lsconsulting.com/ [https://www.lsconsulting.com/]   🔥 If this episode sparked something for you, please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with a friend MB01N2FPFSRRSCG

Insights on Leadership Through Program Management w/ Josh Krick

What if the real measure of success isn't revenue, contracts, or headcount but whether the people on your team get to come home as themselves? That's the question at the heart of this conversation. And honestly, it's one that hit me harder than I expected. I'm sitting down with Josh Krick, Program Manager for Lake Superior Consulting's utility locating department and we're recording this on his birthday. That felt appropriate, because this episode is really about growth: what it takes, what it costs, and what it looks like when it finally starts working. Josh came into this role as a veteran of an industry that, frankly, has a habit of treating people like numbers. He'd seen the revolving door, the burnout, the "if they don't work out, just get new ones" mentality. And when he landed here, he saw something different or at least, the possibility of something different. What followed was a few years of scrappy, sometimes painful, always honest work to figure out what a people-first locating department could actually look like. We got into it all, the hard early days, the metrics that exposed where we were falling short, the structural changes that turned things around, and the moment a spouse at a holiday party said something that made the whole journey click into place. Key Themes + Takeaways Culture isn't a poster on the wall — it's whether your people come home as themselves. Seasonal and temporary staffing sends a message whether you mean it to or not. You can't lead 20 people alone. Lean into the losses. Psychological safety isn't soft — it's operational. Promotion bias is real — and it cuts both ways. The goal isn't more contracts. It's more opportunities for your people. Our Favorite Quotes "What better way to figure out what does work than to understand what doesn't work?" "These are people with families and kids and aspirations. They're people who you were before you got into your role." "Let's celebrate the wins. But let's lean into the losses — because that's where you find the most you can take out of that when it comes to learning." "The ones that really get it are the ones who go out there and say, 'Hey, this is what was messed up. That's my bad.' What did you learn? Awesome. You get it." "The more opportunities I can generate for our employees to make a difference — that's success now." Chapter Markers 0:00 — Welcome to the Chaos (and Happy Birthday, Josh) 1:37 — From Ohio to Minnesota: How Josh Ended Up Here 8:16 — The Origin Story: Why LSC Got Into Utility Locating 11:15 — What Josh Saw When He Walked In the Door 17:40 — The Holiday Party Moment That Changed Everything 26:49 — The Metrics That Tell the Truth 30:03 — Building the Structure: Leads, Supervisors, Auditors, Trainers 35:39 — Tripling Overnight: The Recent Growth Push 39:32 — The Bias We Don't Know We Have 43:59 — What Success Actually Looks Like Now Your Turn Think about someone on your team — or in your life — who you've mentally written off, or quietly decided "isn't ready." What would it look like to flip the script and ask: what would it take to get them there? And are you willing to make good on that commitment? Links & Mentions: Lake Superior Consulting – https://www.lsconsulting.com/ [https://www.lsconsulting.com/]   🔥 If this episode sparked something for you, please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with a friend MB01JWK7ZBSII8R

Invisible Work, Real Impact: Life as a Cathodic Protection Tech

What happens when you spend 28 years in one place… and then finally decide you’re not done living? Today’s episode is about getting unstuck—by choosing discomfort on purpose. I’m joined by Rob Jonasen, a cathodic protection technician at Lake Superior Consulting—and honestly, this conversation hit close to home because Rob’s role is one of the first roles I ever started in. Rob’s a Duluth–Superior guy through and through. He started working at 19, stayed in the steel mill for 28 years, raised six kids, and did what a lot of people do: kept grinding, kept providing, and tried to make it all work. But at some point, “books were enough” became “books aren’t enough anymore.” And that’s where his story starts to really move. Key Themes + Takeaways Rob talks about looking back and realizing how quickly decades disappear—especially once you become a parent. When overtime disappeared, it hit hard. When it came back, he clung to it—16-hour shifts, ten days off in five months—until he knew something had to change. Rob didn’t want trucking because he loved trucks—he wanted the world. LSC gave him travel, autonomy, and a new kind of pride. Cathodic protection is invisible until you know what you’re looking for—then you see line markers, rectifiers, right-of-ways everywhere. Sometimes it starts with one comment, one annoyance, one “there has to be a better way”—and Rob’s the kind of mind that turns that into a real tool. Rob’s advice is simple and earned: build your internal values, be on time, be honest, and do work you can feel good about. Our Favorite Quotes “I worked in the steel mill for 28 years… and the time just flies by so fast.” “I was working 16 hours straight for like five months. I had ten days off in five months.” “I reached a certain age in my life where books weren’t enough.” “To go into cathodic protection, you have to be a little smart and a lot crazy.” “You should get in over your head sometimes… and then when you do it, you grow.” Chapter Markers 00:00 — Meet Rob: 28 years in the steel mill, and a pivot coming 03:25 — The overtime years: when work stops feeling like life 05:24 — The roof day that turned into a career conversation 09:58 — Freedom on the road: standards, responsibility, and autonomy 13:05 — “What did I get myself into?” + the tech that made him light up 13:46 — The septic wire story: using DCVG thinking in real life (and digging 9 feet 😅) 21:18 — Innovation culture: making better tools, contagious pride, and peer impact 27:57 — Rob’s career advice: values, honesty, reliability, and self-respect 36:40 — The googly eyes: why a little ridiculousness matters Your Turn This week’s check-in: Where in your life are you tolerating “stuck” because it feels familiar—and what’s one uncomfortable step that might actually set you free? Links & Mentions: Lake Superior Consulting – https://www.lsconsulting.com/ [https://www.lsconsulting.com/]   🔥 If this episode sparked something for you, please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with a friend MB01C4PXQP25YEF

Twin Time: Ally Johnston & Taylor Scherz on Engineering, Leadership, and Life

What happens when two identical twins grow up to become powerhouse women in engineering, leadership, and motherhood… and still need regular “twin time” to keep the world spinning right? This episode is fun on the surface, but underneath the laughs, it’s really about identity, ambition, family, and what it means to grow alongside someone who has known you literally your entire life. In this episode, Katie and I sat down with Ally Johnston & Taylor Scherz—identical twins, industrial engineers, leaders in their respective fields, and two people who somehow manage to be both wildly similar and completely their own people. Taylor and I work together at Lake Superior Consulting, and I’ve had enough accidental public encounters with Ally over the years to know firsthand that being around twins can be both confusing and hilarious. But what made this conversation so good wasn’t just the novelty of identical twins. It was getting to hear how they’ve built lives that are deeply connected without being interchangeable. We talked about growing up competitive and inseparable, sharing clothes, switching places in school, choosing the same degree, studying abroad together, and eventually building careers in male-dominated industries. We also got into leadership, AI, consulting, manufacturing, motherhood, and the kind of sibling bond that doesn’t go away just because life gets busy. There’s a lot of humor in this one, but there’s also something really grounding about hearing two people talk honestly about individuality, support, and the value of having someone in your corner who just gets you. Key Themes + Takeaways Growing up as twins meant always having a built-in best friend, but also needing space to become individuals. Ally and Taylor’s careers show how flexible and powerful an industrial engineering background can be. Leadership in engineering and operations is still evolving, and both of them bring a steady, practical confidence to male-dominated spaces. AI isn’t replacing thoughtful leaders anytime soon, but it is creating huge opportunities for efficiency, better systems, and smarter work. Family support looks different for everyone, but having someone who deeply understands you can be a massive anchor in work and life. Our Favorite Quotes “Twins take it to a whole new level.” “The joke in school is mechanical engineers make things. Industrial engineers make things better.” “We need twin time.” “If you can’t tell us apart, it’s entertaining.” “Make sure they get a little bit of that individuality, because they will be lumped together forever.” Chapter Markers 00:00 Welcome to the chaos 00:38 Who’s older by one minute? 02:05 Growing up competitive, close, and very twin-like 13:26 What industrial engineering actually is 17:02 From manufacturing floors to consulting leadership 26:24 AI, process improvement, and the future of work 44:20 The myths and misunderstandings of being twins 48:13 Why “twin time” still matters 49:03 Advice for parents raising twins Your Turn This week’s check-in: Where in your life are you being invited to become more fully yourself—without losing connection to the people who know you best? And maybe a second one too: Who feels like home to you in the middle of all the chaos? Links & Mentions: Lake Superior Consulting – https://www.lsconsulting.com/ [https://www.lsconsulting.com/]   🔥 If this episode sparked something for you, please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with a friend! MB01D0KFK9FUJZC