The Volunteer Roadmap

When Steam was exploding with growth, they could have set up anywhere. Instead, they took a downtown building that had sat vacant for decades and turned it into a four-story hub, bringing more foot traffic to the local businesses around them. They strengthened the community and tapped into Chattanooga's biggest hidden asset at the same time: its location. In this episode I'm sitting down with Joe...

The greatest predictor of poor health in America isn't genetics or lifestyle… It's poverty. And what causes poverty? Two things: lack of jobs and lack of education. Which means the conversation we should be having about healthcare in Tennessee isn't just about doctors and hospitals - it's about how we create good jobs, especially in our rural communities. In this episode I'm sitting down with Dr....

What happens when your population increases by over 30% in 10 years and the median home price is over $900,000? It sounds like a success story (and it is), but at the same time the teachers, first responders, and entry-level workers who keep this community running can't afford to live where they work. In this episode I'm discussing the housing challenges that come with being Tennessee's biggest su...

Most people think Tennessee's entertainment industry is just Nashville honky-tonks and country music. It's actually an $8 billion business keeping your taxes low. Bob Raines runs the Tennessee Entertainment Commission - the state agency that oversees film, TV, and music. The industry he manages generates $8 billion in economic activity across Tennessee, which brings over $400 million in tax revenu...

Ten years ago, Lawrence County was on Tennessee's distressed counties list. Today, they're one of the most exciting areas in the state. New investment coming in every month, 1,500 jobs added since 2020, and downtown is filled with restaurants, retailers, and Airbnbs. So… what changed? They started seeing their limitations as opportunities. Ryan Egly is the President & CEO of the Lawrence Count...

Cleveland is thriving. New restaurants, full parking lots, major development happening everywhere. But six years ago, the city was operating with 65% variable debt - which meant they couldn't predict their budget, couldn't plan accurately, and couldn't attract the kind of investment they needed. The first thing Mayor Kevin Brooks did? The unsexy work. He got Cleveland's debt under control (from 65...

If Knoxville only had football, they'd have 7 weekends of revenue per year. Instead, Visit Knoxville generated $2 billion in economic impact by building the infrastructure, bringing in events like the Bassmaster Classic and concerts at Neyland Stadium, and promoting the city's restaurants, arts scene, and outdoor spaces. In this episode, Kim Bumpas (President of Visit Knoxville) shares: Why being...

You don’t get better at sports by playing people you can already beat, and you don’t grow as a leader by staying in rooms where you’re always comfortable. Some of the most important turning points in my life came from being challenged by people who were smarter than me, realizing I still had blind spots, and hearing perspectives I didn’t expect. In fact, I spent most of my career telling people wh...

When Tennessee started winning at football, hotels in Knoxville went from $150/night to $800/night on game weekends. The university got 800 new student applications after they beat Alabama. Downtown restaurants set sales records.  The Volunteer Club (Tennessee's NIL collective) was created when college athletes started getting paid - a change some people loved and others hated. But Hunter Baddour...

New bars and restaurants might be sexy, but what's really sexy are the businesses that hold history within their walls. Gary Meadows is the 4th owner of Wally's, which opened in 1937 and is now the oldest restaurant in Chattanooga. It's a meat-and-three where people from all walks of life come together, business deals happen over cobbler, and they know you by your face even if they don't know your...

Rural counties across Tennessee look at the big cities and ask: "Why can't we have that?" Alex Green from Rhea County Economic Development used to ask the same thing.  He was jealous of West Tennessee's Blue Oval plant, but then he realized he was chasing the wrong opportunity. Rural counties can't win by copying urban playbooks. They can't compete on scale. But Rhea County has something other pla...

The downtown square is packed on First Friday. The annual festival brought in a record number of tourists. New businesses keep opening.  By every metric, downtown is thriving. But somehow... half of the businesses close within 18 months? Most small Tennessee towns are focused on getting people downtown, but Fayetteville Main Street stopped asking "How do we get more people downtown?" and started a...

Most business advice assumes you're operating in a market of millions. But when your entire customer base is 15,000 people, that advice falls flat. What works in Nashville won't work in Elizabethton. What works in Memphis won't work in Cookeville. So where do you find strategies that actually work for your Tennessee community? From the leaders who've already cracked the code. In each episode, I vi...