Solutions Summit 2026 brings leaders, experts, and problem-solvers together to work on what comes next

0:00I'm done carrying around bulky drinks, and I'm definitely done cleaning melted candy out of my pockets. So yeah, I traded them both in for fruity rainbow 5 hour energy shots. These little guys are as pocket sized as any candy. But instead of a sugar crash, you get a zero sugar caffeine boost. Candy can't even compare at this point. Fruity rainbow 5 hour energy shots treat your taste buds to an explosion of fruity flavor. To the tasty caffeine kick. That's right, caffeine just got a flavor upgrade. And it's not just one flavor. Five hour energy shots bring you tasty caffeine and 17 flavors, 17. So if you're craving that candy flavored chaos, but actually want energy that works, grab fruity rainbow 5 hour energy shots, pocket sized, zero sugar, big flavor, available now at 5hourenergy.com or on Amazon. If you or a family member have been diagnosed with early-stage, non-small cell lung cancer

1:03that can be removed by surgery, consider talking to an oncologist about your treatment options. Why? Because knowing your options before you have surgery can help your care team develop a treatment plan that's right for you. Learn about a potential treatment plan before and after surgery at askbeforesurgery.com. That's askbeforesurgery.com and talk to an oncologist before your surgery. Breaking news from Good Ranchers over 85% of grass-fed beef and stores is imported. Most grocery store meat contains antibiotics, hormones, and harmful seed oils. Good Ranchers does things differently. All their meat is born and raised on local American farms. No antibiotics, no added hormones, no seed oils. Just one ingredient. Meat. Visit GoodRanchers.com and get $25 off your first order with Code Ranch 25. That's Code Ranch 25 for $25 off your first order. GoodRanchers.com, American Meat Delivered. Welcome back folks. We are joined by some folks in our NOLA Coalition segment.

2:04You've heard me say this before. I truly enjoy this segment because we get to meet different makers in our community. People that give a damn, that are given back to our community, the place that we call home, to make it a better place and it's amazing some of the work that's being done and I truly enjoy exposing this to all of our listening audience so that everyone has a better understanding of how many people really do care and want to be different makers in our community and we're a bless that we have so many. And today is no different. We have Chad Perry, a president of Universal Data Incorporated in Anna Urban who's the administrative specialist there at Universal Data Incorporated. Folks, welcome to the show. Hey, no, thanks for having us. Thank you for having us. So Chad, let's start with you if you would describe Universal Data Incorporated, what you guys do, what y'all are about and then we'll jump into the program. Yeah, so Universal Data is a local technology service provider.

3:06We've been in business for over 40 years. Our main goal is just helping companies leverage technology, the way that it's supposed to be. They're organizations to see fit that way they can use it to a competitive advantage for them. So as you know, technology is spreading it to all different parts of your business that touches almost everything. So making sure organizations know how they can use it and how they can leverage it and making sure it's properly leveraged. And that's not always easy, is it? We hear the words sometimes and it's like, oh, yeah, we can, no, it's not that simple. Yes, yeah, we're the magicians behind the curtain sometimes. Absolutely. And Anna, if you would, what is your role at Universal Data Incorporated? So I've been at EDI for about five years now. I'm an administrative specialist. So some of my tasks include collecting our accounts receivable payments.

4:09I work on our software and hardware renewals. And I also help Chad with some HR initiatives such as this program and helping onboard and make our interns feel comfortable. She's kind of just driving forth behind some of this internship program that we had. Many of the things that we're doing, we couldn't do without some of the things that she has on the back end is making sure we're set up properly there. The interns that we bring in are set up for success. So she makes things happen. So Chad, if you would, describe your philosophy, what brought you to the table to involve yourself with the Greater New Orleans Innovation Internship Program. So part of the internship program for innovation ink was, you know, ink as a whole. So if I can just be a cheerleader for them for a second, they're doing, and this is part of why you have this segment on, is they're doing some amazing things to help drive

5:09in our region forward. This internship program is just one of those things that goes beyond traditional economic development and they're fostering an ecosystem of success for our region. So workforce development in this piece is a big piece of that engine. And what they've been able to do in this program successfully is find, it's foster connection between the business community and our workforce and possibly even future business owners where they can help people get their career started or get a better understanding of what they want to do with their career. So universal data does technology work and I can speak to this first hand is my education and construction management. So I'm a far away away from where I've been. And so by allowing some of these young professionals to get hands on experience, it gets them to feel for what they'd like to do, what they don't like to do. One of the other things that GNOA has been successful in doing is identifying and screening

6:16people that want to better themselves, not just have a job, but have a career and are willing to put the work to put themselves in position to build a career. So if you can, if we're bringing people in this door that have the intent to want to be the best of themselves and not just look for an eight to five job, you're really getting a mutual connection with those. And that's, I guess, me, Brian and Janine, for a second, what kind of started us with an internship program as a whole is to make sure that we're part of the solution first and foremost. So many years ago, we were identifying kind of two things in our area and this is the text base specifically. Is that when we were speaking with students and people in these universities, I was hearing far too often that they were needing to go to work for some of these large, established tech giants, the Amazon's, the ghouls of the worlds in order to make a living. They weren't aware and I don't think the business community was doing a good job of educating

7:19them on the many unique opportunities that we have right here in the city and even in the state that they're allowed to provide a good living for them and their families. And also that they can stay here. If they want to stay here, they have a lot of opportunities to make a living, make a good living, not just get by but to provide for their families by staying here, by connecting with some of these people. The other piece of that is that they weren't aware of those different, you know, these type of companies that we have here. So the companies that we have, they were finding it hard to get put in the door. They were finding it hard to get experience. And so some of the organizations say we need two, three years of experience and you're finding it hard to often individuals not to think that's still a problem a day where they can't get that experience needed to take them next step. So by us developing an internship program or even an early career learning path, that

8:21allowed us to kind of start to help and do our small part in helping the next generation of our workforce get in there. So at the end of the day, it's just doing finding ways that we can be a part of the solution for our city and our region. Yeah, I mean, I loved when people tell those stories where there's these little nuances that we're not connecting the dots, right? But when you talk about this early career work path, you got this catch 22 situation going on. You can't get on with some of these small to medium size company because they have a desire to have some with three to five years experience. So you're almost compelled to go somewhere else and then come back and that could be a major disruption in your life as opposed to doing what you all are doing with this internship program, exposing folks and then what I really like, Chad, that you mentioned, and this is the first time someone mentioned it, is that GNO Inc is actually doing a lot of the

9:25legwork on the front end to make sure that you're getting the right people that are there for the right reasons because you don't want to waste your time and money and you don't want to waste their time. You want this to be the best outcome for every minute of every day that they spend with you. It seems like this really is choreographed to be an incredible path to success. I love the way that you outlined it. I'm done carrying around bulky drinks and I'm definitely done cleaning melted candy out of my pockets. So yeah, I traded them both in for fruity rainbow five hour energy shots. These little guys are as pocket sized as any candy. But instead of a sugar crash, you get a zero sugar caffeine boost. Candy can't even compare at this point. Fruity rainbow five hour energy shots treat your taste buds to an explosion of fruity flavor with a tasty caffeine kick.

10:28That's right, caffeine just got a flavor upgrade and it's not just one flavor, five hour energy shots bring you tasty caffeine and 17 flavors, 17. No if you're craving that candy flavored chaos, but actually want energy that works. Grab fruity rainbow five hour energy shots, pocket sized zero sugar, big flavor, available now at fivehourenergy.com or on Amazon. Have you or a family member been diagnosed with early stage non-small cell lung cancer that can be removed by surgery? Consider talking to an oncologist about your treatment options. Why? Because knowing your options before you have surgery can help your care team develop a treatment plan that's right for you. Learn about a potential treatment plan before and after surgery at askbeforesurgery.com. That's askbeforesurgery.com and talk to an oncologist before your surgery. Attention fans of jury duty. The groundbreaking comedy series is back for season two.

11:31Featuring an all new cast, this installment takes the comedy out of the courthouse and into the mountains above Malibu for an annual company retreat. The catch? Everyone but the new guy is an actor. Oh yeah, and the company is fake. Get to know all the employees of Rock and Graham's Hot Sauce, a family business with everything on the line. Season two arrives with bigger laughs, higher stakes, and the same heart that made the first season a cultural phenomenon. And here's the fun part. You'll be able to try all four flavors of Rock and Graham's Hot Sauce on Amazon. jury duty presents company retreat is now streaming on prime video. Don't miss the feel good comedy everyone's going to be talking about. We appreciate that. Yeah, we've done this for many years and we've seen if it's not the right individuals paired with the right organizations who have a mutual goal in mind, it's basically wasting

12:32that person's summer or that person's waste in your summer in the in the case that we have where they're not eager to put forth the work needed. They're not eager to learn and not just hearing but understanding what's happening and bettering themselves. So I and I tell all of our staff, you know, if you want a job, this isn't the place if you want a career. Let's work together. Yeah. Chad, either you or Anna, share with us some stories about some of your interns and, you know, maybe some that have really influenced your organization in a very positive way and vice versa. So as I was saying, we've done this for many years. We've learned kind of what works and what doesn't work for us. So our approach has changed over the years that we've created some of the. We've interviewed the individual to understand what their strengths are, what their interests

13:33are, and what their previous studies are that way we can build a project, a summer project where they are putting those skills, those learned skills to use where they're putting their strengths to use and where identifying a business need that we have that can leverage those skills to the better, betterment of our use. So I'll give you two examples is one and this was about two and a half years going our world AI is, you know, it's almost all people talk about now. So about two years, that's when the whisper of AI was coming about and the individual that we had was interested in learning more about that AI and the automation process. So we paired her with a couple of our automation professionals to create some AI driven processes. And so through that work, she was able to deliver real world real time AI automation processes into our organization, which we still use today through that internship program.

14:34And she had done the initial internship program with six weeks. She had done such a great job that we extended the things to entire summer. And then we were even able to help, she went back to LSU for college, but we were even able to help her get a placement in their data center. And I'm happy to say that we still stay in touch at Tom and Tom and she's planning to graduate this coming May. Another one was which was last summer, which was an individual out of a dealer university. She was more focused on data science and analysis. So we created a data mining project for her where she can put some of the skills that she had to use. And some of the skills that she learned that the dealer had not yet taught her, she was able to learn those things and create some information that we were able to make decisions on based on that. We too extended her internship program. And some of the things that she then were about to take next semester at Gillard, she

15:37was already ahead of the curve on that. And then to just add on to Chad's points outside of the project works that we give them, we found that just having them immersed into a professional setting, which a lot of these interns haven't had experience with before, allows them to teach or we teach them soft skills that they can take along with them for the rest of their lives. So everyday things we may take for granted such as communication, working within a team environment and properly preparing for the day ahead. We help I guess teach and allow them to experience that in the professional setting and allow them to take those skills that they've learned with them for their future careers. Yeah, it's just learning to be a professional. The universities can teach us a lot, but if we can help teach them how to be professionals, how to work on a team, how to communicate within that team.

16:40Most of they stay in tech, regardless if they work for us or work for another organization, these are lifelong skills that they can take with them. Only that, allowing them to, I guess, network with other professionals can sometimes be valuable in their future. Revisiting with Chad Perry and Anna Urban with Universal Data Incorporated, talking about their experience with the Greater New Orleans Innovation Internship Program. We hear that a lot about soft skills. It's interesting when you have folks that come in, no experience, lacking in soft skills, I would imagine for lack of a better term that the fail rate or the lack of success there in being able to adapt to the culture of your organization, the success rate is probably not very high, right? Yeah, if they don't have those skills, it's going to be tough to become a part of the team.

17:42Now, there's things that we do to help introduce and kind of get them immersed into it. And some of it can be taught, some of it's a learned skill that they're just getting a feel for and some of it's getting some of the intimidation out of the way with them. Being in a professional environment can be intimidating at times, but if we get, if we can foster that type of environment, they can start to see, hey, this is how professionals act. It's okay for me to start to ask questions to my peers. It's okay to say, I don't know, but let me find out the answer out. What has been something that has surprised you the most, either Chad or Anna? One of the features bright with these students and these incoming interns. After our first year with this internship, I was personally thoroughly impressed with the curriculum being taught and the quality of students that have enrolled into these programs.

18:45They come in, they're extremely motivated, and self-driven to make the most of their opportunity within this internship program, and it's just great to see how quickly they're able to catch on and become a part of the team. Yeah, so the first year that Jan Owing did this, they paired us with two students from Zayn University. And that was our first experience with students from Zayn at the time, and these two young professionals I'll call them were extremely bright, extremely motivated, and their internship with us only lasted six weeks, because they both had a second internship lined up at the latter part of the summer, one went to Google and one went to Microsoft, and that speaks volumes right there for kind of just the types of courses, some of the local universities are teaching, and some of the skills that these young professionals have in our entering the workforce with. Yeah, you know, go ahead, I'm sorry.

19:48I was going to say that, that's kind of what's, to me, the most exciting part is not what they're doing with us, not what they're doing in those eight to 12 weeks, because there's only so much that we can get done with them, but it's a year or two years later after they enter the workforce, and they've been in the workforce to see what they're able to do. In some cases, they come back here in work, which is amazing, but if they don't come back here, I'm following and I'm keeping in touch with some of these individuals, and they're doing some pretty cool things. Some of them even start in their own type of venture, which for us to be a part of that story is great. Yeah. Chad, I got to imagine your peers when you talk to them, I mean, what you're articulating here today is, you know, that you have no reservations about doing this, about engaging in this way. Experiential learning to me, I think, is incredibly important for these young kids. They get a better appreciation of what the expectations are of

20:49company owners and how to best fulfill and live up to the expectations, and you know, once you've done it once or twice, you got a better feel, you develop, you know, a lot of confidence in what you're able to do, and if you have some self-esteem, challenges going on, it's a lot easier to overcome when you've had those early on successes, and someone that's willing to spend a time with you. Yeah. Yeah. Part of what, you know, some of our peers have asked, you know, how are you doing this, you know, to help explain to them, and part of us just doing something. If we fill in the sidelines and don't do anything, we're not being part of that solution. Right. And what we preach to the interns, what we preach to the staff here is at that communication piece. That first year, we didn't, we did a lot of things wrong. But as we're communicating with the intern, not understanding where you're getting value, where you're seeing benefits, what's helping you and what you want out of your future career, we learn things ourselves. So it's about

21:50getting better each and every day, us as an organization, us as individuals, and if we keep that mindset out, we try not to be scared to fail. And if you do, just don't make those same mistakes again. Well, we are very fortunate that we have folks like you that want to make a difference in our community, the place that we call home Chad Perry, Anna Urban, with universal data incorporated. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing the story. We really appreciate it and best of luck to you. Thank you all. We'll be right back folks. 504-260-1870. And when we return, we'll speak with Daniel Erspammer, CEO and economist with the Pelican Institute. Stay with us. I'm done carrying around bulky drinks. And I'm definitely done cleaning melted candy out of my pockets. So yeah, I traded them both in for fruity rainbow five hour energy shots. These little guys are as pocket-sized as any candy. But instead of a sugar crash,

22:50you get a zero sugar caffeine boost. Candy can't even compare at this point. Fruity rainbow five hour energy shots treat your taste buds to an explosion of fruity flavor, with a tasty caffeine kick. That's right. Caffeine just got a flavor upgrade. And it's not just one flavor. Five hour energy shots bring you tasty caffeine and 17 flavors. 17. So if you're craving that candy flavored chaos, but actually want energy that works, grab fruity rainbow five hour energy shots. Pocket-sized zero sugar big flavor. Available now at fivehourenergy.com or on Amazon. Have you or a family member been diagnosed with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer that can be removed by surgery? Consider talking to an oncologist about your treatment options. Why? Because knowing your options before you have surgery can help your care team develop a treatment plan that's right for you. Learn about a potential treatment plan before and after surgery at

23:54askbeforesurgery.com. That's askbeforesurgery.com. And talk to an oncologist before your surgery. Attention fans of jury duty. The groundbreaking comedy series is back for season two. Featuring an all-new cast, this installment takes the comedy out of the courthouse and into the mountains above Malibu for an annual company retreat. The catch? Everyone but the new guy is an actor. Oh yeah, and the company is fake. Get to know all the employees of rock and grandma's hot sauce, a family business with everything on the line. Season two arrives with bigger laughs, higher stakes, and the same heart that made the first season a cultural phenomenon. And here's the fun part. You'll be able to try all four flavors of rock and grandma's hot sauce on Amazon. Jury duty presents company retreat is now streaming on prime video. Don't miss the feel good comedy everyone's going to be talking about. Real skin results start with one daily ritual.

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