MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
Welcome to the MISSION Story Slam podcast brought to you by PWPvideo. I'm Michael Schweisheimer
the executive producer at PWPvideo. And MISSION Story Slam. Our producer is Dave Winston. MISSION Story Slam grew out of a conversation between Dave and I, about how we could give back to our friends and the do gooder community and have fun in a sustainable way.
Members of the Philly regions do gooder community of people from nonprofits, B corporations, triple bottom line companies and activists gathered Yards Brewing at fifth and Spring Garden. We pick the names of 10 volunteers out of a hat and they compete to tell the best five minute story on a theme in front of a panel of judges for a $250 donation to their favorite nonprofit.
Their stories are videotaped for sharing on social media and with friends and supporters. This podcast is about the story behind those stories. What motivates someone to tell a story in front of an audience? How do they choose a story they're going to tell and what was the experience like? And we get to learn about the storytellers themselves.
Before we get to today's guest a reminder that the next story slam is coming up on September 25th. And it's a partnership with Philadelphia's Committee of 70 and their draw, the lines, Pennsylvania initiative, Drawthelinespa.org is a statewide civic education and engagement campaign. The aim is to inspire ordinary people, to reclaim the political redistricting process and end gerrymandering.
The theme for this story slam is saving democracy. So if you have a story or maybe a plan for saving our democracy, come and put your name in the hat on September 25th at Yards Brewing for a chance to win $250 for your favorite charity details and ticket information are available on website MISSIONStorySlam.org.
And if you go to MISSIONStorySlam.org, you can also see the stories that were told at our last story. Slam. Where the theme was that moment. One of the best stories that night was told by our guests, Charlie Szoradi. Charlie is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Independence, L E D lighting, LLC.
He is also founder of Green and Save LLC and has been working for decades on sustainable living and cost savings for property design and remodeling. Charlie's also the author of Learn From Looking: How Observation inspires innovation. Welcome to the MISSION Story Slam Podcast. Charlie
CHARLES SZORADI: Michael, thank you for having me.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
So let's listen to the setup for your story.
[AUDIO FROM CHARLIE’S STORY FROM MISSION STORY SLAM]
Thank you. My name is Charlie Szoradi, and I'm here to tell you the story of the moment of inspiration for the 501C3 First Light Project. Wind the clock back to 2012. Imagine in west, imagine a hospital. Imagine the rooms that are lit and imagine some of the rooms that are not. Imagine a child sitting in the dark waiting to see a doctor.
And if you'll indulge me and close your eyes, imagine the fear going through the body of a young boy that doesn't know what to expect and doesn't know what to feel and how to even articulate what may be going through his mind. So thank you for that and open your eyes and imagine how the lights are on
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
Every time I listen to that story, as soon as you ask me to close my eyes, I'm, I'm immediately emotionally impacted.And then you asked me to imagine the fear and it hits me right in the solar plexus. Did, did you plan to ask us to close our eyes?
CHARLES SZORADI:
I didn't. I was sitting there, uh, thinking as some of the other, uh, speakers were going that, you know, making something resonate personally would tie the story to their lives.
And having grown up, you know, in a world that often had illumination it, uh, it hit me thinking of these, uh, these kids, you know, in The Gambia, without the ability. To have the things that we grew up with and kind of took for granted.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
So is I'm curious if that's a storytelling technique that you've used before.
CHARLES SZORADI:
You know, it's one of those things where I think it goes back to authors that have told stories, you know, it's, children's stories and adult stories. If you can put yourself in the position of someone else and walk in those shoes, it starts to, uh, build a foundation for then what is the point of the story, which is we can do some things to help people and make it, make it real from the very beginning.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
By the way I don't want to. belabor the closing of the eyes, but there's, uh, I kinda love that there's a certain irony in that being the device that you used. And you're the author of Learn From Looking: How Observation inspires innovation
CHARLES SZORADI:
that's right. It's good to keep your eyes open.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
So I think that was a really powerful way to set up the problem.
And then I really liked the way that you sort of sped up the exposition on the situation where the hospital CEO had wanted you to fund solar panels to help keep the hospital lit. For me, it's very relatable about the fact. That expense for the solar panels for hospitals, more than one person could bear on their own.
So I want to play the solution that you came up with.
CHARLES SZORADI:
Okay, great. The expense of the solar panels was hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I thought what we can give as an executive of an L E D company that makes lights right here in Pennsylvania is technology that can reduce the cost of electricity by half.
So if they have X amount of kilowats produced from the solar panels, And those only can power 100 lights. If the lights use half the electricity, we could power 200 and we lit the first hospital with all those rooms. And we've done four more since by starting the nonprofit. 501.C3 First Light Project.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
We thank you. I watched the video of your story at missionstoryslam.org. And you, you genuinely seem surprised at that applause. Did, did you not expect it?
CHARLES SZORADI:
Well, it's sometimes funny when in life you do something that seems so obvious. It's great. It's really refreshing to, uh, see the response that comes from people that haven't heard the story before.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
So it was great. And I'm kind of curious was the. Was there a different energy in the room than you anticipated in terms of the amount of feedback you got as a storyteller?
CHARLES SZORADI:
Well, I knew going in that we had some friendlies, these were people that were interested in, you know, the triple bottom line of people planted in the, in the profit.
But I think it was, it was so reassuring and it was so welcomed to feel like I was among peers that were all looking for the common good and sustainable solutions to get there. So. Think about that. Common. Good.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
Um, I love the fact that you've gotten not, not just independence, L E D, but multiple L E D lighting companies donating dead stock as you called it, to create all this value where there's so much need.
I'm curious about how you got to the next part about flipping the switch to move, to solving problems of food. Particularly when the original problem you mentioned was about how there's all this excess sun in Western Africa.
CHARLES SZORADI:
Well, it's a, it's a great question because when you have a tool, call it a plow or call it a shovel.
It's one thing to do something that may be initially obvious. So lighting the hospital to save the energy. And the cost of adding the solar panels was pretty logical, but then looking at where they were with the, uh, food consumption, the availability of water made me realize that we could do more. And so that idea of taking it and turning it up to, uh, 11, you know, rather than just 10 was, was really exciting because again, we had the tool and by a day, aping, the diodes to meet the wavelength needs of, uh, leafy greens.
Microgreens basal any of the, the kind of food. That we eat here in America, as well as around the world, we could promote a plant-based diet, which was healthier and also do it economically for the people in need.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
I know you did a great job of bringing together partners to light the hospitals with other L E D manufacturers.
I'm curious with the future food program. Are you finding new strategic partnerships that are similar or is that evolving?
CHARLES SZORADI:
Absolutely. So it's, it's so important to have this, I think attitude about strength in numbers that we cannot go and do it alone. What we found with the, uh, food and the nutrition and the specialists in terms of foundations that are specifically looking at, uh, health and youth and progress like stem is an important aspect for what we do.
Science, technology, engineering, and math. Teaching students about the careers and the path through education that is really manifested in something they can see. So growing food is a powerful tool, not just to have healthier students, but also to give them the inspiration to go on in careers with sustainability.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
So is the, is the future food program? Is that still part of, or under the auspices of the first light project?
CHARLES SZORADI:
So it's a dual approach now because we have the first light project as part of the bigger, uh, umbrella of partners. But we also have multiple other foundations that are specifically looking at student education.
And also at health in the developing world. So it's really taken on legs to be a much bigger project. And it's exciting to see the response from people when they want to participate and take it to the next level.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
What did you do, I mean, clearly you did some planning and you did some forethought about this.
I mean, did, was it easy for you to pick the story that you wanted to tell?
CHARLES SZORADI:
It's interesting to put, um, someone in a position in front of a microphone. To tell their story in such a short period of time, right? It's almost harder to do a couple minutes than it is 20 minutes because you have to really condense it.
And I thought about how to make the transition from. Energy savings into efficient future food. And I think that was the trigger that, uh, that helped set the stage, knowing that there's so much to talk about in terms of, um, the problems to solve for food around the world and what ends up happening with, um, you know, the pesticides and the processed foods and the is that we.
Basically become conditioned two that are part of a, um, a growing challenge. When you look at childhood obesity in America, when you look at diabetes on the rise, meaning I wish there was a sort of a follow up to, uh, to do almost a bigger Q and a. You know, to dig into the, uh, the depth of it. But I think I covered at least the, um, the trailer to the film.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
Well, and I know you weren't able to stay to the very end of the night, but I'm curious, I, you told your story in the first half, did you end up having any conversations during the intermission with anyone who was attending?
CHARLES SZORADI:
I did. And it was great to get their, their feedback. And I think the, um, the fun of the event really applaud you guys for, or the initiative to bring it to the, the marketplace.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
Is the idea of the connections that are made from the trailer of that film to then have the stories unfold and the connections with the follow up the emails, the texting, and to build the network where again, it is the ultimate use of social media, right? To connect multiple people together that have a common interest.
Did this help you, in terms of, of other opportunities to tell this story of the First Light Project or the connections that you made is this. Was that experience in any way informative for you going forward?
CHARLES SZORADI:
Well, just a very concrete example of the traction that come comes from it is, uh, this afternoon I'm seeing the, uh, pathway school, which has now our lights in the school.
And they're beginning having met with the director of the stem education curriculum, the real passion that I have, and our whole team at Independence, L E D has to put the technology to work. So it gave me almost the script. It was kind of a, a dress rehearsal in a way to actually speaking to administrators of schools, directors of stem education.
And now, um, today they're bringing their science teacher in. So we're locking in the curriculum, which will range from how many hours in a day to the kids' test, you know, is eight hours of lights on with a four hour rest and another eight of light, better or worse for the plants than 16 straight hours.
What happens if we run some of the lights on a dimmer to mimic sunrise and sunset does that impact yield? So at the end of each week with the microgreens, which are super fast growing, we can actually score. With the students and have a way in to see how well the performance has, uh, has unfolded.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
That's awesome. How old are the kids at pathway?
CHARLES SZORADI:
So it's K through 12 and the idea is to scale the curriculum, to what the kids can really digest. So there's more advanced work, obviously as the kids get older, but I know personally with, um, a, uh, now teen and a and a nine year old that if the kids are engaged in growing food, They will be less likely to throw it away.
So there's some really scary statistics. Like I know that, um, with spoilage in America, something like 23 to 25% of the food that is provided at the, uh, school level is literally discarded. Now that means that in transit there's loss, but also there's no equity in the process of making the food. And the thinking was if the kids are there in their science class, growing food, and they're gonna have a chance to eat it with their friends, that they would be less likely to throw it away than if it just shows up as a truck rip and tomato that came in from the, uh, the central valley of California, you know, on a, uh, on a literally 18 Wheeler.
You, you take that magic away and you actually give experience. That's right. What, what can we do to. Follow what the work that you're doing to support first light project. Is that what would you like us to be able to do the idea of thinking and pausing, to think at a different level about where we get our food is almost the most important thing because.
Something like 90% of the food, the vegetables that we're eating come from the central valley of California. So it's absolutely crazy to me to think about the east coast and the schools and the offices and the hospitals, even that are bringing food in from 2,400 miles away when it can be grown locally.
And the tools now with these LEDs are for the first time in the hundreds of thousands of years of human history cost effective to grow local. And what that means is the transportation burden of the CO2 to move food. So think of the tractor farming, think of the trucking that moves. It has an impact it's it's for, you know, call it the meat lover diet 3.3 tons of CO2 versus about 1.5 tons.
With a vegetable based, uh, diet. So it's really not an ask for anyone to participate with any funding or support, but more to think about where in their lives having some local grown food with this technology makes sense because honestly, Michael, a four foot by eight foot rat of these L E D grow lights that will cover a six by 10 area.
Can grow an unbelievable number. It's 3000 pounds of microgreens every single year. I mean, you know, for several thousand dollars, you can literally grow tens of thousands of dollars of food in a building. So my vision was not just at The Gambia, but it was like a restaurant. A restaurant could have a house salad.
Well, there's probably a closet. There's probably a store room where they can have it sort of cordoned off to, um, to grow in a vertical rack. What would be on the menu? The veggies that are literally grown in the house, in the building and that idea of rethinking and pausing, which is in the spirit of the learn from looking book, which has a chapter on the, the grow lights is we take food for granted.
It show is up the way we take for granted. The trash is somehow magically removed and disappeared. Right? Well, if we can pause and think about how to make that loop. More efficient, the packaging that is going into the waste of imagine the pallet, the crate, the boxes, everything that goes into the truck to get it to the distribution center, the transit, to go pick it up at the grocery store, the package that it comes in well, if all that is is reduced, the green mantra of reduce reuse, recycle starts with reduce, right?
So if we can reduce the touch points and the transportation and the packaging to have fresh. Organic food. That's not grown with pesticides and not processed healthy, uh, for people healthy for the planet. In your story, the way that you got from the hospital lighting project to the food project was talking about the fact that there was a lack of access to water.
And so the, the ability to grow using the grow lights, but being able so much less water to create that 3000 pounds a year was part of it. That was really. Fascinating and appealing. Well, it's 90% less water to grow indoors with a hydroponic tray. So basically the roots are dangling into the, into the water with the most sophisticated systems we're looking at.
It's now the aquaponics, which has the fish waste, which is the effluence and the nitrogen nitrogen rich waste feeding the roots. Then you have the LEDs powering the plants for photosynthesis, and you have the solar. If you really want it powering the lights, then you can grow. And I'm not gonna go too into this, but you can grow algae and duckweed to feed the, um, uh, let's just call them herbivore fish, like tilapia mm-hmm
So when I had the great pleasure of meeting with the team down at NASA at Kennedy space center, two years ago, the tools we have built, which may make it in 2030 to Mars. Or as simple as this, if you give me a boy and a girl fish and a bag of seeds, I can grow food on Mars for 20 years. Like, that's pretty cool.
I I'm gonna go with, yeah, that's pretty cool. The last thing I want to circle back to is where your story did start. Is first light project continuing to, uh, help retrofit hospitals to improve their ability to stay lit. Absolutely. So the first light project has a, has a dual mission. Now it's staying a course on the building illumination, but it's also really about a new, um, farm, which we're gonna announce in, uh, Q1 of, um, 2019.
So coming up in the next five months, In the, um, in the Philadelphia area, it's gonna be an indoor farm that is gonna help educate not just the students, but, um, the future employees, I call them agro techs instead of farmers, because it's really about technology. So we're taking it to a whole nother level and have, um, some, a great support to get the, uh, the farm launched.
But that's something that we'll, um, we'll announce in the new year. And it's gonna basically take, um, the ability for us to talk about it to another level, to show it and demonstrate the yield. So it sounds like you're creating microgreen jobs. That's right. They will be microgreen jobs as well as leafy green jobs, too.
Excellent. That sounds, uh, like a delicious future. I've always really, so I've eating learn from looking and I've always respected and it's nice to actually read and see your drawings to understand how. You do step back, observe, absorb, and then. Reflect and come up with these innovative approaches. The book is it's literally two and a half, uh, decades now of drawings and travel from Asia Eastern Europe in the middle of the Yucatan in Amish country and looking at how people, um, found solutions without high tech, but then engage with the high tech in some interesting way.
I'll tell just one anecdote, which is the, the, uh, the bullet train. The high speed mag lab in Tokyo is the most sophisticated form of transportation in the world. But the, um, men and women that were sweeping the platform used a bamboo brush that had been developed probably 2000 years ago. And the bamboo has grown locally across the street from the train station.
It's a renewable resource. And so instead of throwing that tech out and having some plastic high tech brush, they adopted the high tech train, but kept the brush, which is the most efficient way to clean the platform with local materials made by hand, right there with a little twine. And I think that idea of where things grow and the idea of local first.
Is really a driving force for me in how we, uh, we find solutions. Is there anything else that you felt came out of that experience in terms of storytelling and that you've brought forward from that night? Well, I was inspired by the other speakers just to, um, hear their stories. And I think part of what happens with passion is you sometimes get into a, a little bit of a vacuum.
So it's like the blinders on the horse and the race you're looking straight ahead. And so it was awesome for me. To learn about the other, um, visionaries that were doing things totally unrelated to the future of food and building illumination for saving energy and hear their passion, hear how they built and were inspired to build some of their stories.
And I think that just helps is in the chapter of my career, you know, looking at what it means to contribute. Versus just try and, um, really make some money for the business, but add the, add the value at the community level at a much higher level.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
Well, Charlie. I really want to thank you for being with us on the MISSION Story Slam podcast.
CHARLES SZORADI:
Thank you for having me.
MICHAEL SCHWEISHEIMER:
So you can find out more about Charlie Szoradi and independence L E D lighting at independence, L E D.com. We'll include links to everything on MISSION Story Slam.org. That's it for this edition of the MISSION Story Slam podcast. Really hope you've enjoyed it. If so, please leave a good word for us wherever you get your favorite podcast.
Don't forget the next MISSION Story Slam saving democracy is coming up. It's on September 25th at Yards Brewing in Philadelphia. It's in partnership with committee of seventies, draw the lines, Pennsylvania initiative for more information about their very important work to save democracy. Check out, draw the lines, pa.org tickets stories, and more are available at mission stories.
slam.org. Please join us for great stories, plus great beer and of friends and your stories about saving democracy. Maybe you can win $250 for your saving nonprofit. Of course you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Or tweet to us at mission slam on Twitter. Thanks for joining us on the MISSION Story Slam podcast brought to you by PWPvideo video with a mission.
Find out what we're all about at pwpvideo.com. I'm Michael Schweisheimer, and I look forward to sharing the next story behind the story with you.