What The Funk?

0:01 And here we are, first episode ever of What the Funk? What Funk is What the Funk? Well, it's a podcast. Similar to tripping over the barrel where I'm guessing a lot of the listeners on the show

0:16 are coming from, I want to bring out the personalities and the lighter side of the oil and gas energy technology industries As a lot of you know, my dear friend and podcast co-host Tim Loser passed

0:31 away in May. We did a few tribute episodes to close out tripping over the barrel. Ninety-seven episodes with Tim and I, five episodes of tribute. It took a pretty extended break and now I'm ready

0:42 to launch What the Funk. The format here is going to be a little bit different. Nobody can fill Tim's shoes. Totally impossible So I'm going to have rotating guest co-host, Mr. Joe Sinnet,

0:55 checking in out of Pittsburgh as our first rotating guest co-host. And then we'll bring on different guests every episode, ideally somebody that has chemistry with the rotating co-host. So Dave

1:06 Callahan of Mechanicsburg, Harrisburg, Penn State, representing the Marcellus Shale Coalition is our first guest. So Joe, since you and Dave have a little bit more background, why don't you, A,

1:21 introduce yourself who are you since our listeners have no idea who you are, then introduce Dave and Dave, we can kind of get to know you, shoot the shit, and have fun - All right, well I am Joe

1:31 Sinnet. I am here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I've lived for about 15 years now, came up in the early days of the Marcellus as an engineer, worked for 11 years, mostly for EQT Corporation

1:45 up here before transitioning into the world of leadership development, coaching, still focused on the oil and gas industry. And over the last couple of years, as I've grown my own business,

1:56 Organization that I was happy to join is the Marcellus Shale Coalition led by Dave Callahan. So over the last year or so have had the pleasure of interacting with Dave Callahan multiple times as part

2:07 of again the Marcellus Shale Coalition and thought he was a no-brainer guest for kicking off the What the Funk podcast, especially representing Marcellus, which I think Jeremy is why I'm here. I

2:18 think I'm supposed to somewhat represent the Marcellus, but I would much rather defer to somebody who actually does that as his day job as head of the Marcellus Shale Coalition. So again happy to

2:28 have had the opportunity to invite Dave Callahan, happy for the opportunity to be a rotating co-host and happy to welcome you, Dave Callahan, to the first episode of the What the Funk podcast.

2:40 Thank you, gentlemen. It's great to be with you both today. Appreciate that. So Joe, just quick correction. No, you're not here to represent the Marcellus. You're here because you just have a

2:48 perfect podcast voice. Let's be honest, right?

2:54 So whatever brought me on the show today, Jeremy, I appreciate it. Whether it's genetics or something else, I'll happy to be here and happy to be with you and Dave. Well, you're a Jersey boy,

3:03 just like my dad. So we've got that connection too. So Dave Callahan, who are you, Dave? Where did you grow up? Where'd you go to school? I think I saw that you're an orange man at least at

3:15 some point. How did you get to where you are and give us a little bit about your upbringing, education, career, and what led you to leading the Marcellus shale coalition? We only have 45 minutes,

3:29 right? We'll see. All right. Well, born and raised here in Pennsylvania, in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, good old McKeean County in a town called Bradford, Pennsylvania. If any of you

3:42 in Pennsylvania or the Appalachian region, watch the local weather. During the winter time, you'll see us as the cold spot generally, for low temperatures. as I've shared previously, a home of

3:54 what used to be Kendall Motor Oil, an old, smaller refinery up there, run by American refining, you know, Zippa Lighters up there. I worked there for a year between undergrad and grad school and

4:07 case pocket knives, things like that. A good, good manufacturing town, and it's a town where the oil industry, you know, thrived in the 1800s, late 1800s into the early part of the 20th century.

4:19 So I grew up around the extractive industries. I mean, we had a pumpjack in the backyard, a pumpjack across the street on a hillside, mind you, they weren't ours. But, you know, some people,

4:32 you go to bed listening to the crickets with the windows open at night, we'd hear the pumpjack cycle on and off. So it's been a part of life A little bit more as long as you can stop me at any point.

4:45 I said, I know we've got 45 minutes. So growing up, my dad. worked in my mother worked for Columbia Gas. Distribution Company worked there for 43 years. Grandfather worked there before that. I

4:59 had other relatives who worked in and around the distribution side of the industry. So when it came time to look for a job, I gravitated toward the industry and I was lucky to work in this business,

5:14 upwards of 31 years now You did say Syracuse, I went there to grad school. They're politically correct. They're the orange now where we have the wonderful mascot of a big orange creature. Before

5:28 that went to a good state system of higher education school here in Pennsylvania called IUP Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Studied political science, otherwise known as unemployment 101

5:43 in both instances So trying to put some of that to good use here. Love it. Love it. So, um, well, there's a couple of things we know about you now. You like living in blue collar towns. There

5:55 nothing is more. I looked on your LinkedIn profile. Or sorry, my crack research team is Tim would say, look, we had them look at your LinkedIn profile and you have a town called mechanics. Berg.

6:06 There's no more blue collar sounding name than mechanics. Berg pencil. They'd yeah, I mean, they drop a wrench on New Year's Eve. Yes. Yes. Apparently they fixed, you know, you know, wagons

6:18 back in the day when, when, of course, Ron wagons were the way to get around. So yeah, that's beautiful. And then obviously the hometown of, of Zippo and lots of oil and gas, but also you're,

6:30 you're obviously not afraid of the cold. Right. This is one thing about you too. If you don't mind upstate New York, certainly you can deal with with cold weather. So you gave us some of your

6:38 education Talk about your career. Right. So you said 31 years or so in the oil and gas industry. And I know in the Marcellus, you guys refer to that. this is the gas industry, it was the coal

6:50 industry for a while and really transition nicely into natural gas. What were some of your first jobs and then what have you done in your 31 years in oil and gas? Sure, primarily engaged in

7:01 advocacy, legislative regulatory advocacy, worked with a couple of state trade associations early on. First one representing some local governments here in Pennsylvania I don't know where you are

7:15 located but here in PA there's no unincorporated land whatsoever. Everything is covered by some form of government, not just the county. There's

7:26 vast numbers of local governments and I work for an organization representing all the townships in the state. From there I went into primarily working in the energy industry, work for trade

7:38 associations, representing the interstate pipelines, local distribution companies. I did some lobbying as a contract lobbyist. for a company called Enron and a few other energy interests back in

7:50 the day. Yeah, vaguely. A little bit of work for, I ran the Pennsylvania Office for the American Petroleum Institute for a few years and really settled in in this industry just a couple years

8:04 after it got its start. I've been working in what we call the unconventional space since 2010, working with the coalition itself, working with the midstream company and also working with a producer

8:18 as well. But happy to be here at the MSC. It's a great organization. We've got great members like Joe. I like to think of it as kind of a family atmosphere. We're a tight-knit group in this

8:29 industry. We've got to stick together. A lot of us are recycled. We might move from job to job, but we're still involved in the industry. The business cards might change, but yeah, we're all

8:41 very close Well, I agree with the closeness although you just use the word family and I gotta I don't know, I don't know if it's a plug for the MSC or if it's something maybe on the other side of

8:50 the equation because we're in the midst of the holidays as we've recorded this and all this information that you get as being part of the MSC about the nitty gritty world of, again, politics and all

9:01 these different layers of government that Dave just mentioned, I steal a lot of that and I try to be telling the smartest man in the room talking about Pennsylvania state politics or Pennsylvania

9:10 Commonwealth politics, whatever you wanna call it, thanks to all this information coming in from the MSC So my question for you is Dave, are you as unpopular at family gatherings? Can you turn off

9:20 your connection to all the, again, the nitty gritty stuff that I think, what do we have, 12 million people in the state? I mean, I don't know if anybody really knows about it outside of our

9:30 world. So I'm curious in your day to day, what do people think of you? What are, do they roll around? Like I get the reaction that I get - First of all, I have many ways of being unpopular at

9:42 family gatherings. There's nothing to do with my job. No, there are ways to talk about what we do, how we do it. I mean, I'm lucky I still have some parents around. They're 90 and 92. And I

9:54 try to think that when I talk to family gatherings, would I talk to media at some point? It's like I'm talking to that. Trying to explain it, take it down to its basic, basic level. You need

10:05 heat, you need power, you need all these things in our lives, plastic coated drinking cups and other things. We need all these things in our lives And thank you, energy is the key. Yeah,

10:17 absolutely. And the further northeast you go, so I'm originally from New Hampshire, went to college just outside of Boston. My parents are teachers, they're extremely liberal. And what happens

10:30 when you live on that side of the table is you just vilify oil and gas. It just happens, right? And oftentimes it's due to a total lack of education. Does the Marcellus Shale Coalition try to

10:41 provide some of that education for the novices out there? Like, what exactly does your group do? What would you say you do here, Dave? Well, obviously what we do is we represent the industry,

10:52 all facets of the industry. As I like to say, Joe's heard it a number of times from well-head to burner tip and beyond. So we represent the producers, the pipeline companies, the gas processors

11:06 and fractionators, the distributors and others involved in the industry as well. But what we try to do is obviously legislative and regulatory advocacy is a big part of what

11:19 we do. We deal in facts and we also try to educate the public whether they're experts in the industry or novices in the industry. And Joe attended a meeting a couple of weeks ago that we conducted

11:33 where I shared that We have tons of output on social media.

11:42 We have a

11:45 lot of output. We have a blog that we put out roughly once a week. It's generally as conditions or as events warrant, but it works out to about once a week. But on social media, we're putting out

11:48 roughly four and a half posts a day on various channels. Yeah, so news items, you name it. We get a lot of information out there. We have more facts than you could shake a stick at on our website,

12:02 fact sheets. We have lots of newsy blogs. We've got everything you really need to get up to speed on energy issues and particularly on natural gas issues here - Well, I got a question on that then.

12:13 So I was at the meeting that Dave has just described. You talked about all those facts. I'll admit that sometimes being part of the industry and ingesting so much sort of industry generated content,

12:25 I get a little desensitized sometimes 'cause again, I've heard this story, right? Preaching to the choir, whatever. What do you think Dave actually resonates with the Marcel O'Shale Coalition's

12:34 target audience? You have a feel for. what actually gets people to pause and say, huh, that's interesting. You know, haven't heard that before. Since again, I imagine, you know, that's the

12:45 audience that you wanna try to sway as opposed to sort of the internal and more fossil fuel friendly folks, if you will - Well, I think there's some broad themes that always resonate, whether

12:56 you're dealing with experts or novices, or I should say, the general public. Some of those themes include reliability, you know, look at energy events around the world. Jeremy, look at your

13:09 friends and neighbors up in New England. They're gonna go through yet another winter where they're kind of, I'm gonna use the New England ISO operators words from last year. It's gonna take a

13:21 combination of skill and luck to make it through the winter. We're talking about the world's most advanced economy and we have regions that are wondering how they can make it through the winter when

13:33 we've got tremendous supplies of natural gas that can provide heat, provide energy for power generation and more to help them get through that winter. Anyway, that's reliability, always resonates

13:48 with audiences. Some can't be, you know,

13:54 let me just backtrack, something that we really can't lose focus on, and that is the environmental benefits of natural gas. While we can be vilified on some fronts by some agents in some forces,

14:07 there is no, there's no discounting the fact that increased use of natural gas has led to incredibly clean air in this country and has led to incredibly lower CO2 emissions. That resonates with

14:19 people when they realize it. And finally, the other thing is something that we just talked about, and that is all the products that are derived from natural gas. And the fact that if we want to be

14:29 more energy secure, if we want to reassure manufacturing, Let's use that natural gas to make some of those products here. natural gas creating cleaner air reducing CO2. Let's talk about that a

14:43 little bit, Dave. I know that that's something that you at the Marcellus Shale Coalition has touched on, but can you provide a little bit more detail? Because I think people generally think the

14:53 opposite that natural gas is putting more CO2 into the environment. Can you educate us, school us a little bit? Certainly, certainly. As I usually say in interviews and discussions, whether it's

15:05 around a kitchen table or elsewhere, you have to equally weight the economic and environmental benefits of the utilization of this great resource. The air is cleaner than it's been since the

15:17 beginning of the, since before the Industrial Revolution. The air is, the criteria pollutants are all down. In Pennsylvania, they're down significantly. This is after Thanksgiving. I don't

15:29 remember all the data, but SO2

15:32 emissions down more than 80 some percent and CO2 emissions. in particular from the power generation sector, they're down here in Pennsylvania by 41 since 2005, thanks to increased use of natural

15:48 gas. It's a big part of our energy future. It's a big part of our clean energy future. It's developed here under the most stringent regulations in the country, if not the world. And if you think

16:01 about supplying natural gas to our friends and allies across the globe, where else would they want that natural gas source? But in a region that has very strong regulations and where it's developed

16:12 cleanly -

16:14 Could you just mention the future there, Dave? Again, it's a great story. I don't wanna deviate from it, but what does the future look like? I don't know, again, I'm happy to be a part of the

16:22 Marcel Shell Coalition, but I kind of assume that you and your board members there have some sort of crystal ball, and you know what things are gonna look like five to 10 years down the road, right?

16:29 So I am curious, what is that? Well, I mean, in your view, whether it's here in Pennsylvania or elsewhere.

16:37 What does it look like? Where are we headed - Well, I'm an optimist about our industry just because I'm a believer in what it can do, not just for the Appalachian region, not just for the United

16:47 States, but for the world. We've got upwards of three billion people in the world who live in energy poverty. I think in five to 10 years, you're gonna see natural gas, even do even more things

16:59 to help people get out of energy poverty. I think we're gonna see this region, and I hope this region, as a result of more common sense being used at the federal and state levels for policy making,

17:12 expanding pipeline capacity, adding another export facility or export facilities here in the East Coast to complement what we already have down the road, down in Maryland. I see a bright future for

17:25 this industry just because the resource is so great, just because of what I see being done in the field. The innovations, day in and day out, the steps that the industry is taking. day in and day

17:38 out. One thing, Joe, I don't know if you've mentioned on your podcast or not, but any number of our companies and the majority of them, I would say, of the larger companies, are working with

17:49 third parties with groups like Project Canary, MIQ, Equitable Origins, to certify their operations as responsible. That's important to the companies. It's important to their investors. It's

18:01 important to their stakeholders, and it's important to their customers, whether it's a local utility down the road or utility across the Atlantic in Europe. Yep. Shout out Earthview Corporation.

18:14 One of Funkfutures clients. It's actually my call right after this, but they're putting low-cost emissions nifers on wells. We're seeing an immense amount of demand from all types of oil and gas

18:25 companies. Beyond that, the DOE, we're seeing landfills trying to capture emissions. I know that was a hot topic with the new rice entity that was in your neck of the woods as well. This is, to

18:38 me, not a partisan issue. Energy is a right that everybody should have. It's a bare necessity. And you mentioned the term energy poverty. And this is where I get really frustrated. I don't

18:51 understand why energy is such a politically charged issue. It really shouldn't be. And I do think that people like you Dave are doing a nice job bringing facts to the table and eliminating some of

19:01 the innuendo that exists out there, that people make these broad determinations. And I'll just say this, right? I live in Colorado. I'm in Boulder County, Colorado. And there are some people

19:13 who don't want to support me, my company, or the industry, just because of what I'm involved in. And to me, that's crazy. It's like, but you're using natural gas to heat your home all winter.

19:23 What about all the baking that you do in your kitchen? Right? So there's a lot of virtue signaling. You know, you want to charge your Tesla. Well, it doesn't just come from magic, right?

19:33 What's the breakdown of the electricity that's coming into your home? to allow you to charge your electric vehicle. So I really appreciate what you're doing and I wish there were more of these

19:43 groups. What I tend to see here in Colorado is you do have some groups like Energy Strong and others, but it tends to be a little more combative. I think the years of frustration has really waited

19:54 on people and you start to see a little bit of this, like you wanna shut us down so we're gonna come back and be really angry toward you. And I'm not sure if that's the right approach to take. I

20:04 think that this has to be a collaborative effort, but at the same time, I understand it. I understand the frustration people have and you're trying to not allow me to heat my home and shut down my

20:13 industry, I'm not gonna allow that to happen. So it's a fine line, but it's a line that the industry as a whole has to tiptoe through. I wanna talk about coal a little bit. So the Marcellus Shale

20:24 Coalition, Dave, is not just Pennsylvania, right? I mean, the Marcellus Shale goes all the way up and down, almost the Eastern quarter, right? You're talking about all the way down to places

20:34 like

20:37 right through Virginia, West Virginia, which is a huge coal hub. Have you seen a massive reduction in the amount of coal that's, I guess, mined due to the increase of natural gas extraction in

20:51 the Northeast - Well, first of all, I mean, our organization is Pennsylvania-based. There are sister organizations, cousins, whatever we wanna call the family, in those states of Kentucky,

21:03 Ohio, West Virginia, we've got great working relationships with them. We've seen market forces at play where folks have favored natural gas in particular for electric generation. So I've seen a

21:18 bit of a difference, but we need all sources of energy. If we wanna have a reliable electric grid, if we wanna allow our economy to grow, and we can't deny the rest of the world from having an

21:30 all-the-above energy portfolio as well I guess You mentioned our cousins or sisters, whomever in other states, Dave, in terms of the collaboration with those other states or even collaboration

21:42 within Pennsylvania. What's the lay of the land there? Are people jockeying for position? You hear a lot about the fighting for the money, for the potential hydrogen hubs that the federal

21:52 government is dangling out there. I'm fortunate to have gotten some insights and have some conversations with some of the outside groups But I'm curious what you see in terms of the collaboration

22:04 that's existing and the collaboration that's necessary with those cousins, with those sisters, whatever that family tree looks like as we approach whatever the common goal that we all have. Well,

22:17 here's part of it. Pennsylvania is a big state. We've got folks in the eastern part who are vying for some of that pot. We've got folks in the western part who are vying for part of that And quite

22:30 frankly, the state borders are.

22:36 They're not definitive for this. The folks in Philadelphia are probably working with the friends in Jersey and Delaware just as eventually the people in Western PA will be working with Ohio and West

22:47 Virginia. Look, the resource stretches across these different states. The workers come across the borders. The suppliers, the companies who help do all the work to get the natural gas out of the

22:58 ground, the companies that will be producing hydrogen, the companies that will be sinking carbon into the ground will be operating in different regions as well. I think initially there'll probably

23:08 be some parochialism where it'll be PA this, Ohio, that, New Jersey, that, but eventually I think you'll see some things come together. Well, I guess more important to that though, from a

23:20 sports standpoint, Dave, you know, I entered the MSC, you know, again, with sort of a Pittsburgh centric view. myself conversing with people from New Jersey, from the other side of the state.

23:29 And you got to balance things a little bit there. How do you do that? You're sitting in the center of the state there. You're dealing with all kinds of different entities. How do you balance the

23:38 sports allegiances when it comes to whether it's membership, you know, my fellow members, sisters, cousins, whatever within the MSC or other, you know, political entities and government

23:47 entities who, you know, have arguably, you know, more, you know, more fire and perhaps more biases than even people have against the energy industry. So very important question for sports. How

23:59 do you plan to go on? We're big tent. All sports teams are welcome. But you could say it this way. You know, you could, you could also do it without, you know, hitting one team against each

24:08 other, Philadelphia versus Pittsburgh or elsewhere. But you do have common, common enemies in the sports world. So Jeremy, I don't want to make you, you pull up your sweatshirt again. But I

24:20 would say the folks in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have a certain aversion to the team that's on your sweatshirt there. or perhaps folks from down in the oil patch in Dallas. So there are ways to

24:30 deal with this show. It's about being creative with your advocacy - It's a, I mean, it is a huge football hub where you grew up certainly, and even where you live now. I think you almost have to

24:42 visit that area to understand. I think nationally a lot of people think of Texas, Florida, places like that, where everybody really just lives and breathes football, but it originated in your

24:54 neck of the woods, right? In Ohio and Pennsylvania, and just look at the game, the game this past weekend with Joe's two favorite rivals, Ohio State and Michigan, going at it. And it was nice

25:06 to see a little change of pace in that game with Michigan coming home. I don't particularly care, but you know, I'll root for Tom Brady's team because of all the happiness and joy Tom Brady has

25:14 caused for me. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate that. I'm sure you're listening - It didn't notice that a touchdown was taken away. And I believe from the Patriots this weekend on a play that looked

25:25 suspiciously like a play that they took a touchdown away from the Steelers in a very hard fought game against the Patriots a number of years ago. So takes a while.

25:37 Thanks, Dave. Really appreciate

25:40 bringing that up. There was a really fun Thanksgiving night for me, gritting my teeth all night. But yeah, it's like, you know, trying to balance the past and the future is very hard And you're

25:50 in the midst of the game, none of the past matters, right? You just want to win that game. Correct. We certainly all have that bond with football and we have a bond with the industry. You

26:01 mentioned sort of the familial nature of it. One of the things that you said earlier on this podcast was the business cards change, but the faces are the same. And I've actually heard that exact

26:12 reference for the NAIP conference, right? It's like, oh, who are you with now? But it's you, right? I mean, I've gone to - Yeah, 15 napes or so at this point. And it probably worked with a

26:23 half dozen companies in that time. That's not what matters, right? It's the people that matter. It's not necessarily the companies that matter. And I'm sure you see that a lot too in Pennsylvania.

26:33 I mean, look, the EQT team has mostly turned over Joe. Like when you were over there, it was sort of a more gray-haired crew that had been around for a while that had dealt with sort of the

26:45 spinning off of different divisions of the company between utility and natural gas and coal And now you see sort of that rice crew come in and bring a little bit of a younger vibe, more people

26:57 working remotely, satellite offices. I think they have one out in the Cannonsburg area or Washington and may even be doing away with the downtown office. So you're seeing these things change, but

27:09 ultimately the goals of these companies are the same, produce clean energy, be good stewards for their community and their industry, and ideally create value for their -

27:21 shareholders in the cleanest possible way as producers. You know, one of the things that I've seen, that's a big evolution and Dave, maybe this is something you've seen too. It's just the general

27:31 electrification of the asset. So it may be things like, you know, electrification

27:41 of fleets, electric vehicles. Now with the IRA, which has come to the table, there's actually significant benefits and bonuses for companies to reduce their cost of tax that they have to pay to

27:51 the government for the electrification of fleets. Electric FREC fleets is another one, right? I know Cold War Technologies has done a lot of work out there. Have you seen some of these shifts as

28:02 well, Dave? 'Cause to me, it's tertiary, right? I see these things out in the field, electric generators, so on and so forth. But how has that kind of evolved, at least in the last, call it

28:12 five, 10, 15 years, where we are seeing more so their part to be more green companies.

28:19 Sure, you see a lot of work out in the field on that. The use of field gas, maybe even seven, eight years ago, was primarily limited to compressor stations, where the compressors ran on field

28:32 gas. Now you could see field gas used for drilling to generate power, for drilling rigs, you see it for hydraulic fracturing and more. I think it's just an ongoing evolution. I hesitate to use

28:47 the word transition as transition sounds like a beginning and an end. We're gonna turn a switch. It's more of an evolution of the industry. And it's what we fight for every day is to allow this

28:59 industry to continue to evolve, to allow technology to continue to be developed, to allow the best and the brightest to put their minds at work on ensuring that this industry keeps moving ahead,

29:11 keeps propelling this industry in our strong energy future. It's what's at stake in public policy. when the government tries to pick winners and thereby labeling losers. We need to allow innovation

29:25 to continue without strong words from the government saying, we're gonna shut you down in six or eight years or as they did over in Egypt over the past couple of weeks saying we want a document that

29:36 says we're gonna stop fossil fuels. Well, how about saying we're gonna allow industry to flourish? We're gonna allow, again, massive investments to be made in this industry and others to allow

29:51 that economic and environmental progress to continue - So to allow that continuation to sort of fight against irrational government rules and regulations, how do you do it Dave? Again, I'm

30:05 fortunate to be part of the MSC. Obviously I'm not on the front lines, I'm not in Harrisburg, but can you shed a little color on how MSC the

30:14 actually helps inform. those decision makers that actually have an impact on the future of the industry. You know, what is your tech, what is your team's tech? How do you, you know, how do you

30:24 enable my fellow members to make a difference? Can you shed a little color on it, getting the sort of the nitty gritty, how that actually happens - It's day to day sharing of information with

30:34 policy makers at all levels of government. It's aligning ourselves with our partners, aligning ourselves with our partners in other states, aligning ourselves with folks like the construction trade

30:46 unions who see a bright future for this industry who are great delivers of messages as well. You know, a multitude of messengers help get those messages across. And so it's the day to day

30:58 interactions. It's the aforementioned, you know, fact sheets, information, you know, the food fight that we all call Twitter, LinkedIn, other, other, you know, social media channels, you

31:10 know, back on LinkedIn, you know, I think that's a very safe space corporate folk that if they want to learn more. They could learn a lot more and actually inquire with people without it being

31:23 construed as you're coming after me. It's a great environment to share information. If we could share good, solid facts with folks in the business community and elsewhere, that starts the ball

31:35 rolling. We have our own grassroots network. I know there are other groups that have their own as well, but I strongly encourage people who listen to this. Look us up We have our website. Look at

31:46 our social media channels. Look at me on LinkedIn. Look at the coalition on LinkedIn, and let's keep the conversation going. Absolutely. Thank you, Dave. That's good stuff. What is the website?

31:58 Is it wwwmarcellus? ShaleCoallitioncom? It's just marcelluscoallitionorg. Marcelluscoallitionorg. Everybody should go ahead and

32:05 check that

32:10 out. Wanted to transition a little bit to some more of the personal side of things, Dave. For you, obviously you're a passionate guy. You're doing your part to represent the industry in the best

32:21 possible way in the Keystone state. But if you could tell me a little bit about like what gets you up every day, what makes you tick? You've mentioned your 31 plus years in this industry. Now

32:32 clearly you care about what you're doing. But what is it? You know, not just work-wise sort of on a personal level. What gets you up and makes you tick? Certainly I have a lot of FOMO that fear

32:43 of missing out So I like to consume a lot of information. First thing in the morning, quiet house, strong cup of coffee, reading everything from or glancing at everything from just Google news to

32:56 get a quick overview to the Wall Street Journal to what's happening in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, elsewhere, my hometown, just consuming a lot of information so that I don't get caught

33:08 flat-footed if someone said, Hey, did you hear about? Oh yeah, I know that I love consuming that kind of information, but. What really makes a difference for me in my job and in any of the jobs

33:22 that I've held is developing the relationships with people with whom I'm working, developing relationships with people across the aisle if I'm talking to legislators and others on both sides of the

33:35 aisle. It's about the personal connection that I think really makes a difference. It's what motivates people. I mean, you could have the worst job in the world. Now, I'm not gonna identify one

33:45 of those jobs, but you could think of Michael, one of his jobs that he has done on trading jobs and think that's a literally shitty job. However, I guarantee you there are people out there doing

33:56 that very same job who love it because I love the people they're working with -

34:02 Damn, that is so funny. So, if you're consuming information first thing in the morning, talk about consuming food, Dave. Again, I think Jeremy shifted things to getting to know the real Dave

34:12 here. Let's talk about food. So again, you're in the center of the state Talk about balancing. You know, not just politics, but sports. What about food? What side of the state has the best

34:22 food? Recommendations and guilty pleasures. Let's hear about what you like to consume other than, you know, strong coffee and information first thing in the morning - I like everything. I'm half

34:33 Italian, so I have a weakness for Italian. And I don't claim that one side or end of the state has something better than the other. You know, I'm happy watching. If you haven't watched somebody

34:46 feed Phil, I'm Netflix, watch that guy travel all over the world just eating, that would be my dream job. Just go all over the world eating. And, you know, he doesn't show people actually

34:55 making the food. That doesn't interest him. He just wants to eat it. That's my thing - You know, Pennsylvania has a really unique food scene. Like, Philly, I would say, so you can't pick sides,

35:08 Dave, but I can't, right? Philly has incredible pizza, cheese steaks, Mediterranean food.

35:16 you're dealing with a lot of things, you know, Polish food, German food, pierogies, obviously the uniqueness of the Permante brothers sandwiches. So there's like a really good variety Italian

35:28 food, both places. There's a tremendous variety of food. And my wife, I've mentioned she's from York, Pennsylvania, her family's still in the South Eastern part, or South Central to Eastern

35:40 part of Pennsylvania. And they have something out there called Foshenot Day

35:46 Do you know about this? Yes, yes. Everybody has their own version of the day before Lent begins, you pig out. So Fosnots are, you know, like I would assume the Pennsylvania Dutch version of

35:60 whatever you would get in New Orleans, like a donut or something. So yeah, same thing. If you're Italian, pizza freak, you know, there's many different ways of calling the same thing. So we

36:10 make a big deal of eating a ton of donuts. you know, before letting it - My wife and one of her best friends, actually, her roommate in college were both from York and they went to Duke and

36:23 they're talking about Foshenade. And people are like, you're crazy. Nobody knows what you're talking about. They're like, no, you're crazy. How do you not know about this? It's an amazing

36:32 holiday. And they're like, you might want to do some more research on that. So, barely this is just like a very localized thing, which I thought was just hilarious, but had to bring that one up.

36:42 We're coming up on time here, Dave - I just want to, first of all, thank you for being our first guest on What the Funk. You know, certainly I think you put a great face on the industry and are

36:54 doing fantastic work with Marcel's Shale Coalition. Where can people find you? How can they reach out to you if you're willing to share that information and be an open book for others to connect

37:05 with - Sure, again, you could find me on our website. You could find me on LinkedIn.

37:13 Let's try that. Look me up on LinkedIn. We'll have a good conversation, share some information, and hopefully develop a relationship. As I said before, relationships matter. I look at the

37:24 people that I have links with on LinkedIn. I like touching base with as many of them as possible and just to see how we can work together -

37:33 I love it. I echo that sentiment. And Joe, why don't you take us home? Any thoughts you wanna close us out with? I know our brains are just coming back to normal from the long Thanksgiving break,

37:41 but I think we all stepped up to the plate here. Why don't you take us home, Joe - And what a way to follow up Thanksgiving break then by ending the podcast talking about food, right? We're right

37:51 back at it. Obviously, thankful to you, Jeremy again, for the invite to be part of this kick off of the new podcast, thankful today for not just joining us today, but for being such an engaging

38:03 and entertaining person in person. I advise everybody to sign up and become a member of the Marcello-Shel coalition if for no other reason. Then if you think Dave is great on a podcast, he's even

38:13 better in person at the tremendous events that the MSC puts on. So I think that's my parting word, is look for organizations like the MSC, if you feel like you're not in this region or you don't

38:24 have a connection, but first realize that in some way, shape or form, you probably are connected to the MSC, and to Pennsylvania and to the Marcellos, if you happen to be listening to this

38:33 podcast So give it a look, I can't say enough about the year plus that I've been a member, and again, thankful to Dave, thankful to you, Jeremy, and thankful to everybody who decided to tune in

38:43 to the first edition of What the Funk. What the Funk?