Episode:

Darren Hebert & Sean Mitchell

Transcript

Toban Dyck  00:03

This is The Extensionists. Conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck,

Jay Whetter  00:08

and I’m Jay Whetter. Hey, Toban.

Toban Dyck  00:12

Jay, this is this is it.

Jay Whetter  00:14

What’s going on here?

Toban Dyck  00:16

What’s going on? What did you do to the

Jay Whetter  00:17

studio while I was away? Sorry, Jay.

Toban Dyck  00:21

So this is the interim season three redesign. This is kind of a we’re taking a staged approach to to because I knew how hard it would be for you.

Jay Whetter  00:32

Yeah.

Toban Dyck  00:32

So I knew I had to go kind of ease into it. So we’re gonna we started with a table, a little smaller table than the than the the finished product is gonna be, but still a nice one. I don’t

Jay Whetter  00:41

like change. Can I go? So I know that’s why

Toban Dyck  00:42

we’re easing into it. So we kept a couch in your dish so that it was comfortable for you. But but we’ll be removing it at some point. But anyway, very excited. It is exciting.

Jay Whetter  00:52

Actually, you know what I feel. How

Toban Dyck  00:53

do you feel about this? I

Jay Whetter  00:53

like it. I actually feel more natural talking, like we’re sitting around a table at a coffee shop.

Toban Dyck  00:58

But there’s going to be no more socks. Like no one. I’m

Jay Whetter  01:01

fine with that. Are you? Yeah,

Toban Dyck  01:03

yeah. Are you even wearing socks? No one knows.

Jay Whetter  01:06

Yeah. Well, I just I plan on wearing the same socks for the whole year.

Toban Dyck  01:09

Oh, that’s great. So you’re just gonna leave them here. You’re just gonna take them off and hang them on. So when I’m working day to day, Jay’s pod. What’s that smell?

Jay Whetter  01:20

It’s like you know, in in the playoffs, players wear the same underwear for every game.

Toban Dyck  01:24

Sure, very similar. This is socks. This is podcast socks. Very excited about the season, though. These changes, you know, there’d be different camera angles going on, and I think I think this is going to be this is going to be really, really, really good.

Jay Whetter  01:42

And somewhere through the through this season, the table will change into something quite spectacular. Don’t don’t

Toban Dyck  01:48

say.

Jay Whetter  01:48

Okay, I won’t.

Toban Dyck  01:49

You’ve seen the prototype so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it’s going to be for people who

Jay Whetter  01:54

watch instead of listen. You’ll get a really interesting look.

Toban Dyck  01:58

So our guest. So no, before we get to our guests, like what what have you been up to? What’s your what’s your summer been, or like?

Jay Whetter  02:05

Well, well, you and I went to a conference. What did we do there, Jim? In Nova Scotia, we did a 40 minute workshop on extension training. I feel like it was quite condensed. It was, but we we tried something new and interesting, which was something that was inspired by one of our other trainings with the Manitoba agriculture people, and they said, “Yeah, we do the same. I do the same talk 40 times. How do I make it fresh and new? And I thought, “Well, we thought maybe maybe you have these five segments, and then you ask the audience, okay, which ones which ones are important to you? And then you tailor your presentation. So we tried to do that.

Toban Dyck  02:42

We did. We did a Slido

Jay Whetter  02:43

poll or a poll and said, “Which of these five topics are the most interesting to you? And they said empathy, which was kind of fun for me. But then, so we thought we would okay. We talked for for 10 minutes about each of these. Anyway, empathy dragged on to for about 25 minutes. So it’s always fun to try something new and keep it fresh, but I mean it didn’t work out exactly the way that we had intended. But people did. We did leave them with a few takeaways. I think so on empathy or approaching a conversation with farmers as in you know what what’s your what’s the need

Toban Dyck  03:18

yeah

Jay Whetter  03:19

what’s your need and then helping to address that need, rather than coming in with a laundry list of things that you wanted to talk about.

Toban Dyck  03:26

No, I like that too, and I’ve really liked. So, like, we’ve been I’ve been to Atlantic Canada now a number of times through through Burr Forest, and I really like. It’s a good group of people out there, like in ag and an extension, so it’s really it’s yeah really really rewarding to to go there and have these kinds of talks.

Jay Whetter  03:49

And it is a beautiful place. So you fly into Halifax and you think of the East the Maritimes as as for a fishing kind of based industry, and it is still to some extent. But it doesn’t seem like there’s any agriculture right around Halifax, but you drive through this forest across the province to the west side of the province, the Annapolis Valley area. Yeah, and it’s historical. It’s this beautiful farmland, lots of vineyards. Yeah, yeah, and livestock and orchards. Yeah, beautiful spot. Yeah, orchards. Yeah, apples, and it’s

Toban Dyck  04:23

fascinating. And it’s and so old, right? Yeah, it’s such the oldest part of Canada. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  04:29

Annapolis Valley is where Samuel de Champlain had a settlement in 1605 or 1608. So yeah, four 400 years old. Yeah, so

Toban Dyck  04:40

interesting interesting side note, actually, which isn’t a side note, but last time I was there, which was after you and I went, I went back to do some cluster KTT work, knowledge translation and transfer for fruit and vegetable growers of Canada. Anyway, so the Nova Scotia fruit. Growers Association is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, commodity association in North America.

Jay Whetter  05:06

Okay,

Toban Dyck  05:08

so it’s it’s just crazy. Like the history, the history there is just is is so fascinating. So it’s a it’s an association that actually predates Checkoff, like the whole idea of Checkoff. So they’ve actually missed out on it because when that regulation came in, that association was was too established to even implement it. But yeah, very very very fascinating area of the world. Anyway, anyway, anyway, super excited about today’s guest.

Jay Whetter  05:32

Yes, kicking off season three.

Toban Dyck  05:34

Yes,

Jay Whetter  05:35

with two gentlemen who you’ve met before. I’ve never met.

Toban Dyck  05:38

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  05:39

Darren and Sean, and we’re going to talk about training as a as as an extension tool, training the trainers, and and I mean this is I mean one of your one of the Burforest Group side businesses is or core businesses is also training.

Toban Dyck  05:56

Get it right, Jay. It’s not all about the podcast. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  06:01

and so we’re gonna we’re gonna hopefully gather some great trip tips from Darren and Sean on training.

Toban Dyck  06:09

Yeah, I mean, so I just just quickly, you know, interesting. So like they’re in they’re in fisheries, or you know, they’re called Natural Resources Training Group, or is is the company? They reached out to me over over LinkedIn and just said, “Hey, you guys want to you know connect over over Zoom or whatever? And it was one of those it was one of those messages that could be taken a million ways, right? You get a you get a million you get you get get these messages. One of the ways

Jay Whetter  06:33

maybe you thought they were asking you for a date,

Toban Dyck  06:35

right? Yeah, exactly.

Jay Whetter  06:37

That’s one.

Toban Dyck  06:37

That’s one. That is one. You said a million. A million ways. Yeah, this is true. This is true. I would say most of the other ways are like this is not going to amount to anything. This is just this is nothing. It’s a little bit spammy or or whatever. But so we we took the meeting and I walked into that meeting thinking that like I I didn’t know what this was going to be. But they were just like the nicest the nicest people. But but I don’t want to say anymore. Let’s just get into it. Let’s do it.

Jay Whetter  07:07

So, welcome to the podcast. We’ve got Darren Hebert, and Darren, you’re the president and founder of Natural Resources Training Group, and then our second guest, Sean Mitchell, program manager for Natural Resources training group. Both of you guys are based in BC. You work primarily with with fish and wildlife and biology and biologists and extension related to those fields. And I’m really excited. I know Toban has met both of you guys before, but I’m excited to bring your expertise to the world of agriculture where Toban and I live because I think there’s going to be some crossovers and also some learning that we can pick up from you guys. So welcome,

Darren Hebert  07:47

great to be here, Jay. Thank you very much for inviting us.

Sean Mitchell  07:50

Thank you, Jay.

Jay Whetter  07:50

Where do you want to jump in, Toban?

Toban Dyck  07:53

Well, yeah, I was thinking about that too. I mean, I I don’t know. We could I just we’ve had such great experiences with with both of you, Darren and Sean. Like Bird Forest Group, like how you how you kind of came to us, how you introduced yourselves, and the conversations that we’ve had. Just kind of a very we’ve all very kind of warm and very collaborative and very kind of open relationship. So, a I just want to thank you for that, and and B, I think I think this will be this will be a really great great conversation about about extension, about kind of what extension means to you, what you know through your through your training, and what are some of the kind of effective approaches that you’ve that you’ve that you’ve found that to to work for our for our audience, and I think kind of just riffing off that,

Jay Whetter  08:46

Darren, do you want to tell us about like the the the elevator pitch on what is the natural resources training? Yeah,

Toban Dyck  08:52

yeah, great place to start, Jay. Great place to start.

Darren Hebert  08:54

Absolutely, yes. So, private training organization that’s been in place for 10 years now. Its evolution came out of a need. So we identified a need where science and technical information, much like you guys would deliver in agriculture, need to be disseminated to the community level. So we saw a need where that wasn’t necessarily happening, and we started slowly and surely with courses in community and online eventually as well, but bringing training to the community, I caught the attention of some others around the world, and that it’s grown since then. Because for me to validate that need, that was really nice to have that. So it

Jay Whetter  09:30

caught the attention of people around the world. Yeah, interesting. So you you’re not just working in the the realm of BC.

Darren Hebert  09:37

No, yeah, Jay, we’re in about 10 countries around the world. Excellent.

Jay Whetter  09:41

Yeah, it’s

Toban Dyck  09:41

amazing, yeah, and

Jay Whetter  09:43

and so and so you’re taking science and you’re delivering it to the the practitioners. So who are the people using your training? Like what? Who are the who are they and who are they then? What’s their what’s their role in the world?

Darren Hebert  10:00

Yeah, Sean, do you want to talk about the indigenous part, and I’ll talk about the other part.

Sean Mitchell  10:02

Sure. We have two audiences, and half of them, at least half of them, are in the indigenous communities throughout Canada, and so we we have programs that are directed towards them. And the one thing that I would say Darren didn’t include in his elevator speech is what we really focus on are hands-on skills. So when we teach things like we may teach, you know, let’s say wildlife tracking, you have to teach a certain amount of science and the concepts behind it. But really, the focus is to give students hands-on skills to do their job better, and so with the indigenous communities, we have a land guardian program, and it’s it’s our flagship program. And it’s the idea there is to introduce students to a whole range of skills that environmental monitors, environmental technicians use every day, and so that way they’re trained and eligible for looking for jobs in forestry, fisheries, everything. So it’s very generalist approach rather than getting really specific.

Jay Whetter  11:13

Right. And what what do the guardians? What do they need training in?

Sean Mitchell  11:19

Well, there’s there’s a number of things. For one, is what a guardian does in BC is very different than Saskatchewan, which is different than Nova Scotia, and so we have to figure out what do they do, what does their day job look like. But the bigger picture is we also are trying to build capacity by having like a you know introductory level where this is this is the the basic field skills that you will be needing to do, but also starting to get into more office based stuff you know some some fundamental data analysis, report writing, reporting, attending meetings you know meeting protocol all that kind of stuff. Trying to move them from field-based staff into being able to interact with regulators, clients, consultants, all of those kind of things.

Jay Whetter  12:11

And Darren, your your motivation for starting this, you said there was a need. So what was who was training? Who was? I’m assuming it was the answer is nobody. But what? Why did you feel you were the person to to jump in and and fill this need?

Darren Hebert  12:32

Yeah, Jay, that’s a great question. I think it came to me two ways. One was when I was in university, and I’ve always been very practical guy. I’ve always looked for that hands-on element about why something does work and how we then do it, as opposed to knowing about it-the need to know versus the nice to know. So, in university, as much as I love my time there, and as a fabulous education, as you guys can vouch too, there wasn’t the hands-on element there for me. So, in university, I took note of that too. And as an employer, I was in university, worked for Fisher’s Oceans Canada when I graduated in Vancouver, grew up in British Columbia. I noticed that employers were looking for skills like that. So who could start the job on Monday and have those skills that would then need? They didn’t get that necessarily in university when I went to school. Now that’s changed today. Now the universities are more applied. They’re more technical. They’re incorporating some of those real life job skills. But back in the 80s they did not do that, and so I saw a need where employers were frustrated in that they did not have the ability to hire people that could start right away and knew implicitly how to do something in the field applied. So there was a need and a gap there, and they in turn relayed that frustration to us. And as an employer myself, I had a hard time hiring people that could start for us right away and slot into work. So selfishly, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 3537, years

Toban Dyck  13:50

ago, time flies.

Darren Hebert  13:52

Yeah, yeah. I started to teach part time at a university in Kabloops in the BC Interior, specifically to teach these hands-on courses that would meet an employer’s need to do that. So it started there, and as I worked in consulting for many years too, that portfolio of courses then grew, and I spent maybe my winters teaching and my summers doing biological consulting. Taught then at university level for about 16 years, and then 10 years ago, left the university to start this company where we had unfettered ability to do this full time, and that’s where we are today.

Jay Whetter  14:23

And you, I think, in the in the notes it talked about tech, or was it the universities teach you sort of the technical, the science, but not the practical delivery? And Sean, I can’t remember if that was you or Darren who emphasized that point. But what do you mean,

Darren Hebert  14:41

Sean? Let’s let’s both answer that. Yes, different approaches to that. Yes.

Sean Mitchell  14:44

Sorry, sorry, Jay. Did you say what do you mean? Yeah. So just

Jay Whetter  14:48

just to be clear to our audience, what what that need was. So so people are coming out of university with with these technical skills or the science, but they don’t have the skills on the communication. Or the delivery, or the whatever. I’m not sure what the practical skills exactly you’re you’re referring to.

Sean Mitchell  15:06

An example is students frequently will come out of a biology program, and they’ve taken ichthyology. They know the science of fish, but they can’t identify

Jay Whetter  15:15

one.

Sean Mitchell  15:16

Like as you know, how do you tell a rainbow trout from a coho salmon?

Toban Dyck  15:20

Yeah, sure.

Sean Mitchell  15:20

And so that is where we come in, and we help them learn those skills. And what what we what we really emphasize is those sorts of skills are actually very difficult, and they take a long time to learn. And often you have to relearn them every spring because you lose those skills through the winter, and so trying to emphasize that things that many people think are are simple bird identification, fish identification tracks. It’s really lifelong learning. You get better and better at it, and that’s a real eye opener for students. They they think, well, you can identify fish, but like in southern Ontario, there’s over 100 minnow species, and you’re expected to be able to identify each one to species. That’s a professional biologist, so that’s the sort of hands-on skill. That’s an example of the hands-on skill that we would teach them.

Toban Dyck  16:15

So, and not only not only have you adapted kind of what you or or yeah saw a need for what what to teach, but I think you guys have also changed, or you have a unique method of teaching as as well. That’s a bit different than than than what one would get at university. Can you talk a little bit about about that and kind of what was the you know maybe one aha moment where you realized we have to teach this differently in order to in order to reach the audience.

Darren Hebert  16:43

Yeah, good question too. But I think you know education has barriers. It’s always had barriers for most everybody too, and it can be one of geography, where maybe somebody in a remote community doesn’t have the the ability to they maybe travel to a large center to go to school necessarily. It can be one of financial as well. So what we did is we reverse that and we took the education to the community, so we deliver it in very remote communities across Canada many times over, where we’ve taken that and then use say their backyard, their watershed, their territory as the classroom. So we’ll show them side by side, as Sean mentioned, we’ll stand beside them and show them how to identify a fish in the streams and in the wetlands and in the watersheds that they actually then work in, so they not only learn how to maybe identify fish, as an example, but they can learn to identify fish in their backyard, where they will in turn then work too.

Toban Dyck  17:30

Yeah, yeah, that’s really interesting. I mean, we we we see it in ag as well. That same kind of gap, the university still very theory based, and we have people, you know, we we know people who who would say work in agriculture and agri-food Canada who have never been to a farm, right? They’re you know they’re PhDs in in the things that are relevant to say my farm, but they’ve never actually seen a working farm. So I know some some groups take it on themselves and and and like you know put them all on a bus and get them, you know, ship them around, and we, you know, travel around to parts of the prairies and show them working farms and how just kind of how invaluable that is. And I know I’ve talked to some of them who’ve just it just it just blows their mind, like they’ve never they’ve never actually seen it. And just, but but it’s but it’s so intuitive. Like I’m sure you guys feel the same thing. Like once you’ve, once you’ve, or maybe a question. Like once you’ve implemented this new method or this approach, it’s so intuitive. It’s so obvious. Did you ever think like why didn’t why why is no one else doing this or why wasn’t this done like 20 years ago?

Darren Hebert  18:36

You know, Toby, that might be an initial reaction too. Was that was why was nobody? But once you start to do that, and you understand the logistics involved in that, when often you’re outside and you’re battling against the elements and weather and travel, that’s actually very hard to do. And I and I think that’s maybe the impediment to others than doing that is it’s hard to do. Yeah, and maybe the margins aren’t there as they would be in a university that opens the doors and allows students to come in in a predictable format, teaching remotely in communities where those variables come into play is very unpredictable. So there’s a risk element that probably doesn’t have in a larger educational center, and and as the provider you take that on,

Toban Dyck  19:14

yeah,

Darren Hebert  19:14

right. And over time, you maybe learn a way or a method to maybe alleviate or lessen some of that, but it’s always there. So teaching remotely is very hard work.

Toban Dyck  19:23

Yeah,

Darren Hebert  19:23

and not saying that people are averse to doing hard work, but they may look at something more risk averse.

Toban Dyck  19:27

Yeah, yeah, true, true, yeah, true. Have you been able to? Sorry, go ahead, Sean.

Sean Mitchell  19:33

Toban, you mentioned you know we we do things uniquely, and Darren’s right that that’s one of them. But when I started with Darren about seven years ago, what struck me from him is he gave me a lot of freedom as an instructor. You know, he said, “Here’s here’s content, here’s stuff I’d like you to deliver, but how you deliver it, that’s up to you. And so I’ve taken that and run with it, and. All of our instructors that I manage, I really emphasize that. You know, I get to the point where I’m telling them that a teacher’s job is not actually delivering content. That we we choose to do that, but our job is to inspire the student. It’s to build confidence. That’s your goal. And so, how you deliver it, that’s you you want to deliver it in a way that the student walks out at the end of a week or a day with more confidence than they came in, and so you know if you don’t want to give those 30 powerpoints, don’t do that. Tell them a story, give them an exercise, go do a field exercise, do whatever you think you need to do in the moment to keep a connection with them, build their confidence, and teach them the content at the same time. That’s that’s what we do. That’s different.

Toban Dyck  20:49

Yeah, that’s that’s awesome. It reminds

Jay Whetter  20:51

me of a conversation I had with someone with the canola seed company recently, and and he was saying, kind of to to our introductory point about people coming out of university, and he said they didn’t. What he really hoped that they would have was more problem solving skills, and often problem solving skills stems from confidence. I think so. So and and Darren, I saw you. You like that one too. So maybe we’ll we’ll dig into that a little bit. But I do I do want to Sean before we get To the problem-solving skills, like what are your your techniques, or what are back to Toban’s aha? How do you instill confidence? Like, is it is it just a matter of practicing the skills, and that that’s it, or is there is there something you’ve learned over these seven years that like okay, this is making a difference to their confidence,

Sean Mitchell  21:42

it’s field exercises. Minimize time in class. Get them out doing things hands on. That’s where the confidence comes from. Yeah. But also, it’s we have like the instructors. We choose our instructors very carefully, and their goal is to always build the student up, and so there’s no shaming. There’s not none of the traditional ways of teaching. It’s all somebody makes a mistake. Well, you can gently tell them how or ask them how would you do it better next time.

Sean Mitchell  22:15

And so you’re trying to not be an authority, but say, listen, I’ve been doing this for 30 years, so I’m farther along the road than you. That’s all I am, but I’m not an expert.

Jay Whetter  22:25

Yeah,

Sean Mitchell  22:26

and so the classrooms tend to be much more social and engaged because the people feel that they can speak up. It’s not an authority inferior relationship. Then also, we we also have sort of some processes in place. We only have one course, I believe, that has an exam, because we don’t believe exams are are fair in the sense that lots of people have exam anxiety, and you know you’re only going to get good students that that are very good at writing exams, and that’s not a great way of teaching. So we, the way we evaluate students is much more user friendly, and so they they feel at the end of the day that they’re not being judged. With our indigenous programs, particularly land guardian program, often we will have attendance problems, and so in a week, a five-week program, a student might miss two weeks because we’ve had them missing because of you know they had surgery, they were in a car accident, death in the family, all of these things, and so if they miss that time, it doesn’t mean they fail. What it means is if they join one of our online versions, they can then get certified. So there’s always an alternate pathway. That if if life happens and you can’t complete the requirements in that time, here’s a way you can still complete. That’s how we built their confidence.

Jay Whetter  23:53

And well, I just liked your message about the the sort of the an atmosphere where it’s okay to make a mistake or or fail because those are incredible learning opportunities, and and I like your question about okay, so this you did this it didn’t work. How would you do it differently next time? I love that from a from a learning and teaching perspective. And we’ve

Toban Dyck  24:11

we’ve heard that too from some of our previous guests too, as an effective extension approach as well, right? It’s more of like a like a question, a guiding question, like how would you do things differently as opposed to say in the farming context telling a farmer that they got to change their practices altogether it’s like you ask them how how they felt about their their their crop last year and they you know whatever they say you can respond with well you know how would you change things for next year how do you think you could have done things differently and leave it up to them to to kind of, and I I really like that. I know you do too, and we’ve kind of we’ve we’ve we’ve you know kind of incorporated that into our extension training as well. Like the kind of the answers in the room, we like they’re all we’re all we’re all functional human beings. We can all figure it out, right? Let. It’s not. It’s not just assume that Jay and I are the authorities on anything. We’re mostly just facilitating, and I know that’s what I’ve really enjoyed about your approach too. And it’s really neat. Like you, you both you have an approach for you know that you use with your instructors, but you also have like and and that then translates into their approach with students, and I think that’s a really neat. I don’t know. There’s something really kind of holistic and quite nice about about what what you’re doing. And I have you have you been able to have you been able to kind of track in any way like the efficacy of of this approach from a kind of a Information diffusion lens.

Darren Hebert  25:43

Toban, we do track and monitor student success rates, graduation rates, completion rates, attendance. Sean mentioned too, we don’t have exams. We don’t think exams measure knowledge, so we don’t have those necessarily. But we do get feedback from the instructors who are side by side with those students, and they give us individual learning plans for those students, progress for each of them, how they’re doing. We loop back and help a student a bit more than others too. Those measures help. Clients will give us feedback. We talk to clients after a delivery. So if a client brought us into a given community to teach a certain number of people, we’ll talk to them afterwards as well. And then long-term success would be repeatability of a client to then come back to us. Yeah,

Sean Mitchell  26:22

yeah, yeah, yeah. Darren, problem solving. We have

Darren Hebert  26:25

to get that right. I need I

Jay Whetter  26:27

need to get your thoughts on problem solving just before I before it leaves my brain because you really perked up. But yeah, so

Darren Hebert  26:34

yeah. See,

Jay Whetter  26:35

but I know you had. I interrupted you. You had one

Toban Dyck  26:38

thought, Jay. Come on, come on.

Darren Hebert  26:40

I was just going to add a bit of a minutia to Sean’s point, which is a really good one too about how we teach. You know, I think you can structure education complex to simple, or you can go simple to complex. So, Jay, you asked the question about well, how do we actually then do that in the field? Is that

Jay Whetter  26:54

yeah?

Darren Hebert  26:54

You know, Sean mentioned we instill confidence in our students, and we can do that by standing side by side with them and break a very complex task into very simple steps, and the repeatability of that standing beside. So we’re going to measure the height of a tree and show how to do that as an example. Well, here’s a clinometer. Here’s how you use a clinometer. Practice this until we master the kilometer. We’ll then actually then look at the tree itself and where and there would you then cast your eye to get. So all that complex series of sets is broken down into something very elementary. So it also becomes rote memory, and then as Sean mentioned, we structure lots of hands-on and very little theory, so we get them out right away. So the repetition of the practice over a two or three or five week period instills those skills, so they become very easy for students thereafter.

Sean Mitchell  27:41

And the only thing I would add to that is, in terms of the confidence, the the common theme that we see at least within the indigenous communities is it’s always around math and writing. That if we can help them with that, that’s where the confidence comes from. You know, like they they grew up on the land, so they they know a lot about their fish and wildlife, but invariably their math background is is weak, and that’s always the stepping stone. So that’s I find that’s where we make the biggest change in confidence is that help them understand that yes, math can be difficult, but the power of it that you know calculating an area that you want to plant, or you want to restore, or something like that,

Jay Whetter  28:24

because often it’s only five formulas that really matter. You know, you don’t need to have a whole textbook of math. And I love the clumb. I don’t know what a clunometer is, but it’s got to be like it’s got to be like a sextant or something. Because I’ve heard like you walk a known distance from the tree, and then you have the angle, and then you you can figure out the height. So is the clinometer just measuring the angle, or is that the the distance? That’s true. Yeah. Okay.

Darren Hebert  28:52

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1  28:53

And

Darren Hebert  28:53

Jay, we can show them how to measure the height of a tree with a piece of paper. Oh, right on.

Toban Dyck  28:57

Really.

Darren Hebert  28:57

And we’ll show them how to do that too, because they may not have the funds or wherewithal, the acneometer.

Toban Dyck  29:01

Oh, I like that. I like that a lot. I love that. Yeah. And does this tie into something? I know we’ve talked about before in previous chats we’ve had, like the the emphasis, the importance on on decision decision making, kind of to to guide your your instruction. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like Jay and I, we recently did a. We were in Nova Scotia. We we did a a talk on extension for a company called Perennia, and we we tried to incorporate that decision making kind of matrix or whatever to our to our talk and to our extension trading. But I’d like to chat with you a bit more about I don’t I don’t know how that landed actually was our first time but anyway I’d like to talk a little bit about that if possible enough

Jay Whetter  29:46

time to dig into it yeah

Darren Hebert  29:49

decision for how we select our instructors or well I think I think

Toban Dyck  29:52

I think it was a conversation with with Sean we were talking about how really what what people want to know is how how how they how to make decisions. Out in the field, like when we when we’re talk, yeah, yeah, maybe talk to that a bit.

Darren Hebert  30:06

Sean, do you want to address that?

Sean Mitchell  30:07

Sure. I about two years ago, I started. We have offer micro courses, which are only four hours long. They’re meant to be deep dives into narrow topics. And I start. I developed two a couple of years ago. One is on designing fish habitat assessments in streams, and the other one is data analysis of information collected from those assessments. Those are very popular, and it’s. I think it’s because of the way they’re structured. I introduce them to 120 different methods that they can do in the field, and I say you have to make the choice of what’s appropriate for your stream. I can’t tell you. No manual can tell you. Standards can’t tell you. You have to make those choices. And how much effort you put in, and when, what time of year do you do it? And I really emphasize that those are decisions you have to make. So what I’ve seen in my career, which I think feeds right into what you’re talking about,

Jay Whetter  31:03

is

Sean Mitchell  31:03

we’ve really moved from the about the ’90s, at least in BC, we’ve moved heavily into protocols where the government will say this is how to do it, and and all consultants do it because from a liability perspective, you want to follow an established protocol, but they were designed for the forest industry 30 years ago, and we’re still doing them today.

Toban Dyck  31:26

Right,

Sean Mitchell  31:27

and I’m trying to push us away from that, saying, you know, some of those ideas are really good, that the methods are great, but it’s taken away all of your decision-making ability, and so we need to really reinforce how do we make decisions, and the students. Most of the classes, those classes that I teach, those two that I mentioned, they’re discussion. People say, “How do you decide that? How do you decide what to do when you’re trying to get to a stream and the road is washed out?

Toban Dyck  31:57

Yeah.

Sean Mitchell  31:58

And and so then you’re just telling stories. Well, this is what I did when I encountered it, and this is what I did. But this is what I would do if I saw it again because I learned a lot. Right. So I think there’s two things going on. One is we need to move away from, to a degree, move away from standards and protocols and other people telling us how to do things, and we need to share with with more junior members and staff how we dealt with problems that they’re going to encounter.

Jay Whetter  32:27

Oh man, that just makes me think of soil health. Do we do we have a top down way to approach soil health, or do we say, okay, what is your problem on your farm, and how do we help you solve that problem, and we’re going to get back to problem solving, Darren, eventually. But no, I really, I really like the the training as a way to give confidence to solve problems. I think, I mean, if if if we were going to write, you know, a purpose statement for all all of this, the training we do and the training you guys do, it’s um the the skills to solve problems, the confidence to solve problems. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  33:05

and I like the the decision making stuff is really interesting. I feel like that’s you know we when we’ve taught these taught these courses before, I feel like we we kind of we bombard. I mean, we we try to do it in a very you know facilitating facilitators centric kind of way, but still, I think some people might be left with okay. Let’s say let’s say we’re talking about you know taking self-shot videos in a in a in a in a wheat field about you know disease or whatever. Are people left thinking, oh, now every time I’m in a wheat field, I should be taking a self-shot video of myself talking about the wheat field, and it’s like, well, no, that’s not that’s not the right approach either, right? So then to apply that decision making lens, where it’s like, okay, what are what is the criteria for this? What are the circumstances that that might lend itself to this? And and and not and and still, they’re not necessary. It’s not a causal or relationship. It’s just yeah, and that’s where anecdote comes in. That’s where you talk about experience, and you and you say yeah, I like that. I like that. I think that’s I think that’s a missing piece in a lot of instruction that decision making aspect. Yeah,

Darren Hebert  34:17

yeah. And Sean made a really good point because it really is where you can fast track somebody’s career by helping them kind of develop that muscle to make those decisions. We’re only going to be there for a set period of time, and then the instructors are going to go. Yeah. So what happens after that? So your ability to stand there on your own in the field and make that decision for a scenario maybe you didn’t envision before.

Toban Dyck  34:38

Yeah.

Sean Mitchell  34:38

One of the things that I think also helps is it get goes to confidence is when I’m talking to students about this I will tell them that you know I’ve been doing fish work for 40 years and yet my colleagues and I we still share fish pictures and say can you help me identify this right like you’ve always got to pull on other people and that’s how you make decisions. Not necessarily by yourself. You need that input from other minds that see the problem differently in order to really make an informed decision.

Toban Dyck  35:10

Yeah, part of that is not being afraid to ask questions. Also, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Darren Hebert  35:15

Toban and Jay, do you get this too, where you’re you’re teaching classes and and you have the confidence to say I don’t know, yeah, and you want the students to know that too, right? And that’s a that’s a powerful statement, isn’t it? It’s own to know the foundation is there, but I even then I don’t know, and you can model that to your students.

Toban Dyck  35:35

Yeah, yeah. Well, Jay never says that. I’m just I’m just kidding. It is a difficult. No, no. In all honesty, it’s a very difficult thing to say. And I, I mean, when you when you say that, Darren, I got. I don’t know if we say that. I don’t know if we say that enough. You know. Well, I’m

Jay Whetter  35:54

just thinking of you know again the the point of this training is not a top down necessarily. This this is this is what this is what you should be doing, but then have but instead having a conversation. Okay, what is what are your what are your day to day problems? What are what are the what are the pain points in your in your work? How can we help you address those? So your your your the training is to answer real problems that your your customers have or your clients or whatever you call them

Darren Hebert  36:28

for sure. And Jay, you alluded to this off the top as well that you go on this journey together.

Jay Whetter  36:33

Yeah,

Darren Hebert  36:34

right. And a statement like that just is humbling in the classroom because it puts you everybody on the same plane that we are going to do this journey together,

Jay Whetter  36:42

and I gotta, I kind of do, but I mean, the teacher moving from the podium or the the stage down into the to the room, and so it just becomes you become like the facilitator, not the the sage on the stage, to borrow that old phrase. Yeah, yeah.

Jay Whetter  36:59

So, Darren, what when? Okay, yeah, you you can you you finish your thought there because I want to capture it.

Darren Hebert  37:06

Yeah, for sure. That’s a really good point, Jake. Because you think about that equation. It’s you at the front, and there’s 20 students in the room. Collectively, they know far more than you do.

Jay Whetter  37:14

Yeah, for

Toban Dyck  37:14

sure.

Darren Hebert  37:15

Right. And if you’re mindful of that, if you’re mindful of that, you realize your place in the room.

Jay Whetter  37:19

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Toban Dyck  37:21

We we we definitely try to like when we when we’ve taught courses. It’s it’s it’s always like let let’s figure this out together, essentially. And I think that I think that works. I mean, it it alleviates so much pressure on us too, right? It’s a then it’s like I feel much more I feel much more comfortable as a facilitator than I than I do as an authority on, on especially a lot of like kind of these these softer sciences that we that we would be teaching. So then, I I like the idea of being able to kind of tease it out of people and let them feel whether it’s through small groups or whatever, tease out the answers.

Darren Hebert  37:59

Yeah, really good point, though. But I mean, people don’t learn until they trust you.

Toban Dyck  38:03

Yeah.

Darren Hebert  38:04

Right. So how do you how do you build the trust? Well, you build the trust by being authentic.

Jay Whetter  38:07

Yeah.

Darren Hebert  38:08

Right. And they don’t. People know when you’re bluffing or you don’t know the answer, but you’re pretending to know the answer, and that would be a ethic anyway to do that. But but getting to that level with them right away is then you go on the journey together.

Toban Dyck  38:20

Yeah. Yeah. Is there is there um is there a way to tell? Let’s say you you are, and I don’t know how much classroom work the both of you do, but is there a way to tell that a that a group has walked away transformed by by a certain certain session workshop?

Sean Mitchell  38:40

I would say definitely. Yeah, it’s it’s not objective. Well, it’s not analytical. Partly, it’s measures like how engaged are they in the classroom, how how willing are they to do the field exercises that you ask of them. And in any given class, of course, you have a spectrum from the overachievers to the the ones that are there because they weren’t sure what else to do, right? But because we have the luxury of teaching for one or two weeks of one instructor for one or two weeks at a time, they can see the trajectory, the growth, or the change in the students over that time. It’s not just a day, and so what they during our debriefs afterwards, what they’re frequently talking about is you know the there’s a few things increase in confidence, but also how the leaders in the class have started helping the those that are struggling much much more. So you’re getting a lot more cohesion in the class. I’ve taught somewhere at the end of a week. They’re they’re talking about the future. They’re saying you know, like I had one where we had two different nations in the same classroom, and these people really they they got along, but they never worked together. By the end of the class, they were saying we really need to work together because our our problems are the same and. We can we can do a lot more together. So from those measures, I consider those successes as opposed to some sort of standardized exam.

Jay Whetter  40:09

Yeah, that must be so rewarding in itself. I mean, if if if that was the only thing that came out of that, and I know it wasn’t the only thing, but I mean that that’s success right there.

Sean Mitchell  40:19

On on the note of success, the most powerful experience I’ve had teaching was we did a introductions on the first day, first morning, first day, and one of a young woman said, “I’ve been clean and sober for five weeks, and I want to stay clean and sober for the three weeks of this program. That’s that kind of focused what the job was for the remainder of that time, right? So,

Toban Dyck  40:43

yeah, that’s that’s powerful for sure.

Darren Hebert  40:45

Yeah, that’s wonderful, Sean.

Toban Dyck  40:47

Yeah, Jay, Darren, yeah, go ahead.

Darren Hebert  40:52

Yeah, thanks, guys. I was just going to add to Sean’s point, which is a really good one too. So, when we structure education simple to complex, like how do we know if we’ve reached the students. We’ll build the skills through the week, and then give them a problem then to solve. And their ability to solve that, as we remove ourselves more and more into the background as instructors, is a litmus test for

Toban Dyck  41:13

us. Yeah.

Darren Hebert  41:14

So can they put those pieces together to then maybe they learn about trees and then vegetation and water, but we’ll give an exercise that would then incorporate all three with some of the lessons we’ve then taught them, so they can plan it and scheme it and do it in a logical sequential order. So we’ll build that with them.

Toban Dyck  41:31

Yeah, yeah, that’s all. Jay is just bursting at the seams here to talk about problem solving. Yeah, well, I just let’s give let’s give him his minute. Yeah, I’ve been trying to

Jay Whetter  41:42

circle back to this for so long, but thank you, Toban. No, I just when I talked about this this guy in the in the agriculture seed business, and you said about this the grads coming out with technical skills, but no problem solving skills, and Darren, your face just lit up, and I so I just I there’s there’s some. I, I know you’ve got something that you, you, that you want to share, and I just wanted to make sure that we captured that.

Darren Hebert  42:08

Just that there’s a lack of skills coming out of post-secondary. That,

Jay Whetter  42:12

yeah, no, it was, yeah, it was about the post. Right, they, they have the, they have technical skills, but they don’t have problem-solving skills, and I thought that the way you responded to that question, I thought maybe you had something profound

Toban Dyck  42:27

to add. Now the pressure’s on, Darren. Something profound. Yeah,

Darren Hebert  42:33

that’s right. Well, I would start by saying that university and postsecondary, I think, is really caught up to doing just that. We see more polytechnic like schools and technical diploma and degree programs than ever from when I went to school years and years ago. So they’re they’re realizing that too, and and in there I think there’s a strong need to talk to industry. Sean would tell you as well, Sean, that our our instructors were industry teaching industry, so they’re practitioners that are doing the actual work. So the level of realism in the training is really strong, and I don’t know if university captured that when I was there. And there’s such a need for that, right? I think that I love what you guys are doing because extension work is just that.

Toban Dyck  43:11

It is right. You’re

Darren Hebert  43:12

disseminating scientific information, and you’re putting it at grassroots level so it can be applied. Yeah, and it’s no different than what we then do too. Is to is to bridge that gap to do that.

Toban Dyck  43:23

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Mitchell  43:24

But maybe I can give you one example of of how we one way we do try to approach the problem solving is we often run scenarios, and so we have some common ones. You know, you’ve been called out to the field, and it’s you know 30 kilometers away, middle of winter. We create a scenario, and then you say, “How are you going to do this safely? Right. And I mean, in some sometimes the question, the answer could be, “You don’t go because it’s not safe. But the whole point is, even though they’re just scenarios, put the people in that place.

Toban Dyck  43:59

Yeah, yeah.

Darren Hebert  44:00

So, so become the goalpost in their education. Yeah.

Toban Dyck  44:05

So, yeah, that’s awesome. So, when you’re when you’re designing kind of new training courses or modules, kind of what is your what’s what’s your sniff test to to to to yeah tell if it’s gonna if it’s gonna have import.

Darren Hebert  44:21

Yeah, get feedback from industry right away. Okay, so involve industry in the course content. You know, Toban, not to sound virtuous, but I mean, training we think should be should be tied to employment, and then we in turn as educators should be judged by that. Not necessarily how well we are at the front of the stage and talking and the course delivery. It’s it’s the tangible difference we make for students at the end, and Sean alluded to that too. So have industry involved up front. Make sure that the demand is being met and it’s accurately reflected in our courses. So there is a bridge to students finishing a course and then gaining employment, if if that’s the objective of the course, to do that. Yeah, but involve industry up front.

Toban Dyck  45:00

Yeah, that that makes sense. That’s kind of what we’re yeah what we’re what we’re doing.

Jay Whetter  45:04

We’re often training people who are already employed to enhance their skills. So it’s not necessarily that we’re training people to go out and then apply for a job, but but I think they both obviously have have a purpose. But with a lot of government extension now, it’s just delivering a message and then kind of walking away because I think the government are somewhat reluctant to to to provide any sort of analysis or advice, and so I think if if I had a message to some of the extension staff, it’d be how do you facilitate a conversation that helps some problem solving rather than just dumping information on people, while also satisfying your government employer’s desire not to have you stick your neck out too far. Yeah. So so I think I think part of the part of our training is like you know facilitate facilitation skills or or conversation skills. It’s not skills and delivering advice, but how do you encourage the your your customer your client, to come up with the solution. So you’re facilitating, yeah,

Toban Dyck  46:25

for sure, for

Darren Hebert  46:26

sure, for sure. Guys, can I can I flip the script and just ask you a question? Absolutely. I loved one of your questions you asked of us. Is how do you know you’ve reached the student? Yeah. How do you guys measure that?

Jay Whetter  46:36

Yeah.

Toban Dyck  46:36

How do we know? Well, we don’t know. That’s why we ask you. So no, I mean, you. Your answer was because we also we also try to get our students to do a bit of a project, kind of at the end of our at the end of our session. So similar, right? We we we kind of use that as a gage for you know, kind of how how they’ve not not not listened, but what they what they’ve drawn from from the from the training and how effective it’ll be. But you know, it’s it’s a it’s still it’s still a good question and it’s still kind of a work in progress because we also get that question from our students too. Is you know so they’ve learned stuff from us. Let’s say methods for extending information. They want to know for themselves and for their organizations how they can track if what they’re going to do now these new things how they can track if it’s going to be successful or not because I mean they’ll be their employer is going to want to know like if they if they’ve asked, let’s say, for investment in you know new tools or stuff to deliver these messages, they’re going to want to know that that’s actually reaching more farmers. So they’re very very motivated. They’re very curious about how they can track it. And yeah, it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a tricky one. And I don’t know if it’s one that you know. Do you does it warrant hard numbers or is it something you kind of just speak to about you know watch the trends over time? Watch yeah, I’m not sure. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  48:13

and we’re not teaching people how to count fish or or measure trees or count trees, which are like hard skills. We’re we’re mostly in communications training. Yeah, that’s right. So so we’re we’re kind of incrementally moving moving this our our world along. I feel like yeah. So it’s I mean it’s quite difficult to measure. I think although we do have follow up like one hour courses where we will we’ll bring them back and we’ll check in and give them another little skill. So we’re just we’re kind of elevating the skill set bit by bit. But yeah, and we do post-event surveys again. Is that is that giving us good quantifiable results? I think so. I think and that feedback also helps us get better if we’re if we’re in the spirit of all learning together. But

Toban Dyck  49:05

but but I but I do think if there would be a way, and I’m not I’m not a hard numbers kind of guy. It doesn’t need to be doesn’t need to be so clean like that. I’m fine with it being a bit bit messy. But if there is a way that we can kind of track the the kind of the I don’t know the effectiveness of some of these things that we teach I think that would be really valuable or invaluable to to our to our audience and like I said it doesn’t have to be like hard data and graphs which are like a lot of our students would be used to demonstrating data through right like because they’re all like trained agronomists or researchers, so they’re used to that. But just some mechanism through which to to kind of gage gage effectiveness. One way

Jay Whetter  49:49

I would gage effectiveness is is to go to an event and see someone who went through our training take a new creative approach. To presenting information,

Toban Dyck  50:02

and we’ve had that, right? Yeah, but we’ve had people who’ve used used that. That’s like, I mean, yeah, it warms the goggles of my heart, right? Just like that kind of stuff is is is so is so awesome. But I think like like you guys, it’s just really like building like building that confidence because so much of it is just as long as they feel inspired at the end of it to to like just try things like for us like for the kinds of things that we talk about you know presentation skills communication skills writing taking video all this photography like as long as they feel like they can just go out there and play with this stuff and that they feel empowered to do so. That for me personally is huge. Like really, because like just try it out. I mean, I you know within reason, of course, and you you know you can whatever put parameters and all this stuff. But I feel like if they feel like oh yeah, you know what? I always felt like this was beyond me, but now I feel like I have enough to get out there, get out the door, and try something new. Like that’s a huge win. Like, yeah, absolutely. You

Darren Hebert  51:04

know, to make education not transactional either.

Toban Dyck  51:06

Yeah,

Darren Hebert  51:07

right. So that you and I go through this together, and you’re there for me. Support along the way too. So I mean, we’re readily available. Sean would tell you that he’s had students from 10 years ago, seven years ago, phone him still or contact him still. Say, I was in the situation where this happened. What should I do now? And he’s there for supporting him, and instructors do that

Jay Whetter  51:23

for. Right on. That’s great. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  51:25

I was just going to ask you, what are the challenges have you guys faced so far in the extension work that you do? Well, I will say that. So in the in the training side, it’s I don’t know. So we, you know, not having a one size fits all approach to our to our to our modules. Like we have a bit of a curriculum and a workbook, and we can we draw on that. But we also understand that everybody’s needs are different. So when we go teach a course, let’s say to like Manitoba agriculture or to which is government, right, or or to a to a to a private company, you know, doing the what we’re learning is like doing the pre work of figuring out what their challenges are and what their interests are and what their needs are is is crucial. So just being kind of, I guess the challenge would be adapting adapting our programming to to really really meet their needs and so they get the most value out of it. I think is our at least right now. I feel like that’s our our biggest challenge. It’s not insurmountable, but it’s just been been clear that that’s something we need to do. How would you answer that question?

Jay Whetter  52:33

Well, given that

Toban Dyck  52:34

given that we’re out of time, yeah. Well,

Jay Whetter  52:37

yeah, I’m already thinking about. I mean, I think we’ve learned a lot from each other. Which is this is I love the structure of this podcast because I mean I appreciate you asking questions of us, and that I mean it makes forces us to to think about our answers. And but I mean if you guys could deliver to the world of agriculture extension one message on on on how to do training or how to solve problems, what would

Darren Hebert  53:06

it be? I’ll pass the baton to Sean, but I would say trust science. Trust science.

Toban Dyck  53:13

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Mitchell  53:14

You really put put us on the spot. Yeah, yeah. I I think it it just comes down to always put the student first, and everything is focused on them.

Jay Whetter  53:29

Well, those are two great, very different, but very valuable answers. And we didn’t get a chance to talk about trusting science, but I mean, part of our our job is to take these complicated 20 page science reports, like these journal articles, and synthesize them into you know what? How are they addressing a need out in the world of agriculture? And I think yes, trust science, but also communicate science that science effectively. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  54:00

yeah, yeah, agreed. Well, thanks,

Jay Whetter  54:03

guys. I feel like I want to I want to do this again sometime and and meet face to face and and sit around at a table and and and build on our experiences. You

Toban Dyck  54:12

could be like me. I call a meeting with him every once in a while just just to just to pick their brains. Perfect. Well, let’s do that again. Conversation going. Let’s do that again sometime. Yeah. Thanks again, guys. Great to meet you. Yeah. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Darren Hebert  54:25

Really enjoyed the time and effort. Thank you guys very much. We both enjoyed it very much. Thanks, guys. It’s been great. Thank you.

Jay Whetter  54:36

Well, Toban and I really enjoyed talking to those guys.

Toban Dyck  54:39

I’m so glad to answer. I’m so glad, Jay, because it’s like I’ve met them a bunch of times, and I’m glad. I’m like, I want to introduce them to Jay. How does Jay? How’s Jay gonna? Is Jay gonna like them as much as I? I’m getting nervous about it. I’m just, I’m just kidding. But I’m so glad I knew you would, or I was hoping you would. Just

Jay Whetter  54:55

great energy. I love those those conversations where the energy level is high and. The the positive and the learning and it was just a moment it’s one of those cases where we could have talked for longer but we also want to leave people wanting more which is of course where we left them

Toban Dyck  55:10

of course yeah what were your

Jay Whetter  55:12

what were your takeaways

Toban Dyck  55:13

well I really like that training is a way to build confidence to solve to solve problems, and then the other one. So the second thing that I really liked is the is their goal of developing in their students the decision making muscle. Like you know, I think that’s really really great. And I like training training as a way to build confidence really kind of nails it for me, though, and I think I think I think for you too. Like in terms of how we deliver programs, it’s really about just you know they like people know people know. It’s just about you know kind of teasing that out and like creating an environment where they can they feel like you know they leave feeling like yeah I do know or and I’m I’m gonna try, and and and it’s and it’s it’s all good, and this is all part of it, and you know, however we’re viewed in those situations, you and I, whether we’re viewed as an authority or facilitator, doesn’t really matter. But as long as we can convey that, hey, that’s how, I mean, heck, that’s how I got into where I am today in the industry by trying, right? Yeah, and like, and I think that’s yeah, and then on the decision making part, I think that’s a really interesting layer to add to our to our training and to to to a workshop. In that, yeah, you can train all these new techniques and and all that kind of stuff, but it isn’t a matter of doing all these techniques all the time. It’s a matter of kind of discernment and figuring out when and when not to do them and to and I don’t I just don’t think I’ve talked to that explicitly right so just I mean it doesn’t need a lot of kind of exegesis or whatever to to to in in a chorus environment but but at least to acknowledge that that it’s not that that that’s that’s a layer that we’re going to be adding to it anyway. What are you? What were your key takeaways? Well,

Jay Whetter  57:07

I I liked Darren’s point right at the end about trusting the science, and then the conversation he and I had about you know you know communicating the science because because I think a lot of the job of a of an extension person and even us in our communications is to is to take the science, which can be written and delivered in fairly complex, hard to interpret prose. Thinking of the yeah, thinking of these like 2020 page journal articles. So you know, trusting the science, yes, but communicating, finding what the need or the nugget is within that science and communicating it. But I like starting with trusting the science. I think that’s a good good start point. Also, I liked Sean’s talk about the you know this training session that brought these two groups together that didn’t normally work together, and at the end of it, they decided, well, let’s let’s figure out ways that we can kind of keep this going and work together on on these other projects. And I think you know some of the training we’ve done with different commodity groups, and if they leave kind of with the camaraderie, like almost a feeling of we’re working on this together, and maybe that’ll work into some sort of collaborations. I think that’s a great result. That unintended positive consequences.

Toban Dyck  58:30

And then

Jay Whetter  58:30

you came up with the idea. Yeah, which I think the analogy just continues, right? Because

Toban Dyck  58:34

then it’s like Burford’s group working with Natural Resources

Jay Whetter  58:37

Trading Group, Natural Yeah, Natural Resources Training Group,

Toban Dyck  58:40

NRTG, like just like just like that, is kind of like that that kind of collaboration, kind of an un unlikely pair, right? Yeah. How how we all

Jay Whetter  58:49

well, I want to go and learn how to measure trees. I know, and and tell the difference between fish species. Sounds like it does sound like kind of fun.

Toban Dyck  58:59

Well, novel for us prairie folk, yeah.

Jay Whetter  59:03

Measure a tree. Our trees are about three feet tall. You just kind of go, “Oh yeah, that’s six feet. There’s no point. Anyways, yeah, great, great takeaway.

Toban Dyck  59:12

Yeah. I guess we should wrap up. We should. All right. I’m Jay Wetter, and I’m Toban Dyck. We

Jay Whetter  59:16

are the Extensionists. Till next time. Till next time.