Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Brandon Bochenski: I think the biggest thing here is you have a workforce here that works extremely hard. We are absolutely de risking, you know, some of the investments that you're going to make on the coast. You have such high risk now with what's going on in Ground Forks and where we're pointed in the future, We've got all the pieces here. When it comes from the workforce, technology, the university, political leadership, we've de risked the story for you. So bring your dollars here because they're only going to grow and you're going to love this place.
Intro: Welcome to Hangar X Studios, where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation. Our guests include aviation experts, pilots, financiers, military leaders, and innovators of all types. Buckle up for another episode of Hangar X.
[00:00:55] John Ramstead: Hey. Welcome to HangerX Studios. And we are live at the Hive in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is a drone, incubator and accelerator. And I'm excited they have Brandon Bochinsky on. Brandon, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:08] Brandon Bochenski: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:10] John Ramstead: Brandon is the mayor of Grand Forks and local hero. But you grew up in Blaine, Minnesota, so. I grew up in Minnesota. You had a little passion, a little sport called hockey that brought you all the way up through D1, through UND, through the NHL, and so we'll talk a little bit about that. And then you got into business, but through a number of reasons, you said, I'm going to take my life, put my business on hold, run for mayor, because you had a vision for what's happening up here. But I'd love for you to share a little bit about kind of your background. Then we're going to talk about what's next.
[00:01:44] Brandon Bochenski: Absolutely. You know, grew up in a. In a big family, got seven kids, so not a lot of money to go around. And you can imagine hockey is not a. Not an inexpensive sport.
[00:01:52] John Ramstead: It's not. So my kids played hockey.
[00:01:54] Brandon Bochenski: We had challenges making, making ends meet, but I was passionate. And, you know, my family, my community saw that. So I had an opportunity after high school to go play in the ushl. So my journey went through Lincoln, Nebraska. I got recruited to come up here to und.
I'm going to go a little shorter on this career because we'll get to the business side, but played 15 years of professional hockey and then and move back and wanted to not only give back to my community, but to help it grow and to say thank you for what had supported me. So, yeah, moved to Grand Forks, where I Had played college hockey and had really enjoyed my experience and I met a girl while I was in school, so came back with my wife and brought back home to raise the kids.
I got involved in business line development and construction and just saw a community that hadn't changed much over 20 years, but had all these great assets with the university, with the base, with Grand grand sky, with just this, this great field of entrepreneurs in the uas, in the tech field and good people and.
[00:02:50] John Ramstead: Great, smart, hard working people that I.
[00:02:52] Brandon Bochenski: Wanted to hang out with, I wanted to be around. So I, I decided that I'm gonna throw my hat in the mayor. I don't, you know, some people dip their toe in on the park board or the council first and I just, I thought if I'm gonna make a difference, go right to the top. And I ran.
[00:03:06] John Ramstead: Even at the core of that, what was the reason for you to say I'm willing to go run for a political office, Mayor, to accomplish this thing that's so important to me?
[00:03:16] Brandon Bochenski: Well, I think you see policy that can really be beneficial. Right. If you're going to set policy and also leadership, you need to have leadership at the top that has a vision. If you don't have that, it's a rudderless ship. So I also was probably naive enough to think that everyone was going to like what I was doing. So that was probably part of it.
[00:03:33] John Ramstead: Did you find that everybody liked what you were doing?
[00:03:35] Brandon Bochenski: It turns out you can't make everybody happy. No.
[00:03:37] John Ramstead: So people have opposing opinions.
[00:03:39] Brandon Bochenski: Yeah. But you know what I always tell people I'm used to that because in the hockey world, half your games, everybody hates you because you're on the road. So I was okay with that. I kind of figured it out. But I think I was naive enough to think everything was going to be easy, but it's not.
[00:03:51] John Ramstead: Even some of your own fans hate you if you have a couple. That's true.
[00:03:54] Brandon Bochenski: That's true too. So I think everything came together at the right time and I had a community that believed my vision and that's why, you know, I was able to beat a 20 year incumbent by, by 18% and then ran on opposed the next election. So I take that as a sign of confidence and we've done some great things, including some of the energy behind that.
[00:04:12] John Ramstead: In politics, was it like a vision for like a renewal for new growth for. It was, you know, let's take, let's. We need something different. But.
[00:04:20] Brandon Bochenski: Well, it started with that, you know, having someone that had been there for a long time Maybe did a good job, but didn't have the energy that they used to having sort of that business acumen, having, you know, performed a sport or some other trade at a high level. So, you know, you got someone like that can perform because I've, you know, proven it at multiple different. Different fields. So. And I had a vision. I had a vision that was business friendly and that resonates with people.
[00:04:42] John Ramstead: Yeah.
When you got into office afterward, what was the.
When you started to understand what being the mayor is? What are some things that surprise you? I'm just curious.
[00:04:53] Brandon Bochenski: Well, I was really surprised by, you know, I might be working on a $300 million budget for the city. And then later that day I get a phone call because somebody's trash can blew away. And, you know, I got to find it, you know, so the number of neighborhood disputes and the amount of time you spend on things that. That, you know, largely you hope people could figure out themselves. But they said, I'm going to call the mayor because they, you know, I've been approachable enough where they might know me. And then they say, well, the mayor's a friend of mine, so I want to reach out to him. So some issues that. I'm fine with it. I think I like people, I like to engage. But you certainly. I get into the weeds a lot more than I thought I would have.
[00:05:27] John Ramstead: Yeah. But now, when you started, what are some of the business initiatives that you brought in? I know the hive is something you were behind where we're at now.
[00:05:37] Brandon Bochenski: Yeah.
[00:05:37] John Ramstead: But there's been a number of other things. What was almost like, you almost think from a macro level, what was kind of your strategy and then what were some of the initiatives that you started putting in place?
[00:05:46] Brandon Bochenski: Yep. So we value added egg is the other big one. We are an agriculture community. We have one of the. The best valleys, the Red River Valley, when it comes to egg production. So that's huge. When farming does well, that's the money that a lot of the people that are investing money in some of this tech stuff are farmers that want to diversify. So it was adding fuel to that fire. And it was also, what can we do to take off our tech industry? Because we can bring value out of there. Again, that's jobs in the 60 to 80,000. But tech jobs, you know, you're 100,000 plus Grand sky is going to add six to 800 jobs in the next five years. Those are all going to be 120.
[00:06:20] John Ramstead: Plus 600, 800 jobs coming into grants.
[00:06:22] Brandon Bochenski: Yes. In the next five years. So that's pretty, that's pretty exciting. With TRMC, you got SDA here.
[00:06:27] John Ramstead: Is that what their tenants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin kind of growing their presence at Grand Scott?
[00:06:31] Brandon Bochenski: Well, it's, it's, it's GA, General Atomics, Northrop Yeoman, and then TRMC, it's a DoD program test research management center. They're going to do a hypersonic missile testing on drones. So through that, Northrop's going to have to expand to do some of the remods on the global hawks. So, yep, you know, all that stuff. The viewers are probably wondering what language we're speaking right now. But so as far as initiatives, we needed, in some cases the city needed their spokesperson need to go out and tell the story about Grand Forks. So you hadn't heard about it, you made it up here and you're like, wow, what's going on here? Everything that's happening here makes sense. But I've never heard of this, so I had to go tell that story. So that was a big piece of it, bringing the leadership to it and then having a facility like this and then connecting people and a lot of the initiatives, sometimes it's government stay out of the way. And sometimes it's just knowing that your leader is there and he's supporting all these projects and all these companies and that you've got a home here in Grand Forks.
[00:07:27] John Ramstead: Yeah, well, you know, it's exciting. I got invited up here by the Air Force to do a three day strategic planning with Carl Monroe.
[00:07:36] Brandon Bochenski: Great, great.
[00:07:37] John Ramstead: When we met Johnny Ryan and understood what was going on at the Hive, I got back to Denver and I said, guys, you need to come up here. And they actually, a week later we had Johnny down in our office to explain everything. And then two weeks later we were back up here. So I didn't even know what was going on up here. I actually had never been to Grand Forks until seven months ago. And now I've been up here, I think four times and it's amazing, but.
[00:07:59] Brandon Bochenski: I have to get you a condo up here. But that's the story we hear over and over again. And you know, being a military community, you know, you're on that two year cycle, so you got to retell that story all the time. But people in the private sector, obviously your Runway, so to speak, is a lot longer. But you still gotta tell the story and you gotta continue to ponder. And that's why we need people like you to help tell that story.
[00:08:20] John Ramstead: Yeah, well, and that's what we're up Here doing with hanger acts right now. But what, you know, one of the areas of focus that you, it seems like you chose intentionally was UAS Unmanned Aerial Systems. Right. Drones.
Small, some very large ones. What, what made you decide? Hey, that's, that's a good focus for us.
[00:08:37] Brandon Bochenski: It's really our, our niche. So what do we have that other places don't? Okay, we're, we're in North Dakota. We've got unencumbered airspace everywhere. Got a university that has, you know, very technologically advanced programs and with that, very technologically advanced students, entrepreneurs. So we have that already. Let's keep them here. Let's let them do the work here in Grand Forks that had started, but it really hadn't coalesced and got its critical mass yet. And so my job was to help collaborate, you know, bring all of that together and coordinate that so I could see the growth. And just knowing those types of jobs, these are people that are going to spend a lot of money in your community. Your economy can grow really fast and the quality of life of your whole community goes up, and then that helps fill in all these other jobs in manufacturing, all the way on down service industry. So I guess I saw the vision that if you want to build something, UAS was the, you know, a great place to start in the community ground force because of what we already had here.
[00:09:32] John Ramstead: Yeah, it's, you know, it's been really fun as we've gotten to understand the whole ecosystem. I mean, go from we just talked to a patent attorney and you got metal lock up here is actually building airplanes. You have people that are doing research and development on software that can be deployed on drones. And. But there's, we had Aaron from Bifrost Manufacturing who makes all the parts that allow people to actually build and prototype and actually build companies. But there's, but there's also mentorship. There's also some great leaders in this area area that have kind of been there, done that, and they're kind of pouring into this group. So it was, I think strategically what you guys did was like, I think you nailed it, like right in the bullseye for this whole group. Where do you see it going or where do you want to see it in the next two, three years?
[00:10:20] Brandon Bochenski: Well, we've got the foundation here. Now we've got to continue to grow it. The beauty of the way national defense spending has evolved is some of the moats are removed now. You know, you have these big moats where if you weren't a major defense contractor, you weren't going to get a contract. You know, you had to be a really big dog to get a piece of a bite of the apple when it comes to the Air Force specifically. That moat has shrunk so much where there might be a small, a company like Bifrost might be making a part for a Global Hawk that's doing global or that's doing a missile testing. Paper seven missile testing. Well, you couldn't do that 20 years ago. So there's the opportunity, you know, with the base certainly and with some of the other DoD related activities that are going to add really big dollars to the community. So it's going to be to continue to grow that sector. You know, we need to have some homegrown companies that are home runs and bring in more venture capital here and just continue to grow the whole thing. Add fuel to the fire.
[00:11:12] John Ramstead: Yeah, you mentioned venture capital. It's kind of unique in this environment. I think some of the access to both capital, debt financing, some different vehicles and funding for companies from pre revenue startups all the way through more mature and they actually want to move into manufacturing. Could you say a little bit from an economic development standpoint, what's also available up here?
[00:11:34] Brandon Bochenski: Well, that's, I mean, manufacturing. Yeah. If you want to have your economy go, you need those middle class jobs that are paying well. So Grand Forks is one of the very few communities in the entire country that has grown its manufacturing sector. We've grown it in food processing, but we've also grown in tech like airplane manufacturing, wind blade manufacturing. So we're seeing that manufacturing growth. So it's great to have someone here that's building a product. But if we can get to the next step where they commercialize and they can manufacture it here, that's just all around the world.
[00:12:04] John Ramstead: That's awesome.
[00:12:05] Brandon Bochenski: Primary sector. So that means that's just bringing dollars back into your, into your community and you can, you can truly blossom and everybody does, does well. So workforce is always going to be a challenge. So we, we work through having a community that's very safe, law abiding community, very stable when it comes to politics and its political leadership. The things that people I think want in the community, safe, high paying jobs, a lot to do, get rid of some of the BS that, you know, that's sort of overwhelmed us for the last four years now that's, that's being stabilized and I think, you know, we're a community that's going to benefit from that.
[00:12:39] John Ramstead: Yeah. And speak to a little bit the relationship between the city of Grand Forks and in the Grand Forks Air Force Base. I know these are two very large entities and there's a lot of synergy between those two.
[00:12:52] Brandon Bochenski: It's very strong for me. You know, it really starts with the, you know, the wing commanders. I got a great relationship with Colonel Monroe. I mean, that's. You want to talk about a leader that's forward looking, I mean, he's going to have a couple of stripes in his shoulder, stars, whatever, you know, whatever the generals are for Air Force, he's, he's a guy that has that vision again, he'll only be here two years. He'll be gone shortly. So it obviously starts with those connections, but we have to be a community that is partnered in a way that goes beyond the handshakes and the smiles. We need to know what does the Air Force need and how do we deliver it, plain and simple. So it's not just being a community that's, that's military friendly. We do that, we do that well. But when it comes down to business, and where is the business case for the Air Force? Grand Forks, is it? This is the base that is extremely agile. They can bring in B1 bombers for nine months no problem. They're running a Global Hawk mission out of your higher frequency communication. The community supports all those things. And if we make it less expensive for the military, for the Air Force to operate, they're going to bring more here because they got tight, a tight budget. So it's getting involved any way we can to lower the cost for the Air Force to operate so that this base will stand forever and we'll be, you know, the leader in that, in that aspect.
[00:14:02] John Ramstead: Yeah, yeah. I mean, how many, how many people are up at that base?
[00:14:07] Brandon Bochenski: Well, between contract, you got about 3200 to 3500. And that number's growing steadily. But it's growing because it's, it's, it's add ons there, so.
[00:14:15] John Ramstead: Right. They're adding on.
[00:14:16] Brandon Bochenski: Diversify.
[00:14:16] John Ramstead: Yeah. Diversifying.
Yeah. So now let's just say you and I were sitting here two years from now and we're over at Harry's and we're celebrating. Right? Yeah, maybe, you know, having a good old fashioned.
[00:14:31] Brandon Bochenski: Yeah.
[00:14:31] John Ramstead: And we're kind of celebrating. Hey, you know what? This was my vision. This is why I got into politics. This is the foundation I laid. But man, this is what happened. What are. If you could wave almost like a realistic magic wand, like you hit your stretch goals, what do you think would be celebrated years from now?
[00:14:46] Brandon Bochenski: I think we're Going to see at least one or two more major defense contractors that are going to be here with that. You're going to have a lot of ancillary money flowing through the community. That's going to be huge. I think we'll see two or three homegrown companies that are on a national scale, very respected and growing. Yeah, And I think our manufacturing is going to grow. Yeah, we're going to see that on a high tech level, very automated level, you know, building whatever the next thing may be, you know, whether it's unmanned sort of aerial transportation, whether It's. It's directly DoD and defense related, I think we're going to look back and, and say, you know, we've accomplished something great. But I think in two years we're going to say, what's, what's the next two years going to look like? We don't stop. We have to keep going. You can't slow down if you have success. You just got to keep driving and get more success the moment you take your foot off the gas. Momentum is a beautiful thing when you got it, but you can lose it in a heartbeat if you don't stay with it.
[00:15:37] John Ramstead: I bet. Now, one last thing I want to do, Brandon, I'll have you look in that camera. But just for everybody out there who's an investor, maybe they're an employee, they're an entrepreneur. They're looking at. Man, I'm hearing all these great things about Graham Forks, or I may be here now, and I'm thinking, thinking about expanding like this could be the place where I should build my home. What's the message to everybody out there that taps into your vision for this place?
[00:15:59] Brandon Bochenski: Well, I think the biggest thing here is you have a workforce here that works extremely hard. We are absolutely de risking, you know, some of the investments that you're going to make on the coast. You have such high risk now with what's going on in Ground Forks and where we're pointed in the future. We've got all the pieces here. When it comes from the workforce to technology, the university, political leadership, we've de risked the story for you. So bring your dollars here because they're only going to grow and you're going to love this place.
[00:16:27] John Ramstead: Love it, man. It's been a pleasure getting to know you, and I look forward to our next conversation, and I'm collaborating on this growth and scaling and, and just being up here.
[00:16:36] Brandon Bochenski: I appreciate your help with all that, so thanks for being here.
[00:16:38] John Ramstead: All right, thanks, Brandon.
[00:16:42] Brandon Bochenski: It.
