 Welcome to Longmont Voices and Vision, a project of Longmont public media. In the midst of the darkest period in our lives, when we're bombarded 24 hours a day with news of the coronavirus and the human and economic carnage it's causing in our society, we're challenged to cope with our fears and anxieties, we're remaining hopeful about what lies on the other side of this crisis. This project presents an opportunity for Longmont residents to share with others how they're adjusting to new realities of social distancing and the kind of future they hope to experience on the other side of the crisis. I'm Tim Waters, host of these conversations in a Longmont public media volunteer. In this series I'll be asking Longmont residents, many of them your friends and neighbors, three questions. What are you doing to get through this crisis? Even though we cannot be together right now, how are we staying connected to friends and families? And what's the future you are hoping to see and experience on the other side of this crisis? I hope you'll stay with this series and enjoy listening to your friends and neighbors and learn from them how they're getting through and what they're looking forward to in a new reality on the other side. Vito Montone, thank you for lending your voice and your vision to this Longmont Voices and Vision project. To get us started, why don't you just share a little bit about who you are? Yes, hi, I'm W. Vito Montone, I go by Vito. I moved to Longmont about two years ago now, or is it three? I don't know, I'm losing track. I run a strategic agency that does work for people around the country. And I am the new president of a board of the Longmont Council for the Arts. Well, three questions you know I'm going to ask right now, given where we are in this, in this experience, right, with this pandemic. The first question is just being curious about how are you getting through this current situation? Well, you know, it's, I don't know if other people can relate to it, but for probably, I don't know how many years of being self-employed, we've run a virtual company. So for us to be home more than normal is normal, you know, we're normally here all the time. And I guess a year or so ago, a year ago, we were blessed where my son, an adult son, chose to move to Longmont and then we chose as a family to buy a house together. So our core family is together. That's also normal for us. And what we've been doing, frankly, is re-experiencing all the Marvel movies in chronological order. So not the way they were released, but the actual storylines and it's unbelievable what, you know, what Stan Lee created and what he was able to keep together. So every night, we watch a movie, we're halfway, you know, so that's what we do and we look forward to that every night. So in a moment in history when physical separation and social distancing are now expected, but so unprecedented for us, what are you doing to stay connected to that? You've already answered part of the question in terms of staying connected to nuclear flame, but the rest of your family and friends, how are you staying connected? Well, we've used Google Meet and we use, of course, we're part of the wave of using Zoom, which is fascinating that one of my divisions of my son's company actually supports Zoom, so they're pulling their hair out with all the new demand. And of course FaceTime and Chats, because we're normally a virtual group, we just stay connected that way anyway. And on a practical basis, we're, you know, Amazon Prime members, we get a lot of our staples that way, except for toilet paper or fears. And even our protein, we get it from a farming system run by the individual farmers called Moink and we have all our protein delivered. So we hardly go out, you know, except to walk the dog. And everyone's, at least in our neighborhood, which is not far from yours, we're very, everyone seems to be pretty respectful of the distancing, you know, just opposite sides of the sidewalk or whatnot. So, you know, I don't, you know, because of people that might be having hardships, I hate to say this, but it's kind of normal for us. Yeah. Well, my third question, as you know, going into this, whatever was normal before this pandemic and social distancing and the isolation, coming out the other side, whatever the new normal is likely going to be different. Life is likely not going to be the same. So given that, the third question is what's your preferred future? What do you want to move to or toward on the other side of this? Well, that's obviously the most thought provoking question. And certainly, it seems that we're being taught a massive lesson that we're a bunch of human guests on a planet that ought to be working together and being cooperative, and being prepared for listening to experts as to what we should be being prepared about. I think it's the most disconcerting condition that we watched, you know, a very large economy, pretty much knock it out of the park on fighting the pandemic. And we still don't seem to be really listening. And we did a variety of things a few years ago that disabled our ability to respond. And I think breaking down those walls that are silly and politically biased, you know, partisan, when we're supposed to be taken care of each other, I just, it's almost stupefying to me. Like, we're supposed to be intelligent and powerful and smart. And here we're doing super dumb things. You know, it's really fascinating. So I'd like to see a more related intellectually caring world of each other moving forward, even in our small town. We're part of the system, right? So. You know, thank you so much for contributing to this project. Take good care of yourself and your family. And we'll see you on the other side of this pandemic. Absolutely. You too. Stay safe. Tallis, thank you so much for your contributions to the Longmont Voices and Vision project. We've started all these interviews by asking those involved to talk about themselves. So let people know who you are. Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate the invitation. I'm Tallis. I am the host of the savvy entrepreneur on Longmont public media, as well as on my own YouTube channel. I have been an entrepreneurship since 2004 when I started my first company. I have since been involved with multiple companies and multiple different industries from financial technologies to aggregating apps to market and efficiency plays to pharmaceuticals, including a chemotherapy drug that involved with a laptop surgical tool, other medical devices, as well as aerospace and graphene nanostructure technology. I also taught at the University of Colorado. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to teach at the age of 30. So I was one of the younger faculty members there. I've also written a book called the Savvy Entrepreneurs Business Handbook. And yeah, I am happy to be with you today. Thanks. First of three questions. We're in a moment of kind of unprecedented in any of our lives in terms of what we're going through. How are you getting through this current situation? I think I'm doing pretty well. I've been focusing on making content. I've been speaking with a lot of professionals regarding this COVID, whether it's accountants or other business professionals talking about what they've done in order to make this hard times or people who've been displaced because, you know, financially displaced because of the situation. Yeah, stay at home. I'm lucky I have a backyard. I have an awesome wife that I can hang out with. I just got three ducklings. So I plan around them just built them a duck house and actually, before we jumped on this call, I was setting up to build my raised planner beds that I've been meaning to put together. There you go. We're in a moment in time where we are kind of the physical isolation and social distancing is unprecedented in our lives. How are you staying connected to family and friends in this time of social isolation? You know, that's a great question. It's one of the topics that I spoke with a PhD psychologist about and if you, not to do a shameless plug, but if you want to check out my content about this, I've got great tips and tricks from PhD talking about how social distancing and isolation can impact the psyche. So, yeah, a very fascinating topic. I have been staying connected with my in-laws and my direct family members through video conferencing and through telephone calls. I have had friends, a couple that are being impacted by this. A couple of them are depressed and one of them was severely depressed. And so it has definitely taken tolls on people who are close to me. And luckily, you know, with technology, you can communicate readily. I can't imagine what it was like in 1919 flu epidemic when people had no corn peening and you have to write a letter and then hope that the mill carrier didn't die. And then, you know, it's quite a different time. So I think we're in a much better place than people have been in the past. The third of my three questions really is about the future. And it's safe to assume that whatever the new normal is on the other side of this pandemic, life will be different than it was on the front side of this pandemic. So for you, assuming we can influence or help shape some of what that new normal is, what's your preferred future? What would you like to see and experience on the other side of this? Another very good question. I would like to see people understanding the value of social programs. I think that people should realize after this that universal health care is something that we actually need. For cases like this, people are going to realize that a universal basic income is something that isn't just a pie in the sky idea, but it's something that can actually be implemented and could be very beneficial in times like these. I think that, you know, property values for commercial real estate are going to drop, making it a lot easier for businesses to get off this space if they need to. And I also think that a lot of the growing pains that have prevented us from working at home more are going to be overcome after this. People are going to realize how awesome it is to just rule out a bed, make breakfast, grab a shower and get to work within 30 minutes rather than spending an hour commuting. I've been working from home for a very long time. Luckily, I'm an entrepreneur. I have the flexibility to do that. Many members of my team are international and across the US. So I've been doing this for a very long time and I think kind of a best kept secret kind of thing that a lot of people are going to wake up to. One of my colleagues is a professor at MIT and he was saying that MIT is not going to even bring in new freshmen until next January. So a full year without class and they've been trying to implement at home learning with good success considering their top two university with a ton of resources. But I do see education changing along with working in the fact that a lot of it will be done at home. I do acknowledge that there are people who maybe won't thrive in that type of learning environment as well as working environment as others might. But I do feel as though this is a more efficient use of labor when possible to have them just work at home. The other great thing is Longmont has Next Light Internet, right? So I'm here with Gigabyte Speeds and I think our picture looks really good today. Well, yours probably looks better than mine. Talis, thank you so much for your willingness to participate in this project. Take care of yourself and your family. Stay safe. Yeah, thanks Tim. Good job on the project. I commend you for such a great endeavor. Thanks. Take care. Karen Dyke, thank you so much for lending your voice and your vision for this Longmont Voices and Vision Project. A good way to start these interviews has been to learn a little bit about who's being interviewed. So tell us about you. Okay, excuse me. I'm Karen and I'm a retired nurse. I worked primarily, excuse me, I worked primarily in nursing administration, ICU, ER type directors. Excuse me, I have to start coughing. This is new. This isn't the virus. It's important to point out to everyone. Yeah, yeah. You don't need a mask around you, but anyway. So I'm a retired nurse. I moved back to Colorado and back to Longmont when I retired. I have four grandchildren here, two sons and their wives and my four grandchildren. So what I do now is I play bridge and we figured out how to play bridge on Zoom and a website, which is good. And I'm also an activist and I work on environmental issues, primarily about fracking because of the air pollution with that. And then also climate change. And so I keep really busy with those things and I like to garden. So I'm glad if I'm stuck at home that I'm at least able to get outside and look at the tulips that are blooming and such. You know, I'm going to ask you three questions. The first is in this period that's unprecedented for any of us, probably unprecedented in human history. How are you getting through the current situation? You know, I have my jigsaw puzzle back here. I'm doing jigsaw puzzles. You know, I'm kind of, I've always been that news person always reading the newspaper and such and and have the news on to anything exciting happening or disastrous happening. And I found I've had to back away from that. I do like to read but I find that I have difficulty holding my attention to books. It's hard to get into that. So jigsaw puzzles have been good too. I can watch something mindless on Netflix or Hulu. My kids don't want me to go out anywhere. So I've been very few places since late March. I haven't been anywhere where I've been out of the car. I went to the bank and at the ATM and such. My youngest son brings me groceries a couple times a week. So, you know, it's at some point isolating, but we figured out the zoom is a good way to connect we did. I did a book club this morning with my book club and and most of the people are older than I am and all but one managed to get on to the site so that was really good. So, yeah, just, you know, I did walk down a golden ponds a couple times, but I see the people walking I live real really close to there I can walk to there. I see the people walking look very sad and it makes me sad so I'm better off in my garden I think then out walking I do just go to walk to mailbox here and such so I'm getting through it. So, you know, he is isolating that I've gotten kind of used to that and I talk on the phone a lot. I really don't enjoy talking on the phone that much, but I've talked on the phone a lot now. You may have already answered my second question, and that is how you stay connected to family and friends. Anything else to add to that? Probably the other thing is staying connected with my activism work, because, you know, we know that when we get through this, we have a crisis worse than this pandemic facing us which is climate chaos. And we've already watched bits and pieces of that we saw Australia on fire, who we've seen in the past huge fires in California in our own forests and so, you know, that that that is still out there pressuring us. So, I continue with meetings and, you know, emails and online working on that and I do work with a sustainable resilient Longmont we do our meetings online now we have our renewable energy committee, which is the one that pushed for the ready for 100. So we've been working very diligently with PRPA is changing their, they're working on on their process for what their goals are for the next 20 years and, and unfortunately they've put natural gas in there. That doesn't work very well for me and I think most people who live in Longmont we voted strongly we didn't like natural gas so why we've moved to natural gas when we know how polluting and damaging it is to the atmosphere makes no sense so continuing to work with several different groups and along the activism line, trying to keep our, our, our path open. We're probably going to do. I know we're doing an Earth Day thing here this week here's just the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and we can't celebrate like to. But we'll be doing a webinar for Earth Day that has some children, youth, they're not, they're not kids their teenagers, a panel with them and then we'll be doing a webinar in May. About renewable energy, just to keep that going forward so I stay very busy with activism. Well, much of what you just described I suspect he's at the third question and that is. It's safe to assume that on the other side of this pandemic, whatever the new normal is will life will be different than it was before this pandemic. We have the opportunity to shape some of that, whatever the new normal is so for you what's the preferred future, what would you like, what are you drawn toward what you what would you like to see an experience on the other side of this. Yeah, I think, you know, a number of things I, as I look at the future I think we, we have to take what we've learned about this pandemic and build a better future off of that. We've seen that our federal government hasn't worked. At least in my mind, they've kind of stood in the way we've had like city states doing the work themselves we've had the states trying to do all of this and it's, it's very mismanaged and I say that from a healthcare background. We need, we need strong leadership from the federal government to prepare us for what's coming to help us define a path that isn't based on profit but it's based on the needs of the earth. And we need, we, we are going to have to deal not only with the US but we need strong leadership here so that we can around the globe work on how we defeat climate change. We haven't done a good job of that with this pandemic. Other countries have done a much better job than the US have and it kind of hurts my heart. My age, you know, I've always had this thing that the US is great and you know we're very innovative and creative and we can do anything. We have really, this has really been bungled and that kind of hurts my heart and how we haven't been the leaders, you know, we, we just haven't been out there being creative and and as a result, thousands of people died that probably didn't need to and and one of the ladies that died last night, I know, and that's very discouraging to me that, that she had to die. And yeah, that's just very discouraging and we could have, we could have done better, you know, South Korea and some other countries did a much better job than we did of flattening the curve and keeping it from spreading. Karen Dyke. Thank you for your activism. Yeah. Thank you as well for your contributions to this project. Take care of yourself and your family. And when we can all come back out of our homes. We'll see you outside. Okay, great. Thanks.