Episode Description
In the penultimate episode of season 2, Tim is joined by Mike Miller from the University of Louisville. Mike joins ABA Unfiltered to discuss the unique program he runs at the university’s engineering school supporting students with ASD as they navigate college life. Mike is a passionate and engaging storyteller that we know you will enjoy!
Full transcript
0:12 Tim Crilly:
Hey everybody, welcome back to ABA Unfiltered. I’m your host, uh Tim Crilly. And today we um have a a guest on that is is new to me. I was introduced to him a few weeks back by a past guest uh and a co-worker here at BlueSprig, uh Mike Jones, who’s who’s been on before. And I figured anyone that uh Mike Jones is gonna vouch for is someone that we definitely want to talk to. So our guest today is Mike Miller, and I read his background, and it’s a little too long for me to try to summarize. So, Mike, I’m gonna take a crack at it and just say Mike brings an extensive background in the education world in Kentucky, supporting children with special needs, including autism. So I’ll let you kind of get to your background a little bit in depth. And if if you need to expand on anything I said there, please do. But Mike, we’re really excited to have you on and talk about you know, sort of what you’re doing currently um at the University of Louisville, as well as um sort of any anything else that you’re involved in the community and sort of this new connection with with BlueSprig as well. So, Mike, if you don’t mind, maybe give the audience a little bit of background about who you are.
1:22 Mike Miller:
Hey, I’m Mike Miller, and I’m with the University of Louisville. I’m a my title is a field training coordinator. I come with a background in education, and I started out as a middle school teacher, went to a high school teacher of special education, and then I was a director of special ed. I uh then went to the Kentucky Department of Education and stayed there for 30 years and thought I was going to retire. And that didn’t happen. On my way home from retirement, I ended up at the University of Louisville, and I uh am now the field training coordinator. My first year, I came as a part-time employee. And then my boss said to me, Dr. Larry Taylor, if you’re going to stay 70, 80 hours a week, I think you probably should go full time.
2:09 Tim Crilly:
That’s that’s nice, that’s nice of him.
2:11 Mike Miller:
So that’s really how I got started. I did my undergraduate work at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, and I did a master’s there, and I uh did my school administration 30 hours above my master’s, uh, also at Murray State. Uh I also attended Eastern Kentucky University uh for some of my graduate work.
2:30 Tim Crilly:
That’s great. And you know, I I know a lot of our listeners probably think I just wing it every time um we have a guest, but I did actually get a chance to to chat with Mike a little bit a few weeks ago just to kind of get a sense of what I thought might be an interesting um you know topic for us to discuss. And I think, Mike, one of the things that really jumped out at me in our in our brief conversation was your passion. Um, I would imagine if you know you were um someone that you know hung hung door frames or you know did carpentry work or whatever it was that you ended up doing, you would exude passion in that work. So it how did it become um, you know, sort of this the special education world? What was it about it that that attracted you and really helped you harness that passion?
3:18 Mike Miller:
I think the thing that harnessed my passion of this was working with individuals that have a disability and being able to see them make advances, become successful in life, and have a lot of challenges that they face. And it’s so rewarding to see these young people to be able to go out in the world and make be independent and work it, live independently, and to make very much successes at their job.
3:43 Tim Crilly:
Okay, so I think that’s a that’s a nice little segue. And I think you know, we’re gonna I’m gonna let you sort of tell me what you want to talk about. But I I I do I do really want to dive into the work you’re you’re doing at at Louisville. And um it was when we talked about it earlier, it just was so interesting to me and so novel to me that maybe I’m naive, maybe it, you know, the stuff that you’re doing is happening in other places. I haven’t heard a lot about programs like like this. So um if you could just sort of outline what is it that you’re doing currently at um Louisville and and how did it come to be? And then maybe you know, where do we think it’s headed headed next?
4:26 Mike Miller:
Hey, well, really when I started here at the autism, Kentucky Autism Training Center at University of Louisville, I was working. We have a clinic also adjacent to our uh our offices. And so once the family got a diagnosis of autism, I immediately got with those families and helped them help them navigate resources okay for what the children need. Then this is younger children.
4:49 Tim Crilly:
This is you know that the university and their diagnostic center, kids getting diagnosed for the first time, right?
4:55 Mike Miller:
Okay, and so then I I get asked to speak a lot to different organizations, and I always say yes, I can’t wait to talk to you about autism. So uh one of the things that uh I uh was talking asked to talk to was the J.B. Speed School of Engineering. And so that when I said yes, I was so excited to go talk with them about autism. And then the day I was going to speak, when I drove up in the parking lot, I thought, you know, I may not be the right person to talk to them because I don’t really know a lot about engineering. But I was too late to do anything, so I went in and told the individuals, I am going to talk to you about autism. If I have pieces that are missing, I will get that information to you. So I ended up talking about its autism and talking about how you could transition behaviors, how you could work on those different skills. And so it seemed to go fairly well. So that afternoon, the speed school contacted me and said, We’d like to do a collaborative project with you. And so we discussed it and went to my supervisor and talked about it. And so one of the things that I am doing is I am working with speed school students that have a diagnosis of autism. Uh, they must have the diagnosis for me to work with them, and you don’t have to self-disclose, but sometimes I can talk with the student and tell them what I do, and then they’ll say, I do have a diagnosis. So we can kind of, you know, working around.
6:20 Tim Crilly:
So it’s up to them to choose to sort of opt in to the program.
6:24 Mike Miller:
And they are referred to me through faculty. Okay. And usually what is happening, it’s not academics that is the issue, it’s usually a social communication issue. Uh, so what I so we started out and I’m working with 12 students this semester. I’m supposed to work with eight, but I have one of my biggest weaknesses as an educator is I can’t say no. Because I think if I tell the student no, what if I totally could screw up his life? And so I don’t want to do that. So I say yes. Makes a little extra work, but it’s all worth it. Uh, this is my fourth year to do the program. I work with faculty, and one of the neat things about J.B. Speed School is they really put a backing to what they do. Uh, one of the things that they do is when they come into the school, they have an academic counselor, like all students at the university do.
7:14 Tim Crilly:
So do these these are all um students that got in on their own merit. This isn’t like a program that’s that’s sort of you know, sort of they got in just like with with the art.
7:24 Mike Miller:
Okay. And perfect. And the J.B. J.B. Speed School of Engineering is very got a good name, and they somewhat they turn students away because they can’t handle. So students are very, very smart. Uh, but they’ve never been into a situation because when they started the program, they have had their mom and dads working with them till age 18. Age 18, they become emancipated. So then I’m they’re supposed to be able to navigate resources and be their own self-advocate. That’s not really happening when we come in as a freshman. So, as a freshman, basically that first semester we work on advocate skills on how to be a self-advocate. Things that I think would be very simple or very challenging to them. Like you have to meet with each of your professors at least once a semester. Of course, the response to me is why I have all A’s. I have all A’s. But one of the things that we got to do is we got to be when we graduate, we got to have people that will write us recommendations. Yeah, so what we do is we want to make those connections and build those capacities. One of the things for socialization, they must join an academic club their first year, they must join a social club their second year, and it always has to make the distinction. It doesn’t have to be a fraternity or a sorority, okay, because they are not real thinking that is a very good selection for them. But I’ve got a kind of interesting story that goes with that later on.
8:49 Tim Crilly:
But then uh I’ll make a note to get back to that.
8:52 Mike Miller:
Okay, and in their junior year, they have to do volunteer work, and so what I’m wanting to do is not only are we working on getting us a great grade and getting a diploma from the University of Louisville, we’re also working on a resume because we want to be competitive once we get out. Each one of my students have to do three semesters of co-op, and those co-ops, you cannot fail. If you fail, you don’t graduate. And what’s co-op is they go in, they go into a real live job and work.
9:24 Tim Crilly:
Oh, okay, like an internship sort of thing. Okay.
9:26 Mike Miller:
And they’re paid while they’re in the co-op and they make good money during their co-op, but they’re also taking that class for University of Louisville and getting that experience. Great. So what they’ll do is they’ll go to co-op like the first year, first semester of their sophomore year, next semester, they could come to classes, the summer session, they do their second co-op, come to class in the fall, and then the spring, they’ll do their third co-op because that way they are not constantly doing, and most of the time you do your co-op at the same facility that you started with. I had one individual who I was a little nervous about because of his anxiety and sometimes his behavior. And so it kind of ruined my Christmas break because he was going to start in January, and I was like, Oh my goodness, is this gonna be successful, or is it not? So he started with this company, and the first three days I was talking to him each time, and he said, We’re going to a like facility that we play laser tag and doing all kinds of sport activities. And I thought, that’s kind of interesting. But the fourth day they started work. Real work, okay. He called me and said, You’re not gonna believe this, but the people I really get along well with, I’m working with what the company was doing, they was observing behaviors between individuals and where they were going to place them on the cops, which was a fabulous idea. So this company has been wonderful to work with.
10:50 Tim Crilly:
So this is all local, local to the community businesses that have an like an affiliation with the some are and some are out of state.
10:59 Mike Miller:
Uh so uh I do try to place most of my kids in a in a local facility just because of the nature of they can drive and get to the facility theirself. And if they don’t uh and so like the what this one uh I was just referring to was 30 miles from Louisville, but it was something you could drive each day. Uh but we have kids that are placed in New Orleans, Louisiana, if they’re like basically in electrical engineering, or they could be any place across the state and the nation. And so uh, but we’ve been lucky about getting our placements pretty locally for our students. Uh, and also it kind of keeps me that because I can keep in touch with them that semester that they’re working. Uh, I meet with the students every week. Okay. And so I was gonna ask that. We we go over everything from social life to academics to uh any questions they may have. One of the things that we have is we have a disability resource center here at the university. And so one of the things that we want them to do is to use those accommodations that will make them more accessible to the to the curriculum. And one of the things they could do is they could take extended time for test. They could take the test either at the at the school classroom or they could go to the disability resource center and take it in a private room with a monitor. Uh, one of the things that we’ve added, we’ve added several things, is we’ve added a University of Louisville Cardinal Success Coach. And these are students that are majoring in the field of special education and are going to be working there. So they work with these individuals on how to work in how to study in segments, how to get their work done. And my students say, You can do that with us. I said, but I want someone more closer to your age. Sure.
12:44 Tim Crilly:
Yeah.
12:44 Mike Miller:
I know I look like I’m your age, but I’m not.
12:48 Tim Crilly:
And so uh wait, didn’t you just talk about on your way to retire?
12:52 Mike Miller:
I was. I was on the way in retirement. Okay. And so uh and this is my 43rd year to work in this program. And as long as I keep the passion that I have, I want to continue doing it because uh it’s it’s so rewarding. Uh, one of the things that students we try to do is we look at documenting and being so proficient in what we do. And like I said, they’re so used to having parents to handle stuff for it, and now I’m that transitioning that behavior to them. Uh, I would like all students, they all don’t, but I’d like for all students to live on campus. The reason I like that is because we can start that independent living lifestyle, and it’s not full force of you know, of independent living because they have meal tickets, they don’t have to worry about burns groceries and that stuff, but they’re having to get up on time, they have the responsible for the room. And that was one of the things that we made a change in here at UOL. The first year I worked with the program, our students were in a room with a roommate, and the beds were like five feet apart, and uh that’s not a real good environment for a kid with autism. Uh, so working with the housing here at University of Louisville, we have resident halls right now that will be able to let students live because I want to keep integration, I really big in the integration of atypical peers with the students. Yeah, so they live in a dorm, uh, a resident hall room that has three bedrooms and three baths, and those under lock and key for each each president. They share a living room and a kitchen.
14:28 Tim Crilly:
So it’s independent, like sleeping area, but they have they have there’s communal space that that they’re responsible for sort of navigating.
14:36 Mike Miller:
Right. Okay, and sometimes my students will come to me and they’ll say, I don’t really like the way they’ve got stuff situated in the refrigerator. So I’ll say, Well, you can ask your roommate if you can reorganize, because I don’t think probably a lot of guys are going to care. Yeah, and so they go, you know, go for it. You know, we just thought you keep it in the refrigerator, you know, that’s good, good to go. Uh it’s you know, autism is four times more prevalent in males than it is females, sure. And it kind of holds true to what the way my students are selected. I have 11 guys and one girl.
15:09 Tim Crilly:
Okay.
15:10 Mike Miller:
And so uh it always is interesting to see who who I have each semester. And like I said, they’re referred to by faculty. Uh at the speed school, actually they have that academic counselor, they go into their sophomore year and they are assigned a co-op uh counselor, and so each one of them has a co-op counselor that works with them in their field, whether you’re in, you know, because we have seven areas of certification of engineering here at U of L. Okay.
15:38 Tim Crilly:
So all these kids could be studying sort of a different track. And most of mine are. Okay, okay. So you know more about engineering than the average, the average Joe at this point, I would imagine.
15:49 Mike Miller:
I have learned a lot about engineering, and I learned more from my students than I than that anyone can imagine. Yeah, uh, they they keep me on my toes. They uh they are such a joy to see what they’re doing. I have students that are now here, the freshman year, though they come to me all the time. I have no friends. The one thing I really emphasize is I don’t want you to change to be accepted by another group. Don’t do don’t change who you are. Sure. Just be who you are, and you’re gonna have abundance of friends when you graduate. I’ve got three seniors this year that I started with as freshmen four years ago. And this has probably made me cry more this month than I could ever want in the end of last month.
16:32 Tim Crilly:
Because it’s coming down to the wire for you, huh?
16:35 Mike Miller:
And thinking that I would not miss these individuals is so totally wrong. I am going to miss these kids with a passion. And the other thing I’m very proud of is all three of my graduates are going to be wearing cords around their neck because they’re they are honor graduates. Yeah, that’s great. I have one student that has a 4.0 in mechanical engineering, I have a student that has a 3.6 in education, and I have another student in engineering with a 3.5. So that’s that is so rewarding to see what they’re going to be doing in the future. Uh, they have come such a long way in being the freshman and sophomore year, it’s kind of a rugged road. We go through a little bit, but by their junior year, they have got more self-confidence and they are more independent. I I really wouldn’t have to meet with them every week, but I still do. I do to through their senior year because I want them to make sure that we’re doing everything we need to do. Uh, one of the things that we have the have the biggest issues are when we go into a classroom is if they’re into a class that has a lab. And in that lab, my students kind of have this kind of philosophy. You all sit there, I’ll do the work, we’ll get an A, you’re incompetent. Not a good sign, sign me up. Not a real good way to make friends. Of course, I told the the associate dean there, I said, that would work fine with me in a couple of my classes when I went through school. But uh, engineering students don’t really like to think like that. Yeah, it makes sense. But what we do is we put visual schedules up. And so there’s like 14 different things that on that visual schedule, we follow that to the end, and that takes away any problems of who’s going to be doing what in that lab. So that makes it very much more accessible. Uh, I tell my students to acknowledge to the professor that they have autism because if you have a disability and do you use the DRC, which is Disability Resource Center, you have to take them a piece of paper that tells them that these are my accommodations for each student. It’s a student’s responsibility to turn those in to the student, to the professor. One of the things that we want to do is also because sometimes if they get a lot of sensory or they get a lot of emotion, they will have a meltdown. So we don’t want to disrupt the class. So the professor and the student works out. If you feel like you’re fixing to have a meltdown in this class, this is where you go. And my students stay maybe five, 10 minutes, and then they come back to the classroom. So there’s really no disruption. Uh and those disruptions are kind of more heavier their freshman year, but there’s my sophomore junior and senior year. By their senior year, I don’t think I had any seniors that ever had to leave the classroom because they’re getting used to working with other individuals. Sure. And and they have abundance of friends as they are graduating, my seniors do. So they don’t have that issue they have to work with.
19:30 Tim Crilly:
That’s great.
19:30 Mike Miller:
Um, they have a lot of things that they’re, you know, they they enjoy doing but are afraid to kind of tackle. So one of the things I did was I took a picture of each one of my freshmen, and then I took a picture of them their senior year. And so right before Christmas break, I showed them their pictures, and I said, which college student do you like? The one that was a freshman or one that’s a senior. Well, my kids that are seniors now, they go to the gym, they go get their hair styled, they buy clothes like their atypical peers, stuff that they’ve not really ever been exposed to. And so they are so atypical looking in all the university that it’s uh it’s it’s rewarding. Yeah, you they walk across campus, you have no idea that they have autism. Sure. Sometimes they’ll say to me, I don’t want to do this because people think I’m weird, you know. And I say, Have you walked across campus? You don’t have to have autism to be weird. It is a college, you’re right. It’s a college, you can go through. So we don’t have to have to worry about that. One of the things that I do is I try to observe everything that the student’s going to do. And so one of the offerings we have here at university, which is an awesome program, is REACH. It is the REACH program is a tutoring program for our individuals. So they go to tutoring, and I went to the first tutoring class, and there was like 50 students in that tutoring class. And if you’re not like the first three on the front row, your question, if your question is not the same as theirs, you’re more likely not going to have your question answered in tutoring because my kids are not going to be aggressive enough to raise their hand and talk about their issue. So, working with REACH, who is so wonderful to work with, we now have one-on-one counseling with the REACH counselors if they have a DRC plan. Had one student that was struggling, which was very rare, but he was struggling in a calculus class. So what we did was I put him in tutoring one hour before the calculus class. He went to the calculus class, and then one hour afterward, he went back to tutoring. So every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, he had three hours of calculus. He told me after the end of the semester, he goes, I really didn’t like you this semester. I said, Well, you didn’t? And he said, But when I got my grade, I started liking very happy with you. Yeah, well, that sounds that sounds like good. As long as we’re back to being happy, we’re good, we’re good, we’re good to go.
21:50 Tim Crilly:
You sound like a you know, a a a pseudo surrogate parent, you know, which I’m sure is uh an a needed thing. I mean, there’s tough There’s, you know, all those things that not every freshman that walks on campus gets, but a lot of freshmen who walk on every college campus, they, you know, it’s a it’s a giant new puzzle. So to have someone like you to help tether and and you know make suggestions, obviously you’re not making anybody do anything, but to give those suggestions and produce those those successful results must be very rewarding for you.
22:25 Mike Miller:
It is one of the things that I had was that when I first started, he was a single when I started the program, but it’s all they had him one year. But at the during the program, uh we look at applying for jobs, and so we apply for four jobs, we don’t apply for 350 jobs, and we make a resume that’s going to fit those jobs. So we worked on four resumes, and he got four interviews. One interview was with Louisville Electric and Gas Company, and he got two interviews, but did not get the job. The other three, he did get position, did be offered positions. One was from uh a company in his hometown, one was in Cincinnati with a computer company, and the other one was with the Department of Defense in Dayton, Ohio. So I we go through this, and once they get the offers, then we want the mom and dad involved because we’re gonna still need mom and dad in our lives for a long, long time. So we walk into the training and I look at my student, he’s never mentioned any problems, but I had this facial expression on him that I something was wrong. I’d already called all these people together for us to talk, and so I said, I’m sorry that we called you here together, but something has come up and we’re not ready to make a decision today. And so I asked him to come see me after he did goodbyes to his parents. He walked in my office and I said, What’s going on? He said, I don’t want to live in my hometown. I said, You don’t have to. I said, You’re graduating, you’re graduating with a 3.2, I think’s what he had, and you’ve got a degree in engineering, you know, from University of Louisville. And so then in the back of my head, it was like mom and dad are really gonna love me. But when I changed my answer to what I gave him was no, I would not change my answer.
24:13 Tim Crilly:
Yeah. So that’s that’s that’s amazing.
24:16 Mike Miller:
So we so we got together the next day with the family and the other people we have involved. And I told him, I said, usually I have the student conduct that meeting. So I said, I will conduct the meeting, but I was a little nervous myself. I had a little anxiety going on with me. So I tried to go through the meeting as quick as we could. This kid had never really exhibited anything of really taking hold and being a self advocate until that day. So that day I’ll go through very quickly. We got offered four jobs. We got offered one. We didn’t get offered one, we have three left. We’re decided we’ve eliminated one and we’ve got two we’re going to talk about today, real quick. And mom goes, which job did you eliminate? And I said, What in your hometown? And I said, So she then she goes, I thought that’s where you wanted to work and live. And he spoke up and he said, No, mom, it’s where you want me to work and live. So we she said, I will, I will support you wherever you want to go. That’s great. So we went and we narrowed down the Cincinnati job, it was a technical computer type job, and you had to relocate every three months. That’s too much for him and much too much for me to move every three months. So we took a job with Dayton Ohio at the Department of Defense. Started out making like $90,000, $95,000 a year. And it was a great working relationship because he worked in securities and he was in an office by himself. So he’s getting ready to move to Dayton, and he says to me, Can you come with me the day we move? And I said, Well, you know, my job description doesn’t really talk about me moving furniture. Yeah, maybe a box of pillows, but he says, I don’t see, I don’t want you to move, I just need you there for support. So I said, I’ve got a time constraint because I’ve got I could be there by 10 and I have to leave by three. He said, That’ll work. Well, I get there, and the moving man is just pulling up. They’re starting to move the furniture in, and he tells the movers he wants this box springs and mattress on the floor in the bedroom. And then I hear mom say, You’ve got to have a bed, you can’t put this on the floor. So I let them talk for a little bit, and then I said, Mom, to ask you something. Did he tell you how to decorate your house?
26:27 Tim Crilly:
And she said, No, you’re so you’re so brave, Mike.
26:31 Mike Miller:
I said, So you think it’s okay to tell him how to decorate his? So it got very quiet, and then I was in the room by myself, and she came in there while I was there by myself. And her response to me was, she goes, I hate you when you’re right. So uh, yeah, you have to take a chance. You know, I’ve had kids that come and parents tell me we want them independent, but they’ll fix their schedule where they’ll be through on a Thursday, and they could go home Friday, Saturday, Sunday and come back Sunday night. I find the activities that these kids like, and some are on weekends, so I just got to get in those. Well, one of the moms called me, she says, He has not been home in four weeks. I said, Awesome. Mom was quiet. A few minutes, I said, We do think that’s awesome, don’t we, mom? And she goes, I know I should. So it’s so it’s hard on parents, it is very hard. Oh, of course.
27:23 Tim Crilly:
I mean, I’m I have a you know, um, I’m staring down the barrel at my son going away to school at some point, and I don’t even want to think about it. So uh, you know, it’s it’s it’s a tough transition for everybody, and it is nice to see that you’re not just there for the that that student, but you’re also taking on that role to help guide that family because I think in this industry, the ABA world, you know, caregiver guidance starts at the beginning, and it’s not something that is always that you know, enough import is is placed on it because I don’t think every every sort of person out there working with these families has that specific skill, and it it is a challenging skill um to learn on the fly. So I think people like you that have that ability to um you know help not just the family, but that that client or that you know that student you’re working with is an amazing combination. And you know, I I you know we got to figure out how do we bottle that up and and put it out there so so more BCBAs and you know, people working with these families can can help with those those transitions.
28:30 Mike Miller:
The faculty is the other thing at the speed school, which is so wonderful to work with. They’re they’re totally committed, they have a dean that’s committed to the program, and we do accommodations, we make changes. Right before COVID hit, we were I was meeting with them like one night a month, and we were working on individual and for group type, you know, accommodations in that classroom. Like we video all lectures, you know, so that students can go back and see those lectures instead of really having to have a note taker because they can get a note taker as accommodation, but I like that have those videos. One of the professors said to me when we were, he goes, you know, this is not only good for kids with autism, this is good for all kids. Sure. And I go, bingo, we that you know, and you know, I didn’t focus all the other stuff with it. I’m talking about individuals with autism. I want them to see when they see this is good for all kids. Most all of our accommodations are good for all students.
29:23 Tim Crilly:
Sure.
29:24 Mike Miller:
Uh we I go through the accommodations each semester with my students, and sometimes they’ll overlook accommodation that we talk about. Maybe we should add this accommodation on your list of services that you get. Uh I really emphasize tutoring. I really emphasize that they get extended time on test. And then what the Cardinal Success Coaches, they can get up to five hours. We had put a lot of accommodations in, and so the university said, this is going to have to be a fee for service. I hate to add money to any parent on tuition. Sure. So I went to vocational rehabilitation and I said, if my student is approved through your program, can you pay for this accommodation? And they said yes. So they pay for it 100%.
30:07 Tim Crilly:
That’s great.
30:07 Mike Miller:
So that I did it at the cost of the family. One of the things that I would hope all students, when they come to university, are going to be approved or have applied for approval through Voc Rehab. It’s amazing how many students have not. So that’s the first thing I get parents involved in if they’ve not approved in a vocational rehabilitation program because that is a resource that will help them with like job coaches. We, you know, we can work with them in different in different uh avenues. Uh, I have one graduate that I had previously, and I put a job coach with him because he has some some really some skills that hey he we hadn’t got proficient at, and so we want to make sure that we get there. That job coach has been wonderful. She’s fading out of working with him, and so he’s being pretty much independent now with being able to be successful. Uh one of the things that my students don’t really do a real great job at is interviews. And so we work, we have I have, you know, the Department of Labor works with us on doing you know interviews before they go for an interview, but still once we get there, it’ll be well. So one of my students got an entry-level job, and I said, Take the job, you can prove who you are. Yeah, he’s there one week and he contacts me and said, You’re gonna believe this if I got a raise today. I said, You did. He said, a $25,000 raise. He said, They had no idea from my interview that I could do these certain skills, so they put me in a different position. That’s great. So if you know, so sometimes we have to look at the lesser job to get in. Once they get in, they’re gonna be doing fabulous, you know.
31:46 Tim Crilly:
Mike, I knew this would happen. We’re gonna run out of time. We didn’t even get to talk about uh sort of the relationship you’re building with with BlueSprig. So maybe um in season three, we can have you back on and we can talk about what um what you’re doing with with BlueSprig and the folks that you know we have out there in Kentucky. Uh I I just I applaud the work you’re doing. I I think it’s so fascinating and so important. So I appreciate you taking a little bit of time out of your your life to to share with us. And you know, I if more more folks out there were doing this, it would it just be an amazing thing to look at. So um thank you for sharing. And I really appreciate you know, obviously, your your passion and uh just your knowledge about um this little world that you’ve carved out. So um thank you.
32:37 Mike Miller:
That’s a good thing. Because they are a fabulous company. Okay, came to visit me, and I have to give shouts out to Mike, Mike Jones. I have to give a shout out to Suzanne Deaton. They are Suzanne Deaton, really the one that brought me, got got me involved with this with uh uh BlueSprig.
32:54 Tim Crilly:
Okay, well, next time, season three, um, August or September, we’ll have you back on and and we could talk about it. So um again, thank you, and and to everybody out there listening, I I really appreciate you guys tuning in to ABA Unfiltered. And um keep listening, and we’ll have more great guests like like Mike coming up. Thanks again.