Full Show 9/9/2026: 60% of the illegal immigrants deported by ICE since Trump took office had criminal records

0:00Good morning folks, just a reminder that today bleed purple and gold, then you're going to go nuts for when it Wednesday. All season long on WWL. Listen every Wednesday into 12 o'clock hour for the code word. Then enter it at www.com slash contest for your chance to win two tickets to a future home game in Tiger Stadium. So these two tickets that we will be given away are for the Louisiana Tech game on Saturday, September the 12th. That's this coming weekend. We've got a great show lined up for you today. In the 12 o'clock hour, we will visit with Stephanie Turner Senior Vice President Convention Sales and Strategies at New Orleans as a company as well as Elaine Williams, the Chief Commercial Officer at New Orleans Ernest and Moriel Convention. Congratulations to both of them. Award recipients is top hospitality leaders in this country and we're very

1:00excited about talking to them. They were just inducted into the 2026 smart women and meetings. Hall of Fame Stephanie was and Elaine was named a 2026 innovator for that as well. That speaks volumes about the quality of our team, about the quality of the work they do and what they bring from an economic development perspective to this city each and every day. And we'll also talk a lot about what's going on at the convention center. There's work being done there, renovation, the omnihotel, a bunch of things happening as we try to move this city from a third tier city to a tier two city. Michael Heck will join us at 11 o'clock. President CEO of GNOA, a lot of great things happening. Most importantly, some really promising news about education in our city. It's good to hear about that and we'll also have Hansel Gill, director at NASA's Mishu Assembly Facility. Mishu is celebrating their 65th

2:06anniversary. I believe that may be today. At 1030 Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick from Fordham's National Research Manager and author of this report are high school grades becoming meaningless in the age of AI and endless screen time. There's a new nationally representative studying and it reveals a lot of very troubling information about electronic devices and the amount of time that your kids, our kids, grandkids and so forth spend on these devices and not doing other things. There's also a recent study that has been released as well and we'll get Dr. Fitzpatrick reaction to this. It was reported in the Washington Post as it relates to an international student assessment called PISA PISA and we'll talk

3:08about how the US did against other emerging nations around the world. Also if the NFL season kicks off tonight here on WWL you can catch a Super Bowl 60 rematch the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks hosts the New England Patriots coverage starts at 7 p.m. kickoff at 720 on www.amfm.com and always live on the free Odyssey app and just a reminder tomorrow we're going to have a fun day tomorrow. We're going to go to the East Jefferson YMCA in the matter for a healthy aging day. We always have a blast. We do this every year. This free event for older adults and caregivers features wellness workshops from primary care plus group exercise classes giveaways, breakfast and lunch come celebrate healthy aging day between 9 and 2 p.m. Get moving and learn something new. Come on

4:11by say hello. A lot of things to talk about and if you can't be there tune in to me tomorrow from 10 to 1 on WWL and the free Odyssey app. I had talked about this in a while but everyone kind of knows how I feel about this particular issue when talking about immigration. Well the Washington Post had an article the other day and I've been meaning to talk about this and it's just too many things happening. A lot of things coming from a lot of directions. Well the article was weird because they were expressed frustration and being upset that 40% of the illegal aliens detained by US immigration and customs enforcement since President Trump has taken office that they have no criminal records. Really. It would seem to me that one would be more upset that 60%

5:16of those that have been detained or have been running around this country unvetted nobody knows what they're doing committing crime on the streets of our country and that maybe we should be applauding ICE for removing the 60% of people that have been wreaking havoc in our communities across our country. Now I mean we all know that this comes on the heels of one of the worst times in history as it relates to migration into this country under the Biden administration where they basically ignored the entire federal register as it relates to immigration and immigration enforcement for four years. And you know it's really interesting because there was a lot of discussion about reforming the immigration and nationality act. And a lot of what we do is

6:20no different than almost all of our allies, no different than most of the democracies that exist across the world as it relates to how they deal with immigration and immigration policy. I mean simply put when you cross the border illegally it's a federal crime. 8 USC 1325. You overstay a visa it's not a criminal offense it's a civil offense but it's still wrong and you can still be detained for doing so. That's what they do in other countries. In fact they move you to detention facilities to assess that you are in fact overstayed your visa and then you're out. So being unlawfully present in the United States not unlike most other countries around the world is an offense against the country and is a wide plethora of options at each of these

7:28countries exercised to include the United States detention and deportation. It was funny in the Washington Post article they wanted to make a big thing between a criminal offense and a civil offense but never really mentioning the fact that these immigration laws have been on the books for decades and it were not an outlier as it relates to how we handle immigration in this country. There's never been a requirement that you have to have a criminal record before you detained by ICE and otherwise deported ever. This has been going on for decades like I said in under multiple administrations the Obama administration in the first four years he was referred to as the deporter in chief. Bill Clinton campaigned on this issue in a huge way. George Bush one and two

8:35both same thing. There's also this misnomer and it's really interesting when you read the article talking about judicial warrants. ICE does not need a judicial warrant to make an arrest unless they're entering private property like a home otherwise they do not need a judicial warrant. They do not need an arrest warrant. They do not need to go before it to tax magistrate in articulate facts and circumstances in order to gain a warrant. It's not required. We've been providing all of this misinformation as though there's been an abuse of the laws and the privileges afforded people in the United States of America. There hasn't been. It's all BS and all they ever needed was a reasonable suspicion that an

9:39alien is unlawfully present in the country. That's it. A reasonable suspicion. So in the end we have all these laws and if an alien violates any of them guess what happens. The same thing that happens to you as a citizen. You walk into the local convenience store and you steal a candy bar you have committed a theft. Now it is a misdemeanor theft. What do you think happens? You get arrested. You get booked. Yes you will probably be released on bail because in most jurisdictions we have jail overcrowding because unfortunately and historically in this country we offend at a higher rate than a lot of other emerging nations.

10:43Industrialized nations. It's just a simple fact. But nonetheless you are documented. You are then from that point forward tattooed with having been arrested for making a choice to walk into a store and steal something. In some states you drive without insurance. You drive without a driver's license. You exploit that privilege by not doing the right thing. By documenting oneself as having passed the test and is out on the road. It's about the safety for others. In some states you are in fact arrested. In fact in some states if you exceed the speed limit by a certain amount you are compelled to go to a local county courthouse and immediately pay a fine as opposed to being arrested.

11:50And then they figure out whether or not you are in fact guilty or not and if you are you get your money back. These are all things that we do to citizens. We create these inconveniences to serve as a deterrent factor so that you don't repeat this behavior. But what's amazing by the mainstream media is that that doesn't apply when you come to this country because we should be a compassionate nation. One that embraces everyone. Whether you're going to follow the rules or not. And if you're first act in this country is that you're violating the norms, the customs, the protocols and more importantly the federal laws. How far should that compassion extend? Well there are those in the Democrat party that have gone

12:55to incredible lengths to protect these folks and believe that you and I and others should pay to provide them with all the necessities of life. Knowing that the first thing that they've done is violate the rules and customs, conditions, protocols, laws of this country. Typically as a citizen in this country, if you are hired by someone, you're a probationary employee. And if you're first act is to violate the company's rules standard of conduct or whatever, you're what? It's okay, go ahead, you can say it. You're terminated, you're no longer welcome to work there, right? Why does that not hold true in this country as it relates to immigration?

14:01Why is it that there has to be this continuing feeling that we need to create a reception, so to speak, and even maybe a party for individuals who in their first act have chosen and made a choice to violate the immigration laws of this country? It is really mind numbing and mystifying to me. That's how that we propose that this country should act. Recently, there's been some new data, a report from the Center for Immigration Studies that suggests that foreign-born population is down 2.9 million people over the first 18 months of the Trump administration. Interestingly, they said that this could not be managed, it could not be done

15:02that we needed to have immigration reform. Most importantly, what we needed to do was reward people that kind of snubbed our way of life and creating a pathway to citizenship for them. In other words, you don't have to earn anything. You can do what you want when you want how you want, which citizens are not afforded, that accommodation, and still it is incumbent upon us because we are a compassionate nation to create a pathway to citizenship. It doesn't matter how offensive you are, how much of a disciplinary problem you are if we want to use the school or university analogy. You can be completely disruptive in this country and still because of this compassion thing that we ought to be giving people multiple chances to reach the pot of goal, the benefit of living

16:08in a democracy, a constitutional republic that has an organized set of rules, laws, acceptable patterns of behavior. And that we actually adopted outcomes. What happens when you violate that? What happens when you run counter to it? And now all of a sudden we throw caution to the wind because allegedly we are need to be more compassionate. That compassion in removal of accountability in this country, we see what's happening right now. We see what's happening right now. We see the outcome of this in so many different ways. In fact, just the other day,

17:14in New Jersey, we know where Governor Mikey Sherrill has been and the anti-ice policies that she's been involved in, where she's actually passed all kinds of laws there. The trust directive, which creates public safety risks by limiting the ability of ice to work with police offices, they have handcuffed local law enforcement of cooperating with ice at all in New Jersey. I mean, it's actually a joke what's going on there, the length to which they have created this sanctuary environment there, which all of it just limits the cooperation amongst law enforcement officials, which is absolutely a joke. And the executive order that she passed not too long ago, you can only arrest in a public area. If authorized by judicial warranted

18:21judicial order, it violates all the federal laws. They're in court, they're fighting this. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that's going on. This is the outcome of where we're at. But it's interesting what happens when there's horror that comes to Democrat families. It'll be interesting to see how this flips. Dr. Penelope Cohen, the wife of the East Brunswick Mayor, Brad Cohen, was in a test lady of the day. And an illegal alien fled a scene of a targeted ice operation. You know, you know what happened. Ranner Red Light and crashed right into Dr. Cohen's car. Now thankfully, she was treated at the hospital and she doesn't have significant physical injuries. But we read these stories every day.

19:25Each and every day. And we wonder why the conversation never moves to the safety and well-being of the citizens of this country. That's all we want. That's all we want. We've adopted rules based on customs and the way that we've decided that we want to live our lives here and the way that we've decided that we want to have an ordered and structured society. It doesn't matter if there's individuals out there because I get a lot of text all the time like this one. No, you're missing the point. Citizens want law and order. Unfortunately, the Trump administration is lawless and orderless and is degrading the Constitution. I don't know that he's degrading the Constitution when it comes to immigration laws. Both can be true. He can be lawless and he can engage in unconstitutional behavior in other areas of government. But it doesn't

20:27necessarily mean that he is in this area government. It doesn't necessarily mean that we should be willing to accept less. We set the bar. We elected people that passed the immigration and nationality act. We've understood for generations how this works. We also understood the necessity of migration legally, legally. But for some reason, we want to make this political football out of it because we really believe that one side of the equation or one side of the aisle is going to benefit more than others. So what we do is we will engage in bastardizing this entire process. We'll choose when it's comfortable for us and works to our benefit to ignore the law. Like the Biden administration did, they ignored it each and every day. They lied to us about the border each and every day. They lied

21:32to us about what was happening to immigrant children that were coming across the border. They continued to lie to us today about this and we just sit back and take it and think that this is all good because Trump's bad. Well, Trump being bad should not be our focus, I don't believe, as it relates to certain issues. We should understand that we have to continue doing what we're doing for the greater good of society at large in this country. And that simply enforced the laws. Enforced the laws. We celebrate in communities when you see our Part One crime offenses or the lowest they've been since 1972. But we are not going to celebrate the fact that the number of illegal immigrants coming to this country has fallen by 2.3 million people over the last 18 months.

22:35And the question is why? We'll be right back. Folks, there's a new nationally representative survey of high school students and recent graduates about what they are seeing in schools around AI, great inflation, elicit ed tech use and more. And one of the authors of this report Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick with Fordham's National Research, he's the manager there, joins us to talk about these findings. Doc, welcome to the show. Good morning, sir. Thanks for having me. So the the theme is our high school grades becoming meaningless in the age of AI and endless green time. So if you would share with us what this study reveals and why this study is different from other studies that I found very interesting in some of the particulars that you outlined. Well, happy to summarize things. So we have a couple different things we ask students. So these are students across the United States and students who are currently in high school and just or

23:40just graduated in the past couple of years. So the first thing we found is that kids are using tech. What we call it illicitly or secretly, however you want to say it. They're using tech at rates that are pretty shocking. About half of kids say they're using Instagram, TikTok, other social media in class on a daily basis. A third of kids play video games in class. A third of kids put what YouTube videos. There's a little bit of online gambling and online shopping, but they're also using AI. So I'm sure all of your listeners know AI is everywhere. It's free. You can access it, if you can access the internet. And it's of course really good at cheating. And one in five of students who took our survey admitted to using AI in the middle of tests. So we're not exactly sure if they're doing that because they're taking a test on a laptop or they are, you know,

24:42sneaking out their phone while their teachers aren't looking. But that's a pretty disturbing number. And it all kind of leads into this issue of what you mentioned grade inflation. Now what that means is essentially the average grade has gone up decade after decade for the past 50 years. To the point where D's and F's barely exist anymore and C's are an endangered species. To the point where you know, we can't even tell which students are doing well and which aren't which we think is undermining really the value of high school, but also our ability to tell which kids are doing well and which kids aren't. I guess you know most recently and I'm sure you are aware of it. I think it was one of the heads of the University of California higher university systems said that some of the kids coming in an extraordinary number of kids are eight years behind the curve as freshmen.

25:44I guess we shouldn't be surprised by that then. Unfortunately no. I'm familiar with that particular instance and I think it's particularly bad in California because they dropped the use of standardized tests like BAT and SAT for the past. I think it's about eight years. Thankfully they're bringing it back, but that definitely compounds the problem if you're not even going to look at the one objective measure we got for these kids. So when we look at technology, this technology you know everybody thought that this was going to be the new way of the new way to educate kids utilization of this. There is a role for that in school, but not it seems to be not necessarily necessary, you know, it has to be provided in order to accomplish what they should be trying to accomplish in both high school and grammar school. I think that's exactly right. Kids do need to know how to use a computer, they need to know how to type, and they need to be

26:48you know tech savvy, but first of all they're pretty good at figuring out technology without our help. Second, I don't think there was anything wrong with the computer lab model, right? That's what they had when I was in school. You had computer labs that were kind of cordoned off areas where we used tech as a kind of specific tool for learning about the technology itself, not as a general educational aid where it's you know you're in front of a computer in a history class in English class because I think we're seeing here is that that mostly doesn't enable better learning and it enables distraction. We're visiting with Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick Fordham's National Research Manager and author of this report that we're talking about. So obviously this this the destructive nature of this technology seems to lead to a lot of things and the utilization of AI even to more.

27:50What most studies are showing and I know that Fordham has done some extensive research on this as well is that critical thinking skills are like kind of out the window now. Yeah I mean our report can't speak to that but it's certainly the case that there's in these perennial concerns that you know I mean some people will bring this back to the calculator but I'll just stick to computers for our discussion. I'm giving students tools that help them think faster or better. It's a very fine line between that and having giving them tools that do the thinking for them which of course is likely to undermine their ability to think critically. A lot of what they're seeing and a lot of what they're absorbing on computers and obviously smartphones and everything else a very short in nature right. Look little tidbits.

28:52I was reading and I'm sure you saw the most recent report that was provided in a reporting on the piece the program for international student assessment and the one thing that was an observation made about that is that they said American schools and this was a Washington post article. American schools having increasingly assigned short passages instead of full books due to pressure to prepare students for standardized testing budget cuts and time constraints but it also went on to say that students are having real difficult times with longer questions with reading a book because that's kind of what they're not their mind is trained for by utilizing all of these technologies your thoughts. I think all of those things kind of work together. It's

29:53hard to pin the blame on one particular thing right you have on the one hand you have TikTok showing kids 30 second videos and that's the kind of extent to which they're engaging with any topic whether it's serious or frivolous. You do have standardized tests which the SAT and I know the SAT has changed over the past couple decades where they've shortened passages and some people point to that as you know a response to modern technology or maybe as a driving educators to then themselves assign shorter pieces. I think all of these things are pushing in the same direction of lower attention spans and a worse ability to read sit down and read a whole book or a whole novel and it's hard to you know it's hard to control for things for which schools have no control. One thing we want to push on is the thing that schools can control they can't control smartphones or they have a hard time

30:58doing it they can't control the SAT they can switch to books and start giving students books and testing them on the content and essentially forcing them to read the whole book because you only learn how to do that if you have to. Yeah I mean and the more you do it the better you get at it right for the first part. I mean to this day I don't know about you and your generation but my generation I'm still working off a hard copy I print everything out I highlight it you know I'm in the margins you know with my synopsis and everything I mean it's just the way I learned and it's still the way that I do it because I seem to be able to do it better when I do it that way. I didn't I wasn't raised on it on the technology and I find and only you know just like with dealing with my kids and grandkids their attention span is so much shorter than I'd able to really stay focused and stay

32:04on task like we were taught to do and how we learned which I think is incredibly important and not it seems to be and I don't know you know you look at this data from all over the not only the country but the world but we seem to be falling behind other industrialized nations. Yeah you're nice. Well so that I'll push back there because the PISA results this international testing that you're pointing to saw it we've seen they're showing a decline in the past decade across the world and it's pretty consistent it's it's showing up in Europe it is showing up in Asia so that makes me think that on the one hand you know I want the US to kind of beat the trends here and we certainly aren't doing that but whatever's going on here is really an international story. Sure absolutely I mean it's well we know the technology is everywhere right and and I guess the the law

33:10and the temptation in how to best utilize that that technology hasn't been I don't know fully vetted maybe maybe you know when you look at studies like yours where you are not only looking at the illicit use but the approved use you know the issued Chromebooks by schools how that works whether or not there's a discipline or the structure there to keep them on task and keep the illicit use down obviously that requires resources and a lot of these schools are resource starved. So that's an interesting point I would say one of the things that come out comes out of this is that technology costs quite a bit of money and so I worry that technology is being spent or all this money is being spent on tech to the detriment of other things we might be spending money on so that's another key worry that came out of this research. Doc you would agree I guess a tech

34:15has become really like kind of a marketing tool you know when you look at universities and what they're doing with pools that repress that you know a swimming pool that looks like an insignia or the letters of the university and this and that and comfort centers and massage places on campus and this and that and everything else it's like what are we doing we're spending a lot of money on other things you know other things other than reading writing arithmetic critical thinking you know the classics you know all of the cornerstones of educational success in the in the 30s 40s and 50s. I think that's exactly right I think tying it to say you know those famous lazy rivers they have done the essay in the SEC is exactly right oftentimes it's a shiny new toy that kind of shows off what might look like a fun part of education whereas

35:19the important piece of education or can you read can you do math and the basics kind of are far more important than any fancy new toys you learn about in school and will you graduate what's the law? You're not a job. I mean it's this the traditional hallmarks hallmarks of success I guess Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick really enjoyed reading the the the study excuse me and thank you so much for joining us Fordham's National Research Manager and author of this report have a great week thank you too thanks for having me thank you sir we'll be right back 504-260-1870 on the Oakwood Hart-Jewlers talk and text line stay with us when we come back after the top of the our news break folks we will visit with Michael Heck president CEO of GNO Inc as well as Hansel Gill director at NASA's Mishu Assembly Facility stay tuned we have much more coming your way this is

36:23Null when WWO coming from a parking lot near you Michael Heck president and CEO of GNO Inc what's going on Michael? You know indeed I am in the parking lot outside the Windsor Court was just meeting with the console general from Belgium that's very interested in our port and aerospace and I am sitting in a parking lot reading a sign that says unauthorized vehicles will be booty when some some our reminds me when Melania said be best and all I got was booted hey that's a that's a big revenue bucket you know for the for the administration is there they are they are good at it and they're getting better it's your way to it's your way to contribute Michael well you know Nua I am I am one of those people and call me either conscientious or foolish that I actually do pay my parking tickets and I think it might just be foolish I've

37:27had some very successful people tell me about the whole thing where you like get new plates and I'm like really I mean you can just pay for the like no I go to the DMV they have a whole situation you can do but I don't want to I don't want to talk about it publicly well let's pivot to some great news as you put it you read it right about our New Orleans students yeah it's pretty remarkable there is a Stanford's educational opportunity trend project released their education score scorecard for 2022 to 2025 and it's it's pretty stunning nationally among all states we were ranked number one in reading growth and number two in math growth in the entire country and then within Louisiana New Orleans was ranked number one in all Louisiana school districts in gains in reading

38:30in math since 2022 so you're ready right Louisiana is leading the nation and New Orleans is leading the state and that's that's pretty much why I'm hot for t-shirt you know it's interesting Michael not a you know it's the word that I'm looking for not a new kind of strategy really it's revisiting old ways of doing things and spending times on on things that really matter relative to education every time I talk to the superintendent of education I'm really excited to hear about we're just stepping back in time and going back to what has worked for generations yeah I ask K Brumley of superintendent the same thing and that's exactly what he says and if you look at models around the world with Finland being famously an example that's basically what they did they never got rid of blackboards in Finland and they have one of the best educational systems in the country

39:35because shockingly students don't tend to learn on iPads but there's also something else going on here in New Orleans that I want to speak to because it's a market mechanism that's really working and I just want to call it out for what it is you have this system of charter schools in New Orleans and what they have is autonomy they have freedom to teach the children the way that they want but then that is paired with accountability and the schools and the charter operators who are not able to measure up get shut down generally without political interference and that combination of accountability I mean of autonomy rather with accountability has led to there being this concentration of truly excellent charter operators and school leaders because they're allowed to do their job and they're allowed to excel and so I just want to say yes it's about getting back to

40:37the basics but it's also an operational structure a governance structure that is encouraging excellence and these results are are it's kind of like our crime results new old these are results that are so good you have to keep reading them out loud until you actually believe them Michael let me ask this question because I'm kind of curious we've had a number of charter schools fall out right financial issues financial mismanagement issues lack of confidence of parents in the administration where you had enrollments that dropped and obviously the schools had fell out what is the impact of that been because when you read you know when you when you see these stats this is in the face of some serious challenges that are there structurally that have you know these schools have had to work their way out some have made it some haven't

41:40yet look there there is there is something about the way this is working that can sometimes not be gentle and I do think that it is completely fair to on one hand recognize the overall success but the same time understand that getting to that success has entailed disruption disruption of schools that kids have been going to which are important not just for academics but for community and for social connection it's caused long commutes it's been culturally disruptive at times so this has not been a costless but when you see the results and understand what this means for the lives of our children in fact there's a stat that I've read that says that if we had had the same graduation rate in 2022 as we have today the graduation rates gone from about 50% to over 80% there would have been 2,000 more students who graduated and got their high school diploma

42:45as and were now productively employed so yeah I think that the criticism is fair criticism but when you look at the overall success I think it says that this has been worth it and that we've got a we're creating better futures for our kids now yeah and I didn't mean I didn't really mean it as criticism I mean there were a lot of high hurdles that collectively the system had to overcome and when you look at these results in the face of you know movement and failure and stuff I think it it makes these results even more meaningful in many ways no I'm sorry no yeah no it does and one of the one of the kind of glib criticisms that's hurled at school reform is oh what you're tracking is not improvement in teaching it's changing the mix of the students but in fact if you look at the mix of the students demographically it's pretty much the same now as it was at the beginning of the

43:50period this is an improvement in performance this is not a change in mix it's interesting I just had a guest Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick from Fordham now he's the National Research Manager there and and the conversation was around our high school grades becoming meaningless in the age of AI and endless screen time and what they looked at which most studies don't is the issuance of Chromebooks both illicit use and approved use in the schools and what they're finding is a strong correlation between dropping grades and grade inflation as well because of what the use of technology and the strategies around that technology and trying to teach students utilizing it and there's a thought process maybe we just go back to like you had and I had the old computer lab and you learn about computers you learn about the utilization of same but you're not on it all day

44:53every day right I think that's going to happen naturally Nuel because with with the pervasiveness of AI it's going to come to pass at the only way you're going to be able to be given a fair test is paper and pencil sitting in the classroom you know we can't take home tests anymore because Claude's going to do it and so I think that one of the ironic consequences of all of this AI and technology and slop is that we're going to get back to basics in-person instruction you know handwriting I'm doing things the old fashioned way which just kind of intuitively this helps the brain develop I mean all of these AI and tech tools ranging from chat GPT to GPS in my car they're all forms of cognitive offloading and so if you think about it it's like doing assisted weight lifting your muscles are not going to train as well and so I think we might be just getting back to the intellectual or academic gym where we just lift dusty weights in our basement like

45:57we used to and that might be the the better outcome yeah for sure pelican state punches up Louisiana's economy is gaining speed talk to us about that so these are I think encouraging stats because everybody has heard about all of the economic development success the fact that the state has welcomed over 250 billion dollars of investment over the past couple of years but you kind of want to understand if these announcements are really translating into real results for the state and for its citizens if you look at these numbers they indicate that it's beginning to have that effect inflation adjusted GDP grew at almost 3% in early 26 which is the sixth best level in the country and it's ahead of everybody in the south personal income rose 6.3% which is double the national rate

47:01and I think that speaks to the focus that Susan Buzwaha has at the state on not a number of jobs but salary level of job quality not just quantity and I think the most important thing is that we added close to 17,000 non-farm jobs over the year and our population grew two years in a row and so you put all that together and it just kind of feels that the flywheel of progress is is beginning to turn is beginning to and and and so if we can keep this up for a decade then we're going to have some real momentum then we're going to have some real path dependency towards growth and success but these nascent signs and please you know criticize me or critique this if you think that I'm reading too much into it but I think that they the correlation is pretty strong with all the economic development activity. Well no I don't really have a criticism at all I

48:05would just say I'm going to take more of a weight and see attitude as it relates to this. What I find interesting is that a lot of the deals that we've done that have been done in other states that are very similar in nature that have given back or exempted sales tax or other tax incentives for these projects these states are walking back from it and I don't know if that's just a trend you know if it's based on an ideology it's something that is kind of running away from us I'm not sure I suspect that it's just a trend right now because you know new development new industry whether it's 500 jobs or a thousand jobs it's plus right and if it's going to stay around and it's going to stay around for 10 or 20 years or whatever plus the construction costs there may it may be worth it. I think where we fail and I think this

49:13administration is doing it better than most is the accounting side of this and figuring out whether or not we're getting the bank for our buck and quantifying that I did a monologue Michael the other day where I was talking about essence but not really essence just the fact that they say that there's a 300 over 330 million dollar economic impact for a three-day convention now I can't argue the numbers but if there are 330 million for three days what's Marty Gryot and you know and when I say that I say that to mean I think sometimes we overlook what we have generated here locally and that in any boardroom of any major forward leaning corporation if they had a success story like Marty Gryot they would be trying to figure out how to reinvest

50:14in Marty Gryot and make it bigger better more attractive to keep it current to keep it fresh to keep it going. Marty Gryot has been able to survive through just about every challenge that has ever been since the 1960s you know and very successfully but we tend to look at these things as problem child as opposed to economic development so when one's thinking about investing in a convention but we don't invest anything really in Mardi Gras the major events fund is a classic example does nobody give it to Mardi Gras for the major events fund? yeah I guess that's always kind of I guess it's the the grass is greener syndrome or the you know I don't know it's hard to love the one you got but that is true I think that there is I think in general no we don't do a good job of accurately valuing our investments whether

51:16there are events like Mardi Gras or the Super Bowl or they are projects like a meta or a SpaceX and to some degree or a large degree that's why I like that at Gino Inc and also the governor and the mayor we're kind of reverting back to just looking at population because you know all of these numbers can be fudged I actually don't even know what economic impact really is and I've been supposedly an economic developer for a minute but I do understand population and I do understand that population is driven by a combination of economic opportunity quality of life and reputation and so if we're doing the right things beneath to support those pillars people are going to over time vote with their feet and you know maybe that's what we're beginning to see at the state now we have to see it at the region and ultimately we have to see it in the urban core in New Orleans and I know we're going to talk about a topic you know about the Benson investment group

52:18buying another building but one of the other characteristics that I always like to look at is diversity of investors right I think it's I think that's a very telling sign is to the viability and the strength of a local economy is how many people are standing in line you know you and I talked about this I think relative to the omnipotent when issues began to crop up about it sure I was always very curious well who who stand in behind them you know who else who else is you know willing to stand up and make that investment of over five hundred million dollars who else is out there well come to find out I don't think there was anybody yeah there was there was nobody there was nobody behind like curtain two yeah and and so the point I'm trying to make it's not a criticism but it's just like I think it's one of those other telling characteristics of when you

53:20have the diversity of investors as it relates to whether or not your local economy and your local attractiveness and everything else that goes along with that is really on the upside as opposed to a small group of investors who are repeatedly going to the well and make an investments look I'm not going to look to gift horse in a mouth it's great right because I'd rather have some do it than have a failed building but by the same token it's a much better indicator of the health of the local economy when you have that diversity in my view good thoughts well right and and no I of course that's true you know you're you have you have redundancy in investors you get a better deal because there's competition all of those things but what this speaks to again is momentum and the flywheel of economic development so let me give you a very specific example you know we've been doing space in Louisiana for for decades since the 60s but now that Elon Musk has decided to

54:24move SpaceX's launch headquarters to Louisiana I can't say names but other major companies other major space companies are now knocking on the door and seeing if they can come to Louisiana there's a path dependency there's a herd mentality there's a momentum when there's been an initial validation that's been successful and you eventually want to get to the point where you're like a Nashville or like any any major city in Texas or essentially it's a buyer's market where you can pick and choose you can get a better deal and so that's the other side of the curve that we're trying to get to as a state and we're not there yet because as you said we have good deals particularly not a lot of backup behind those deals but at least we're now going in the right direction by closing the opportunities when we have them and proving out our case to the world and and the world by the way is absolutely watching I've gotten a lot of feedback from site

55:25selectors who have said it is outstanding that your state was able to go from phone call to announcement in six months on SpaceX they get that they see that speed to market and so a long way to go I agree but we're doing the right things right now well the old adage time kills all deals is true it was true 40 years ago it's true today right no no no time kills all of us another prophetic statement by the Michael heck coming back from a parking lot near you there's a crowd gathering around his automobile there in front of the Windsor oh man hi Michael we got to get to we got to get to a break we're visiting with Michael Heck president CEO of GNO Inc we'll be right back folks stay with us welcome back folks we're visiting

56:28with Michael Heck president and CEO of GNO Inc and Michael we have a special guest to join us my good friend this is Hansel Gail he is a director of our NASA Mischu Assembly Facility and tomorrow is Mischus 65th birthday so we're here to talk about that hey thank you so much for oh I'm sorry I jumped in a little early thank you for having me on your show again today and always good to talk with mr. Heck so appreciate being here today absolutely sir so tell us about this celebration at the Mischu Assembly Facility so yeah really exciting time I caught a little bit of the conversation and glad to join in 65 years for NASA at Mischu right here in southern Louisiana it's really a special time

57:28when we talk about the history of the work that we've done in this facility we we talk about it with pride because we really had some extremely significant contributions to the NASA mission to the aerospace industry from our facility in New Orleans so we're excited about that from the Apollo program 136 external tanks for the shuttle program and of course now the work that we're doing for the Artemis program it's really exciting to be a part of the work and it's great to work with such a vibrant workforce to contribute to the the national mission Hansel I'll tell you I've been out there several times it's an incredibly impressive facility you know when you look at it from the outside it's one thing when you go inside and you see everything that's going on all at the same time and the massiveness of the facility it's just kind of overwhelming when you get

58:35there and I would tell people if you ever have a chance to go see it definitely go see it but for those that are unfamiliar with what y'all have been doing for all of these years why don't you you mention a little bit of it but let's talk specifically about what was actually manufacturing built there yeah so I can talk a little bit more in depth there for the Apollo program in the 60s 13 first stages for the Saturn 5 rocket as we get to the late 80s going in late 70s going into the 80s we built the external tank for the shuttle program many are recognized NASA from those space shuttles and the external tank is the cryogenic propulsion stage for the shuttle missions and I sometimes describe it as the huge orange part right that backbone that's what we've been building

59:40in New Orleans for many many years supporting the shuttle program of course we transitioned out of the shuttle program which was primarily in place to to build and carry assets for the international space station we needed a vehicle that could give us the ability the capability for deep space missions as we return to the surface of the moon and on to Mars and so the Artemis program is now the program of record and today in the facility we have a pretty major role in the elements for the Artemis program the space launch system has a similar cryogenic stage the core stage it powers the Artemis rocket if you had a chance to see any of the launches our launch Artemis 2 was magnificent well the backbone of that propulsion system is built in our facility at Mishu

1:00:48the core stage and it powers the rocket for the first eight minutes of flight but also we built the Orion crew capsule pressure vessel the primary structure that the crew resides in the launch abort system is built in our facility we never want to use the launch abort system but for safety of our crew if we need to act if we need to activate that system some of the elements of that system are built in New Orleans in our facility at Mishu many probably wouldn't know the Avco heat shield panels the panels that protect our crew as they return to the Earth's Atmissville Atmissville atmosphere the those panels are fabricated in facilities at our site in New Orleans so really from the time you light the engines you light those RS 25 engines on the launch pad

1:01:50to splash down in the Pacific Ocean we have systems that are fabricated a hardware fabricated at MAP that are active really for the full duration of the mission so we're excited to do that work and I mentioned it earlier we we fall in love with the history and we have so much to be proud of but I don't want that at all to diminish the work that we have in the factory today that we're active in today a vibrant workforce that's executing this work absolutely we're visiting with Hansel Gill director at NASA's Mishu Assembly facility Hansel when we talk about the work that's being done for the Atmiss program is the complexity of that far greater than what we did before relative to the Apollo program and and the external tanks that that were used in the follow-up program. So there is an increased complexity more powerful some of the systems are

1:02:58are larger to handle the payload capacity that we have today but what I'll say about that is because of the experience that we gained through some of our earlier programs we've tried to infuse as much of that technology as we can so that we're learners right so we learn from the things that we've done in the past and where we can we apply some of that technology I don't want to get bore your utterance with some of the particular details but some of the welding technologies that we've advanced over the years some introduced during the external tank shuttle program but now use much more fully in the Atmiss and the core state program we're taking advantage of the technologies that we've learned in the past and trying to add them to the new technologies that we used today. You know the backbone of any organization and when you visit that one you

1:04:03you recognize it right away the number of men and women that are highly technically trained and a lot of that goes on at at our local schools is really really impressive and I love the way you can't really overstate the importance of what they bring to NASA each and every day. Yeah that's such a great comment there and one of the things that kind of came to my mind as you guys were talking about some of the new plans for Southern Southwest Louisiana is the importance of continuing to pour into the workforce of the future right it's gotten to be which is a positive thing extremely competitive and the aerospace industry for engineers for engineering technicians

1:05:08for touch labor even for business systems it's extremely competitive we have had partnerships with local colleges and universities to continue to train that workforce that we can pull from and Mr. Heck has been partnered with us through GNO Inc and activities to continue to generate that pipeline with different opportunities a different training different programs different development programs so that we can really build that workforce of the future so we can continue to do the great things that we've been accustomed to doing in Southern Louisiana for years to come. Well we certainly wish you continued success congratulations on the 65th anniversary the role

1:06:11that you guys have played in not only our local economy but more importantly in just our local community and having so many of your folks call the place that we all call home is incredibly important to us and we're very thankful for the Mishu facility and the role of NASA in New Orleans and to continue to and continuing to believe in in this area is a testament to not only you your leadership but everyone that works out there and we thank you for that as well. Hey I thank you for that we unearthed the time capsule for 50 years got some really cool artifacts out of that as a part of our celebration we had our legislators from across the we and at Louisiana come see us on the 28th we had a family day on the 29th and we kind of kept it all off with the Artemis 2 crew visit on September the 3rd so I appreciate the support that this community provides us

1:07:16and we're all in this together and we love the work that we do and we're glad we get to do it in Louisiana. Absolutely thank you so much Hansel Gilder at monologue the music wow thanks Hansel we're in here to my eye. Hansel how do you put up with this guy and I have no idea I'm a great friend I'm glad that he's a part of our our our circle I really am so thank you guys thank you both for allowing me to come on and talk a little bit about the work of dance. Thank you sir have a great week we'll be right back folks 504 2601870 on the open heart you'll is talking text lines stay with us folks just a reminder bleed purple and gold and you're going to go nuts for win it Wednesday all season long and WWL listen every Wednesday into 12 o'clock hour for the code word then enter it at www.comslashcontest for your chance to win two tickets to a future home game in tiger stadium we're given away two tickets to the

1:08:19Louisiana Tech game on Saturday September 12th we're back with Michael Heck president CEO of GNOA Michael let's talk about welcome to Bensonville. Yeah well I couldn't resist that one it was obviously a play on Bentonville which is an incredible city that's been built by the Walton's up in Arkansas but this is really a tribute to Mrs. Benson and what Gail Benson has been doing over recent years she now has just purchased a 909 poider street which is over 500,000 square feet class A building on poider some driving by it right now but she also bought the New Orleans center she's an investor in the higher agency she bought 1550 poider street stuff up on whatever we're calling it today harmony circle Heck she even went and bought the Chris Owens club down on Bourbon Street and I think a better way to describe it or I analogize it is with Detroit because Dan Gilbert did something similar

1:09:23with downtown Detroit and helped precipitate the comeback there and now Detroit has had three years of population growth so I think what Mrs. Benson is doing by providing a local ownership with an eye towards excellence in upgrading the facilities is a necessary precursor to the comeback of the CBD and New Orleans and I'm just thrilled that she's doing it where do we stand with the with ox rates in in buildings downtown last I heard we were improving is that still the case well we're improving but the reality new rule is that we're still way too low we're still in the low 20th and that puts us to cheaper than some places that you wouldn't believe places like Jackson Mississippi it just doesn't make sense the reality if you just look at kind of the economics is that we have to get our rates in the CBD up to at least the mid 20s and at that point the buildings are going to start cash flowing again and they're going to have the ability to

1:10:25reinvest in the facilities so we've got to do some marketing we've got to do some upgrades I think local ownership as opposed to an out-of-state read or private equity firm is part of the mix and if we do this I think we can improve the demand for these buildings get the rates up to where they need to be for them to be economical and then the flywheel on the downtown resurgence begins. Yeah we feeling some of the effects of AI you know you see a lot of groups downsizing themselves you know automating a lot of things don't need as much space. You know the only effect that I've seen of AI recently is that picture that I took on myself standing next to President Matt Joule where the AI made me taller than him otherwise I haven't seen that much and in fact I think it's the opposite so Seronic which is the autonomous

1:11:29naval vessel maker Lafayette recently took 15,000 square feet in plusane Charles and so I think if anything we'll see these AI companies or AI enabled companies regardless of where they are in Richland or in Vermillion Paris begin to have white collar base of operations on the South Shore and so I don't know I'm going to be a contrarian I think we can actually benefit from it. Well no that's great news I don't I didn't know you know she's kind of curious whether it was an impact but I mean you know your example of you and Matt Joule of making you look taller than him is a testament to the power of AI I mean it's got to be absolutely... Well the power of it but also right also how the technology can go rogue if not used correctly all technology knew all as a tool. It can be used for better ill. We'll end it right there. As always truly enjoy the hour with you and thank you so much for

1:12:32taking time to join us we really appreciate that we know you're very busy and we enjoy spending this time with you and talking about a lot of the great things that are happening in the city and if we're not our own best cheerleaders no one else is going to cheerlead for us right? No true that thank you for for indulging me and engaging in the Repartee. All right Michael Hack president CEO of GNOA and we'll be right back. Welcome back folks every other week we visit with representatives from New Orleans and Company and today we're going to hear from two women responsible for bringing conventions and trade shows and meetings and so much more conferences and just a whole lot of people to the city of New Orleans which we love that really provides a lot of um um to our economy here. Stephanie Turner Senior Vice President of Convention Sales and Strategies at New Orleans and

1:13:32Company and Elaine Williams Chief Commercial Officer at the New Orleans Ernest Ann Moriel Convention Center to talk to us about the industry that really drives our economy and employs a whole lot of people. Ladies welcome to the show. Thank you for having us Nul thank you. And first let me start out by saying congratulations Stephanie you and Elaine just returned from the 2026 smart meetings smart women summit where Stephanie you were named the 2026 smart woman in meetings Hall of Fame inductee and Elaine was recognized as a 2026 smart women in meetings innovator. Now folks what all of this means is the strength of our bench that we have here in the city of competing against other cities enluring these conventions and conferences and all of the above that we just talked about and it really is exciting to hear about the successes and really

1:14:36ladies congratulations to both of y'all and thank you on behalf of the city thank you for all the hard work thank you for the dedication and thank you for the sacrifices. Thank you it's our pleasure you know yesterday I was with our sales team we have a meeting every Monday and you know we're we're in the battle of competition and told them that I'm so proud of them that I have the great honor of leading the best destination sales and marketing sales team in the country and Elaine and I are just really happy to be here together to talk about how we compete together with our two teams and with the community to go win business for the city that we love so much. So let's talk if you don't mind both of y'all the state of the state what's going on here in the city what we're known for and what the economic impact is. So I think you know we're known in New Orleans at you know for all of our iconic events and you know those iconic events make what we do

1:15:36so possible you know things like Mardi Gras, Jazz, Fast, French Quarter Fest are our love of life I joy to be which creates our culture but what we do here in convention sales with the Convention Center and our hotel partners in the industry is fill the calendar every day and so that's our goal that's what we strive to do our industry you know can the meetings and conventions side contributes more than two billion annually in direct spending and the real interesting thing to me and the piece that I'm so proud of is how it trickles through the greater economy it just doesn't you know start at the convention center and start at a hotel it goes through all of our cultural bears it goes through our restaurants our venues and attractions and allows us to compete with cities that are much larger than we are and a world class way and I think that's something that is missed often is you know we are a relatively small city in comparison to the Las Vegas's and the Orlando's but we're also competing with San Antonio and Columbus and Louisville in places we've

1:16:40never competed before and so we have to sharpen our game every day to make sure that we're ready to compete and really that is the that was the beginning of the brand we co-created built to host so that we could position underneath those very important words those three words who we are why we compete and why New Orleans is so important to the Convention of Meetings landscape when you land to you I know go ahead go ahead no no go ahead say when you're when you're looking at 70 numbers I mean about 30% of the people who come here to visit come here for a convention we say that a lot but I think the piece missing is that we don't get credit when those people come back with their family right so they come here for their convention they have such a great time sometimes they come back sometimes they bring their family back so when we say 30% of the people come here for conventions we really are much more than that because we are we are exposing them to the city getting them to come here and then inviting them to come back for the

1:17:41jazz fast the marty gra and things like that absolutely I was going to say to both of y'all we're really a victim of our own success right because when Stephanie you point out Louisville and others similarly size cities I mean the reason that they're competing is they've actually adopted our model you know they looked at the successes that we were having and they replicated it right that that's really a great point because I get calls on a regular basis we just got one last week that said hey I just want to talk to you with another convention center I just want to talk to you about your relationship with your CVB because we don't have that cohesiveness when we travel we haven't been with them to certain shows and we want to create that so can you back up and tell us about your model so you're saying that that that is very true is and this was it was Seattle actually that had called looking to do the same thing so pointing that out it's a great point that is where we are and Elaine I hope you told them no I can't talk to you

1:18:45because I love bragging about how our relationship works so maybe sometimes I do say a little bit too much on that well you can tell them what you can tell I'm you can tell them to be competitive by nature right that's what we always hope you can you can share but they have to adopt it's our secret you can't have it tough for you absolutely you know we we talk about the competition but behind that is is a process right that that both of y'all engage in obviously collaboration describe for our listening audience how that works well it's really boring because it starts with who do we know put a list together of the top 100 trade shows or whatever other list we want to put together you know meetings in a certain year that might be behind or a certain time period and we sit together and we literally create a target list and then as our team travels as they are prospecting as we are trying to do what we're calling win defend and grow group because it really

1:19:52is all those things you have to win it you have to defend it especially against all this competition and then you have to grow and so understanding where you're going and who you're going after is a lot different than just responding to a business lead that came in that day and not that those things aren't important because we don't know everyone and that's why a part of our strategy is to have relationships with people to bring us leads but really it is a very systematic list driven experience and going after that meeting people and then trying to understand what their needs are a tremendous amount of listening people tend to think sales is talking but the most fundamental thing in sales is first listening and from the center standpoint I got it man I'm sorry I was just going to say from the center standpoint we kind of come to the table with Stephanie's team to go out and get those bigger bigger conventions that involve the convention center but then we also have a team member that's

1:20:56dedicated to okay what are those short term pieces of business that we can target to fill any holes we have in the calendar and that's when you see a lot of your smaller events a lot of your public events being able to come into the convention center and fill those times and often they actually have room night to touch to them too so it's not just hey you know it's all just locals it's also trying to fill them with whether it's a volleyball tournament or something that brings in people regionally that can stay in the hotels that go to the restaurant so we kind of approach it two different ways we partner with 70 team and we're in the booth with them selling we're looking at those lists with them as well and then at the same time we're looking at okay we're getting really close in let's fill the calendar with other business and get people into the city when you consider the diversity of your customer base I'm kind of curious how dynamic are their desires their demands and their expectations they're from a to z you know they really are it

1:21:58depends on who's leading the organization who's on the board you know people are from all over the country and so if they are from competing city I'll just say you know St. Louis then that local community has a poll to want to attract that particular event same thing with the CEO if they have an experience that's good or not and so we kind of have a little internal joke amongst the solos that will wait out change in leadership we don't cross anybody off the list ever in times if they're too big for us you know maybe they're going to change in size or maybe we have a leadership that leans towards a different destination or region you literally have to watch all the levers to see which ones the most relevant in this point in time to bring it to the finish line you know and I'll use national business aviation as an example they did not come to New Orleans for 20 years after Katrina and we have continued to follow them and they have announced it's public so like you know share it they're very excited to return in 2028 something we're incredibly proud of

1:23:01to be able to just stay the course and so you have to be relevant what's what's happening in the world today changes dynamic environment but also you know where is our foundational business that helps us grow in all the other segments that Elaine you know mentioned because the work that we all do collectively you know extend so far beyond New Orleans it gets economic activity through the region and then it supports communities throughout Louisiana so we're very aware of that we're very proud of that we're very proud of the support that we give across the region and the interesting thing too is that there are a lot of things you don't control right so the state of the economy nationally you know what trends are going on nationally and I guess to a certain point even though you're booking five years in advance and a lot of cases with these events you have to be nimble for sure for sure I mean you don't know the political climate you also now I never thought you know when I started at the convention center 30 years ago that I have to be so

1:24:07schooled on what the laws are that are changing that may affect the different organizations and then also it's important because you mentioned what are the different requests they make everybody is different so you got to look at what are the companies mission what what are the companies mission so somebody may say okay we're looking for a city that maybe has a lot of family friendly right and so now you have to deal or everything that you're talking about to them your tale you're adding the zoo you're talking about the world or two museum you're talking about what's happening on the river front but then you have another event that's coming here that's all about fun and so then it's okay let's make sure that we're focusing on everything that we have that's fun let's focus on the french quarter another big thing is walkability you know there are shows here that say you know what we want to be you know we've sustainability is super important we don't want to have buses we want to make sure all our attendees are close okay well then that's what we focus on is what is our sustainability so finding those things just like you asked is how different are they they do range from one end to the other what do you want you know for your attendee and then we take what

1:25:09they want for their attendee so the city that has a canned proposal and sends that for every event that's the city that's going to lose business you have to make sure that we are tailoring everything we do to actually what is specific for that group what are they looking for you all most sound like you have an intelligence unit of the military they're really you know we have to because you made us follow NASA like I think I had an internal rule if ever you do an interview don't ever follow NASA and then I'm following NASA here so we have to we have to raise the bar here and she's right because we had a conversation yesterday about what meetings we can attract because of what's happening in the space program so we do have to be stewards of the news stewards of next trends and all those things because they do follow I mean if I would have paid attention as a young salesperson back when the tech world me that could be retired on you know like some you know wonderful place

1:26:12but you know there there is proof to that business follows you will never retire girl you will never retire that's not you know me pretty well that's not in your that's not in your DNA for sure hi we got to get to a break we're visiting with Stephanie Turner senior vice president convention sales and strategies at New Orleans and company and Elaine Williams the chief commercial officer at the New Orleans Center it's and Moriel convention center we will be right back folks stay with us all right folks let's do when it Wednesday right now we're given away two tickets to see the Tigers take on Louisiana Tech on Saturday September the 12th today's code word is valley VALLEY that's VALLEY take that code word right now and enter to www.com slash contest for your chance to win big code words expire each Wednesday at midnight good luck from LSU football and WWL we're visiting with Stephanie Turner senior vice president convention sales and strategies at New Orleans and

1:27:17company and Elaine Williams the chief commercial officer at the New Orleans Ernest and Moriel convention center ladies let's talk about the following we often talk about selling the sitting and we often hear everyone say people just want to come to New Orleans what is behind that what is that all about and how does that actually play out so I want to start that because it really was it's a passion of mine because I hear a lot you know well people just want to come to New Orleans that is very true we have Marty Gral we have us everything that Stephanie talked about right however every city has something or landau has Disney Vegas has gambling natural has country music every city has something that makes people want to go there that's great and that plays in getting people to the city but that's one time a quarter that's six times a year how do you fill the rest of the calendar how do you get people here for the rest of the year and the competition just to go back to that is getting so much different so

1:28:21where we used to compete with you know the Chicago's their land those maybe San Francisco here and there we're starting compete with smaller cities and they're getting those things they're replicating New Orleans they're doing Monte Gras type events so now we're competing against those small cities who do something similar and because they're smaller maybe they're actually less expensive to go to so all of it plays into what we have as a city and what other our other competitors have out and I think it's important look we're we're the most joyful place on the planet we absolutely live to enjoy life and that is what sets us apart so when we face all the things Elaine says and we talk about the built-to-host brand and when we're competing what we're really positioning New Orleans as is the only place in the country where you can take all the cultural elements of our city that start with our people you don't get a culture without people and so in today's world that's

1:29:23you know fractured there's a lot of like things going on so what we're positioning New Orleans as is the place where you bring your meeting and whether it is education that you want to impart on your people or scientific discoveries through these medical meetings or motivation through a sales team that our culture will let you leave with such an output of joy and connection you can't get it anywhere else just think about moving from the convention center to maybe a hotel down the street across the street or from one of the hotels to a venue in the French Quarter we're the only place that can move people in a second line it's a mode of transportation that's so unique to our culture and it's also sustainable because you're not using transportation and so positioning and not just saying and for me there's no place I want to live than New Orleans in no place I'm more proud of but I'm keenly aware from a competitive standpoint that it's not enough just to love our city

1:30:23we have to articulate over and over and over why you want to come back because the days of where New Orleans was on every three year rotation because they were only five convention centers big enough to handle whatever the group may be are over you know the map is set in terms of competitive landscapes so it's our job to make sure that New Orleans is always fresh always relevant pointing to innovation execution excellence when you think about Mardi Gras Nul think about all these individual organizations that come together that put on an incredible event there's no there's no organizing body yes of course the city and the police do the most amazing and necessary work but there's not one thing behind the other this is something we do and people overlook the technical excellence because of fun and so part of our job is to really point to hey this is the most joyful place on the planet but on the other side of joy is creativity and innovation and technical excellence so

1:31:25I think that's the positioning that we look for as we evolve built to host yeah I'm kind of curious I you know when I think about New Orleans and I go to other cities there are a couple of cities that are as spontaneous as we are you know there are things that crop up that happen on a on a daily basis here whether it's a second line or you got you know a little festival that's celebrating you know one of the many creatures that are indigenous to our state or whatever it may be but a lot of these other places that y'all mentioned I don't find that there's any spontaneity there at all it's either planned or it doesn't exist it's interesting that you said that we had a customer tell us that represents a lot of customers we did a focus group and I'm going to keep the names close to the vest but one of the things that came out of the focus group and this is why listening is so important is it was an anecdotal comment that one of the event planners said and she said out loud well in New Orleans we don't have to create a theme New

1:32:28Orleans is the theme and so we grab that as we build built to host out further because as local sometimes you miss it and then you miss that idea right like you know it instinctively but you miss it and so to your point you know part of our tool chest of selling things that we give to our team is that idea is that take the pressure off we are the theme we will build it around you and build you joy and a successful event I think the best word is authenticity and that is you can't replicate you can't build you can't build authenticity and to Stephanie's point also was working and I won't say the city's name but I was working with a client recently and they were talking about the investments and other city as making and like I said they are I mean it takes us as a whole is investing nine billion dollars between Houston Austin and Dallas but this particular city they said look they're investing a lot of money they're getting their convention center area but the one thing that this particular city cannot replicate is New Orleans is authenticity that

1:33:30was great to hear you know we love that people like that but we need to make sure that we have both right we have authenticity that won't go away but then we also are coming up but what can we do that's new and innovative because the conventions coming here are being new and innovative and they're looking for the city around it to do the same so I call it the Disney effect but when you go to Disney you like what you like to go to every year but they change things a ride changes into something else right well the same thing with New Orleans we want them to be able to come here and see those things they love but then also what else can we show them what else can we invest in and so that's why having buildings being built having whether it's an office building a hotel having things built in this community that is new for somebody that's coming a show like Stephanie mentioned every four years is huge so we need to keep both we need to make sure that we're focusing on our authenticity but then we're also focusing on being innovative and creative for the future let's just focus on conventions for a moment and just let's just consider that the lifeline

1:34:35you know for a while because of the pandemic and other economic conditions they kind of went by the wayside I mean I know a number of the government sectors type conventions that existed many many years ago several that I was an invited speaker or a panelist and would attend are those coming back the do you see a resurgence in certain sectors of the convention business? Yes and I think the word is evolution we get asked a lot because we have a lot of longevity in our industry here and you know folks ask us you know when's it going to be like 2019 or whatever year they mentioned and I think the most important thing is it's not you know what's like saying you know let's go back to Blockbuster those those days are over and so we have to make sure that we're staying abreast of what's happening what's evolving you know and then filling in the gap when something else has a moment because this isn't the first time in our in our history where a segment pulled back

1:35:40that's unfortunately part of economics and so it trickles down to meetings and so part of our strategy is to make sure we have another lever to pull you know in the event you know there's a you know reduction in government meetings or maybe you know our Pradeem's looking pretty good now but you know they were times in history where it wasn't and so there there are a lot of factors that have impact on how meetings have been flow how the economy and things that are moving forward drive meetings and meeting content the good news is for us is that we've always been incredibly strong in the association world and those meetings are really foundational because their annual meeting is the one that is that keeps the association going that makes money for the organization and you know that's the one that they're not going to cancel right they're not going to cancel because they need that revenue so we always work to have a balance of our association business corporate business government other sectors but but the association market is very important because it is

1:36:44resisted to cancellation yeah you know I always looked at the difficulty to get to some of the cities where these conferences were and I remember I happened to be the recipient of some recognition and award and it was in a city that was man it was difficult to get there and I had a tight tight schedule and I went but it was the whole trip there was miserable when we think about the the airport and the new airport in particular and the recognition that the airport has received how helpful is that for you guys very helpful you know we always heard before the new terminal opened that the old terminal was a dissatisfier you don't realize how true that rang until the new terminal opened it is easy to navigate it is easy to get around there's great food options it looks great and so it really does help it's you know you just described your experience right and so you

1:37:50didn't really talk about the award as much and you're happy to get it but you talked about the experience right that people lead with experience and so that experience the first place you touch down that's why I love seeing all the different parishes come together they announce the master plan because all of us were in this together and that idea that our airport is the New Orleans International or Louis Armstrong International New Orleans Airport sits in Jefferson Parish and so our guests that stay in both Jefferson Parish other parishes are New Orleans that's their experience it's their first impression and first impressions and last impressions matter that lingering that last how did I exit people pay so much attention to the arrival but the exit is so important that follow up of goodwill we kind of lean in in our world to following up with our customers after they left what's the follow up to your time in New Orleans because we want them to hold on to a good experience because we believe that really pushes them to then move the destination forward for either

1:38:53the next leisure trip or the next convention and meeting that's why you see the investment in things like the bands at the airport I mean this is when people first touch down they're coming to the city and you see a New Orleans band in the airport you see the tuba cover with the show name on it you see some registration in there I think the airport the new airport is the difference maker for sure absolutely you know it's interesting too I mean the collaboration between the convention center and New Orleans and company it just occurs to me how important that is really important obviously with the big events but the day-to-day stuff I mean y'all are really a travel agency if you're all intensive purposes right and the diversity why you started the first question you asked was or the first question when when Stephanie answered was that we're a we're a small big city and I think some of that plays well to that relationship as we are a small big city we literally sit across

1:39:54from each other almost weekly we're actually when we when we get off the phone here we're going to the airport together to get on a plane to travel to DC to again spend three days together talking about industry learning about industry so I think that because we are so tight it really helps the hospitality industry move forward but I'd like to add one thing we come lanes get a laugh go ahead we don't always agree but we agree to put what the bigger decision is for the community ahead and she loves when I say that but it's really true we can't agree all the time let me let me get this right two successful women sitting side by side and y'all don't always agree I can't even imagine that right yeah there you go all right when we come back it's all about infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure let's talk about the convention center the current status of renovations that are going on there when we return we're visiting with Stephanie Turner senior vice president convention sales and strategies at New Orleans and company any lane

1:40:56Williams chief commercial officer New Orleans Ernest and Moriow convention center stay with us folks welcome back folks we're visiting with Stephanie Turner senior vice president convention sales and strategies at New Orleans and company any lane Williams chief commercial officer at the New Orleans Ernest and Moriow convention center just a reminder folks that you know a lot of what we talk about that's going on in the city is not just for people visiting the city it's for you as locals you can utilize all these facilities if you're part of an organization or group that's a beauty of all of this you can put something on and really enjoy yourself and if you're looking for something to do next week this week tomorrow this weekend whatever go to New Orleans dot com I mean they they've got all the information for you and they they tell you everything that's going on in the city that you can become a part of and really enjoy yourself I mentioned infrastructure ladies let's talk about the convention center in particular and where we stand with the renovations there

1:42:00certainly it's a timely conversation to have because as of today we are wrapping up the renovations in the center of the convention centers so we're finished most of the convention center now we have probably about 80 percent done but what we're doing is touching everything so anything and you just mention having locals come to the convention center I hope they see it because everything we're doing is very intentional to the attendee so when you walk in the convention center from the carpet to the walls to the restrooms all of it has been touched whether it's it's new carpet of painting whether it's a complete replacement that has really been the focus over the past year two years actually and then last year our board voted on another two hundred million dollars to continue working on these renovations so interior of the convention center now and then after that moving to the exterior of the convention center because it really hasn't been touched in 2018 we did the pedestrian park that's outside the convention center but really never touched the physical piece

1:43:01of the center since 2013 when we did the portion that face is really a straight so addressing the exterior of the convention center is super important I didn't realize it was that long ago already wow I mean it does when I think 2018 yeah it does I mean when you said it I'm like not I can't be right because it didn't it didn't seem that long ago you know we talked about demands expectations of those organizations that come and put on events there obviously you're in touch with them all the time and a lot of what you're doing is as a result of their observations that's a great point yeah so we developed the convention center along with New Orleans and company we did what we call a customer advisory council and we engage them in about 2016 end of 2016 beginning of 2017 and that's who guided our improvements whether it was do we need a bigger ballroom do we need more lobby space what

1:44:04are you looking for and really the biggest thing they talk about and we'll continue to talk about its flexibility and some of that we could address some of it we can't we can't knock down physical walls and meeting rooms but some of it we we can address so that they can do things for example after covid coming out of it being outside became a big deal we open the park and all of a sudden we were having sessions in the park like literal meetings that were occurring outside because that's what people needed and as you know we we had the concerts in the park recently as well and then it was okay we need more space for people to congregate we really didn't have that we had benches in the lobby and that was it they guided us too we need furniture in the lobby we need areas for people to recharge because now you don't go to a session or to a conference and not work it just doesn't happen anymore so when they're going to sessions they need a place to go sit down we offer that we have actual charging stations that are designed around New Orleans neighborhoods because we know how important neighborhoods are here so when you come here you can see all the different

1:45:05neighborhoods I think there's 12 different neighborhoods of New Orleans that you can walk through sit in and there are images of Armstrong Park or Lakeview and you can kind of feel like you're there you can meet people there so all of that was guided by that customer advisory council and I guess there's nothing there's no better validation I should say than when people come back right and I know Stephanie and I have talked many times about some groups they're not going anywhere else they're coming here every time right my best business is repeat business our friends with international workbook show will be here this December again I think how many times have they been here 30 it will be there 30 this will be there 30 of time and then our friends with hematology will be here ophthalmology these large meetings will be here this fall realtors we start off with site congress just in a couple of days when then YMCA and Elaine can share this number but I think it's pretty staggering how many people will come through this building alone that doesn't this does not account the meetings that are

1:46:08directly at the hotel but Elaine right here it's a 225,000 people will be here between September 15th and December 15th we just had an all-team meeting and we for one moment we celebrated the start of football season tonight but then the other moment we were celebrating the start of our big convention season that pretty much starts Monday I mean once once Monday hit so I did mimic the sound of Monday night football which I will not do on this call but that's how I picked off our meeting today to get everybody stosed hopefully it worked but my singing really isn't so great so I tried we like but it's so true absolutely but you know the convention I I actually love going to the quarter and seeing people with those lanyards around their neck with their convention you know credentials just having a great time walking around and you know there's there's no better moment than seeing folks just really taken in new dollars new wallets come into town incredibly

1:47:13important right ladies yes and we do too we we don't tell them who we are we just ask them how their stays going and then you know where you going what are you doing it's great to just interact with the attendee and please come back yes absolutely ladies thank you so much for joining us and I know y'all are headed to the airport so I have a good trip and have a good week and we really appreciate the time that you spent with us and the insight thank you so much for all the thank you thank you bye all right folks that's Stephanie Turner senior vice president convention sales and strategies at New Orleans and company and Elaine Williams achieved commercial officer at New Orleans Ernest and Moriel convention center if you're not impressed with the bench that we have I don't know what it's going to take but these ladies are absolutely on top of their game we'll be right back stay with us scoot joins us what do we have coming up scoot well we have a lot to get to this afternoon we'll once again try to define the latest in LSU versus the SEC

1:48:16she's like yeah there's something new every day it's kind of complicated we'll try to set the record straight on that also um there's a lot of talk about 9-11 and what happened and what didn't happen we'll talk a little bit about that and where you went to high school would you like to go back and do it again we'll talk about that too scoot set it your way stay tuned hope you enjoyed today's show see you again in the morning