Ep. 109: Hometown Values, Big City Vision: Mayor Mattie Parker on Growth and GovernanceMayor Parker: [00:00:00] I’ll give you a wonderful story, and I’m not making this up. I know a lot of politicians love to give you the story, the wink wink, this happened, this actually happened.
Wyatt Smith: Uh, Mayor Parker, welcome to Untapped. Thank you. We’re so grateful that you’re here. I
Mayor Parker: appreciate that.
Wyatt Smith: You’ve been a great leader for North Texas and for Fort Worth, and it’s been really fun to get to know you over the last few years. I’m really excited to hear about your story and, and share it with our listeners.
Mayor Parker: Awesome. Well, thank you for an invitation. I really appreciate it.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah, you’re very welcome. Uh, it’d be fun just to start by hearing what it was like as a kid growing up and what your experience was like with your family.
Mayor Parker: Okay. Well, I’ll try to give you a glimpse. So I grew up in Hico, Texas, a [00:01:00] really small town in central Texas.
Mayor Parker: And I was about probably 15 minutes outside of town on a small dirt road. I was, multiple generations have been raised on the ranch that I’m very proud that we still own today. Okay. And. Um, life was pretty simple, I would say. I have, I have really vivid memories of having, I had this pink huffy bicycle that was not fancy, right?
Mayor Parker: But for some reason in, in the 80s and early 90s, it was just fine for me. And, uh, that was childhood. I was really close to my cousins who were like sisters to me. I have two brothers, one older half brother and my younger brother, Robbie, who now lives here in Fort Worth. Um, my parents are interesting people.
Mayor Parker: They’re really eclectic. I call them Genuine hippies, because they are. They’re not divorced, but still very close friends. My dad had a small criminal defense practice there in Hico. And my mom was a dance teacher. She was a professional ballerina before she had children. And kind of quit, honestly, to have babies, if I’m being honest.
Mayor Parker: And anyway, so life was good. And Hico is a very small town. I had 42 kids in my graduating class. But, candidly, I got an awesome education. Even a small 2A school. And I have [00:02:00] wonderful teachers I still have relationships with. And that was a big influence. Now, my parents are very educated and college was never, um, not an option, right?
Mayor Parker: And focusing what my future was going to be like. However, when you’re in a small town bubble, you know, things can get distracting. But my, um, education was such that I was really well prepared to, to the next step and got to go to UT Austin, which was pretty transformative. So. Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: So you grew up in Hico, Texas.
Wyatt Smith: What was the community like as it relates to people, what they do for work, what was the experience they had like?
Mayor Parker: Largely blue collar, I would say. There are a few big industries there, um, mostly at the time when I was growing up, probably dairy, the dairy industry, uh, the nuclear power plant that’s in Glen Rose employed a lot of people.
Wyatt Smith: Um. Um.
Mayor Parker: Several trades, um, of course, and people probably found work wherever they could find it, um, in that surrounding area and chose to live in a place like Heiko, whether they were from there or they wanted to live in a small town. There were some commuters into the DFW area, but those were probably few and far between and a lot of pride in, in [00:03:00] their work and had taken care of their families and where they went to church.
Mayor Parker: Much like you would just think as, you know, idyllic, small town, American city. That’s, that’s definitely describes Heiko and the people there are just so good and kind. And I’m. I, I think I probably took that for granted as a kid, as we all do, right? But I think about it almost every day now as an adult, because it, it really does inform the way I interact with people.
Mayor Parker: Because growing up, Wyatt, you would have been, you know, sitting next to my grandmother in church the next Sunday. And so how I treated you was going to get reported on,
Wyatt Smith: um, really easily. She’s going to know.
Mayor Parker: Oh, a hundred percent. So there was no anonymity in High Go. And, which is funny because now I have probably no anonymity now, right?
Mayor Parker: But all that to say, it, I’m thankful for that. Because I do think in a large city we can get jaded and kind of stay in our own lane and you know, go to work, raise our kids, stay, stay in the house. And I don’t feel that way because I grew up in such an environment where your life was on display because there were only 1300 people in the entire town.
Mayor Parker: So everybody knew each other.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. Any experiences or stories stand [00:04:00] out that are really formative for you?
Mayor Parker: You know, yeah, of course. I think I’ll give you one really good one and one bad one. Um, I’ll start with the really positive one. When I was in high school, I was a big participant in UIL activities, and I have a teacher named Gary Brister, shout out to Gary Brister, dear friend still, and we, not knowing what we were doing, he didn’t have any special experience other than a love for theater and a lot of experience, so I competed in a, in an area called prose, right, where you, you read a piece, you memorize it and you have to deliver it, it’s, it’s a form of acting, why am I telling you this whole story?
Mayor Parker: Well. It was, I was good at it, and I went all the way to state UIL competition, and from a small town to compete in an academic area was huge, and I didn’t know this, but your scholarship opportunity was tremendous, and if you win state UIL, which I did not, by the way, but if you win state, it’s almost a full ride to any major public institution, the amount of money that they give you, and that was the first time I [00:05:00] realized that I started thinking about how I was going to pay for college because at the time my parents were divorced and my mom was really a single mom and she could not afford it.
Mayor Parker: And so I was, I was already thinking about Pell Grants and was I qualified and student loans and the scholarship piece was always elusive to me in a small town. And I started to feel that burden that we all start to feel a lot of kids do their junior year and going into my senior year realizing this could be a ticket for me.
Mayor Parker: And it made college affordable in a way that I didn’t think because, because of that small scholarship, I was able to qualify for other scholarships and also gave me a leg up in a competition that we all face. It’s worse now for college kids, of course, but at the time for me and the second, I would say my, my father really struggled with alcohol and did for most of his, most of my childhood.
Mayor Parker: And there are a lot of stories I could tell, but my parents divorce, my mother’s decision to leave was very formative, um, and I know very difficult for now. I think [00:06:00] about it now with my own children, how hard that decision was. And I grew up really fast and, um, could share stories about that, uh, that lifestyle that, um, any kind of drug addiction or alcohol can introduce into a household, how a child has to interact with that.
Wyatt Smith: Hmm.
Mayor Parker: But it gives me a sense of, of, of real pride in my mom and how she coped with it and my father who recovered
Wyatt Smith: and he’s
Mayor Parker: now been over, you know, 20 years sober, which is a huge testament to him. Not easy. Right. Anybody that’s an alcoholic will tell you every day is a new day.
Wyatt Smith: Right.
Mayor Parker: Um, but I share that because.
Mayor Parker: Thanks. While I wouldn’t want my children to have to live through that, for me, it was very formative and a very important foundation. And it gives me a sense of empathy, um, and probably a little bit of a chip on my shoulder.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah.
Mayor Parker: That’s helped me be successful.
Wyatt Smith: And there’s resilience in that.
Mayor Parker: Oh, totally. A resilience that I, I’m just so fortunate for.
Mayor Parker: I don’t, it’s not, it was just God given, if I’m [00:07:00] being honest,
Wyatt Smith: so. Mm hmm. Thank you for sharing. Yeah,
Mayor Parker: of course.
Wyatt Smith: So you go to Texas. You have a great experience there. You get out of school. What’s, what’s your path to public service?
Mayor Parker: So I was a government major at UT and had awesome professors right off the bat And so I felt like I’m gonna stay where I am which doesn’t always happen in majors, right?
Mayor Parker: You kind of jump around so I stayed. My junior year of college I was, I worked all the way through school at different jobs and I was working as a bartender and waiting tables at a restaurant. And a woman came in who at the time had been hired as the communications director for Speaker Tom Craddock in the Texas House.
Mayor Parker: Was a pretty big political shift in the state if you remember, um, Tom was the first Republican speaker since Reconstruction
Wyatt Smith: and
Mayor Parker: I mentioned that not to be partisan, but just because the state was finally focused on what’s going on in Austin, there’s some stuff happening in the state, right? And, um, Heather sat down in my section and we started a conversation.
Mayor Parker: Mind you, I’m a junior in college. I’m a government major. I can just picture my conversation with her, right? And I’m bartending. Right. And I [00:08:00] said, well, I want an internship. And I was applying all over the place at the time. So fast forward a few weeks, I did apply. And I hear this later because the woman that was the deputy press secretary for Speaker Craddock became a close friend.
Mayor Parker: They had like over a thousand people apply for the internship. Not surprising. UT’s a big school, working at a capital. I ended up getting the internship and the job. Then I get through a whole session and they enter, I go to study abroad for like two months. I come home and the first phone call I answer is from, um, my friend Alexis, who was then press secretary for Speaker Craddock had gotten promoted.
Mayor Parker: It’s a long story, but essentially. Um, where we need, um, we need you to come back in the office and work during these special sessions and we’ll pay you and you get a job promotion. I’m like, I’m a senior. I still have college. It’s okay. You know all the issues. We want you to come back. And that to me was my first realization that I loved what I was doing.
Mayor Parker: And despite my age, I was beginning to have a chance of a lifetime to really make a difference. And so I worked and did that, um, on behalf [00:09:00] of the Speaker, which I loved. Still have a great relationship with Speaker Craddock and Nadine, his wife.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah.
Mayor Parker: And then when I graduated, I ended up working for him as executive assistant and had a much more prominent role in the office.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. So. Wow. Yeah. Um. That gets you in the fire, you know, pretty quickly out of the pan. Yeah, it
Mayor Parker: does. You know, what’s cool is my office at the time, the press office for the speakers on the third floor, um, on the house side, and right outside my office, ironically, my grandfather was a state house of representatives from the Temple area.
Mayor Parker: And as you’ve been through the state capitol, you see all the portraits and the members also have their kids in those portraits on the year that they’re serving. It’s a long tradition in the Texas legislature. They’re all over the capitol. Okay. The Texas Capitol is a very large place, lots of square footage to cover.
Mayor Parker: And right outside my office was my grandfather’s first session and my dad’s picture. Wow. How crazy. Right? It’s still there in that spot. So I knew I was in the right place and there was some serendipity in that and a God wink probably that this was a [00:10:00] place for me. And he, he, he was deceased So I really didn’t ever get a close relationship with him and he also served as a deputy AG for the state of Texas.
Mayor Parker: Was very close to LBJ and um, but our politics was always kind of in our, our family. I think I just didn’t know it as well.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. And this is your dad’s den. Yes. Yeah. So you would walk out every day and there
Mayor Parker: he was pretty crazy. Yeah. And
Wyatt Smith: then a challenge. Yeah. In, in recent life. Absolutely. What was the path from there back to North Texas?
Mayor Parker: So, I got married, um, which is the path. I loved Austin very much, and David and I met in Austin. He got a job here, um, in North Texas and needed to move. And I stayed in Austin and worked for, um, state representative Phil King, who’s now our state senator, and went back and forth, and ended up moving permanently.
Mayor Parker: And I’ll be honest, when we first moved, Dave and I kind of joke about it now. We thought, this will be a few years and we’ll go back to Austin. And 4th is a little bit sleepy at the time. We weren’t sure we wanted to stay. But it quickly got under our skin and we absolutely loved it. His family is from the 4th area.[00:11:00]
Mayor Parker: And he was obviously thriving and I kind of got my feet underneath me and ended up deciding to go to law school. And so I was going to school at night at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, now Texas A& M, and I worked for Congressman Kay Granger. And, um, by then I really felt like this was home for us.
Mayor Parker: And I was at least committed for four. It ended up being three and a half years for law school, right? But I’m very glad we made the move.
Wyatt Smith: When you finished law school, did you contemplate going and practicing law? I did,
Mayor Parker: actually. So, I worked, my, my tenure in law school was interesting because I was, at the time, a night student.
Mayor Parker: And then David and I, um, Had a baby our son Grayson was born the my first semester of my 2L year. Um, I wouldn’t advise that, but I had Gray two weeks before finals my 2L year.
Wyatt Smith: Jeez.
Mayor Parker: And came home with a baby, rested for a week, and then studied. [00:12:00] And I had awesome, great days. Classmates that came to the house and let me hold this nursing baby and also had a professor, Professor Stephen Alton, who’s now retired as a property law professor, called me without being solicited and said, I know you missed for having your son come back to campus if you can, and I’ll reteach those lessons so you feel like you’re prepared for the final.
Wyatt Smith: Wow.
Mayor Parker: So the school was. Wonderful to me to help me be successful. Yeah, absolutely. Give me a lifeline to be successful a friend of mine I’ll give him a shout out to Spencer Nielsen who’s now an attorney here in Fort Worth who was like young single and Having fun partying and going to law school and then his study mate gets pregnant.
Mayor Parker: He’s like damn it I gotta I gotta help you. So anyway, we were buddies all through school So that experience kind of changed the way I was gonna go to school And I needed to go to school during the day and work and kind of shuffle back and forth between the office and campus so that I wasn’t always gone from having this new baby.
Mayor Parker: And Kay was wonderful. I mean, she’s been a working mom her whole life, three children, and we worked together and figured it out. So I was very loyal to her and I worked all the way through [00:13:00] law school and graduated. And she also, note, is when I had to take the bar exam, if anybody’s taking the bar exam or any big exam, you have to really focus.
Mayor Parker: And she gave me a full month off, no questions asked, just to get prepared for that exam, which was a huge gift. And when I graduated and worked for her for a while, I decided to go practice. And I practiced for a brief period of time at Harris, Finley Bogle here in Fort Worth, wonderful firm, and really enjoyed it.
Mayor Parker: And would possibly have still stayed and been there had Mayor Price not called me and said I’m transitioning and I really want a Chief of Staff, would you come interview for the job? And that’s, that’s that how that happened.
Wyatt Smith: That was a big turning point. It was. That was a big turning point. Your time with Mayor Price, when you reflect back on it, what would you, how would you characterize the big inflection points that set you on your current path?
Mayor Parker: Oh, man. First of all, Betsy is. Such a genuinely good human being and that shows through in all of her decisions and how she leads people I used to always joke So, with folks, when they [00:14:00] would interact with me and ask me about Betsy, I said, the person that you see on TV, the person you hear on the radio, you run across at the park, that’s really who she is.
Mayor Parker: There’s no pretense there. And she’s not faking it. She actually does care about your kids and your grandkids. And she’ll remember their names. And that’s just who she is. And she led our city for 10 years during very different times. Think about when she took office compared to when she left, how much the world had changed.
Mayor Parker: Just social media alone had really entered the political fray and had a much bigger influence in how we interact with each other, which was bleeding over into what was happening to the city. She also had to survive several big contentious issues in the city of Fort Worth that come to mind and navigated those as best she could, right, with the information given to her at the time and on behalf of the entire community, which was really difficult.
Mayor Parker: Um, the, um, the Jacqueline Craig incident, and then the tragic death of a Tatiana Jefferson in her [00:15:00] home by four police officer and all the surrounding fallout from those moments. And I was staffing then it was really, really difficult. And she led with her heart and a lot of prayer and got us through it.
Mayor Parker: And then COVID hit. And then the summer of 2020 and protests.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah.
Mayor Parker: And. All of those moments, I’m thankful I was a part of because they were absolutely influential in how I lead today,
Wyatt Smith: right?
Mayor Parker: Because I, while there was a lot of attention around my youth as a mayor, I had this depth of experience having worked around all levels of government and specifically in city government for all those years prior to taking office that I am very thankful for because I have a knowledge and a history that I think is very critical to be able to lead the city well.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. with that. Okay. So, uh, what’s your vision for
Mayor Parker: th to be a world class [00:16:00] city history and heritage, but forward for progress. And at times, right? You’re t But we’re on the precipice of something incredible right now in the city of Fort Worth. I very, I feel that very strongly and I think we’re all so fortunate, Wyatt, because let’s take, I use this comparison a lot, but it’s easy for Texans.
Mayor Parker: So if you look at the city of Austin, such a fun, vibrant city, lots happening. People like to trash on Austin, but it’s still a great place and it’s doing well economically. They’ve got their own set of issues, but we’re at least 20 years behind them. In that type of growth and explosion and what a gift that is because we can look at cities like Austin and say, what did they get right?
Mayor Parker: And what do we wish we could do differently? And we have the benefit of hindsight that a lot of other large cities have not had. Furthermore, that small town fabric that makes Fort Worth feel so special, the way our neighborhoods are knit together and sense of community, is there because we were a [00:17:00] smaller city for so long, hovering around half a million people, now close to a million and growing.
Mayor Parker: But, uh, While sometimes I do get concerned we’re going to lose that feeling, lately I’m more reassured than ever because of this sense of community pride that exists and the diversity of our neighborhoods and places to live and work that each Fort Worthian gets to choose what’s best for them, yet be a part of this larger fabric.
Mayor Parker: We’ll tell the story in the future of Fort Worth that I think we want to be told, which is we are still an amazing city that has all the amenities of a New York or a Los Angeles. But it’s a place that feels truly special, um, in a, a really changed world right now that we live in.
Wyatt Smith: What do you attribute the growth to?
Wyatt Smith: What are the things driving
Mayor Parker: it? It’s simple. It’s quality of place. I’ve talked about this a lot. People across the country, especially post COVID, that caused a lot of families to look in the mirror and say, What do I want for my life, for my children, for my grandchildren? They voted with their feet. [00:18:00] And they’re leaving communities that they do not feel like fulfill them the way they want to be fulfilled.
Mayor Parker: They can’t realize their dreams there for whatever reason. Their education for their children, whatever their reason may be. And they’re looking for that next opportunity. And cities like Fort Worth are offering that to them. And we’re also incredibly welcoming place where people feel like. Man, people actually are kind to one another.
Mayor Parker: They open the door for you. They shake your hand. They look you in the eye. They want to have a genuine conversation. And importantly, they want you to be successful here. And I know for a fact that is driving this growth and opportunity for our city. Separate from that is we’re a part of the state of Texas, which is now I believe the eighth largest economy by GDP in the entire world, which is pretty mind blowing.
Mayor Parker: We’re also part of North Texas, now over 8 million people, the fastest growing metro region in the country. soon to pass Chicago and all of the amenities that come with that. And you have special specific things. [00:19:00] One I’ll mention is like Dallas Fort Worth international airport. Now the second business airport in the entire world that absolutely drives economic progress and prosperity.
Mayor Parker: I’ve talked to several business owners recently who’ve moved and Fort Worth maybe wasn’t on their, their list at first, but now they realize I can live here, raise my family in this city and I can be on a plane and anywhere in the world. flight. That’s pretty unheard of. Absolutely.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. And I love that when people come home to North Texas, the first person they see is you on the wall.
Mayor Parker: Welcome to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Welcome to Fort Worth. Yeah. Eric Johnson and I get a lot of nods about that. You do great. Yeah, it’s good. Thank you.
Wyatt Smith: Um, I couldn’t agree with you more. And it’s somebody that moved from California to North Texas during the pandemic. Yeah. You were one of those people, right?
Wyatt Smith: I was one of those people. Yeah. Yeah. And the, the, the notes you sound around welcoming, um, and people cheering for you and wanting it to be successful. Did you close
Mayor Parker: your eyes on a map and just throw a dart? Or how did you choose? My wife
Wyatt Smith: is from Dallas, and so certainly that was a big part of the draw.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah, um, and, you know, the pandemic was, um, [00:20:00] just so disruptive. Absolutely. And, you know, in San Francisco at the time, you couldn’t really walk outside. So it was a pretty easy call to save quite a bit better. Yeah. But we bought a house and found out we were going to have our first kid the same day. Yeah. So a lot of adulting.
Wyatt Smith: That’s a good
Mayor Parker: story. I love that. Yeah. It’s not
Wyatt Smith: quite two weeks before finals. Dave and I kind of have that same
Mayor Parker: thing. When our second child, we moved into a new house. Now it’s been almost nine years in Ridgeley North. And the day we were moving in, there’s boxes everywhere and we’re both stressed and probably yelling at each other.
Mayor Parker: I was like, Oh, by the way, I’m pregnant. It was very anticlimactic. Second kid, right? Right. And we had a daughter too. So at the time we had two kids. Right. Our daughter’s adopted anyway. So it’s kind of funny.
Wyatt Smith: That’s really funny. Yeah. Yeah. You know what, you think about all that growth and what powers it is infrastructure, it’s the things that are the backbone of our society that skilled tradespeople go and build and develop.
Wyatt Smith: And there’s this big shortage of people that have those skills. I’m curious as somebody who’s leading from a policy standpoint, like what do you see in North Texas as it relates to readiness to support that growth and how do you think about that skilled workforce question?
Mayor Parker: Well, I, I know that [00:21:00] Across the country, we all should be focused on this issue and major industries are grappling with how are we going to meet the need of an aging workforce of a workforce that’s under skilled or mismatched skills for certain things that we know are industries that are needed.
Mayor Parker: So I’ll try to approach it from a lot of different angles. So first I’ll wear the lens, um, as the founding director of Tarrant 2 and 3 partnership or T3. The data is really simple, um, that we know in Texas about 75 percent of the jobs just in North Texas require some type of degree or credential after high school.
Mayor Parker: And that’s operative. credential or degree. For too long in this country, we have been laser focused on everybody goes to four year degree. Like, we’re like little robots. We’re just going to do the same thing. And that is so, that’s so misguided. What we need to be doing, and I know in Tarrant County, we’re focused on this, thanks to T3 and other organizations focused on education, That every student needs a [00:22:00] pathway that fits them, but you need those pathways to actually match with industry and the needs of a growing workforce and the economy of today, 10 years, 15, 20 years from now, right?
Mayor Parker: And no, K through 12 education hasn’t largely changed when it comes to that pathway concept in a long time. We have bright spots, certainly across Texas we could point to, but at a high level, I strongly believe that in Fort Worth, every single student that attends a school here. while in middle and high school should be able to attain a credential or a degree that prepares them for a job or a workforce or a pathway post high school graduation.
Mayor Parker: And right now, that’s not quite there. We’re getting closer. And I say has the opportunity. You can’t make a student take advantage of that. But every student deserves the door to be opened and say this is what is available to you. The other thing that you know all too well, is we need industry to help inform our educators and that [00:23:00] industry on what they are seeing and what they need for their workforce to have with the skills that they need them to have when they come in the door the first time.
Mayor Parker: And what’s been happening, um, let’s take a company like Lockheed or Bell, these larger companies, they just create their own programs within their own companies to skill their workforce.
Wyatt Smith: Yep.
Mayor Parker: Because they don’t really have the time or want to deal with the bureaucracy of having to reach down into districts and retrain, right?
Mayor Parker: And so what is happening is now you see innovators like yourself. That have decided I’m going to stand up a a tech incubator, a firm or workforce, whatever it may be, and help train tomorrow’s workforce. And you’re meeting a need that we know is across the entire country. And you could take any industry for that matter.
Mayor Parker: And what I think in Fort Worth and Tarrant County is possible because we do work in a collaborative spirit. is making sure our table is set. So the industry partners, business [00:24:00] leaders, educators, higher education, we’re all rowing in the same direction and trying to mitigate the competition that I think has existed for a very long time.
Mayor Parker: And we’ve, we founded a mayor’s council workforce and education when I became mayor and we’re making real inroads and we’re partnered with Tarrant two and three partnership and their entire team around that concept. Every student has an opportunity to retain a good rear. Degree or credential. What is your pathway?
Mayor Parker: And then lastly, recognizing that so many students and families have no idea of the possibility that is out there. Right. The salary possibility, what type of lifestyle they want to live. They could stay right here in North Texas. And we owe it to those families to make sure reaching down into these living rooms to say your student could do one of these multitude of things and we want to offer that opportunity to you.
Mayor Parker: And then lastly, because you understand really well, especially in the industries that you’re focused on, let’s take construction just broadly. Um, [00:25:00] the aging workforce that exists across America in construction, and how do you retrain or utilize that experienced workforce now? to help train the next generation, and whether it’s carpentry or plumbing or HVAC or electricity, whatever it may be, to actually build America.
Wyatt Smith: Right.
Mayor Parker: We talk about this infrastructure bill that was passed a few years ago and we’re all drawing down billions of dollars and the partnership projects we have in Texas, in North Texas and Tarrant County, well who’s going to build the damn road if you don’t have the workforce to do it, right? So these are all really complicated questions that I know the city of Fort Worth can be a leader on moving forward.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. So well said. Yeah. Thank
Mayor Parker: you.
Wyatt Smith: If you’re, so if you’re an entrepreneur in Fort Worth and you’re contemplating making an investment and taking on risk to go build one of these skilled trades companies to take advantage of that market opportunity you just alluded to, what, what advice would you give them?
Mayor Parker: Let me ask this first in your experience. What is usually the most irritating obstacle for a company like yours that’s trying to
Wyatt Smith: get [00:26:00] started? Hmm. Well, I think, I think certainly you want to make sure you’re solving an important problem. Yeah. What’s the problem with your customer? And I think that oftentimes problem definition is, is challenging because you get really specific and if you’re too generalized, then it’s not relevant for everybody.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. Well, you can’t be relevant for everybody, but it’s not relevant for somebody. And so having a few people love you is better than have a lot of people think that you’re pretty good.
Mayor Parker: Yeah. That makes sense.
Wyatt Smith: And so you have lots of folks that are highly dynamic. In the city and they’re they’re thinking about what’s the problem that they can go solve and they’re facing a bunch of challenges to do it, but It’s against this backdrop of no shortage of opportunity.
Mayor Parker: Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: And so I’m curious about how you would guide them.
Mayor Parker: Well, I would say, first of all, the advantage in Fort Worth and Tarrant County, especially because of our work with the council and with T3, is the table is set for you. What do I mean by that? You all in these technology startup companies, upskill, you know, skilling companies, you need a workforce potential that’s in front of you to [00:27:00] say, these 10 people can now enter my program and I can provide employment to them on the back end, right?
Mayor Parker: And a lot of places the table is not set for you. You got to go knock doors every individual district. You got to work with the workforce. Um, whatever it’s a commission, every state’s different. Every county is different. In Fort Worth, you have the ability to say, we think this is the area we want to focus on.
Mayor Parker: Can I talk to a few employers about what they’re seeing? Okay. Absolutely. Let’s talk about healthcare. Let I’ve got all our hospitals represented. Go talk to your hospitals. And then importantly, now we decide, okay, I think I can probably educate over a year’s time period. 100 people. Different ages. Maybe you’re starting 16 up to 25 as your as your target.
Mayor Parker: Okay, let’s work with this one school district that maybe already has a CTE program that’s not quite developed enough and they need to hand off their students and CTE to the next level. You’re the perfect partner to go do that with. The matchmaking, I believe strongly, is where [00:28:00] government needs to be serving.
Mayor Parker: In my office, me personally, I recognize the power of a bully pulpit of my office. And, and utilizing my relationships and the built trust that I have to say, trust me here. This is a match made that we need to do. And, and then lastly, in education, for whatever reason, we’ve really struggled with innovation, with allowing the private sector in to help inform what’s possible.
Mayor Parker: And I think we’re on the precipice of that changing slowly, but I do think, and the table set again. for your disruptors like yourself to come in and be successful.
Wyatt Smith: Right. There’s 900, 000 openings across the state of Texas, and these are sort of end of 2023 numbers. Yeah. And you look across all the opportunity that exists, but like unemployment rates are as low as they’ve been in a very long time.
Wyatt Smith: And so when you’re giving advice to folks that are having a difficult time finding [00:29:00] the right qualified workforce for growing their businesses, And they’re trying to test a lot of different things out. What do you, what do you see in work?
Mayor Parker: Well, I think first of all, data can tell a story and you know these statistics, but where are gaps in workforce participation where you could put people back in the workforce, especially post COVID are no longer there.
Mayor Parker: And one area that’s really concerning to a lot of people that are much smarter than me, data scientists across the country that really focus on workforce, Why do we have such a high percentage of able bodied middle aged men that are not in the workforce right now? And is there potential in a community like Fort Worth and Tarrant County to really embrace that population and get them back in the workforce or upskill them in a way that’s meaningful and get them into these careers and 900, 000 jobs you mentioned in Texas that are available to them.
Mayor Parker: That’s number one. Number two, a realization that. Let’s just take my [00:30:00] demographic, for instance. I’m a 40 year old, um, educated female with a busy family, three children. And, there have been times when, great example, let’s just take child care, where my son’s Montessori school at age four was more expensive than my daughter’s first year education at Texas Tech University.
Mayor Parker: Child care has often been, in policy and politics, a tap on the head kind of issue. Like, oh, we’ll get to that later, honey, don’t worry. And I think finally in this country, recognizing, no, it’s actually a workforce issue.
Wyatt Smith: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Mayor Parker: That your workforce, men and women, deserve to make, to, to feel like their children are taken care of, that they’re prioritized for their family, and they can still show up at work every day.
Wyatt Smith: Mm hmm.
Mayor Parker: It’s too expensive. The model is broken, broken, and there’s a lot of things that, frankly, employers are now focused on. And rather than just come at the problem, I’ll give you a solution to those employers that you’re speaking [00:31:00] of.
Wyatt Smith: Mm hmm.
Mayor Parker: Is the, the Miles Foundation here in Fort Worth. And Grant Coates and his team, along with Sarah Reddington, I know you know Grant.
Mayor Parker: They founded the Best Place for Working Parents and the Best Place for Kids initiatives. The Best Place for Working Parents initiative is now national. And they partner with U. S. Chamber of Commerce and other chambers of commerce across the country. And they’ve created this toolkit of lieutenants, whether you’re small, medium, or large business, of what does it look like to be family friendly?
Mayor Parker: And importantly, why should you care? Because it’s better for you. It’s big for your
Wyatt Smith: ROI.
Mayor Parker: And these are services that the philanthropic community has said, I’m recognizing the link, right? This gap in workforce issue that we have. Why do we have it? What problem are we trying to solve? And there are certain subsections of our communities and working parents are a huge piece of that, that, that they’re choosing to leave the workforce and not reenter or work part time because they’re trying to care for their families and understandably so.
Mayor Parker: Yep. And it’s an absolute solution. And then lastly, For an employer [00:32:00] that’s looking at other demographics, is this demographic of students that are coming out of high school, especially post COVID, the kids that have lived in a digital universe their whole lives, that are probably impacted more than any research can tell us, um, because of the phone that they’re constantly on and the exposure to social media and all the things that come with that.
Mayor Parker: And I know for a fact, I’ve talked to a lot of employers, they’re having trouble adapting to that generation’s needs and wants, and how do we all have that conversation around every generation has a different change in workforce needs. We get that and what they want out of work, right? I think there’s a lot of beauty in what I’m seeing, at least, of this younger generation post high school, post college.
Mayor Parker: They want more flexibility. They want more quality of life. Money is less important to them. Um, they want the proverbial bear hug when they get to work every day and want to feel appreciated and have the opportunities. And that’s just changed and we’re not going to be able to go back to that.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah.
Mayor Parker: [00:33:00] So how does an employer reach the needs of that?
Mayor Parker: And I, I think every industry is doing it differently and you may have some insights into what you’re seeing, especially with these trades that the work’s got to get done no matter what. And how do you encourage a young person, um, to realize that those jobs are possible for them and get them into those skills?
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. It’s interesting. We’re, we’re learning a lot around how gamification impacts, how people, you Feel recognized and how that motivates behavior. Especially with technology, you can link the behavior to a financial outcome. And as you get those links really tight, if there’s not a real clear response that happens or from the thing you do, that’s good, it doesn’t happen as much.
Wyatt Smith: It’s kind of a, like
Mayor Parker: the proverbial trophy. They need everything. Yeah. Or also
Wyatt Smith: just the, um, the reminder that, hey, this is what we wanted to have happened and it happened. And like, that was a really great thing. And I think a lot of. Companies fall into a trap where like most of the feedback is negative. it.
Wyatt Smith: Like this didn’t happen and what’s wrong with you and, um, human beings tend to be more affirmation seeking than that. [00:34:00] And it speaks to the insight you’re sharing around what is the nature of work and how does that change with, with generations. I’d love to just have listeners learn a little bit more about the miles foundations work and grants leadership there.
Wyatt Smith: Um, is there any stories that pop out about people who they’ve served or people whose trajectory are different? Well, I won’t
Mayor Parker: steal someone else’s thunder, I’ll just talk about the city of Fort Worth. So when I worked for Mayor Price and the city manager at the time, when I had our second son Laney, I had Laney when I’m maternity leave, I had all the comp time, you can imagine because I worked all the time, so I didn’t think about it.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah.
Mayor Parker: Well, I realized we don’t have a normal family leave policy at the city of Fort Worth. You use medical leave or your comp time. And I was flabbergasted because I came back to work and realized, well, what if I didn’t work for the mayor?
Wyatt Smith: Right.
Mayor Parker: What if I worked in the water department and I’d only been at the city for a year and I don’t have maternity leave.
Mayor Parker: So now I’m going to go unpaid for three or four weeks. And by the way, six weeks is nothing and not [00:35:00] recommended. Right. And I’ve had a problem with that. Well, thanks to Sarah and the miles foundation who’d been working through the best place for working parents initiative. We had a toolkit to help the city HR department help us create our first family policy.
Mayor Parker: Awesome. Betsy was a great cheerleader. She was all on board. She’s been a champion for this. Then fast forward to when I become mayor and Sarah also helped me. With great data and a tool kit to help support our HR department and creating now a 12 week Pamphlet policy and I’ll give you a wonderful story and I’m not making this up I know a lot of politicians love to give you the story the wink wink this happened.
Mayor Parker: This actually happened I was leaving the police memorial event last May
Wyatt Smith: Okay,
Mayor Parker: and this officer and his wife come up and have this beautiful baby girl Can we take a picture? Of course I’ll hold that baby. Let me hold the baby. I’m holding the baby. Take a picture. Talk to him for a second. And he says to me, this is my third child.
Mayor Parker: I’ve worked for PD for over 15 years. I have never [00:36:00] taken paternity leave when my children were born. And I’m now taking a full 12 weeks. We’re splitting it up. I’m going to do three. She’s going to go back to work. Come back to three. That is what it’s about.
Wyatt Smith: And
Mayor Parker: he will come back so fulfilled. Cannot wait to put his uniform back on because the city actually cared about him.
Mayor Parker: His employer actually said your family matters more than your job. And that’s what employers have to do to meet the needs, especially today more than ever. And sometimes, candidly, you need an outside organization that has done the research and the work like Miles and like Best Place to help a company, large or small, private or non profit government.
Mayor Parker: Doesn’t matter. This is how you do it. This is just that simple. Here’s your toolkit. Here are the things we know work, um, for a, an environment for your city, for your, for your ROI to be solid and also for your employees to be valued. And so I, I’m a huge champion for what they’re doing for sure.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: There’s a playbook there for employers. It is. And it’s a great,
Mayor Parker: I mean, you can put it up on the podcast link if you want to [00:37:00] look at it. It’s an awesome website and it really is meant for all levels of employers.
Wyatt Smith: We will put in the show notes. Yeah. Um, alright, so lightning round here at the end. Uh, let’s go by quickly.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah. I could talk to you all day long. Um. We like, we’d love to share examples of things people have read or been inspired by that changed their behavior. Okay. And so, um, and thinking about, you know, favorite books or things that impacted you in that way. I’m curious what you’d share.
Mayor Parker: Ooh, goodness. My favorite book of all time is still To Kill a Mockingbird and
Wyatt Smith: shout out Harper Lee.
Mayor Parker: Yes. And I think that the book is still so relevant even today. I just recently saw the Broadway production when it came through town here at Bass Hall and a great reminder. So that’s, Number one, I would say from a work perspective. I can’t remember the name of the author, but it’s a book about chiefs of staff in the White House.
Wyatt Smith: Okay. And it’s keepers.
Mayor Parker: Yes. Thank you. It’s beautiful. I’ve done. I’ve heard it. I’ve listened to it on audible now twice and also read the book. Yeah. Fascinating stories. Yeah. And, [00:38:00] um, by the way, the biography written about James Baker is also excellent.
Wyatt Smith: The man who ran Washington. Yes. It’s really Peter Baker
Mayor Parker: wrote that one for me.
Mayor Parker: New York times. It’s really well done. Thank you. And then, ironically, yesterday, I got to sit at lunch and then a meeting with General Mattis for over an hour and a half. It was fascinating to hear his perspective. And I mention it today because, more than ever, I want our young people, I want, actually, of all ages, to remember the sense of pride we all should have in being Americans.
Mayor Parker: We’re so focused on what’s wrong in this country and what tears us apart, but just remember how lucky we are. I mean, the story you were telling me about the founder who came from Iraq and the adversity that he’d gone through, that should power us to be better.
Wyatt Smith: Mm hmm.
Mayor Parker: And I was inspired yesterday by his stories and his commitment to the country and serving the U.
Mayor Parker: S. Marine Corps for 40 years and his perspectives and really want that to drive me moving forward. [00:39:00] How do we make sure that everyone feels like they should have that sense of pride in America? You can’t fix everybody. But I really do know 80 percent of this country is that we are proud to be here. We do not have to be at each other’s throats and do not let the extremism fight, you know, and tear the country apart.
Mayor Parker: And his discussion was really formative for me. And there’s a book that the Hoover Institute, um, put together a blueprint for America that, um, secretary Schultz helped lead. And I haven’t read it yet. So I’ll come back to you on that question. And it was written before, I think at the end of Obama’s administration.
Mayor Parker: So prior to the 2016 election, um, all these different researchers and longtime established um, leaders in government wrote a book on different topics they thought was the blueprint for America. Nonpartisan. And there’s some, there’s some beauty in that of what can we all agree on to help drive change in leadership.
Mayor Parker: So, and, and lastly, I’ll just mention, I, [00:40:00] I’m a prolific reader, both fiction and nonfiction, um, there’s so many things out there, lessons in history, and, um, Um, I appreciate, because it’s not uncommon for people to bring me a book and say, I want you to read this or, you know, think about on the, on the topic.
Mayor Parker: And so maybe my, my, my plug there is if someone’s listening to this and you’re like, I really want Maddie to read this or know about this potential, I’d love to, I’d love to get it. You’re open for books. Yeah. What’s your, what’s your reading? What are you reading right now?
Wyatt Smith: Um, I’m reading a couple of things.
Wyatt Smith: One is around like why, why startups fail. And it’s a professor I had in business school who talks about like patterns across companies that had big visions that didn’t work. And so I guess like anti examples, but a lot of them felt like great companies in the, in the time. And so there’s lessons there.
Wyatt Smith: There’s a book around, um, um, behavior that’s influenced by decisions people make. Um, it’s called thinking fast and slow and, uh, that that’s shaping a lot of how we think about. Um, the [00:41:00] ways we can build technology to change behavior. Yeah. Um, and there’s a great book by, by, uh, Daniel Pink around mastering autonomy as one of the key motivators for why people do the things they do.
Wyatt Smith: And it’s, I think, useful in, in terms of like a reminder that people love to be, to know that like they’ve really mastered something, that they’re competent in an area.
Mayor Parker: And isn’t that interesting to compare that to the conversation we had earlier? Um, around education, let’s just take K through 12. Yeah.
Mayor Parker: We’re not focused on mastery.
Wyatt Smith: Yeah.
Mayor Parker: Right? It is. We need to get through this next class, this next subject, because you’ve got to have this for graduation. Yep. That’s, I’m going to have to pick that up. That’s very interesting. I couldn’t agree more.
Wyatt Smith: There’s a huge insight there on how we think about workforce training too, because skills and competency based training is focused on the, the outcomes and you can screen people on the basis of their mindsets and their dispositions and.
Wyatt Smith: How they, how they act using technology that then helps to identify folks that will be awesome. It’ll be [00:42:00] hugely impactful if only they had the skills. Because the skills are eminently learnable. You can, you can build those pretty quickly, particularly if somebody’s motivated and there’s a big opportunity for increasing their wages and, and making a really big impact from a purpose standpoint.
Wyatt Smith: But our system today is very focused on the inputs. It’s like, did you enroll? And that’s how we think about financing it and less,
Mayor Parker: yeah,
Wyatt Smith: what happened on the backside of it. Did it create output? It’s
Mayor Parker: the same reason persistence is important, right? Like, we look at entering college, um, but did they persist?
Wyatt Smith: Right.
Mayor Parker: Did they enter a credential program and persist?
Wyatt Smith: Yep. Yep.
Mayor Parker: And we usually drop that off, right? We feel like we’ve checked the box. If someone actually enrolls in something, you’re right.
Wyatt Smith: Angela Duckworth wrote this book, grit, which is about that topic. And you know, the, one of the biggest indicators of success is, is resilience and
Mayor Parker: completion and resilience.
Mayor Parker: Yeah.
Wyatt Smith: And I think about your story and having a childhood that had some challenges and resilience was important and you’ve persisted quite well. So, you
Mayor Parker: know, I, I may have had an interest in childhood for sure, but, um, I tell this story sometimes it’s funny. I told [00:43:00] my seventh grader this other day, who he and I, personality wise, have a little of the same personality traits, and remember, parents are hippies, they just send me to wonderful concerts all over the place, um, and I have a lot of, a lot of pride in that.
Mayor Parker: One year in particular though, they took me, I think in the, whatever, I think it was the month of April or May, whenever the Kerbal Folk Festival was, and um, my uncle was a drummer, at the time I think he was working for Darden Smith or Jerry Jeff Walker, I can’t remember who it was. Anyway, take me out of school.
Mayor Parker: And we’re gone for like a week and a half, Wyatt. I’m like, guys, I’m, I have to go back to school. I think the RV got stuck in the mud. They’re like, we’re fine. We’ll just stay a little bit longer. It’s a learning experience. Totally learning experience. So I told Grayson that story that he was like, where are we going?
Mayor Parker: Can we go on, can we go on an adventure? I was like, no, no, no, no, we’re not doing that again. It was, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. That’s right. Well, there’s
Wyatt Smith: learning to be had everywhere. Yes, for sure. Grateful to you for coming on. for the chance to share more. Absolutely.
Mayor Parker: Yes. Same for y’all.
Mayor Parker: Thank you, Wyatt.
Wyatt Smith: All right. Thank you. [00:44:00] Awesome.
