The Build #31: Train

Train. The word means two important things to this week’s guest. It’s the big machine that can take you from one end of the country to another. And it’s also what you need to do to ensure that your community’s packed with the right kind of talent.

Katlyn Grasso has been spending a lot of time with both versions of the word “train.” She’s journeyed on the Millennial Trains Project, an adventure designed to cultivate dozens of new social entrepreneurs. And she’s been traveling all over the world, empowering young women to grow into community leaders.

It’s the story of GenHERation on The Build.

More about today’s guest:

• GenHERation on Instagram and Twitter.
• Katlyn Grasso University of Pennsylvania Bio

Transcript

Announcer: [00:00:00] From two 2820 radio in Philadelphia. It's The Build conversations with entrepreneurs and innovators about their dreams, their triumphs, and their challenges. 
Joe Taylor: [00:00:13] Train. The word means two important things to this week's guest. It's the big machine that can take you from one end of the country to another.
And it's also what you need to do with the right kind of talent. Katlyn Grasso has been spending a lot of time with both versions of the word train. She's journeyed on your millennial trains, project and adventure designed to cultivate dozens of new social entrepreneurs. And she's been traveling all over the world, empowering young women to grow.
It's the story of GenHeration coming  up next on The Build. 
Announcer: [00:00:53] The Build is made possible with support from 2820 Press. Business consulting and content strategy services to customer obsessed companies nationwide.
Joe Taylor: [00:01:06] It's The Build I'm Joe Taylor Jr. Joined this week by founder of GenHeration Katlyn Grasso, who is in the middle of her own cross-country expedition this week as we record.
Even though we try to keep up the illusion, sometimes that we're  in the room at the same time, we're catching up with you by phone because today is election day. In the United States of America, it's an extraordinary year. And I feel like a lot of the themes that folks have been discussing really dovetail with some of the mission and the values that you've been working on in your organization.
So give our listeners a brief review of what you've been up to. 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:01:48] Yes. So I run a company called GenHeration and we are an interactive, good media company for high school and college women that provides them with access to career exploration, female executives, skill building, activities, and scholarships.
And when I say interactive, I use that term because we carve out our audience of aspirational young women through our online platform, which is our website and our live events, which are our signature events, like our cross country, summer tours. We recently just got back from our summer discovery days tour, where we chartered a bus and visited five cities.
Across the United States to visit the most innovative companies in America. Our goal is again, sort of, creating this access between girls and companies in order to raise awareness and open and their exposure to different opportunities. 
Joe Taylor: [00:02:29] So tell me a little bit about how you came to this point in your career. Because as I understand it, you enrolled in Wharton as an economics major. So you didn't necessarily come up as a media studies person or a straight up business major. What drew you into the path that you're on right now? 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:02:46] Yeah. So I think I've always been an entrepreneur from the time I was six years old to now.
I really think I'm a problem solver and I'm always looking for how can I use my entrepreneurial abilities to solve problems that really matter. And so I am originally from Buffalo, New York, and I grew up in a very supportive environment. My parents have always been telling me I can do anything I want to do.
I have. My dad is a really big advocate for female advancement and I went to an all girls Catholic high school. I was a Girl Scout. I really just grew up in an environment where I felt that I could do anything, not with a gender lens, not because I was a girl or not, because I wasn't a boy. But when I went to college and you know, I studied up towards school at U Penn and I was econ major and all undergrads get a BS in economics.
And then you pick a concentration in my compensations were finance and strategic globalization. And I just realized sort of being in the male dominated world of business, that when executives would come and speak or even in finance classes, there would just be so few women that had a cord with me. And I said, how do we backtrack and solve this problem 20, 25 years from now? It can be, you know, reaching that level of gender equality across politics, across academics, across business. So it really just came from sort of looking at my surroundings and looking at my background and saying, I wish that all girls could feel as empowered as me and they shouldn't feel that they can, cannot pursue certain opportunities because they're women.
And I just wanted to share that message with the world.  
Joe Taylor: [00:04:09] So tell me how you found advocates, because I know that you were able to successfully win over some fans, Dr. Amy Gutmann, and other folks that are pretty high levels in some major companies are looking at some of the media that you're creating as something that they want to help amplify and share.
So I think from the point of view of our listeners, we, a lot of folks that ask about how they can even attract investors. You're asking, I think for something even more, which is that advocacy in that support. What's the process for you to actually recruit someone to help support the work that you're doing?
Katlyn Grasso: [00:04:48] That's a fantastic question. And I've actually never been asked that specifically. We're actually raising a $1 million seed round right now. So I also have the investor perspective. And they actually are different. So when I think of the advocacy, part of how we've been able to find people who have been attracted to the mission, I think what's been important is that when I first started out and I would reach out to really big influential people, you sort of have to have a hook and you have to have something to demonstrate sort of, I always say numbers speak louder than words.
So when we were first starting out, you know, within our first year, we had already reached 5,000 girls. Hosted five national events across the United States work with big companies like the American Heart Association and ESPN going to somebody who is, you know, being very powerful and saying, we already have these key metrics.
It already makes it a little bit easier to get into the door. I think it's great to have ideas. And I'm not saying that you can only go to people when you're a little more established, but I think if, even if you have an idea, saying- you know, we've already been in discussions with these groups, or we've already talked to these investors because I think everyone wants to feel like they're a part of a fast moving crane and you're not just trying to make something up with soaking near it.
So I think going to that was having something to point to of our early success was really critical. And so, you know, specifically with Dr. Gutmann, we, the summer before I was graduating from Penn, so this was 2014. She created what she called the president's engagement prize and she, which is now an annual prize, but she gets three to four seniors, $150,000 to develop projects that have the potential to change the world.
And I'm very fortunate that GenHeration was selected as one of those projects. And that has really led catalyzed our growth. But I think what is just so compelling is that this is just something I'm so passionate about. And it's a real problem that, you know, someone like Dr. Gutmann. Faces, you know, she's one of the few women leading a university was the first woman in her family to go to college.
So I think people finding it that it resonates with them just makes them really big advocates. And I'm really lucky to have her as a mentor. And then I think context has been extremely supportive to me and that's because wherever I go, I'm always talking about generation and I'm not afraid to, sort of, ask for what I want.
Someone at Comcast was we were doing a pitch event for Wharton entrepreneurship. And at the end I was small. Then it was the end of the year. And I said, okay, you know, I'm just going to make a big ask. And we were announcing our summer leadership series at 2015. And I said, I would love if we could be on an NBC station talking about this.
And then it just so happened that the chief business development officer of Comcast happened to be in the audience and said, Hey, we own NBC now, how could I help? And from there, we've had a great relationship and that has opened so many doors. So I think not being afraid to put yourself out there and having different points of credibility, you can point to just makes it easy for people to want to be on your team. 
Joe Taylor: [00:07:25] So we'll get to the idea about getting media placements and getting attention for the cause in a moment. But let's drill down on something I'm hearing a lot from our guests lately, the big distinction now between a social impact company and traditional not-for-profit. Walk me through the establishing generation as a company that folks would invest in as opposed to nonprofit that would just get grants and donations. 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:07:52] Yeah. So I think it's really important. I mean, I think nonprofits do great work, but I think that there's a really big business opportunity here.
Research has shown that when women want to start something, they actually tend to go down to the more, the nonprofit route because women try to be more altruistic. And if they're doing something good, they feel like, Oh, how can I make money for this? And I sort of take the counter view of, I don't think doing good and making money are mutually exclusive.
And I think you can create value to both your end users who are girls and companies as well. So we reach a very big audience over 75,000 young women, and we can provide immense value to our partner companies along many different routes. So whether it is. Through HR services, whether it is through product awareness, whether it's through market research, we can provide so much value to them and that we can capture that value monetarily.
And I think it's just finding ways that you have a social mission. Our mission is to empower girls and help them be the best versions of themselves. But how can you also create value for other stakeholders in your network that are willing to pay for something? So companies are always looking to hire more women and Google just spent $150 million on diversity last year.
So, you know, why shouldn't they be paying us as a client? So you should think of what's the problem solving who are all the key stakeholders, what are the different ways I can capture value from all parties? 
Joe Taylor: [00:09:06] It gets remarkable because the idea that you could actually attract talent into a social impact organization, whereas nonprofits. Where the idea was well, you're at a nonprofit, therefore don't expect to be valued monetarily. What we hear now is that you can actually strike a balance between living this mission and achieving this vision, but not having to feel like you're doing it at the expense of what you would gain if you were to work at a Google or a Microsoft or something like that. Segue us into another thing that I'm fascinated by, which is how people assemble the skill set to take on the task at hand. And as a leader, you both have to attract not just donors, but those stakeholders, those investors, those clients, as I heard you frame them. But you've also actually got to get out in the road and produce events and produce media. That seems like a skill set far beyond what an economics degree from Wharton prepares you for.
Katlyn Grasso: [00:10:09] Yeah. So the thing is, I don't think that there would be one degree, like when I sort of think like retroactively of that, what type of curriculum could I have built for myself to prepare myself for what I do now? And I really don't think under agree with things that have to be a very highly customized program at a school led by Elon Musk or something.
I read an article once that was actually by the founder of Spanx, who's one of the first female billionaires. And she said that the people who are the most successful entrepreneurs have done many different things in their lifetime. And, you know, she started selling fax machines and she was one of the chipmunks at Disney and 30.
You got the call on a very different type of skill. So when I look back at what I've done, so when I was in high school, I had started to nonprofit organizations and I had to learn, you know, how to manage my time. You didn't while also building something that was going to be sustainable and have an impact on the Buffalo community.
And I actually started my first business after my freshman year of college at Wharton, it was called Tap for Tots. And I've been tap dancing my entire life. Like for 20 years now, I started tap dancing when I was three and I came home one summer and I knew I didn't want a traditional job, but I said I have to make money.
So if one day I was just walking by a daycare in my community and I walked in and I don't know what clicked inside of me, but I told the daycare owner, I run a dance exercise program that teaches daycare kids how to tap dance and promote fitness and healthy living. Can I come and try it out? And I was completely making this up.
I had no Tap for Tots program. And she said yes, why don't you come back on Monday? And this was Saturday. So I said, Oh my goodness. I have to put together this curriculum- go. And, you know, we go she said, this was great. The students love it. Can you come back every Monday? And I also have four other centers.
So by the end of the summer, I have clients, we are running this little tap dancing empire. I said, we were the largest dance exercise program in Buffalo. We were the only program in Buffalo. But I'm a big believer of that. You're not going to know the skills you need until you actually do it. So I'm just abeliever that if I see a challenge, I'm not saying, Oh, what did I do before that prepared me for it? I just do it. And then no skills transfer over to other projects that I will do. 
Joe Taylor: [00:12:10] Well, thinking about that project, is that something that continues or did you hand it off or did you wind it down? 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:12:16] That was sort of, my summer gig was a nice way to make money, to come back to school and buy my books. Currently. It is not an existence. Sometimes some of my former clients they'll email me and say, Hey, you know, are you going to come back? And I'm sorta, you know, busy with GenHeration now, but who knows. 
Joe Taylor: [00:12:33] I ask it because I'm fascinated by the perception that to create space for things in your life that you feel like might be even bigger for you to tackle. You sometimes have to say farewell to the things that you created. 
So a little bit about your journey from. Thinking about impacting the lives of people, just in your community of Buffalo to taking on this role where you're actively traveling all over the country and now moving from a national to even a global focus.
Katlyn Grasso: [00:13:03] When I look back myself, sometimes I'm sort of amazed about how quickly we've grown in such a short period of time. And it's funny, what I think really sort of sparked this interest in me about how the seeing the level of impact was. So what I was a girl scout and we, you know, to earn, I earn up to my gold award, but for our silver award, two of my friends and I started this organization called Comfor Kits. And what we did is we realized that sexual and domestic abuse was a big problem in the city of Buffalo. And what we decided that we were going to do to combat that is that we were going to make these comfort kits, which consisted of toiletry sweat pants, deodorant to provide to victims, women and children who are victims of domestic abuse.
And so we had a recycled drive to collect the funds, produce over 500 comfort kits. And from that experience, we couldn't meet with the women and children who were inhabitants of the center due to confidentiality reasons. But what few weeks after that, I got a letter from eight year old girl who was a handwritten note with it was called the closed him project.
And she said, thank you so much for your donation because I saw my mom smile and I haven't seen my mom smile in a really long time. And it's just something really resonated with me because even though, you know, we gave 500 kits and I didn't hear back from anybody else. If I could make a difference in that one. Eight year old and her mom's life, I wanted to keep replicating that feeling for as many people as I could, no matter what I was doing or where I was living so that we started with generation and we started with 250 then 500, then 5,000. And now we're up to 75,000. It just is sort of this contagious feeling of doing good. And you say, we've reached 50,000. You know, now I want to reach a million. So it's just sort of this idea of that. You don't do things saying, Oh my gosh, I have to make everybody has to have the same impact of level of difference.
I look at it as that, if I can change the way one girl feels about how she's going to approach her future or saying that this opened up many doors for me, that I've done my job. And that's really what makes it worthwhile for me every day. 
Joe Taylor: [00:14:51] So tell me a little bit more about how you stay motivated, because I know one of the challenges that happens with folks as they grow from solo professionals into leaders of organizations is sometimes you get a little bit detached from those immediate results. Those immediate visible impacts. So, how do you measure your results and how do you see yourself staying connected to that face-to-face impact? 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:15:18] I have a lot of friends who sort of, you know, have started companies and their companies have grown really quickly and they sort of feel like they're more of a figurehead bed, you know, leading the companies.
And so when I think about it, of how I build my team, where we're actually just hiring five to 10 team members in the next two months, so we're continuing to grow quickly, but I think it's really important. The Vice Dean of Wharton gave me this piece of advice when we were starting out. And I was saying, you know, how do I manage my time?
And she said, what is important for you to do that? You don't think anybody else can do better than you, or you know that if there's this, something cannot be outsourced in social media, does that have to be done by you? This content has to be done by you. What really gets you excited? And what are you the most passionate about?
So for me identifying that is that I love being the face of the company going and talking with girls, going and talking with our partner company clients, and really talking about the mission of the company. And so I really liked the big picture and sort of seeing people and seeing, and allowing to show the impact that we can have on their lives.
And I sorta think other things that can be outsourced such as social media content, maybe logistics, who are the people on my team that can help me execute those in a way that I know I want it to be done, but that I don't have to be sitting watching over their shoulder and maybe being in the office every single day. Because I know my favorite part. It's sort of like the budding politician in me. I like to be out there talking to people. Being impact talking to users, learning from them to influence our next round of product development. So I've just been really focused with that. What my job is, is to sort of be out there on the front lines, interacting with the users as much as possible.
But then, you know, there's sometimes like when we're on the road over the summer and hosting 60 events over the course of five weeks that I have to sort of maybe say, this is going to be my priority for now. And you know, I can't go and visit this company because we're on the road now. So of course, I think it's just the prioritization, but at the core, knowing what's most important to you, I think should guide what your priorities are as a leader of your company.
Joe Taylor: [00:17:02] Thinking more about that as you grow the organization and you start to attract talent, tell us about the ideal person to work at GenHeration. Who do you want to attract to your team? 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:17:15] Yes. Well, we're hiring right now. If you're listening to this, shoot me an email. Okay. I sort of say like the three qualities that I look for in prospective employees are being scrappy. That's one of my favorite words, because it's sort of just, can you figure it out, you know, with no instructions, are you just going to get it done? Sort of number two, being a hustler, being able to just make things happen. And number three, commitment to excellence. So I'm not saying perfection by any means, you know, get it done, not perfect.
But do you have high standards of excellence of how you conduct yourself, how you interact with clients, how you interact with our members and sort of marrying those three qualities together? I think is the ideal employee I look at, I really don't look at age where you went to school, where you're from, it's sort of a feeling that I can sort of pick out a person and I say they have what it takes.
And I sort of look for people who have done again, sort of the Sara Blakely, Spanx model of people who have done a lot of different things. So sometimes, you know, I interviewed a young woman who worked as like a DJ on a summer cruise line. And then she went and did a masters and a research program.And then she worked as like a buyer at a retailer. And it was just really interesting because she could, sort of, outline from all these different experience, different skills that she drew away from them rather than somebody who maybe had a more. Clinical background of, I worked two years here, I worked two years there and, you know, I just moved up in the company.
So I think I sort of look for people who have a, why, a very fabric of professional and personal experience. 
We hear that echoed a lot, especially among folks who have told us on previous episodes that this idea of a resume that has a straight line from mailroom to boardroom doesn't really exist anymore. And something more like a portfolio life.
It's much more about the projects that you're working on, the skills that you take away. So when you're interacting with girls, how are you preparing them for a world of work that might on one hand create lots more opportunities than in the past, but might require a completely different way of looking at what a career path is?
Yes. I think that that's a good point and something that was really sort of a highlighted pattern over our discovery days tour, which featured conversations with more than 200 female executives. We would do these panels that the female executives would talk about their journey through their professional life and what I think the girls find out-and it's sort of not even, you know, the millennial mindset and nobody really has stayed in the same place for 30 years. Like, you know, as you said, mail room to the boardroom type of thing, and what I think the most important thing, we try to stress to the growth. Sort of just having intellectual curiosity, that you can follow your passion throughout whatever you do and sort of realizing.
When you're not happy at your current job, or you're not being challenged or stimulated, recognizing that that's okay and you can step away and maybe it's time to look for a new job or a new profession. So if we really want to propose the idea that your professional life should be continuously stimulating to you and opening new opportunities and it's okay, you're not going to know.
10 years from now I don't know what company I'm going to be working on next. And that's okay because I just know I'm always going to be working on projects that are interesting and rewarding and help me learn as an entrepreneur and not feeling like I need to go and get my undergrad, my Masters my PhD and then I'll be ready to work somewhere. It's sort of just saying, jump into the deep end and you'll learn how to swim. And that's how everybody has to do it. 
Joe Taylor: [00:20:30] Along those same lines. It's one thing when you're at live events and communicating those two girls and even hearing an echoing back what you're learning to more accomplished professionals, but it seems like young people today are just awash in media and I'm flashing back to a time when I was in my twenties and I would cringe when someone would say the phrase young people today. Compared to even as a Generation X member, I remember all of the articles and the fodders about how is the difference in media today going to change this generation. And we didn't have anything like there is today. You can be completely immersed in immersive messaging apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp.
You could take a 12 year old right now and they would be immersed in media all day, but not necessarily watching TV or involved in any traditional media consumption. So for you and your company, how do you make sure that your messages stand out among all the noise and all the clutter that's in a landscape like that?
Katlyn Grasso: [00:21:39] That's a good question. And I think it's sort of because- why I also think, because I feel like everybody with all the media and everything technology being right in front of you, you could, like, live in your house for a week without ever having to leave. While that is, could be a good thing on several ways.
I think it's important to also marry that with real-time live interactions, which I think, you know, we really emphasize this combination between online and live events. But to your point of when I think about the content we create, I was very adamant from the beginning that we were always going to be creating niche content.
When I said that is that we create content for the young woman who wants to take over the world that empowers her in actionable ways to make her life and her community better. And when I think of, although we're targeting 14 to 22 year old girls,  I have a few rules for my writing staff. Like, we don't talk about celebrities. We don't talk about boys. We don't talk about makeup. Not saying that what color dress to wear to the prom. Not saying that those things are not important, but saying there are other places for those to exist. And we want to have a very strong brand message and voice for our audience. So they know, Oh, when I want advice about this, or we just, last night, we just published an interview with a senior executive at the Yankees, knowing I want career advice. I want to know how to better myself. That GenHeration is the place to go. And I think in today's world, it can be very easy, especially saying, Oh, you know, we get eyeballs. Why don't we have a cosmetics company placed an ad on our website, but I know that that's not who we are as a brand. So you have to sort of know where not to compromise your brand values if you really want to have a legitimate and genuine relationship with your audience. So I think that that's something we try to do very well. Some of your stuff may not resonate with every single young woman out there, but you have to know where you stand so that, we don't compromise who we are for, at anybody else's expense 
Joe Taylor: [00:23:16] Along those lines, when you're communicating that, how do you help emphasize that message to young women who might not have ever heard before that it's okay for you to draw that line in the sand. It's okay for you to say no to an opportunity if it's not the right opportunity. 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:23:34] Yeah. I think nowadays is that you have to sort of be an in a world where we live in a very celebrity driven instantaneous I want things now type of world. I think that the most successful people are unapologetic in their beliefs, whether they're good or bad. And they stay and put their mark down in the sand and say, this is what I believe in. And so, regardless of what that is, and for us, it's sort of around the content we produce.
I think we just want to show a message to the girls that you have to be confident in who you are and what you believe in, and you can't let anybody else try to sway your opinion or tell you, you should be something you're not. So that message can transcend to think about where to go to college, who to hang out with, where to work.
But, so I hope that that can sort of be part of a bigger conversation for them. And I'm really upfront and honest about it because that's who we are. And I'm proud of who we are.
Joe Taylor: [00:24:18] So shifting gears totally right now. Thinking about the day to day operations at Jenner, you've got a footprint in Philadelphia, New York, California.
You're hopping all over the place. How do you stay focused and grounded to ensure that you are really showing up for work and you're not losing track of things when you're constantly on the go. 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:24:42] I mean, I probably in the past two weeks I've been in seven different cities and I'm still trying to get a ground of, you know, what time zone I'm in today.
I think what is so important for me, and I think why I can maintain that sort of crazy. I feel like I'm campaigning for political office type of schedule. Is I just love what I do so much if it's because I'm traveling all day on a cross country flight on Friday. If I have to work on Saturday because I need to get stuff done, I work on Saturday. And it's not a question. Like, I feel like, Oh man, I need to go into the office on Saturday because I need to get thereandget stuff done. It just is so energizing to me that no matter where I am, I feel I just have to keep going. 
And I'm just motivated to keep growing because I've seen the results firsthand. And I'm very fortunate in my job that I get to meet so many amazing people from all walks of life, all different types of corporate and professional backgrounds.
And that is just so rewarding to me. A lot of people say to me, isn't it exhausting to travel as much as you do. And for me, it's really a privilege and a treat. Because I just get to meet so many amazing people and women and girls, the impact that we're having and seeing that impact, or having lunch with a client or speaking at a school of girls that reenergizes me.
And it's like, okay, it doesn't matter if you know, I have a six hour flight coming up, I'm a getWiFi on the flight and keep working because this is something important that needs to be done. 
Joe Taylor: [00:25:55] So when thinking about building a community, whether that community is based geographically, or whether it's virtual community, that's spread out all over the world, what advice would you give to an aspiring community organizer who wants to find that audience and really inspire them and motivate them to make some change?
Katlyn Grasso: [00:26:16] When I think geographically I'll sort of answer the questions geographically and virtually sort of separately. But at the point of, you know, when we expand to new cities and we're hosting an event, I always look for people on the ground who are excited about us, who can help us bring a new mission to their city.
For instance, when we were deciding to go to San Francisco as a new city, two years ago, when we first went there, we had never been there before. We didn't know anybody. So we partnered with the school, the principal who reached out to us because she heard about us online and said, we're coming to San Francisco, will you help us promote this?
And so her school of 200 girls became sort of like our first early adopters in the city. And now, you know, our San Francisco bus sold out in a week out there because it's become one. Our largest markets. So I think when you're going to a new place, have a mission, no matter what the mission of your organization is, find people who are like-minded, who will be the boots on the ground and how you get the message out there to help you really submit your footprint.
And I think virtually it's trying to find easy ways to get people involved. And we've experimented with newsletters, Facebook posts, daily content, and try to figure out who identify who your audience is, how they like to consume news and updates and then meet them there. So for instance, our audience told us we don't like getting email updates every single day because it's overwhelming to us.
So we end up deleting emails from companies who send us emails every day. So taking their advice, we don't send them emails every day. And we found that send me emails every other week is more effective for them. And they're more engaged. So I think really listening to your users and figuring out, you know, how can you meet them, where they want to be met. It will make you a much more effective virtual community organizer. 
Joe Taylor: [00:27:45] So,thinking of your organization and your personal future, what's your dream for the next 10 years? 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:27:54] A lot of things. So I'm a big dreamer. I always want to do big things. So I see generation as a company probably being sold in the next 10 years. Definitely. And I see, you know, myself being involved maybe as like chairwoman of the board, but probably not in the day-to-day operations anymore.
I want to be a serial entrepreneur. So I hopefully, you know, in 10 years I will have at least started another company or maybe more than that. And I also just want to be, you know, a really visible advocate for women and girls. So what I'm currently teaching a radio show. I see a book coming out in the near future, maybe a television show.
That's how can I use my experience of my lessons of, you know, building a company from the ground up? And I tell girls, you know, I'm just a girl from the middle of upstate New York. I had the opportunity to work hard, to go to a good school and turn that into living my dream every day that if I could do it, you could do it too.
So I really want to share that message with everybody. And so again, just working on interesting projects and making a difference in my community. I'm not sure what industry those future companies may be in, but I'm always thinking of new ideas to how I continue to grow and inspire those around me. So hopefully you have a long list of things the next time I talked to you in 10 years from now. 
Joe Taylor: [00:29:02] Well, we'll put it on the calendar now. Hey, Katlyn Grasso, thank you so much for making time for us. 
Katlyn Grasso: [00:29:09] Oh no, I have a great time. Thanks for having me. 
Joe Taylor: [00:29:12] The Build is a production of 2820 radio in Philadelphia. Our producer is Katie Cohen Zahniser and our consulting producer is Lori Taylor. Our talent coordinator is Katrina Smith. Our research team includes Alison Hartman. John Massey, and Gizzem Yali. Our post-production team is led by Evan Wilder at Flowly audio in Detroit. 
My name is Joe Taylor, Jr. Thanks for listening to The Build. 
Announcer: [00:29:36] Thanks for listening to this episode of The Build. We hope you'll share this series with your friends and provide us with feedback on the iTunes store.