From Computer Labs to Charging Stations ft. Elaina Farnsworth of SkillFusion

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Now in the middle of one of the most significant eras in automotive, Carl Anthony amplifies

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_00]: the minds and voices behind this historic transformation as the host of AutoVision News Radio, all while

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_00]: coming to terms with middle age, father loss and what it means to be successful in Detroit.

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_02]: No finer conception of enclosed car luxury convenience and comfort has ever been produced.

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Add to that fact the cleanliness, safety, ease of operation and freedom from mechanical

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_02]: trouble inherent in the electric and you will understand why the discriminating public

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_02]: literally in the thousands is turning to this new car. Lovers of fine cars see the new Detroit electric.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_02]: This is the text of an advertisement that appeared in the literary digest on February 14th 1920.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I often think it would be interesting to travel back a century ago and attend an industry event

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_02]: or an auto show and see if they were talking about the same or similar topics with electrification

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: as we are today. How did they see range anxiety or the infrastructure? I spoke with Elaina Farnsworth,

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: co-founder and CEO of SkillFusion. Based in the Detroit area, SkillFusion is improving the EV

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_02]: owner experience by ensuring higher levels of charging reliability and uptime by enabling

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_02]: the deployment of certified labor that is scalable across the charging network in the United States.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Elaina is focused on growing this certified talent pool with her team at SkillFusion.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_02]: The idea is to operate and maintain electric vehicle chargers effectively and ultimately

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_02]: facilitate the growth of the charging network across the nation. Prior to SkillFusion,

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Elaina was the CEO of the next education where she developed best in class continuing education

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and certification programs designed to upskill and reskill the workforce for automotive careers

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02]: related to electrification, autonomy and cybersecurity. She has created and led credentialing and

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: certification programs for the defense sector, federal agencies, the Society of Automotive

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Engineers and other industry leading private entities. During my conversation with Elaina,

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: you will hear two important acronyms. The first is EVSE which stands for Electric Vehicle Supply

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Equipment EVSE and then EDT which is SkillFusion's Diagnostic Technician Certification Program.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_02]: The E in EDT is a reference back to EVSE while the DT is short for Diagnostic Technician.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Elongated you would have the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Diagnostic Technician

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_02]: but abbreviated to EDT. We begin with Elaina's time in the computer lab while she was growing up

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_02]: which ultimately put her on the path to SkillFusion. Moving at the speed of mobility,

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: this is all to vision news radio with Karl Antony in Detroit, Michigan.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_03]: My passion has always been technology and I like to give a little peek

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_03]: into my life as a little girl. I grew up in a small rural area but I always had a love for

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_03]: computers so my mom was a professor at a university and she taught master's degree classes

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_03]: in at night school so many times after school I would go with her to the university and I would

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_03]: play in the computer lab. This is a few decades ago though Karl so back then there were a lot

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_03]: of emerging spaces in computers but it wasn't in a small rural town, Homec was more popular

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_03]: than computers. So as I began to really play with these machines it was quite funny because a lot of

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_03]: my family and some of my peers said you know you just want to play computer games much like

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_03]: many parents now say but little did I know that this passion for computers was going to take me

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_03]: on a journey that I could have never created myself. I loved being able to tell the programs what to do

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_03]: when they actually did it unlike a lot of interaction with humans.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah so my passion began there Karl as I evolved and I went to school and I went to college and

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I studied kind of a crazy pathway originally I started out in psychology which believe it or

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_03]: not I learned so much about how the human interacts with technology that when I went back and then I

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_03]: got my undergraduate degree I went back and got my degree in computer science and I got a master's

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_03]: degree in computer science my project for my grad school work I was building technologies on top of

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_03]: browser systems which back then was Netscape. Oh yeah oh yeah remember those days I do I think

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to be in the history books now like sharing my age but very early on I found that

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_03]: things don't talk to one another and we we now in the mobility space call that V2X so

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah vehicles talking to everything and in that situation it is how do you have your phone

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_03]: talking to your computer how do you have the computer talking to a system that distributes

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_03]: you know emergency equipment across the US but that's what got my start into the world of communications

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_03]: which brought me to working with communication protocols and vehicles back when it was just a

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_03]: simple little thing and who knew that the world of this thing called mobility moving goods and

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_03]: people from place to place was going to really explode into that communications how technologies

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_03]: interact with people how people interact with goods and then how all that communication flows

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_03]: that is where the evolution took place for me from just a kid who liked to play on computers

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: to a full career into emerging tech fast forward here to jump from Netscape to Skill Fusion

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_02]: if we if we can quoting from your website Elena Skill Fusion is the revolutionary software

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: platform built for the rapidly evolving electric vehicle supply equipment service market or sometimes

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_02]: you see that EVSE for short electric vehicle supply equipment EVSE for short our mission is in Skill

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Fusion's mission is to improve EVSE uptime by effortlessly aligning skilled professionals

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: with the precise expertise required for every task ensuring the right person will consistently

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_02]: perform the right job at the right time let's talk more about this Elena absolutely one of the

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_03]: things that we found is technology is only as good as the people who use it the people who

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_03]: deploy it and the people that are able to maintain it when you start looking at groups

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_03]: of individuals and I'm going to call it emerging technology you have industries that are connected

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_03]: and pun intended you have mobility industry is one thing but it includes intelligent

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_03]: transportation it includes intelligent infrastructure it includes vehicle electrification

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_03]: it includes how the networks communicate with one another when you start looking at those complex

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_03]: systems there's very specific skill sets that it takes for people to be able to not only install

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_03]: and understand the systems but also maintain them we are just now seeing in the market our computing

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_03]: power has caught up with the revolution of technology because we can process a lot more

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_03]: and you can process it a lot more quickly I saw an advertisement right after Ford

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_03]: invented both the gas vehicle and the electric vehicle at the same time have you seen this Carl

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I have not seen what you're referring to but please go on I will it's amazing so there is a picture

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_03]: of a young woman and she's standing in front of an electric vehicle charging station back in

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_03]: 20s and 30s and she has on white gloves and a white hat and it's depicting a picture of a much cleaner

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_03]: way to travel so you don't get your hands all dirty when you're at that you know gas machine

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I really like that picture because what that depicts is that electric vehicles have been

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_03]: around for a very long time and as we start to see the market mature more now we are still

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_03]: seeing problems in that the uptime in the charging infrastructure has been behind you do a lot of

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_03]: charging at home but when you're out and about and you have a longer range that you're going to

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_03]: point A to point B you need to know that you can be able to charge Tesla did this model very well

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_03]: put the chargers out and then you'll be able to have more ubiquitous deployment because we

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_03]: have the cars that are able to charge the challenge has been and the opportunity is now

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of the infrastructure many times we have a lot of downtime there are several reasons for that

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_03]: but there's a big misconception that everything is an electrician but when you look at these systems

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_03]: you have electrical meeting software meeting communications and when you put one stack inside

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_03]: of a machine there are many failure points is it the payment system is it the software

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_03]: there may be a connectivity flaw when you look at these complex machines that will give you a

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_03]: little insight about why they're down many times and so when you look at legacy systems you really

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_03]: have to be able to understand that there are multiple failure points and therefore when

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_03]: skill fusion in our tagline is also fusing skill with opportunity we want to be able

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_03]: to give the right people the right skill and the right demographic area so giving the right people

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_03]: the right talent to do the right work that's our mission so that we can get more uptime

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_03]: for the charging stations so that people feel more comfortable in purchasing electric vehicles

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_03]: because they know they can have a place to charge almost every conference you go to today

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_02]: or almost every webinar you attend this is a topic of consideration so what does the

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: charging infrastructure look like in the united states right now what's the current landscape

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_03]: consist of we have infrastructure that is currently deployed but we are going to be

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_03]: deploying 500 thousand more units so that we can cover the territory that we need to cover

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_03]: we have leaders in the industry that are putting charging stations and including the

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_03]: current administration we have amazing amounts of money that has been infused into the united

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_03]: states and given through nevy money which is the national electric vehicle infrastructure

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_03]: that money has gone to every state and every state has a plan to deploy infrastructure

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_03]: so that their citizens can enjoy the ability to become an electric vehicle transportation holder

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_03]: we don't want to force people in a community to have electric transportation we want to give them

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_03]: the opportunity to have electric transportation so many states have been awarded millions of

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_03]: dollars and they have a plan because as we see areas that are urban areas now but we're

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_03]: going to also see this go into all environments and we need about 80 000 more electricians per year

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_03]: in the united states which is a skilled trade to do all of the electrical work that's an opportunity

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_03]: for jobs carl yeah yeah i like to say electric transportation is a very a very community

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_03]: centric use case so one community may look different than another community but what it is

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_03]: is it is a cleaner way to drive now if you live in a city your drive and your electric

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_03]: transportation looks different because you may not have to drive as far you may not have to

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_03]: have the range that you would have if you were in a more rural community all of these factors

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_03]: the states themselves have been have considered that when they are looking at their deployment plan

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_03]: for instance alabama has one plan michigan has another plan california has another new york has

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_03]: another there's not one state in america that has not decided that we are going to put an

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_03]: investment into vehicle electrification now why does that excite me because that not only

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_03]: means that we're investing in the infrastructure but we're investing in our people we're giving them

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_03]: the opportunity to have jobs that they may have never thought about before do you have to be

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_03]: an electrician to install yes you do but to maintain to do visual inspections for someone

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_03]: to see do we need to do preventative maintenance so should we clean the connectors so that they're

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_03]: all gunked up by salt because we live in an area with a lot of snow these are all new opportunities

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_03]: for business owners entrepreneurship as well as for career commitments for the people that live in

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: that state skill fusion's diagnostic technician certification program is live and so this

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: program is open to skilled laborers as we've been discussing from a wide variety of vocations

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: tell us more about this program and the inspiration behind it what we found is that

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of individuals a lot of people they don't know how to get started and so we've worked within

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_03]: the infrastructure community and said what are those fundamental practices that are good for not

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_03]: only having a baseline understanding that can also offer things like customer service or

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_03]: we can go and look at an area and see where a site assessment may go what is commissioning

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_03]: what are these general overall questions that need to be answered for someone that wants to

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_03]: get started working or for someone that wants a complete career pathway where they may decide

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_03]: to go into an apprenticeship program or they may decide to join a community college and get a

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_03]: degree as an electrician this is not the only stop to a pathway for success it's just the beginning

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_03]: but we also employ a unique way to distribute content called micro tracks and we find that

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_03]: that's very important because as technologies evolve and I continue to use that word emerging

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_03]: technologies things change standards changed connections change we have laws in certain areas

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_03]: that may move that may change because a lot of the states have their own regulation for what you

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_03]: can and can't do in that state so the micro tracks from skill fusion are small elements of

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_03]: learning the edt is one full track that gives you that fundamental process and it includes

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_03]: many different micro elements where at the end you get a certification but then if you want to

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_03]: build on that we encourage you to get vendor specific credentials so if you have the fundamental

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_03]: training and you want to then upscale yourself and continue to build micro tracks allow you to

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_03]: do just that to get into career pathways to become an electrician we have a project that

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_03]: we are very proud of we have worked in a high-need community in San Bernardino California and we've

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_03]: worked with a wonderful group of youth it's a youth program we've gone into high schools

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_03]: starts with the ninth grade and we have worked with partners we're very very cognizant of

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_03]: how do we get the community involved uplift San Bernardino is a wonderful non-profit

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_03]: organization and their entire support is for the San Bernardino community to be able to

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_03]: get more sustainable projects we went in in collaboration with a green paradigm themselves

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_03]: and us we were able to get a group of students that was funded by a federal grant 20 students

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_03]: and we took them from having zero knowledge into knowing what an electric vehicle was

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_03]: how it differs than the ICE vehicles what was EV infrastructure they even worked with electricians

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_03]: throughout the year it was a one-year long program to walk alongside engineers and electricians to

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_03]: see how to do a site assessment then they started calling people in their own town

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_03]: and telling them about the different programs that existed so there was a program called

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_03]: replace your ride and these young women and men were calling and saying do you know about

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_03]: replace your ride let me tell you how that you can apply for this and many of these adults have no idea

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_03]: that they could get money from their community to replace their ICE vehicles with electric

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_03]: transportation and so you started seeing this organic growth where the kids are not only learning

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_03]: about electric transportation but they're also teaching their parents and we are very proud

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_03]: of that kind of engagement because it's more than just a fundamental class it's a way that you can

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_03]: educate your community on the benefits of electric transportation what we have to offer as a country

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_03]: and how we can support the growth of this organically and it was such a great project we

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_03]: have many of the students that are graduating high school now and they are doing exactly

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_03]: what I was mentioning before they're going into apprenticeship programs and they're looking

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_03]: at organized labor and they're looking at how can I become an electrician because now I want to install

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I know how to look where I should put them but now I want to install them so there's all these

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_03]: benefits that we saw they even learned basic interviewing skills and a lot of those soft

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_03]: skills that are also needed in this industry just fantastic to watch that growth and that's

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_03]: just one of many programs that I can talk about that EDT has been a very influential

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_03]: piece for us to be able to guide into future transportation careers. Elena how did you

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_02]: think up this idea for skill fusion and especially the diagnostic technician certification program

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_02]: not only is it relevant and timely but it's just creative how did you think of this

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_02]: this is a very creative idea skill fusion how did you come up with this?

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I surround myself with people that have way more experience than I do.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I seriously I love telling this story because one of my co-founders Rue Phillips

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_03]: he has been a veteran in this space for the last 35 years he started his career back in the 70s

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_03]: and 80s because his family owned milk trucks in the UK okay okay and those milk trucks had to be

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_03]: electric because I never knew this but they were quiet so when you're delivering milk in the mornings

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_03]: you don't want it to make sound yeah that makes sense that makes sense yeah so his career started

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_03]: when he was living in the United States because one of his other um I'm gonna laugh and he's

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_03]: gonna kill me for saying this but one of his legacies is he also traveled with a band called

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne I've heard of them and so as he was living in the United States

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_03]: and he had this experience in EV he journeyed into electric vehicles because he had worked on

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_03]: the milk trucks and their charging stations way early on sure sure so when Rue and I

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_03]: decided to co-found Skill Fusion our intention was you know it's a real shame that we have the people

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_03]: in the United States that would have the capability to work on these units but many times

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_03]: they're flying people from California to Florida or from Washington to Georgia and they're

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_03]: putting people on planes which that is not efficient Carl no no not at all no and so

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_03]: we started looking at what would it take for us to be able to solve the problem by putting

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_03]: the right people with the right work to keep the American infrastructure deployed operational and

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_03]: being able to do preventative maintenance and that takes software so although we do training as

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_03]: part of our offering really our software does so much more than that within our application

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Carl there's also a place that is it's an application called work readiness so not only can you see

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_03]: what the people know but you can also see what they need to do a job so do they have the right

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_03]: tools do they have the right transportation do they have a ladder do they have all of the other

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_03]: things that are involved in being able to do the work and then how do we put them on the

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_03]: right job making sure that the people know how to use the technology in the right way

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_03]: that they're certified in the right region and that the local people get to work on the local

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_03]: infrastructure so that not only can we install it today but when there's a problem with it we don't

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_03]: put people on planes because that's not efficient and that's how we came up with skill fusion

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I like it I like it and with regard to airplanes you're about to check out of your hotel soon

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: you're about to board an airplane and and come back to Detroit and continue the important

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_02]: work that you're doing but fast-forwarding further yet Elena what is the legacy that you hope that

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_02]: you will have left at the end of your career when you retire what's the legacy you hope to leave

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_03]: my passion is people I love seeing the sparks go in a young person's eyes when they realize that

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_03]: this may be something that I can get involved with early on very much like myself when I was

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_03]: growing up I was passionate about technology and I never knew that it was going to take me on this path

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_03]: I love seeing the young people I love seeing someone that is in a re-entering population that may

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_03]: have gone to jail or prison and had some challenges and when they emerge be able to say there is a

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_03]: new environment that gives me hope that I can contribute to something that's better for the

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_03]: world and better for my community my state even those people that are transitioning in life

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_03]: a veteran or a military personnel that has been in the National Guard they're entering into a new

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_03]: career path because they're no longer active military and then suddenly they can see that

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_03]: this is yes it's a new space but there's so much opportunity here that takes us from the

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_03]: traditional way of moving to a new way of moving so my legacy is going to be how do I get people in

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_03]: all walks of life whether they're from a higher need community or whether they're changing their life

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_03]: at a later time I want to leave the legacy that I allowed them to have the passion to make a

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_03]: difference in transportation that's going to remain because it's not going anywhere it is the

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: see the links in the show notes to learn more about skill fusion and the edt certification program

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02]: the national electric vehicle infrastructure program and uplift san bernadino auto vision news

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_02]: radio is available on spotify apple podcast pod bean and more in detroit alongside alina farnsworth

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: i'm carl anthony auto vision news radio