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Destination Tulsa: Flying taxis and more

A conversation with Staci Taruscio, founder & CEO, Rebellion Energy, and Benjamin Loh, associate professor, Oklahoma State University
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We did so many great interviews about how Tulsa is shifting its economy to become a more tech-centric innovation hub, we couldn’t get them all into our 5-part Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland series in February and March. So, we decided to share some of them in a special bonus episode today.

What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce?  Tulsa, Oklahoma, is embracing in-demand tech industries to do just that. At the heart of the effort is a strong foundation of education, entrepreneurship, health care tech, energy tech, and cybersecurity.

Tulsa Innovation Labs (TIL) has been driving this transition. In this episode, we speak with an entrepreneur in that one of the five areas that TIL targeted for the city’s technology renaissance. Staci Taruscio is the founder and CEO of Rebellion Energy, an environmentally-conscious oil and gas company, which might sound like a contradiction. But Taruscio explains how the company minimizes the environmental effects of oil and gas extraction. It’s all about doing business in a different way.

We also have more on Oklahoma State University’s cutting edge work in advanced aerial mobility, or drones. Benjamin Loh is an assistant research professor at OSU. Loh walks us through one of the projects he’s working on, thanks to a $90,000 proof-of-concept grant from the state of Oklahoma for an urban air mobility solution, or what some people call a “flying taxi.” He’s working with the Choctaw Nation on this drone, which would be much larger than drones in use today. And it could be a vital tool in search-and-rescue missions all around the country.

Listen to the original five-part Work in Progress podcast series – Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland

Episode 226: Destination Tulsa – Flying taxis and more
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0
Music for Destination Tulsa series: From Bensound.com
Download the transcript for this podcast here.
You can check out all the other podcasts at this link:
Work in Progress podcasts

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.