Ep. 38: Xcel Energy + MOA, The Power in Planning

[00:00:00] Mall of America, for more than 30 years it has been a retail leader and an international destination and it remains the largest mall in the U.S. Not to mention it welcomes millions of guests from

[00:00:10] around the world. It's huge, but it's also so much more. In this podcast you're going to hear the real stories of how it started and why it continues to thrive. You'll hear about challenges

[00:00:21] we faced along the way and what you can learn from them. We will feature guests and experts from all walks of life and business and along the way you'll laugh, learn and maybe even change

[00:00:31] the way you look at things. So if you're a fan of the mall, a brand new visitor, an entrepreneur or dreamer, prepare to dive deep into so much more. This podcast is presented by the Bloomington

[00:00:43] Convention and Visitors Bureau. Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of So Much More, A Mall of America Podcast and it is Earth Month here at Mall of America. Well actually it's Earth Month all across the nation, but it's also being celebrated here at Mall of America.

[00:00:58] Did you know that Mall of America has no central heating system? Did you know that we have more than 30,000 live plants and trees? Did you know that we have a huge recycling center in the

[00:01:10] sub-level of this building? Those are just some of the green facts and stories that we're going to talk about today with our guests. Our first guest is Rich Hogy. Rich is Mall of America's chief operating officer who oversees a bunch of different departments, but among those

[00:01:25] are our waste and recycling center and our green and sustainability initiatives. Welcome Rich, how you doing? I'm doing good Dan, thanks for the welcome. Yeah, thank you for being here. And our very, very special guest today is John Marshall. John is Excel Energy's regional vice

[00:01:40] president for customer community and foundation from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. John and his team manage strategic relationships across three states in 700 communities that are served by Excel Energy, and they focus on operations, energy policy, and customer management. Is that

[00:01:59] right John? That is correct. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, welcome. We're so glad you're here. Thank you. Love being here. This is fabulous. It's going to be fun. You

[00:02:05] grew up in Minnesota, is that right? Yeah, I'm a hometown kid. I'm a St. Paul, you know, fourth generation parents, mitten kindergarten, and I came up going to this mall since,

[00:02:13] you know, the day the first shovel was on the ground. So it's real special to be here and excited to talk today. I love it. What are your first memories of coming into Mall of America 32

[00:02:22] years ago? I, you know, I was in that kind of preteen era. And I suppose it was the planet Hollywood, right? Well, the celebrities, remember the old planet Hollywood on fourth? She'd go up

[00:02:30] there and just see all the celebrities and Arnold and Sly. And it just, those were my kind of preteen years. And it was the place to be. It was super fun. It was new and dynamic

[00:02:39] and just continues to be the hotspot to be today. But just great youthful memories making memories with my friends. It's so much fun here. And there are so many memories. Rich, you know what? The planet Hollywood was opening. Yeah. That I actually was on the

[00:02:52] elevator with Cindy Crawford riding up to that. That's like, can you believe that? Really? Yeah. I was really, you know, in my mid 20s. So that's quite the memory. What other celebrities did you meet from planet Hollywood? I bet there were a few,

[00:03:04] right? There's quite a few. Yeah. Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, list goes on and on. It's so much fun. Duke's Hazard Guys, you know, there was just some good stuff. So I love it. Rich, many people may not know this, but Rich actually has worked at the

[00:03:15] mall since slightly before it opened. Correct? Yeah, started in June of 1992. Wow. Wow. So John's been coming since the day we opened. Absolutely. And Rich has been working here and enjoying the mall as well since the day we opened. Driving by it daily as it was getting built,

[00:03:33] going to school. I was telling my dad, I was coming out here and he, he holds old memories again, grew up in Minnesota. Back when I was the old Matt, I mean, he used to sell

[00:03:40] trinkets and stuff at the old ball games. And so it's a special spot for many Minnesotans for many many years. It really is. I mean, I remember going to Vikings games and twins games with my dad at

[00:03:50] Metrual and Minnesota kicks. If you remember, we had a professional soccer team back then. Absolutely. A lot of fun, a lot of history happened here. I'm going to start with a couple questions with Rich if that's right because I talked a little bit about our green initiatives

[00:04:03] and stuff like that. We were kind of green before that name became fun. Right? I would say the Mall of America was green before green. It was a cool thing to be. But it's always been in

[00:04:16] grain in our DNA here at the property. And as Dan had mentioned earlier, we don't have a central heating plant here at Mall of America. And you think of a building of this size when we first opened 4.2 million square feet, or now 5.6 million square feet by the way,

[00:04:29] but to not have in Minnesota of all places where it gets cold. It gets a little cold. So not to have that. So a lot of thought went into that back in the day through the engineering process and

[00:04:39] a very talented and bright engineer came with the idea. Let's change this up. So they put in, as you can see, the miles of skylights that are in this building. And they went away from

[00:04:52] a traditional heating cooling plant and went into a DX Rift top plant, which ultimately to be clear freed up space that is now a sea life here at Mall of America. So pretty cool to see

[00:05:02] that. But yeah, I mean, it's very, very interesting project in the way that it was developed in that way. I'm floored by that too. I mean, that's such a bleeding edge forward thinking way to

[00:05:13] approach energy and sustainability that long ago. I mean, it's well before back in the 80s. Yeah. And at that time they didn't realize we would be seeing 30, 40 million visitors in this property. So we rely on the heat from the people, right? The skylights, the natural lighting

[00:05:28] and the natural heat that's coming through those skylights. That's where we're getting from in the winter. It's interesting. The truth is if you're here at three in the morning on a February morning, it's kind of chilly inside Nickelodeon universe. So I'm saying, but once all the people start

[00:05:42] walking around, it warms up very quickly, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So they thought ahead in the early 80s, they were planning. We've done, I'm gonna let's do, I see if notes here, Rich, in front of you with some numbers, share some fun recycling or green sustainability

[00:05:56] facts on them all. If you were to. So Dan talked a little bit about the 30,000 plus live plants and trees, right? Obviously, that's a signature of ours. We want people to feel like they're outside when they're inside, right? But it starts right there. I mean, from a natural

[00:06:11] pesticide, we release over 50,000 ladybugs on an annual basis, which we do every year on Earth Day. We do here at Mall of America. We did it again this year as well. We have annually right now,

[00:06:21] we're recycling about 2.4 million pounds of cardboard and paper. And this has been a consistent process that we've had in place since I've started working here. 460,000 pounds of food waste being generated by our operations that are going out to a local hog farm, right?

[00:06:36] Versus ending up in trucks getting hauled to a different waste stream. We recycle 380,000 pounds of metal on an annual basis. Obviously the malls continue and devolves. There's metal coming in, there's metal going out, and we recycle all that 280,000 pounds of cooking oil

[00:06:53] being turned into bio-dees of the power trucks and vehicles. 120,000 pounds of glass getting recycled. Obviously, there's, you know, there's, we have entertainment here, so there's glass being produced here at Mall of America as well. And then it's retail and stuff comes in on

[00:07:06] pallets and pallets got to go somewhere. So we recycled over 11,000 pallets on an annual basis over the last couple of years. So that's a lot to see those. Yeah, just big numbers,

[00:07:15] a lot of exciting stuff going on and the team is fully behind all this. It's gonna say, well, incredible logistics to have that whole team humming along in efficiency like that. It's

[00:07:22] like a little city. Not a little city, it's like a big city. It's a big efficient city is what it is. You had mentioned the 50,000 ladybugs that take care of other pests. This year we actually

[00:07:34] ordered 144,000. So if you're around on Earth Day at six in the morning, John, I'll be there. If you want to come, we would love your help doing this. Yeah, bring my kids too, absolutely.

[00:07:44] So we talked some of the fun green facts about Mall of America. What stands out to you? I know we did a big LED lighting project in our parking ramps. I don't know if you were involved, Excel Energy was

[00:07:54] a partner in that. Correct. I don't know if you know much about that, but I'd love the two of you to talk about that a little bit on how it went and why it was so groundbreaking. Yeah, I mean

[00:08:03] in general, I get just a great envy of best practices for that entire portfolio sustainability. We obviously focus a lot of energy and try to work with our customers across a whole myriad of their industries and sectors for what their approaches and needs are. The mall is unique,

[00:08:17] right? It's one of our largest customers in the state. It's probably our single biggest site footprint with all of not just the mall as a customer, but a ton of our customers within the mall's footprint. So it's just great to continue to learn about all of its

[00:08:29] other sustainability leadership going back many days. When it comes to energy, I mean obviously big opportunity for anybody when they're looking to conserve energy and one of the big programs we

[00:08:38] got a bunch of them tied to this is lighting. I mean lighting is the quick investment that you make and you can immediately see energy reduction there. As a utility, we want our customers to

[00:08:49] conserve energy for a couple of reasons. One saves them energy, it of course saves them money on top of that, but for us as a system, we want to be efficient with the product that

[00:08:58] we're consuming. So we do not want to, we don't want to over build our system from our power plants, our generation fleet on down. We want to build it right-sized correctly

[00:09:06] and not over build. So the more we can get our customers to be efficient with the energy and only use what they're needing, it serves a lot of purposes there. And I think our energy efficiency programs, we've avoided something about 20 mid-size power plants going back to the 90s

[00:09:20] with our conservation program. So yeah, it's amazing. That's great. I mean there's a method to the madness and why we want to encourage folks to consume less of our product, be more efficient and only use what you need. It feels like the exact opposite of what

[00:09:35] a business would do, buy less of what we sell. That doesn't make sense to consumers. You want to charge me or you want me to use more, but you really are focused as an energy leader in

[00:09:47] this nation on helping us all save energy, aren't you? Absolutely. I mean energy efficiency, it's the cheapest kilowatt hour to generate is the one that you don't have to use.

[00:09:56] That's the old saying. So but to the lighting project here at the mall, I mean that was a pretty big endeavor. I was not closely involved in it. My team was back in the day and I know it took

[00:10:06] many years and quite a bit of analysis. It's not an easy fit given all the features and facilities, but I think it was somewhere near a half million dollars of rebates and it really helped bring a lot of the energy consumption of the mall down

[00:10:19] like almost immediately. I think it dropped its overall energy consumption, frankly all the efficiency efforts with the mall by about a quarter to even a third from the amount of energy being consumed just a few years ago. So those are huge strides in terms of energy savings,

[00:10:35] cost savings and I think some mutual benefits for us as partners. Yeah, we couldn't have done it without Excel's partnership, but there were other partners involved too Rich. I think I mean as

[00:10:44] you look back up on that project and you're right, it took us years to get through that project and find the right fixtures that would work. We have a 3.3 million square feet of parking structures here, right? 3.3 million, 12,000 parking styles. There was over 6,000,

[00:10:59] right around 6,000 light fixtures that had to be changed out. That was the largest LED conversion from an inferior product to an LED at the time. We were excited to take that initiative and take that upon ourselves with the partnership, the public and private

[00:11:15] partnership. So we partnered not only with Excel Energy on that from a rebate perspective. We worked with through a federal government grant process that was available to help bring the cost of that project down, collectively working together with Excel and then partnered with the

[00:11:29] city of Bloomington as well on that for a low rate financing to bring that project forward, you know, which has been fantastic. So we're excited about your right. It was a 7 million kilowatt hour reduction in energy, which is probably in the 600 plus home range. Yeah.

[00:11:46] If you think about that on an annual basis. So we've mentioned LED project, explain specifically what we did, if you would. So in the parking garages at Mall of America, and we have two of them, they're large, they have about 6,000 stalls for each garage. There's light fixtures,

[00:12:01] and they had what was called HID light fixtures. It's a very energy inefficient lighting system. And if you recall, back in the day, if I showed you a side-by-side picture, you'd see this light, and it was kind of yellow, and it was ugly to be very

[00:12:14] clear on top of that. But we changed out all those fixtures to a new LED fixture that was literally one third of the power consumption of those HID old technology, which has since gone away, right? And they were custom designed. They're custom designed for this particular project.

[00:12:32] We worked hard to get the light levels based on the heights of the decks, worked with many manufacturers coming with the proper fixture to have the lowest number of fixtures and the best energy project we could have there.

[00:12:44] It's interesting too. I mean, that lighting technology revolution over the last decade, again, huge project, super unique, a lot of partnership to get that one done. But to see a whole industry converting from incandescent bulbs to first

[00:12:56] compact fluorescent bulbs, and now LED light emitting diodes, I mean, they use such tiny amounts of energy and good light, good bright white light. The ramps are bright and safe, and it's just really good project overall. And you see it across the

[00:13:08] cities too with street lights and others. Absolutely. It's great advancement in technology. That was another benefit from this was the quality of light, correct? 100%. I mean, it definitely enhanced our security perspective in those parking

[00:13:17] garages, our public perception as they were moving through those garages as well and continues, honestly, to be the same product that we put in 10 plus years ago. Yeah. And without replacing light bulbs. Yeah, they last longer. You're saving money, conserving energy, good product.

[00:13:32] I mean, it's kind of a win all the way around. And John mentioned this, that overall consumption at Mall of America, which has, I've been here for 30 plus years and that number has continued to drop year after year after year.

[00:13:43] And that's just, it's through projects like that, it's through initiatives that we work with our tenants when they're coming in to build out space here and put in the proper technologies and make sure that we're staying from a sustainability standpoint. Not only the

[00:13:54] sustainability is very important to us, right? But also that energy consumption to make sure that they're profitable, we can be as profitable as possible in this market. They all have to work together to make for a successful project. And we've seen,

[00:14:07] as he suggested, 15, 20% reduction in overall electrical consumption. Again, that's put it in layman's value. That's a thousand plus homes on an annual basis that could be powered by that type of reduction in energy. It's amazing. It's amazing.

[00:14:21] And we also, I'm just going to add this because I think it's important as he talked about this is the, John talked about is the reduction in the peak usage, right? Yeah. We've brought our peak usage. This is the number where you're,

[00:14:33] how much electricity are you using on a given day and what that peak is. And that's all about generation and equipment and infrastructure to be put in place. So it requires less generation, less equipment being put in place, which obviously is also great for the environment.

[00:14:47] Yeah. And given the size and scope of the mall, those changes and impacts that are betterment for our overall system, right? That peak demand shaving that he's talking about really helps us in our system operations. So it's again, there's benefits all the way around

[00:15:00] and it takes good partnership, good coordination. And we've been having that for years. I love that. Yeah. XL has been a great partner since when the mall was being built. And it has been ever since. So thank you for that. Absolutely.

[00:15:11] But you and your team manage three states, right? So your areas, do you have some examples of other companies, whether you want to use their names or not, but other ideas that companies can use to manage their energy usage and become more efficient?

[00:15:26] Yeah. I mean, again, lighting is the no brainer. It's an easy investment there. And we always encourage our customers, you know, really reach out to us. We've got a whole host of programs and offerings that are out there. They're different. We serve eight states, right? So

[00:15:39] depending upon what your state you're in, you might have some different offerings based on the programs that we work with. But, you know, we have foundries and large manufacturing customers that have process efficiencies that they find that are really customized to their

[00:15:52] specific needs. Obviously, the mall is hyper unique given the scope of what they have. Very kind of unique custom offerings here going forward. But there's everything from lighting to energy efficiency with respect to help people heat water. There's new opportunities coming down

[00:16:07] the pipe on that front as well in terms of electrification. You know, as folks are trying to reduce their carbon footprint, XL collectively as a company is heading down that path of carbon free energy. We're one of the first companies to announce that. And so

[00:16:19] we're trying to help our customers take advantage of that environmental benefit by our entire system heading in that direction and then maybe electrifying parts of their business and their operations that they haven't before. What are the easiest solutions for a small business?

[00:16:34] Let's say I just opened a small gift shop or coffee shop or something like that. And I'm hearing Mall of America, which is massive. I'm hearing, you know, processing plants and stuff, but I got this little 2,500 square foot space. What can I do?

[00:16:48] And can you help me? Can Excel help me? Excel could for sure help. We've got a business solution center within our organization that can do customized one, you know, real personal touch point guidance and really walk you through all the programs and opportunities.

[00:17:01] Lighting is really the continued investment even though we've seen a lot of enhancements to products over the years. There continue to be even more rounds of enhanced lighting products that are out there. So you definitely want to tackle lighting because that consumes a

[00:17:13] lot of the energy there. The HVAC, if you're paying your HVAC bills and your buildings there, there's a lot of efficiencies that can be made there. And then depending upon your building, the building envelope is a collective whole. You want to make sure that you're not wasting

[00:17:25] energy by wasting that heat. And ultimately you want to take the best practices at the mall, capture the energy that you've got in the building and that and don't exhaust any heat like the mall does in terms of leveraging the heat from its patrons. Same principles go for

[00:17:39] a small business. Make sure your building envelope is tight, look at efficiency to make sure you're not again losing heat out the windows and we've got programs and rebates for a whole host of those opportunities. Yeah and I saw the business solution center on your website so

[00:17:54] easy to find. Yeah very much. There as well so small businesses and large businesses alike. Small large businesses, residential, I mean we serve everybody right? That's kind of one of the unique factors in the energy space is here's your territory and you've been

[00:18:06] serving these customers. Excel's been serving this chunk of Minnesota since 1909. You know kind of built up this whole group over a well over a century and we have a myriad of customers, doesn't matter age or residential or commercial industrial or manufacturing.

[00:18:20] We want to serve them all not just with reliable energy but here are the programs to make to help you become more efficient with the consumption of our products. Smart educated decisions up front. Yeah it makes sense. Do the right thing. Think it through.

[00:18:31] Doing the right thing from a sustainability standpoint. Yeah works right into this. I love it. Old wives tale don't turn off your lights because it costs more energy to flip them back on. Correct yes. Is that true? Well a little while we like to just keep that.

[00:18:44] I just want to know if I'm supposed to turn them off. Turn them off. You know you bring up a good point occupancy sensors. I mean there's some switches and things where it kind of the

[00:18:51] new technologies out there that help think for you. You know walk in your room, the occupancy sensor turns the lights on and if you forget they can auto turn off. I mean there's some real simple steps that folks can invest in their businesses and

[00:19:02] residences to save some energy. It's not only a new technology that's occupancy center. This building was built in 1992. Yeah. It has 30,000 control points in it. So at a state of the art leading control system that operates all that stuff whether

[00:19:14] it's lighting, HVAC turns things on and off. We have the temperature controls for all of our tenants just like your home may have or you may do that thermostat or adjust that.

[00:19:23] It's come a long ways but we were there when we opened. Well ahead of time. Well ahead of time. That's one thing about them all. I mean we actually in so many areas beyond energy usage

[00:19:33] we think ahead of times and we try to set the trend don't we? And we do that in partnership with our partners. Our partners. Yeah exactly. I have, I would like to hear a little bit

[00:19:42] about the hydrogen hub. Sure. I read something about that. What is that and that's a big project for you guys. It is. I mentioned earlier Excel you know first country or first company investor utility in the country to come out back in 2019 announcing our vision

[00:19:54] to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity. We're still heading down that path. You know we're targeting 2040 as that goal right now we're at about 65% carbon-free electricity. Probably be around close to 90% potentially here by the end of 2030 which is huge. I mean it is

[00:20:11] really really a leader in the country in terms of comparing other areas. With that carbon-free electricity one thing that you could do is create carbon-free hydrogen. You know going forward you have to explore some some types of green fuels that you can use here

[00:20:26] moving forward to decarbonize other portions of the system. So if we can you know use carbon-free electricity run that through an electrolyzer you're essentially splitting water atoms exhausting oxygen and you're left over with this carbon-free hydrogen product. You know you could maybe

[00:20:42] bake that into the natural gas system to bring down that carbon intensity of the natural gas system. You can potentially use it to combust turbines as an offset to other fuels that you're

[00:20:53] using. So the hydrogen hub is actually a federal offering that we applied for in partnership with a number of folks in Minnesota and North Dakota and we're trying to make this upper region kind of a bleeding edge for the future green hydrogen economy. So yeah it's exciting. It's

[00:21:08] new technology. It's where we're looking into the next couple of decades. You could also and there's a group between Delta Airlines, ourselves, EcoLab, a number of other partners that are at the table exploring how could you take green hydrogen and explore making sustainable

[00:21:23] aviation fuel. That kind of next level step for jet fuel that is low to no carbon. So there's a lot of big items coming down the pipe here. We're kind of at that early stage of

[00:21:33] forward thinking that the mall was decades back and it'll be you know short couple decades later where we're hoping to have these technologies commercialized and baked in as part of our offering and hopefully cost effective and certainly good for the environment.

[00:21:46] One other energy question that I'm going to get into some personal stuff. Is that all right if I dish a little bit here? Yes, no problem. We're seeing more and more electrified vehicles,

[00:21:57] and I think it's going to continue to grow. I think that's everyone's plan or most people's plan or hope. How will that impact Mall of America? Is that good? Is that bad? Is it

[00:22:07] indifferent? And then from Excel's perspective, what will that do on demand? I think it's a combination of both, Dan. I think you know from a Mall of America perspective obviously we need to

[00:22:17] have those resources in place for our customer that's going to be coming in those vehicles and we have today and we're currently looking at expanding that offering. So I think we need to continue to push forward on that effort for our customers from a demand perspective.

[00:22:30] Obviously there's some demand associated with that as well and I think that's you know we work through those things with partners that are bringing those solutions to us but also Excel that's going to have to help us you know solve some of those demand issues as well.

[00:22:40] And we've actually had charging stations since like the first days of electric vehicles, right? I remember when they were installed. That's correct Dan. And how will they impact Excel? Yeah, you know we've been tracking the EV electric vehicle space for the last few years and it

[00:22:53] really seems to be ramping up pretty quickly. We have to move at the pace of our customers and be ready for them. We don't want to be caught flat-footed so we've got a lot of coordinated planning going on with respect to electric vehicle sales at the sales point.

[00:23:06] So we partner with all of our dealerships in Minnesota and have dealer networks so when you actually buy a car, you're immediately ordering your meter from us. So we're organizing that and coordinating that with our systems operators to make sure that we're putting in maybe a larger

[00:23:19] transformer and a cul-de-sac because three people bought electric vehicles in one week. So continuing to stay coordinated with our residential customers commercial is what we're doing here going forward. A lot of moving parts to it is

[00:23:31] as you know, you got to build out that infrastructure in the back to make sure that you've got those feeder lines and those cables that are robust enough to take that energy. Commercial customers, it all kind of depends on their needs but

[00:23:43] we're kind of poised and ready to respond to whatever they need. That is also important to work to educate the public as well. Wow, without saying a name but partnering with manufacturers and Mall of America does that

[00:23:54] well. We have manufacturer in here at Mall of America today that's showcasing their cars or vehicles technology behind it putting the guests that are here at the mall letting them take those cars for test drive. So that's an important offering to make sure that

[00:24:05] guests are seeing these things in real life and getting them to drive them. Rich is right, I mean the mall at XL share the same we have customers that we want to serve

[00:24:11] in that electric vehicle space with charging so how are we at the ready and making sure that everyone is getting what they need that they're having a great customer experience at the mall

[00:24:19] for their charging? We have the same space as a utility. So your goal for both of you is the same which is let's make it painless and easy for the guests. Exactly, serve the

[00:24:27] customer. Really quickly I would love to touch base. I happen to know that both of you are kind of community minded and like to volunteer and be involved in the community. I'd love to hear

[00:24:37] maybe just one highlight of an organization you're involved with. I think I know what you're going to say Rich but we'll see and just kind of your favorite event or activity with them. Rich,

[00:24:45] I'll let you go first. So I'm local in my own community. We have a Lions program that our Lions organization that I helped grow within our community. So we're one of the largest

[00:24:57] Lions groups in the state of Minnesota and I'm pretty proud of that. I'm not going to put my finger on my favorite activity but what the heck I'll say it. I think buying gifts for children,

[00:25:09] those underprivileged during the holiday season is extremely important and being able to bring my family into that and other community members and their families into that with us and everybody putting their best foot forward from a donation standpoint to make that happen

[00:25:21] on a personal level as well is extremely important to me. That's great. Awesome. John. Yeah, I suppose the one that jumps to mind been part of an organization for 20 years called Serving Our Troops. We started this back in 04 in partnership with the Minnesota National Guard.

[00:25:36] Anytime the guard has a large deployment we'll put together a big meal, send off for them and their families then we'll send a group downrange in Iraq or Coastal or Kuwait and do a meal with the deployed soldiers then do a video link back here at home. So

[00:25:50] we've done about 15 projects and 110,000 stakes. A lot of local restaurant tours and partners across Minnesota have helped that effort and we'll be doing another one in Kuwait I think in October. So we're yeah it's Minnesota military families and the soldiers that have served are just

[00:26:05] through personal for me too and they're great events they're fun to bring families together but they're emotional too. And we appreciate that we are beyond the Ilariban Company. Absolutely. We're very proudly supportive of our troops so thank you for doing that. It's a

[00:26:17] great program that started in Minnesota now it's a national one. It did start here. Yeah. I just wanted to wrap up with five quick questions but before I do this is airing in April which

[00:26:27] is Earth month and so we've talked about our Ladybug release which will happen on on Earth Day. We invite everyone to come down at 6 a.m. We're actually also offering free VIP behind the

[00:26:36] scenes tours that are green focused every Sunday in the month of April so John I invite you and your team or your family to come and join us you can check out our website get the times it'll

[00:26:47] be really fun. I have five quick questions I'm going to ask I'll ask Rich Chanter first then John and just whatever pops into your mind if you would favorite season and why?

[00:26:58] I love the fall I like to hunt I grew up hunting and fishing and at just that time of the year it's so nice. Awesome John. I love summertime because I got young kids and it's packed with

[00:27:06] sports and it's just like I can't can't get enough sports with my kids it's fun. Love it I'm changing the order now I'm going to start with you best Minnesota pastime. Oh I mean boy I think it's watching our beloved Vikings and living those ebbs and flows of

[00:27:21] love we love it oh we do yeah it's a roller coaster of emotions but we're purple all the way through love it ice fishing not everybody can do it everybody can fish most states have water

[00:27:30] but not everybody has ice fishing so you know it's pretty cool not everyone wants to go out there and you get to drive a car on the ice so. Best park or recreation area in Minnesota Rich?

[00:27:39] I'd say anything along the river the waterways so love it. Same with water I get up to relax a lot I love that beautiful body of water okay two favorites by the way yeah I love it up there

[00:27:48] ice fishing it's awesome okay water fishing and two quick ones the best kept secret in Minnesota oh best kept secret in Minnesota you know I'm a big fan of the various hospitality spots

[00:28:02] around and there's just so many nuggets of good food spots I won't name one but there's just it's the hospitality scene big time got it Rich people in community I love it okay there's not

[00:28:13] many other states that have the sense that we have here so and if you have a first time visitor coming to Mall of America what must they do? Stand on the east side and look out into the

[00:28:24] Nickelodeon universe so I love it John you got experience Nickelodeon universe I mean it's it's again memories as a kid and I love folks watching the the joy of it and the screams and

[00:28:34] just making up those memories so. I love it and I love that you've been coming here since when the mall first opened so and Rich being here. I've been coming here since the mall first opened.

[00:28:42] You have two in a different capacity John we want to thank you so much for taking the time today to be with us Rich as always. That's very fun. It's wonderful having you here

[00:28:51] and for all of our listeners we thank you so much for joining us for this episode of So Much More. Check out all the great information on on Excel Energy's website there's stuff for consumers for small and large businesses as well there's great useful information.

[00:29:04] Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of So Much More. If you want to hear more be sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you

[00:29:15] find your favorites including Spotify, Apple or Google Podcast and you can also watch a video cast on YouTube. Go to podcast.mallofamerica.com to leave a review, ask a question or give us an idea

[00:29:28] for the show. Until next time thanks for listening. So Much More is presented by the Bloomington Convention and Visitors Bureau the official destination marketing organization for the city of Bloomington Minnesota. Before your next trip to Mall of America visit

[00:29:43] bloomingtonmn.org for answers to all your travel questions deals and packages for hotel stays and so much more.