We have a special treat for you just in time for a long weekend!

Dr. Tyrone Spears, Chief of the Workers' Compensation Division for the City of Los Angeles, is one of the best and brightest in the business. Yvonne and Rafael recently caught up with him for a lively, thought-provoking episode!

If you know Tyrone, you know he is a servant leader who continually does good things for others. Find out what he studied in school, what career path he considered, and how he found himself in the workers' compensation industry, an industry he has come to love.

Conversations with Tyrone are always fascinating. He is the real deal. So, grab your headphones and settle in for a cozy conversation with Tyrone about leadership, mentorship, diversity, equity, inclusion, doing good for others, and being a good human. We also talked about politics, our 2024 bonus topic, since we talked to him the Monday after Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race.

Some things we mentioned during the episode include:

Dr. Tyrone Spears - books on Amazon.com
-The Compassionate Leader
-Land The Job

Hazel's Hands - https://www.hazelshands.com/
Tyrone started this charity in his grandmother's name. Hazel's Hands provides resources, services, and leadership to meet the emerging needs of at-risk youth and their families in our communities.

¡Muchas Gracias! Thank you for listening. We would appreciate you sharing our podcast with your friends on social media. Find Yvonne and Rafael on Linked In or follow us on Twitter @deconstructcomp

Join Yvonne and Rafael as they chat with one of their hometown "sheroes" Brenda Cogdell, Director - Risk and Safety Division, Hillsborough County.

Brenda shares her enthusiasm for her role at Hillsborough County and for the risk and insurance industry where she has dedicated her career to shaping a culture of caring for the employees she serves.

Together we explore her journey from graduating from Tampa's University of South Florida (Go Bulls!) to entering the risk management industry, serving as the risk manager at the City of Manassas, Virginia, then coming back to Hillsborough County where she began.

We talk about the culture Brenda is helping to build at Hillsborough County called "Workplace Possibilities!"

Learn how Brenda's father's career as a longshoreman shaped her and how it sticks with her still today. She believes team members who get hurt or ill at work ought to be reminded they are still part of a team, or a work family.

Brenda Cogdell is the real deal! She happily shares her expertise and encourages young professionals to take advantage of all resources and mentors along their career journey.

Some of the organizations we discuss in the episode include:

Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS)
https://www.rims.org/

Public Risk Management Association (PRIMA)
https://primacentral.org/

Thank you for all you do Brenda! We LOVE you!

¡Muchas Gracias! Thank you for listening. We would appreciate you sharing our podcast with your friends on social media. Find Yvonne and Rafael on Linked In or follow us on Twitter @deconstructcomp

Les Shute is the Chief Innovation Officer at Infinity Nurse Case Management. Join us in this episode as we learn more about Les, including what Les studied in school and what he aspired to do in his career.

After graduating college as a Marketing Major and with a Minor in Computer Science, Les was recruited into the insurance industry and started as a workers' compensation adjuster!

In this episode, we learn that Les grew up with a strong influence in computer programming. He has immersed himself in learning all about artificial intelligence and

Les chats with us about OOM, "orders of magnitude," Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), neuro-symbolic AI, and other "mind-bending" scenarios and applications of artificial intelligence. We also discuss how AI may impact carbon-based life forms over the next 5-10 years.

Get ready for a fascinating conversation about AI, a recurring topic we have discussed several times this year. As we always say, we love all our guests, but this episode is super fun and thought-provoking.

Learn more about Infinity Nurse Case Management here.

Interested in learning more about how artificial intelligence has progressed since the 1940s? Check out this timeline courtesy of Veerloop.io.

¡Muchas Gracias! Thank you for listening. We would appreciate you sharing our podcast with your friends on social media. Find Yvonne and Rafael on Linked In or follow us on Twitter @deconstructcomp