Todd: 00:00 Welcome to the podcast. We're excited for you to be here today. We are honored to have Christina Noble, who's the chief growth officer for Sonora Quest Laboratories. She also, aside from her day job for many years, was a member of our board of directors, our executive committee, and then last year, the chair of our board so we're so excited to have you here today. Thank you for joining us, Christina.
Christina Noble: 00:24 Yes, it's good to be here with you, Todd.
Todd: 00:27 Well, to people out there who don't know you, tell us a little bit about yourself and then something that wouldn't be on your resume.
Christina Noble: 00:36 A little bit about myself? I love working in healthcare. That is my passion. I've been doing it for over three decades. I can't believe it. When I talk something about myself, that would be it. It's just I have a passion for healthcare, passion for our community here. Something that's not on my resume would probably be that I enjoy cooking a full family dinner every Sunday around the table with a candle and multiple courses. I just think that bringing the family together, we don't do enough of that, and I really love to cook and garden so that's a little bit something that's not on my resume, actually.
Todd: 01:12 If I were to pull the family and say, "Okay, we have these dinners every Sunday. What's your favorite meal?", what would they say?
Christina Noble: 01:19 They would absolutely say it's the chicken tortilla soup, and that's with homemade broth from scratch. That's those corn tortillas in peanut oil on the bottom of the pan to create just this wonderful base for the soup, and it's a full day process and it's a beautiful soup, so that is what they would say.
Todd: 01:38 Is there a secret ingredient?
Christina Noble: 01:39 The secret is taking those corn tortillas and browning them in the bottom of the pan to create that base. Yes, and then you take those once they're brown, and you cut them up in strips, and you serve those on top of the soup. That's the secret.
Todd: 01:54 We should stop now. I'm getting hungry. Well, and also obviously, you're very modest in healthcare. You're one of the state's top healthcare leaders. How did you get into healthcare?
Christina Noble: 02:07 Gosh, how did I get into it? It was by happenstance. That is the truth, Todd.
Todd: 02:11 Really?
Christina Noble: 02:12 Yeah, so I graduated with a dual degree in international relations and economics and a minor in French. What does that have anything to do with healthcare, you might ask yourself. I didn't know at the time, but I was hired by Arthur Anderson right out of college, and they sent me off to St. Charles, Illinois and taught me how to program computers in six weeks, and I thought, "This is pretty cool." I think it was about a year after that, I switched from the government practice to the healthcare practice in Southern California, and I just fell in love with all of the diversity in healthcare, the challenges in healthcare, and at the end of the day, really helping people. That's what we get to do in healthcare.
Todd: 02:51 Absolutely. That's what brought you to Arizona?
Christina Noble: 02:53 It did, actually, because I was on an assignment where three healthcare companies, FHP, TakeCare, and CompreCare were coming together and merging, and they brought me and the team in to figure out how to make that all happen here in Phoenix, and so I was sent here, put up in a corporate apartment, and I thought, "What in the heck am I doing in the middle of desert?", because I grew up in Oregon as you know, and I just fell in love with the desert and Arizona, so here I am.
Todd: 03:20 Well, we're fortunate that that happened. It's a really good thing, and I think it's important to look back. I remember pre-COVID and then today, and I remember when things started. You told us this is going to be more than a few weeks. You talked about what this would look like and what you were seeing, but now that we're out of it, how has healthcare changed? What's the state of healthcare in Arizona today?
Christina Noble: 03:48 First of all, I don't know that I would argue we're out of it. I think that it is going to be around in some form or function for years to come as the virus continues to change and evolve, but I think what has happened, which is actually... I mean the pandemic was horrific and a huge, huge stress on our economy, on our employers, on business here in the state, certainly on the healthcare system, but what it did is it actually forced us to get better at what we do a little bit faster than we normally would. One example of that would be telehealth and telemedicine. We've got a lot of rural communities here in Arizona that don't have a lot of access to PCPs, primary care, and even hospitals.
04:32 COVID forced us as a group of employers and health plans and providers to say, "All right, we got to get really smart about how we're going to make access convenient," so getting the broadband in and allowing coverage for telehealth medicine, I think that's one example of how we've actually gotten better over time. I think that through the pandemic process, a lot of people put off care, and so now we're seeing a lot of folks who have more advanced states of disease than they would have if they would've been able to get in and get the help they need. There's been some positives and definitely a lot of negatives and a lot of lessons learned for sure.
Todd: 05:13 You do think there were some silver linings that came out of the city better?
Christina Noble: 05:17 Yeah, I do. I think the acceptance of telehealth not only-
Todd: 05:21 [inaudible 00:05:22], right?
Christina Noble: 05:22 Right, and not just for behavioral health necessarily, but for common conditions, things that come up. Employers weren't covering that and plans weren't covering that. Self-insured employers and fully insured health plans weren't always covering it, and I think that now, it's pretty accepted. Do you have that as part of your benefit plan?
Todd: 05:41 Absolutely.
Christina Noble: 05:42 Right, so if you or a family member gets a sore throat, instead of driving all the way in or waiting for an appointment, driving in, now you could potentially do a telehealth visit, have them call in a diagnostics, a lab for you, you get it, and then you're on your way. I think that has definitely been a silver lining. I think we've also had to figure out how we can do more with less. We had so many folks that we were on the frontline taking care of patients, but those were the folks that were getting infected too and taking care of their own families, so we had to figure out how to do more with less people, and this whole idea of resiliency, which is a passion for me, how do you keep people going when they feel like they've got the world on their shoulders and there's not a lot of support there? I do think there've been several silver linings, and the future, I think, is bright.
Todd: 06:35 Well, and I think it's important that you bring that up. I remember you were at the eye of the storms in Sonora Quest when we think about what we needed at the time. Before the vaccines, people were terrified. They needed to get results, they needed to understand, and you all didn't have the luxury of not coming to work. You all stayed there and you have the job done. How do you do that? What was the leadership in place that made sure that you had the people willing to come in and do these really difficult jobs during a time with such uncertainty?
Christina Noble: 07:08 Yeah, I think it all starts at the top, and you know that because you set the example for the chamber. The way that you handled the budget situation, the move, you could speak on this topic just as well as I could, but I think in the healthcare industry, and at that particular time, it wasn't should we or could we, but we are going to do it, so how are we going to get it done? I've been very blessed and fortunate to work with a phenomenal senior leadership team, and innovation has been one of our pillars, and so we just said, "All right, what exactly do we need to do and what calls need to be made to make it happen?" I credit our CEO, Dave Dexter, with making those calls and getting the equipment in.
07:54 As far as how did we get people to do this, that wasn't a problem. It truly was not a problem. I think everybody... One of our core values at Sonora Quest is compassion. We knew if we didn't do it, it wasn't going to be done, so we all hands on deck and we had people who were actually taken out of their day jobs. Imagine somebody in your marketing team taken out of their role and asked to help with specimen processing or with taking calls in the call center. That is what we did because we had to. I think we're grateful that we had the opportunity to serve in that way, and we've all learned and gotten better through the period of time that we served for sure.
Todd: 08:38 It was so critical and results were so important. You couldn't wait three weeks, then it's irrelevant. You had to know very soon, and so that made such a big difference. Thinking about today, obviously, you were having to operate at peak efficiency for a long periods of time under stress. What about burnout in not just... I'm just not talking about Sonora Quest, but healthcare generally. Nurses, for instance, we were talking about nurses earlier, physicians' assistants, doctors. What about burnout in healthcare today?
Christina Noble: 09:07 Yeah, I think it's a real challenge and it's an opportunity for us as employers to figure out what do we need to make sure that people feel like they've got the support they need to recharge, and that is another reason that I feel so strongly about resiliency, and as employers here, especially here in Arizona, thinking about what can we do to set up a firm foundation of health and wellness for our employees, whatever that looks like. It could be looking at flexible schedules. It could be looking at redundancy and cross-training so that there's more than one person that knows how to handle digital marketing, for example. You've got to build in redundancy so that the folks that need a break can actually get a break.
09:51 Now, that is much easier said than done, but I think building it into your expense line as a business, as an investment in infrastructure is probably how I'd characterize it on a P&L if I had to. It's really making that investment in the infrastructure that allows for people to tap out, do what they needed to take care of themselves, and then come back refreshed. As I said, that's easier said than done, but that's the intent and that is part of what Sonora Quest did through that period of time is figure out how do we build in more benefits, more flexibility for our folks? It's something that, I think, all of us as business leaders are... It's at our doorstep right now. I know you've made some changes at the Chamber, and looking at the work life and looking at where work is done, and that, I think, was wonderful.
Todd: 10:44 Well, I think you're right. I think what with us, and I think a lot of business leaders that I've talked to is that I think these were nice things to have, and now they're critical things to have, and there's a lot more intentionality behind thinking through how you want to treat employees and how you want to make sure that they feel like they're supported outside of a paycheck.
Christina Noble: 11:06 Yes, and that's culture. That's the culture. Getting back to this chair role that I was so blessed to be in for a full year, just thinking about what we went through as a business with people being sick and then taking care of family members, people experiencing a lot of change in their own lives, and then still serving the business community in a way that you and the Chamber did, as well as knowing that a relocation was right around the corner, so you can't make these things up. If you recall, Todd, what we did was we focused on the strategic plan. We kept our eyes on the business, and that was one of the things that you and I talked about when we first started working together is we need to create this strategic plan, and having that strategic plan in place then emboldens GPC to create valuable programs that businesses go, "Wow, I'm really glad that I'm a part of the Greater Phoenix Chamber." That was pretty much our legacy for our tenure together, wouldn't you say?
Todd: 12:16 It really was. Well, and I think for you and the prior chair, John Wolf, both had to operate in a very interesting place. I mean two full years of not having in-person meetings. I think you got one. Well, the board retreat, I think, was the only time.
Christina Noble: 12:29 I think I did. I had one in-person meeting.
Todd: 12:32 That was it, and so we had to look at things very differently. I think leadership really mattered during that time because it's easy to lead an organization under normal circumstances, but when there's a lot of turmoil and you can't see what's coming around the corner, it's a lot more difficult, and that's when leadership really comes into play.
Christina Noble: 12:51 Yeah, absolutely. If you recall at that same time, we had a lot of small employers and large employers that were feeling the pain and the pinch of the pandemic from a fiscal perspective, and so the Chamber, I think, had to work more innovatively and creatively than ever to figure out how are we going to keep the members that we have, and then how are we going to grow this into the future? It's so exciting. Still, Sonora Quest is a proud member of the Greater Phoenix Chamber, and we've got another member of the team on the board now serving. I look at the growth in Phoenix, and still, I think we're definitely in the top three as far as large size counties in terms of growth. Look at the opportunity in front of us now, and if we didn't have that strong foundation of the strategic plan of taking the leap and moving into a new location, I don't think that the Chamber would be in the place that it is right now, and you're still growing.
Todd: 13:49 It's important to look back. You're right, we are still growing, and there's just a lot of need out there from businesses to education, healthcare. All of these things we're talking about are areas where someone has to stand up and say, "Okay, we're ready to find some solutions."
Christina Noble: 14:06 Yes.
Todd: 14:06 But speaking of standing up, you obviously have a very full-time job, and we came to you and said we would like you to consider being a chair. What went into that decision? Because I know you didn't take it lightly.
Christina Noble: 14:19 I did not take it lightly and a lot of things went into the decision. I'll just say, I'm not trying to fluff your feathers or anything, but I think having worked with you and the team for, was it five or six prior years, you have really pulled together, I would say, one of the most top-notch management teams I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I thought to myself, "Wow, I can learn as much as I can contribute here," and so having the opportunity to work with you in the management team, and then also again, one of the foundational values of Sonora Quest, again, is collaboration. I talked earlier about compassion but collaboration. The collaboration that I have seen at the Greater Phoenix Chamber over the six and seven years, like no other, just phenomenal.
15:08 Bringing yesterday's competitors become today's collaborators, really rolling our sleeves up and figuring out how do we solve for some of these problems, especially in the education space, but also, as I mentioned to you, government affairs. That has been an amazing benefit and an amazing way for me to learn and grow in my role at Sonora Quest, but also as a healthcare leader in general. Yeah, the main factors, we're looking at the management team, my experience, the benefits, and then the impact that I believe that I can make, especially because you specifically said, "We really need to look at a strategic plan, and I know that's one of your areas of focus, Christina," and I said, "Yes, it is."
Todd: 15:51 It's one of your superpowers.
Christina Noble: 15:54 Sometimes, these things just... It's timing, right?
Todd: 15:58 It is 100%. You're right that last year was all about that. Like I said, it's one of your superpowers, and you're very comfortable in that space, and I think made you a very effective chair to not only lead the board and the organization, but also to help the team work its way through that process.
Christina Noble: 16:13 Yeah. Look at the budget that we were working, right? Yeah, it was good times.
Todd: 16:21 Very good. Now, people think about the board and think, "Well, should I do it? Should I not do it?" What would you tell a business leader that's considering throwing their hat in for a seat on the board of the Greater Phoenix Chamber?
Christina Noble: 16:38 I don't see any downside whatsoever, so the question for me would be not if, but when. I think a couple of things to think about. First of all, for me, it's about time commitment. I've said this many times at the board meetings is we are business leaders, we are running our business units or our entire companies, and so for somebody just to think about what is the time commitment going to be and having that honest conversation with you or a member of your team about what that looks like. To your question earlier, what is it that they can contribute and what is it that they think that they can bring to the board? There's not going to be any negatives. There's only going to be positives. Like I said, I think each board member, and arguably, each company may have a different reason.
17:28 A smaller company may benefit from very different ways than a larger company, and I think that's something that your team can walk those businesses through, but you know I am a huge proponent of all of the benefits that members receive, and I talk to as many employers as I can about it, refer them to Debbie or anybody else on your team to say, "Hey, you guys need to learn a little bit more about it," but for Sonora Quest, at the time, it was really this government affairs expertise as a smaller employer where, I think 3,600 now, but at the time, we're a little bit smaller joint venture. We did not have our own legislative affairs department. Some of these huge mega companies do. We did not. For a smaller company, knowing that you can tap into that extremely talented group that's focused on, let's say just legislative affairs or just workforce development, those are wonderful assets to have the ability to tap into, and then all the networking, all these professional folks that only want to see economic growth in this area, you've all got that in common, so no reason not to.
Todd: 18:44 Well, thank you. I think it means a lot, and certainly, that that's what makes us successful, to have engaged members and engaged board. That really brings me back to leadership. Philosophy on leadership. What drives you to be a leader and why do we need more of that in the valley?
Christina Noble: 19:04 Gosh. There's a lot to that question. I want to ask you that question too, by the way, but for me, what drives me, what gives me joy is developing young professionals and helping them in whatever way I can to empower them to achieve their goal. Now, it doesn't mean climbing the corporate ladder. It could mean having more work-life balance. It could mean pursuing an education. It could mean a lot of things, taking a lateral move, getting out of one vertical and moving to another, but nothing gives me more motivation as a leader than helping others achieve their own aspirational goals. That is what lifts me, and that is why I continue to be in leadership. Obviously, making a difference in our communities, in the healthcare space, making a difference for patients and their families daily, making a difference for a thousand plus colleagues and their families that are in my organization, that lifts me as well, and that's why I do what I do, but at the end of the day, I want to really get people where they want to be and help them in whatever way that I can to do that.
Todd: 20:19 Does that lead into mentorship as well?
Christina Noble: 20:21 Yes, it does. I really enjoy mentorship. Thank you for asking that one. This is something that's another great reason, I think, that being a member is just so very important. For the businesses out there, the companies that are listening to this, you invariably have those high potential aspirational kind of leaders in your pipeline as your succession planning. You're looking at these folks going, "Hey, we want to invest in this person or that person." The mentoring day, the mentoring breakfast that the GPC, that you host every year, and I know there's a lot of other activities that go on with Valley Young Professionals as well, but that day in particular was one of the days I looked forward more than any other in terms of my work with the GPC. That is gathering these young professionals in a room and putting them at a table with one of the board members and just talking about what are your challenges? What are your opportunities?
21:26 Again, I mentor several people actively now, and it's one of the favorite things that I get to do. I learn from these people. I think it goes both ways. They learn from me, but I'm learning from them. They're challenging thought process, they're challenging assumptions, and it's just amazing the things that I'm learning about what people are expecting in their work experience. There's this work-life balance, and then there's these workcations now, and then there's, "Well, I want to do four tens and take that next day off, and by the way, I want a job rotation every three months." As employers, we got to go, "All right, we got to get on our game here, and we got to get in front of this if we want to attract the best talent," so to answer your question, I really enjoy mentoring, and I know you do too.
Todd: 22:21 It is so rewarding. I agree. One of the things that I notice is, for people who haven't done it, they tend to be the ones that roll their eyes and, "Oh, they're just a millennial," or now Gen Z. What do you say to those comments when you hear people disparaging, "Well, it's a millennial or it's a Gen Z"?
Christina Noble: 22:37 Well, I laugh because I love humor. You have definitely taught me that there is a place for humor in business, and I think it just lightens the room a lot, but I would laugh, and then I'm all about challenging and asking a lot of questions so, "Well, why do you think that? What is that based on?", and then I just invite people to connect and learn. You're going to have these preconceived ideas and perceptions, and then you dive in, and you actually get to know these people and what they're thinking and why they think what they do, and it's just amazing. I would laugh and then go, "Hey, let's go spend a day together and see what we learn from each other." That's what I would do. What about you?
Todd: 23:24 I agree. They're remarkable individuals. It's true. Spend some time with these, I don't want to say kids because there's some millennials in their 40s, but absolutely right. Spectacular people, highly intelligent and driven, and I think adding a lot. By the way, they're going to be taking over, so let's invest in them. I appreciate the amount of time and energy you put into being a mentor in our community.
Christina Noble: 23:53 Well, and I appreciate the same from you, and I think we need more of that. I think we need more people to step up and make themselves available. There'll be people that, I'm sure this happens to you too, they'll reach out and say, "Would you mind mentoring me?", and of course, and then what does that look like? Is it informal? Is it formal? What does that person want to get out of it? Yeah, I think that's our responsibility as a business, as a team of business leaders to do, and the Chamber is a great way to tap into a mentorship program that's already formed. You, as an employer, don't need to do anything. You can actually join the Greater Phoenix Chamber, and then have your folks get involved in either Valley Young Professionals and or through the mentoring programs and other programs that GPC offers.
Todd: 24:46 You bet. I have so many informal mentors that some of them don't even know, but it's true, and it made such a difference to the extent that you can do. One of the other things that we did under your leadership was really expand our work in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. Talk to us a little bit about why that was a priority for you.
Christina Noble: 25:07 Wow, where do I begin? I attended a women's college, and so I come to my work with having just an acute awareness of the importance in investing and just an awareness around what diversity and inclusion actually means, and actually seeing that work turn dividends in a business is amazing. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it also is really right for business. There's a lot of studies out there that'll show you diverse boards of directors, diverse management teams over a longer period of time are going to outperform those less diverse teams. I come at it from an economist perspective, which is it's the smart thing to do, and then the heart compassion part of me is it's the right thing to do because I've seen the power of it.
26:03 We had some great leadership with Frank Reed and several others that really led to building a tool chest or toolbox for employer's shoes. Again, I feel like we're doing an advertisement for the GPC, but it's all so true and it's out there. These are facts. There's a toolkit that can be used. There's people that would be more than willing to walk you through how they've used it, how they've implemented it in their workspace, but more than anything else, I think it has to be intentional. It can't just be, "Okay, let's check the box. We've got a plan." It is how can we be more inclusive in the way that we talk? How can we be more focused on diversity when we're looking at talent acquisition? How do we make sure we have all the voices at the table?
26:50 You'll recall that was an area of importance for me personally, which is the loudest person in the room, the person that is more of the extrovert type, their opinion and their perspective is no less or more important than the introvert sitting over on the side who really doesn't want to say anything because they're not comfortable, but one of my main mantles was how do I call people in? What can I do as a chair to make sure everybody believed and knew their voice was valued? I would even uncomfortably have silence on some of the calls. Do you remember that? It probably made you crazy, but sometimes just being quiet, people be like, "Oh, well, you know what? I do have a question." "Okay, well, what is it?" That's inclusion, and I wanted to model that, and it was very important to me.
Todd: 27:44 Well, you'd be happy to know that Erin, our current chair, has absolutely taken that on as well.
Christina Noble: 27:48 Hopefully, not the long pauses.
Todd: 27:50 No. Well, she's not afraid, and so it's made a difference. By the way, it's interesting when you talk about this business leaders, almost to a person, they'll tell you the same thing. It has to be intentional, has come from the heart, that's where it starts, but there's a bottom line component.
Christina Noble: 28:04 Yes.
Todd: 28:04 Don't forget that part. Those three things are really key here. It's interesting people who are actually practicing this, that's what they say, so there's some interesting continuity there. Before we end, I do want to have you look in your crystal ball. Things are changing so rapidly in healthcare. What are some of the things that you see coming down the pike in terms of healthcare, some innovations or changes in the system?
Christina Noble: 28:31 First of all, I can tell you all the constituents in the healthcare space are very much focused on costs and efficiency. Whether that's robotic process automation or AI, that is the future in healthcare. Now, healthcare, as most of us know, tends to lag behind. You have the high-tech companies, those types that are leading the way. In healthcare, historically, we've still run on mainframes at times and those kinds of things, so I would say RPA and AI, anything that we can do to improve efficiency, that is going to be where we're going to double down and be investing. Also, we're looking at how can we make healthcare more convenient? How do we make it more affordable?
29:20 On the convenience front, that is looking like what is healthcare in the home? What is healthcare in the workplace? How can we utilize or maybe analyze our bricks and mortar investments in healthcare, the hospitals, the clinics, the patient service centers where folks come to get their blood drawn, their specimens collected? How do we break down those barriers? How do we utilize the assets we do have in real estate? Then how do we take healthcare out into the field? Couple of just very recent examples, Sonora Quest just invested in a trailer that can go out and do a popup, so we would do a popup out an employer location or maybe in Sun City, places where people can't get out maybe as easily. Same thing happening with diagnostics in general. We just recently launched kits that a consumer, that you could order right online without a doctor's order and have it delivered to your home.
30:19 We're focusing on diabetes and colorectal cancer screening first, but I think my point is overall for healthcare, it's how do we get it out to individuals, and then also this focus on health equity, and how do we make sure that we're getting healthcare and making it available and affordable to communities that are disadvantaged or don't have the same access to primary care physicians? I also see, and you're going to understand why I'm going to say this, I think nurse practitioners are the future. I see that definitely. I see this fractionation of the healthcare system where before, it was you're a hospital system, you're a health plan, you're a specialty pharmacy. Now, we're seeing all of those verticals come together and you're seeing these large health plans, health systems combining with retail, combining with specialty, combining with local clinics. They're all combining into one, and so that's going to create some new opportunities for consumers, for employers, and certainly, for investors in healthcare.
Todd: 31:24 It'd be interesting to see you moving out of that traditional brick and mortar model that we have today, to your point. I got my blood drawn actually this morning at Sonora Quest. Are those centers going to change? Is that going to look different? I got an option to do it at home, I think.
Christina Noble: 31:37 Yes, you do.
Todd: 31:40 So much is changing on that front.
Christina Noble: 31:41 Yes, for sure. I think it's incumbent on all of us to, just as Jennifer Miller and your team does in terms of diving in on innovation, doubling down. Again, the Greater Phoenix Chamber is a great convener of cross-industry innovators to get together, surround ourselves around these key opportunities areas where we can really empower and embolden economic growth, and figure these things out together. That's what I look forward to doing most. We just started our formal innovation center of excellence last year. We've got our own separate P&L. I know the GPC is focused on innovation as well with Jennifer and her role in the foundation, so I think it's incumbent on all of us as business leaders in the Phoenix area to come together and work through these in creative and innovative ways. I think that EU and the Chamber are right at the center of that, and I look forward to continuing to be part of it.
Todd: 32:40 Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure, obviously, knowing you and working with you, and it's so nice to be able to see you again.
Christina Noble: 32:47 Yeah, but it's not goodbye. It's just until-
Todd: 32:51 No, and we don't do that.
Christina Noble: 32:51 No.
Todd: 32:53 We don't let people go far. Yoga. You're a certified yoga instructor and it's a big part of your life. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Christina Noble: 33:04 I can. I have been practicing yoga for 20 years. During the pandemic, I saw that there was a need for more resiliency, especially on the frontline, because I had responsibility for all of our frontline, and so I said, "All right, what am I going to do about it? I can sit and complain or I can actually take action," so I took it upon myself to get certified. I put my favorite studio up in Flagstaff. Yeah, so I brought that yoga teaching back into Sonora Quest, and I led my leaders in an optional, for all the managers and of above, optional resiliency training. I think it definitely made a difference.
33:48 My point to them was there are tools out there. This goes to some of the earlier conversation we had about that line on the P&L in terms investing in people. I think it's a great investment in people, so yeah, it is what I do to clear my mind, to remain grounded, to remain pragmatic in a pinch when I need to make a tough decision and I don't have all the information I need. Yeah, I think it's very important, and I think it's one of the easy things that employers can do to invest back in their folks, and that would be offering some of these alternative to western medicine, some of these alternative ways of dealing with stress, tension, anxiety, high blood pressure, high heart rates. There's a lot of things that we could do right here with just some simple breathing exercises to bring it down, and so yeah, I really enjoy it. Thanks for asking about that.
Todd: 34:42 I love the fact that we're talking about a very really high-tech company, Sonora Quest, in terms of the work that you do, bringing in non-traditional medicine as a way to alleviate stress, and really an interesting lesson for other companies too, in terms of maybe things that they want to do for their employees. They're not traditional.
Christina Noble: 35:01 Yep, I think so. Thank you for asking about that one, Todd.
Todd: 35:06 Excellent. We're going to do a quick lightning round with you. I promise this is easy. We'll start with the first one. Easy. First job?
Christina Noble: 35:13 Picking berries.
Todd: 35:14 Picking berries? What did you learn?
Christina Noble: 35:17 I learned that I could eat as many berries as I wanted when I was out there.
Todd: 35:21 That's a good thing and healthy.
Christina Noble: 35:25 If you didn't bring your lunch, there were berries. Yeah, to be fair, that was a really, really hard job. I started that in fourth grade. That was the law in Oregon. They would ship you out on a bus in the summer, and then you would go out and pick berries. Yeah, I learned the value of hard work, and I learned what it meant to save even if it was, for a full pallet of berries, I still remember I was paid four dollars, so that would be tons of baskets of berries, and I was paid four bucks, but from there, you learn the value of work.
Todd: 36:04 You bet. I'm sure when you have berries now, you appreciate the fact that there's some people out there doing that work, right?
Christina Noble: 36:09 Yes. I was also a waitress. I think everybody should work in retail. I think everyone needs to work in food service. My son right now is working at a large grocery chain in our area. Both of my sons did. I think that's where you build your grit, your foundation.
Todd: 36:26 Yeah, it's humbling.
Christina Noble: 36:26 Yeah, very.
Todd: 36:27 Okay, so now you can't say your current job, and I know Dave Dexter would probably disagree, but tell us dream job.
Christina Noble: 36:36 Gosh, I would love to be an astronaut.
Todd: 36:38 An astronaut?
Christina Noble: 36:40 Yeah. My favorite movie is Apollo 13.
Todd: 36:43 Apollo's a great movie.
Christina Noble: 36:44 Because, well, I love adventure. I was just sharing with a friend of mine, we went skiing last week, and it was a complete whiteout and you couldn't see where you were going. For me, an astronaut is the ultimate in exploration and risk taking. I've skydive, so it's that. It's like what's out there? Yeah.
Todd: 37:07 I like that.
Christina Noble: 37:07 I don't know if they'd take me. I'm probably over the age requirement.
Todd: 37:10 No, of course not. That's the right answer. You got the jackpot. Okay, and then the final one is Derrick Hall calls you and says, "We're going to put you on the roster of the Diamondbacks," what's your walk on music as you go at the plate?
Christina Noble: 37:23 Oh, my gosh. God. I don't know the title of it, but the main line is, "This girl is on fire."
Todd: 37:32 Okay, there we go.
Christina Noble: 37:32 I don't know what song that is.
Todd: 37:35 Well, maybe we can put it in the music. Yeah. Well, I want to thank you for joining us. I want to thank you for your leadership, your friendship, and we aren't going to let you go far.
Christina Noble: 37:47 Thank you, Todd. I appreciate. Thanks for the opportunity. This is good, Todd.
Todd: 37:50 Excellent. Thank you.