In today's episode, host Matt Horine interviews Tom Welge, CEO of Gilster-Mary Lee, and Troy Compardo, CEO of the Boone Center, about workforce innovation through employing people with disabilities and neurodiverse individuals. Welch shares Gilster-Mary Lee’s evolution as a long-standing private label food manufacturer and how labor shortages drove efforts starting in 2019 to recruit and support employees with autism through manager training, better job definition, and role matching, resulting in 21 neurodiverse employees and strong retention and culture benefits. Codo explains Boone Center’s mission since 1959, its pivot to contract packaging, and current operations employing 185 adults with developmental disabilities, plus community placements and job coaching. They describe a partnership sparked by a need for e-commerce fulfillment and discuss misconceptions, scalable practices, and future goals including broader adoption, career advancement, and addressing transportation barriers.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and Theme

01:14 Meet Tom Welge

02:17 Labor Challenges at Gilster

02:59 Meet Troy Compardo

04:43 Boone Center Mission

06:31 Gilster Food Manufacturing

08:22 Partnership Origin Story

11:54 Building Inclusive Jobs

14:47 Myths and Retention Wins

16:50 Systems That Sustain

19:04 Scaling the Model Nationwide

Workforce Innovation in Manufacturing: Gilster Mary Lee and Boone Center on Inclusion, Retention, and Productivity