"Discipline trumps talent, every time."Dan Ball didn't plan on engineering, a blown-out shoulder his senior year sent him to West Point instead. Decades later he's a retired Army officer and Professor of Practice running Texas A&M's Engineering Academy, a program that's grown enrollment 200% and opened engineering to students who never thought they had a shot.What we get into:

• Building access: how the Academy model reaches first-gen and Pell-eligible students
• Communication over GPA: the real predictor of engineering career success
• Transformational vs. servant leadership, and the young-commander story behind it
• Discipline, and why "life is not linear"

Show notes & resources: between2cones.com

"You've cracked the code on how to have data-driven vibes."

How does a state DOT rack up 18 million views on a Bigfoot webcam post, and back it up with real strategy instead of just luck? Ryan Overton (Director of Communications) and RB McKeon (Northwest Region Communications Manager) at Washington State Department of Transportation join Mandy and Trish to break down how good comms work actually happens: gut instinct first, data second.

What we get into:- The vibes-to-data pipeline: how WashDOT turns playful, viral-minded posts into decisions backed by real numbers- First responders you don't see: why maintenance crews deserve the same respect as fire and EMS- The tyranny of the urgent: what it costs to run comms for an entire state's roads- From news desk to DOT: Ryan's path from weather anchor to Director of Communications

Show notes & resources: between2cones.com

What happens when you throw away the corporate buzzwords and look at leadership through a purely human lens? In this episode of Between Two Cones, Trish and Amanda sit down with Brandye Hendrickson, Deputy Executive Director of Planning and Administration at TxDOT. Brandye takes us on her incredible career journey, starting from an entry-level HR position in Indiana to leading a massive highway district as its first female director, serving as the Acting Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration in Washington DC, and eventually landing in Texas. Brandye shares the exact moment her famous career mantra, "Work hard and be nice," was born out of an exhausting strategic planning session where the snacks had run out. We dive into why the best systems builders are the ones who focus on human connections, why you don't need an engineering degree to change a transportation culture, and why she never takes a working elevator for granted. It is an episode packed with real-talk leadership insights for everyone working upstream in state service.