Podcast
Comic Book and Children’s Book Author Greg Burnham
Published
11 months agoon
Appearing at MomoCon Memorial Day Weekend 2024
Greg Burnham, a Norcross-based comic book and children’s book author who is attending this month’s Momocon over Memorial Day Weekend, spoke with Rico Figliolini this week. They talked about his recent contributions to comic anthologies Milestone Initiative (featuring Icon), Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun (featuring Superman), and DC Power 2024 – and, his latest children’s book, Swim, Kelly! Swim! They also talked about collaborating with artists, crafting compelling characters, feedback from beta readers, and the evolving landscape of diversity and representation in comics, stressing the importance of authentically empowering marginalized voices to shape narratives.
Related Links:
MomoCon Website: https://www.momocon.com/
Greg Burnham Facebook: / gregburnhambooks
Tuskegee Heirs
Children’s Books
Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Greg Burnham: Comic Book and Children’s Book Author
00:02:25 – Collaborative Indie Comics Creation
00:04:51 – Crafting Captivating Visual Narratives
00:06:53 – Learning the Publishing Process
00:07:56 – The Story of Solace: A Collaborative Comic
00:09:41 – Crafting a Spooky Superman Story
00:12:48 – Navigating Creative Collaboration
00:14:53 – Balancing Indie Work and Deadlines
00:16:55 – Coaching Basketball and Crafting Characters
00:18:56 – Crafting Authentic Characters: Balancing Inspiration and Individuality
00:21:05 – Crafting Complex Characters
00:24:35 – Navigating Diversity and Stereotypes in Comics and Media
00:29:57 – Unreal Engine 5 and the Blurred Lines of Reality
Podcast Transcript:
Rico Figliolini 0:00:26
Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEbb. And I have a great guest today, Norcross comic book children’s book author Greg Burnham. Thanks for joining me, Greg. Appreciate you being here.
Greg Burnham 0:00:40
Thank you for having me.
Rico Figliolini 0:00:42
Yeah, no, this is great. This is like, you know, I love, I’ve loved comic books since I was ten years old or younger. Mainly Marvel. DC also a little bit, but Marvel was always my best. And then graphic novels as I got older and they got into trends. But we have Greg here. He’s been an author, writer for quite a bit for a couple of decades. Right.
Greg Burnham 0:01:05
I think about it, well, a little bit over a decade. I started with the children’s books. I’ve been writing my whole life. Professionally, like a little over a decade.
Rico Figliolini 0:01:16
Okay. Okay. Well, we’re going to talk a bit about that. What got you into this and stuff? So we’re the. So let me just say that we’re ahead of MomoCon. That’s going to be coming Memorial Day weekend. It’s actually running four days, May 24 through the 27th. Greg is going to be at that. This is why we’re interviewing him also. So looking forward to meeting you in person, possibly when I come out and visit, it’s going to be at the Georgia World Congress center. It’s considered the largest gaming event in the southeast. But, you know, like any of these, there’s artists alleys, there’s all sorts of things going on in cosplay. There’s a lot of things going on at MomoCon. So it’s going to be an interesting four days. So I’m looking forward to it. I’m sure you will be, too. What days would you be there, Greg?
Greg Burnham 0:02:03
Oh, the entire time.
Rico Figliolini 0:02:05
Okay.
Greg Burnham 0:02:06
MomoCon is. It’s one of our, it’s our, one of our home conventions, obviously, but it’s also one of my favorite. So, yeah, we’re there the whole time, actually.
Rico Figliolini 0:02:18
What are you going to be doing? Where can people find you?
Greg Burnham 0:02:21
No, we’re going to be in the artist alley. And I would have to search. I just show up. But I think they told us our tables. I want to say it’s like, 304.
Rico Figliolini 0:02:32
No, that’s fine. But artist Alley, you’re going to be in, so that’s cool.
Greg Burnham 0:02:35
Artist Alley yeah. So I’ll have. We always have books, posters, other light stickers, some different knickknacks. All the books we’ll be talking about today, I’ll have. And then also, I know I’m doing at least two panels, but it could be more.
Rico Figliolini 0:02:55
I’ll see if I can find those. And I’ll put that in the links below. So whoever’s watching on YouTube, I mean, you can find it there or in the show notes if you go, if you’re visiting the website. So Greg has been doing a lot of indie comic hits that he has under his belt, but he’s also doing work with DC and Marvel. So why don’t we get you to tell us? And by the way, I just recently didn’t get a chance to read a check because it just came in this afternoon, just got one of these. So looking forward to going through that. Tell us a little bit about, I guess let’s talk a little bit about how you got into this. I mean, it’s a challenging job, right? You’re writing. It’s not like a novel. This is collaborative work. So what does that work? How do you do that? How do you handle it, man?
Greg Burnham 0:03:46
It’s usually fun. I think the toughest part is fine. Like, when you’re doing it on the indie side, it’s finding people that are reliable and fun to work with, people that are passionate. Like, as a writer, I always want to deal with artists. I want to make sure that they’re having fun, you know, doing it. So I’m always like, what do you like to draw? Like, are there certain things you think you’re better at? So, you know, once you get, you know, the team together, it’s a blast. It’s just like any other team, really.
Rico Figliolini 0:04:19
I would imagine also for you, envisioning what your characters look like, do you give that input to the artist? Do they give you sketch?
Greg Burnham 0:04:29
Yeah, definitely. The cool. So Marcus Williams, who’s my co creator and the artist for Tuskegee years, he and I, we’ve been working together for decades, you know, like, doing stuff artistically and business wise, so I can, it’s easy for me to, you know, convey it to him. Like, what the character look like this. Give him a couple examples, and we’re good. But then when you’re working with other artists, it’s like, you have to be, like, really, really descriptive. Try to, you know, I’m. I’m the guy. Like, I’ll pull up examples, like, stuff on Google. You know, like, this is the hairstyle you know, this is, you know, the body type even. I do that with, like, backgrounds and scenery sometimes. Like, this will be a cool shot, you know. So trying to help them out as much as possible. And it makes the process a lot more efficient too.
Rico Figliolini 0:05:28
Yeah, I would think. No, that’s great. I do that with photographers sometimes. I show the pictures what I think it should look like and then I tell them and then give me what you think you’re thinking it should look like as you’re there. But, but, yeah, no, that’s great that you’re given direction like that because worst thing to do is getting, is drawing stuff, then all of a sudden having to shift from that.
Greg Burnham 0:05:50
Yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:05:51
So you’ve, you’ve been some of these. So tell us some of the creator owned properties, some of the indie stuff that you’ve been doing. What was your, so what was your first one? Was it Tuskegee airs? Oh, yeah.
Greg Burnham 0:06:03
Comic wise? Well, the way it started, I’m sorry.
Rico Figliolini 0:06:09
Okay.
Greg Burnham 0:06:09
I just got back in town, so please forgive the coughs. Yeah. It started with a book. I always have props at my desk, this book, you know, 20 years ago, over 20 years ago, Marcus and I and another friend, Nicholas, who we created this, but we had no idea what we were doing. People were loving it. People were buying it. We didn’t understand the business side at all. So we had to kind of, we were printing them up at Kinko’s.
Rico Figliolini 0:06:37
Yeah, we did.
Greg Burnham 0:06:41
Yeah, we did everything ourselves. And, like, people were buying it. They were buying it heavy. But we were spending so much money to produce a book that it wasn’t lucrative at all. So we had to kind of step back and kind of learn the business. So I did a couple children’s books. Marcus illustrated those, and then he got in on a comic book called Hero Cats. And he was doing the art for that for a while. But the whole time we’re, like learning publishing, we’re learning comic conventions, you know, who to talk to print wise, all those things. So when we did come up with the idea for Tuskegee airs, we felt confident that we knew how to execute.
Rico Figliolini 0:07:30
At that point and get it printed. I’m assuming you got it printed yourself. It looks great. Great.
Greg Burnham 0:07:35
Yeah. So we used a really good printer out of Canada that prints for, like, the big guys as well.
Rico Figliolini 0:07:42
Okay. Okay.
Greg Burnham 0:07:43
So all that stuff, you know, it’s like learning as you go.
Rico Figliolini 0:07:47
I could tell from the quality. And it’s just I’m, I’m in a nut when it comes to graphics and printing and stuff like that. So I can appreciate the quality that went into this. So you’ve done that. You’ve done the search for SDK Sadika?
Greg Burnham 0:08:03
Yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:08:05
Little Rock files and. Little Rock files and the story of solace. Yeah, I guess.
Greg Burnham 0:08:13
Yeah. So, like, the story of solace, that’s was my brother’s idea. He wrote. He’s had this idea for a long time, and so I just kind of, you know, kind of guided and helped him, you know, making it into a comic because he had written it in prose and. But we always thought it would be a comic. So we have one issue of that. We’re working on the second one now.
Rico Figliolini 0:08:40
Just the Kickstarter we were talking about before. Is that different?
Greg Burnham 0:08:43
Yeah. Well, we did a Kickstarter for that last year. We may do one for the next book, but we’re trying, like, we like to try to have the book finished or have it really close to be finished before we do a crouch one.
Rico Figliolini 0:08:58
Yeah, yeah, no, I can’t imagine because otherwise things will take longer then. And that’s. So I can appreciate that. You’ve done three comic book, three comic anthologies last year, 2020.
Greg Burnham 0:09:10
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Within the last twelve months. One of those was in February. I did DC power, which is like their black history anthology. This is one of the covers. I like the prompts and would. Oh, yeah, I keep props. And so I got to write a mister terrific story. I was super happy because I snuck and brought him to Atlanta. Nobody said I couldn’t do it, so I did it.
Rico Figliolini 0:09:39
But Atlanta’s famous. Yes.
Greg Burnham 0:09:41
Yeah, but, so, yeah, that one was really cool. And then in October, for their Halloween anthology.
Rico Figliolini 0:09:51
Right.
Greg Burnham 0:09:52
They changed the names of these every year. I don’t think I have that one over here, but I did. Ghouls just want to have fun. It’s an anthology.
Rico Figliolini 0:10:03
I think I’ve got. Hold on a second. Let me just bring that up. I think it was this. Maybe that’s not quite the COVID Yeah, that’s the.
Greg Burnham 0:10:12
That’s the main cover right there.
Rico Figliolini 0:10:14
Okay.
Greg Burnham 0:10:15
And, yeah, I got to write a clean page Superman story for that one. Like this. It’s like a spooky. It’s not super extra spooky, you know?
Rico Figliolini 0:10:28
Okay, so how does that work? You have an, you have your own ideas of what you want to do, but now you have this icon, Superman and. Yeah, they’re giving you. I know they’re not giving you totally free reign. I’m sure you got a protective brand maybe, but.
Greg Burnham 0:10:44
But, yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:10:45
How do you handle that? How do you do that when they give you something like that and you go flying.
Greg Burnham 0:10:50
So I think it’s part, I mean, I think for all us nerds, like, if we’ve been reading comics and movie, watching the movies and everything, I feel like you always think about, like, what would I do if I got a chance to tell these characters stories? So I just, I wanted, like, with this one, I wanted to tap in. I mean, I’ve been watching Superman for my entire life in some way. So I wanted to kind of tap into the stuff that I loved about Superman. You know, I loved him and Lois’s interactions and, but I also wanted to tell, like, something. It’s like there every, there’s so many stories. So I was just trying to figure out a way to do something unique. And I think I did that. It wasn’t like it was a ghost, huh? Yes. Well, that even that description they gave is kind of sort of, but not all the way I used, you know, I wanted like a ghost because, you know, you think about who, you know, they say Superman is susceptible to magic. So I figured like a ghost, you know, like, what can he do if he can’t actually make contact with him, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, but it was cool because for these little one off stories, it’s like canon is not, you know, end all, be all. So they’re kind of like, it doesn’t have to, you know, be, you know, perfectly in canons. They made it easier. But there are still, like, there’s a lot of things that you, you know, you have to get, I wouldn’t say approval, but more so, like, certain things they’re not going to really do with Superman versus others.
Rico Figliolini 0:12:38
Okay, well, fun anyway, I would imagine. And I’m sure you got on your stuff.
Greg Burnham 0:12:43
I just, the whole time I’m working on it, I just, you know, have to keep pinching myself. Like, this is Superman.
Rico Figliolini 0:12:53
Okay, so you’ve done that. DC Power 2024. You’re talking a little bit about that milestone initiative. There are other artists that are in there. Do you get a chance to, when you meet other artists, other writers, other creative people, do you guys share notes? Do you like to shop talk?
Greg Burnham 0:13:18
I like to talk more. Not necessarily in general, but we talk about, like, creating one thing I’m always careful of because it’s like we, you know, you soak up so many things subliminally that sometimes something that you heard or you’ve seen could come out accidentally in your own, like, I’ve plenty of times where I come up with an idea and I’m like, oh, this is gonna be great. And I have a rule, like, I’ll come up with the idea. Usually I wait for, like, a couple of weeks, and then I come back and revisit it.
Rico Figliolini 0:13:50
Uh huh.
Greg Burnham 0:13:51
And when I revisit it, I’m like, oh, no, that’s nothing but new skin on this story. Yeah. So I try to, like, you know, keep it more in general, like, about creating stuff like that than sharing notes on what we’re creating.
Rico Figliolini 0:14:10
Gotcha. I’ve heard authors, like, best selling authors and other writers, they don’t accept anyone’s manuscript for that reason.
Greg Burnham 0:14:19
Yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:14:19
Or unsolicited scripts, for that matter. That could be a problem, too, I guess. You know, when you’re balancing creative work, your, your independence and publishers expectations. Right. There’s two different things. We talked about that a little before, just, just before about how it’s easier to do your own stuff because you’ve set your deadlines. You can pick the quality of work, people to collaborate with, but sometimes that may not be the case on the other side of that, where you have publishers expectations, you have to work with people maybe you’re not familiar with.
Greg Burnham 0:14:56
Yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:14:57
How does that work? Is that fun or can that be challenging?
Greg Burnham 0:15:02
For me, it’s fine. So a little bit more about me. Like, I coached youth sports in, you know, Norcross, and I’m not doing it currently, but I did for about 15 years. So I think that one of my strengths is being able to bring people together and figure out how to work with people, you know, in a pleasant kind of way where we’re all moving in, you know, the same thing. So I think I utilized some of that, but I’m, when you’re doing indie stuff, it’s like, typically, you know, there’s going to be a little bit extra leeway, you know, whereas, like, if you’re working with one of the major publishers, it’s like, the deadline is this day and that’s all there is to it. If you can’t have it by this day, they’re going to get somebody else to do it, you know?
Rico Figliolini 0:15:55
Yeah.
Greg Burnham 0:15:56
Yeah. So it’s like just trying to figure out balance. Not to be like a tyrant, but also to be like, we still got to make sure we’re getting it done, so, but it’s, it’s fun. I love collaborating, especially with artists. Love it.
Rico Figliolini 0:16:12
Yeah. I got to believe that you see your stuff visually being rendered is as a whole, that got to be a whole different feeling. Right. You’re writing it, you have it in your head, but that artist is rendering what you’re hopefully pulling out of your head you want. But it’s a whole, it’s almost like me seeing AI art sometimes it’s not the same thing, but, you know, you type in some words and AI will generate a picture. Right. It’s never quite as good as everyone says it is. That’s for sure. I’ve experimented and trust me, it’s. But that’s what you see on Instagram, I guess. But the, so I’m sure it’s exciting to see the rendering of what an artist produces for you.
Greg Burnham 0:17:00
Absolutely.
Rico Figliolini 0:17:02
I was curious, what sports did you coach?
Greg Burnham 0:17:05
I coached mostly basketball. I did baseball some, but it was mostly basketball.
Rico Figliolini 0:17:12
I like the way you were phrasing it before about moving in the right. Sort of in the right. In the same direction or something.
Greg Burnham 0:17:17
Yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:17:18
Getting parents move with you to just competing.
Greg Burnham 0:17:21
Yeah. So, and it’s like if you, if you can do that, you know, coaching twelve, you know, adolescent boys, then, like, you could do a lot of things.
Rico Figliolini 0:17:33
Yeah. Yeah, I would think. And, you know, that’s, that also brings up something else in my mind. When you’re, when you’re writing stories and you have five characters, and then I’m sure some of them are your most favorite characters. Right. More favorite one. How do you know, you have to decide these darlings, how much time they get on that page because you’re not, you know, and do you, it’s just a, that’s an interesting thing, too, to decide that. Well, what is your favorite character or two that you’ve written?
Greg Burnham 0:18:03
Oh, man, I don’t know, because, like, I mean, I love the Tuskegee heirs. Like, it’s like they’re, all of them are like your kids, all the stories. So I love Sadaka from the search for Sadica. I just don’t want to say one’s my favorite and then the other characters attack me in my dreams. But, like, I’m doing this book now called Little Rock Files. It’s like a eighties noir detectives story takes place in the south. And the main character, Owsley, I love, I also love his little sidekick Tia. She’s good. Good fun. So I don’t know, it just kind of depends on the day, I think.
Rico Figliolini 0:18:50
Do you ever, do you ever base these characters on people, you know?
Greg Burnham 0:18:55
Absolutely. So one of my things is so sometimes. So, like, with Tuskegee heirs, I have two kids, Marcus has two kids. So four of the kids are named after our actual real life kids. Now, we, I don’t necessarily, we didn’t, we modeled their look a little bit after them, but their personalities aren’t necessarily the same. But I. One of my things that I want to do, because it’s like, I love creating characters, but I want them to feel, like, organic. I write a lot of female characters, and so I definitely take inspiration from people I know. You know, it could be somebody I went to elementary school with, but I just take those inspirations because I’m always careful. I don’t want characters to be empty and feel like, you know, like, you ever read a comic where you’re like, okay, this sounds like a dude trying to sound like a woman or trying to, you know, I don’t want to be one of those. So I really try to get in. Like, I’m working on a book right now with four girls, superheroes, and I finished the first, you know, like, my first iteration of the script, and I was like, I need to add more, you know, like, depth and more emotional personality to them.
Rico Figliolini 0:20:23
Yeah. Some background, different language. I mean, you want that voice to be individual, right?
Greg Burnham 0:20:29
Yeah. It’s like, I want, like, all your main characters, I want to make sure they have, like, a voice, like, their own distinct kind of way.
Rico Figliolini 0:20:38
So. So the flames of destiny, the first character that I find slip, and he just doesn’t listen. He just wanted to do his own thing. It seems like she pays someone with the kids.
Greg Burnham 0:20:49
No, actually, he’s our. He’s our lone, you know, completely out of thin air guy.
Rico Figliolini 0:20:56
Oh, okay.
Greg Burnham 0:20:57
So, yeah, but he, you know, like, he provide. Like, he’s. People love him. Like, fans all over the place really, really love him, but he’s, you know, got some. He was kind of created to add, like, the, you know, comedy, but he’s also feisty. And as you go, you know, we’ll get more depth and stuff behind him, and readers will understand why he is, you know, how he is.
Rico Figliolini 0:21:27
So do you work through the writing process when you’re doing this? And you said, like, you did the first. Everything goes through drafts, I guess. And you want to continue to add voice and complexity to a character when you’re doing this, do you ever decide. Do you ever decide that maybe a character is not the right character and you have to change it?
Greg Burnham 0:21:52
Yeah. So, yeah, sometimes it’s like I’m hyper vigilant. I utilize sensitivity readers. I have some really good friends that will say, hey, man, this is some crap. Go back to the drone board. Good. They’re not mean people, but I tell them, I want you to talk to me. You know, like, yeah. So usually by the time they actually, like, we get into the scripting and everything. I’m pretty cool. I’m pretty sure, you know, but up until that point, yes. Like, plenty of people get cut, are changed altogether.
Rico Figliolini 0:22:31
Okay, cool. So beta readers and just other people giving advice, that’s a tough thing to find, people willing to give honest advice.
Greg Burnham 0:22:38
To the ones without ego. Like, one of my friends, she’s a really good writer, and she was telling me recently a story about, she gave to one, you know, had a beta reader, and this lady, like, ripped her apart. It’s like, you know, this book doesn’t need to be made. Like, and really, she already has tons of fans. And when she releases the book, it hit, you know, it’s breaking all these sales records and stuff. And it’s like, you know, so you want people that are going to give you, like, the kind of that raw opinion, but not the one with the ego behind it, like, better than you like, because there’s so many, you know, like, readers like different stuff, you know? So just because it doesn’t sit with you doesn’t mean it’s not going to resonate with its intended audience.
Rico Figliolini 0:23:31
You almost have to have thick skin when you get these things back.
Greg Burnham 0:23:34
Yeah. Like one, I think for me, like, one of the things, like, whatever the criticism is, I’m usually okay with it because whatever I showed you in that book, I, it was 100% intentional. It’s, you know, there’s not a lot of, like, ooh, how did that get there? You know? Okay, so I’ve had people that like the way you did, you know, whatever, but then they read the next issue and they’re like, oh, okay, I get why you do. It makes more sense.
Rico Figliolini 0:24:05
So it’s like, yes, they gotta wait. They gotta live through the. Live through it. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, sometimes the backstory comes out later. Right. You wanna give it all at once when we talk about. We talked a little bit before we start about diversity and representation, right. In works, it’s changed over the years. Diversity is a little better now. Certainly better now. I mean, even in probably the sixties and seventies, it wasn’t too much of a stereotype. Although, you know, that’s one of the things you got to worry about, or other writers have to worry about. Stereotyping people does. You don’t mean to. And sometimes the stereotype is meant, right. As a comic, it’s a comic turn or something. Maybe we’re being used in a way, but it’s not long lived in a character. Right. How do you handle that. How do you do, you know, with, with especially this industry. I mean, when you think about comic books, when people think, well, not today, but before comics, comic books was very white, you know, I mean, up until about sixties and seventies, and then there was some diversity that came in. Not a lot, but some black panther, Luke Cage or a bunch of them got more. So, as, you know, X Men came in. So that was supposed to be a thing about diversity, of accepting different people. So. But there’s a lot more indie. Well, there were indie authors back then, too, indie comics, I remember, but, but there’s a lot more now than there were before. And some of them get tv shows, too. So it’s becoming a bit more. A bit more profitable or lucrative to be able to do some of this stuff. Do you see yourself trying to get into, breaking into that, you know, multimedia, just the print?
Greg Burnham 0:25:56
Yeah, definitely. As we go, we’ve had some near misses with certain stuff, but it’s definitely a way that we, you know, would want to move to where because, okay, so with the diversity, it’s like they’re starting to realize that. And I’ve heard this from, like, execs at, like, major publishers, they’re starting to realize that diversity isn’t just putting a character, you know, like, you know, different character in, it’s allowing people to tell their, tell these stories like people, you know, so, you know, instead of dropping a black character in a book, it’s like, allow a black person to tell the story, because that’s when it’s like, you start really getting into diversity representation with stereotypes. If you’re not even aware of all the stereotypes, then, you know, yeah, you might hit one here or there. So it’s good. Like, for us, we want to do, you know, we’d love to get into animation. We’re working on a little bit of animation right now, but we would love to work on a lot of bit. But, you know, it’s very expensive. Our thing is we, we would love to be, we want to be able to kind of guide it. We already know if somebody gives you, you know, millions of dollars to make a cartoon, sure, they’re going to have, you know, the power and, you know, but we want to at least be able to keep it on the rails because we’ve seen so many times, like, I think about teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I, you know, we loved the iteration that came, you know, to animation and everything, but it’s so much different than what the comic was and what the creators I be, you know, what their, you know, dreams about what it would be. It’s just, it was a lot different.
Rico Figliolini 0:28:01
Yeah.
Greg Burnham 0:28:02
And that was, you know, that was an instance where it still was super successful and lucrative, but you can talk to, like, a lot of creators who, like, man, they took my idea and made it terrible, so it flopped in.
Rico Figliolini 0:28:18
Yeah.
Greg Burnham 0:28:19
You didn’t get to control it.
Rico Figliolini 0:28:20
So I think. I think a lot of times when Netflix or other companies get into that, they’re just making more vanilla to just be able to reach a broader audience rather than niching it down, because, you know, it’s telling it, I think telling the stories of, from a diverse background, like you said, you don’t just drop in an indian or a black woman or Hispanic into a story. It needs to come out of their story. Right. It just needs to be. It’s more authentic that way. It’s more interesting. The storytelling is way more interesting to me when it comes out that way then, than someone. I can’t write a black story. Right. I mean, I can’t. Having diversity in the creative process is important, so. And things are becoming better. Animation is actually becoming cheaper and cheaper to make because of digital, all the digital movement that’s going on right now. So it’s gonna be. Give it another five years, you’ll be able to make your animation. 30 minutes show.
Greg Burnham 0:29:24
Yeah, it’s coming. Like, we. We were, we were awarded a bit of a grant from Epic Games to do, like, unreal engine short.
Rico Figliolini 0:29:36
Yeah.
Greg Burnham 0:29:36
So.
Rico Figliolini 0:29:37
Really?
Greg Burnham 0:29:37
Yeah. So we’re working on that. And something else that you might be able to see. We have something cool that we’re going to be. Hopefully we’re going to be dropping at Momocon, so.
Rico Figliolini 0:29:48
Yeah. Okay. I’d love to see that. Unreal engine five. That’s the last one that came out. That last version. It’s unbelievable. It looks so real.
Greg Burnham 0:29:58
Yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:29:58
That you’re stepping into a place that’s just like, my God, you want to be afraid that something’s going to scare the death out of you.
Greg Burnham 0:30:05
Right? I just watched the planet of the apes, the new movie.
Rico Figliolini 0:30:10
I didn’t get a chance.
Greg Burnham 0:30:12
Half the time. I’m like, that’s unreal engine right there. That’s unreal engine. Like, it’s. It’s, like, almost seamless. Like, you can’t.
Rico Figliolini 0:30:21
Yes.
Greg Burnham 0:30:21
Yeah. Like, I can tell because we’re working in it right now, but for, you know, that most people.
Rico Figliolini 0:30:28
Well, I think. No, most people can. I mean, unless you put a person in it, then it becomes these nuances that.
Greg Burnham 0:30:36
Yeah.
Rico Figliolini 0:30:36
That you sort of figure that’s there’s something not quite right there, but I can’t wait for them to do more VR work because unreal engine five can do in real time renderings. I believe, as you. As you move through a story, it’s just so much technology. You can’t even tell what’s real or not anymore. If you’re like the Matrix, almost.
Greg Burnham 0:30:57
Yeah. So. Waiting for this?
Rico Figliolini 0:31:00
Yeah, sure. I’m just tell us the. So you have another book that you’ve done. So we’ve been talking about graphics and comic books. But you did swim, Kelly. Swim truly?
Greg Burnham 0:31:12
Oh, yes.
Rico Figliolini 0:31:13
Very different. So I want to make sure you tell us a bit about that, that, you know, what. What went into that, why you did, why you wrote that one.
Greg Burnham 0:31:22
So, so far, I’ve done three children’s books. Every one of them was based off of, like, an experience from my childhood. And of course they’re based, but I, you know, will make it more fantastic and all that stuff. But this one was a story that actually happened with my brother. And I taught my brother how to swim when he was way too young. So, like, by the time he’s, like, three, he can swim for. So we were at the pool. We’re military kids, and so we were at the pool, and I probably should have been paying more attention to him, but I knew he was good. He was supposed to be in the kiddie pool. And so I look up and there’s a lifeguard blowing. They’re all blowing their whistles, and they’re yelling, get down. And my brother is standing there on the high dive getting ready to jump, and he’s nine years old, and so they’re yelling, telling to get down, he gets down. And at the pool had a rule where in order for you to jump off the diving boards, if they felt like, you know, you were like, it was like you’re in danger, they would make you swim all the way across the pool in the deep end. So it’s like 10ft, you know, you gotta swim across. So I convinced them to let us do it. They let me swim beside him, you know? Cause it’s like my mom will, you know, disown me if something happens to my brother at the pool. Yeah. So, you know, we swam, and it was just fun because, like, the people, like everybody, it’s like people got out of the pool and everybody’s just cheering for him. His name is Kelly. It’s totally real. So. So I told that story, but then I also added, like, little things, you know, about swimming. The goal was to like, demystify swimming. So if, you know, it’s funny because I’ve had adults that are like, man, this is for me, you know, because people, people want to learn how to swim, but, you know, the older you get things like swimming, they seem like, that’s not real. I can’t do that. My body can’t do that. So that was the goal, is to kind of demystify it a little bit to where, you know, kids will understand. If you learn how to do it, you believe in yourself. You could be a great swimmer like Kelly.
Rico Figliolini 0:33:43
So it’s a great cover, too. Yeah.
Greg Burnham 0:33:47
My friend Michaela Moore, she’s an absolute jewel. I met her at a comic convention, and, you know, we, like, this became, you know, like, we would see him all the time. She’s younger, so it’s like we always try to, you know, not necessarily mentor all the time, but just encourage. And one day I was like, hey, have you ever done a children’s book? She’s like, sure, I’ve done one, and we ended up with this one.
Rico Figliolini 0:34:16
That’s cool. It’s good to work with people. We’re at the end of our time together. Greg, it’s been, yeah, it’s been great talking with you about your work, about the business. I love talking shop, finding out how people are creative and doing stuff. So you’re going to be a MomoCon this Memorial Day weekend, all four days from May 24 to May 27 at the Georgia World Conference center. And you’re going to be at artist alley and some panels from what you said before. So we’re going to try to find those links to the panels. Get that there. Otherwise, if you’re looking to go to MomoCon, everyone, momocon.com is where you should go. Buy your tickets. You could get day tickets weekend. I think it’ll four day passes also. It’s going to be a great event. Artists like Greg there and say, hi, especially if you’ve seen this podcast. But thank you, Greg. Appreciate you being with us.
Greg Burnham 0:35:16
No problem. Thank you for having me.
Rico Figliolini 0:35:19 Thank you, eve
Related
Business
Expanding Horizons: How KGM Technologies Balances Defense, Medical, and Precision Manufacturing
Published
4 days agoon
March 27, 2025Kyle Grob on innovation, diversification, and the future of skilled trades
In this episode of UrbanEBB, host Rico Figliolini speaks with Kyle Grob, CEO and founder of Peachtree Corners-based KGM Technologies, a precision manufacturing company specializing in firearm suppressors and expanding into medical device production. Kyle shares insights on growing a business during COVID-19, navigating ATF regulations, and how Georgia fosters innovation in manufacturing.
The conversation also explores the future of skilled trades, the challenges of hiring motivated workers, and KGM’s commitment to workforce development through partnerships with vocational schools. Whether you’re interested in business growth, advanced manufacturing, or the evolving job market, this episode is packed with valuable insights.
Key Takeaways & Highlights:
- Adapting to Change – How KGM transitioned from automotive and defense contracts to firearm suppressor manufacturing and medical devices.
- The Impact of ATF Regulations – Digital processing has drastically reduced wait times for suppressor purchases.
- Workforce Challenges – The decline of skilled trades and the difficulty of hiring motivated employees in manufacturing.
- Medical Technology Expansion – KGM’s role in producing stroke rehabilitation devices and scaling medical manufacturing.
- Networking & Diversification – The importance of industry connections in finding new opportunities.
- The Value of Trade Schools – How partnerships with Maxwell High School and other vocational programs are shaping the next generation of skilled workers.
- Patents & Innovation – KGM’s goal of filing at least one new patent every year.
- The Role of Suppressors – Their use in law enforcement, hunting, and protecting hearing health.
Transcript:
00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini
Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Urban Ebb here in the city of Peachtree Corners, just north of Atlanta. I appreciate you joining us. We have a great guest today, a Peachtree Corners-based business, very different and unique industry, Kyle Grob. Appreciate you being with me, Kyle.
00:00:18 – Kyle Grob
Oh, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.
00:00:19 – Rico Figliolini
It’s going to be a good discussion on a bit of company, a bit of work, and manpower, the lack of. But before we get into that, I just want to say thank you to two of our sponsors, EV Remodeling, Inc., and the owner, Eli, who lives here in Peachtree Corners also. His family does. And he does great work from design to build. Whole house renovation, or if you need an extension on the house, he’s the guy to look for. They’ve done over 260 such renovation work. So check them out, evremodelinginc.com. And then also Vox Pop Uli also family owned, also in Peachtree Corners. And they’re a company that if you have a brand and if you’re a business and you need to bring that brand to life, pretty much you can do it. 1,600 vehicle wraps I think this past year anything you can want, imprinted, embroidered, silk screen, whatever it is. If you have a logo and you want it on an object of any sort, challenge them. I can’t tell you how many different things they’ve put logos on. So all great stuff. Check them out, voxpopuli.com, where you can find them. So, now that I’ve taken care of the sponsors who support us for our journalism and podcasts. Kyle is the founder and currently CEO of KGM Technology. Yeah. So, based in Peachtree Corners, tell us just quickly a little bit about what the company is.
00:01:42 – Kyle Grob
So, the company started in 2012 as a kind of a fabrication, job shop, machining fabrication. And we kind of evolved out of the automotive space and got into the defense world and slowly grew over years. And then we moved into this building in 2019 and have been growing ever since.
00:02:03 – Rico Figliolini
2019, COVID.
00:02:05 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so COVID was actually very good for us. It was wide open, running multiple shifts. While many businesses were shut down, we couldn’t hire enough people, we couldn’t build enough products.
00:02:17 – Rico Figliolini
We’ll get into that because it may be a bit of what you’re going on now. So your business is military suppressors, which is the biggest part. You told me once at one point when I took a tour earlier, a week ago, you said we’re precision manufacturers.
00:02:34 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so the back end, the wholeness of the company is precision manufacturing. Our forward-facing product is suppressors. That’s mainly what we sell to commercial, law enforcement, military, overseas, all kinds of stuff like that. But we’re in all kinds of stuff. Contract manufacturing, medical device manufacturing and supply, all the way down to machining and research and development. And it’s just a little bit of everything. But again, forward facing is the product line, yes.
00:03:02 – Rico Figliolini
Sure. And you’ve done this since 2019, right? Actually before that.
00:03:07 – Kyle Grob
Well, no, no. Yeah. So we started suppressors in 2015, 2016. And then, but it was kind of a side product to what we were doing. Really grew in 2019. And then really kind of just kept growing through COVID. And this is kind of where we are now.
00:03:22 – Rico Figliolini
Interesting. So your family is steeped in military? In all branches, I guess?
00:03:25 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. Army and Navy.
00:03:27 – Rico Figliolini
Army and Navy. And you hire veterans?
00:03:29 – Kyle Grob
We hire a lot of veterans. We have a lot of veterans that work for us. I try to hire as many as we can. They make very good employees. But, you know, it could probably be a whole nother podcast in itself, what happens to veterans when they come back from service. And so we try to search them out and give people a chance.
00:03:34 – Rico Figliolini
Getting involved in this type of market since, you know, you started, has it changed in the way you do business?
00:04:03 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, because we are so highly regulated from, you know, the ATF regulates us pretty heavily. The ability for consumers to essentially purchase the product and all the paperwork and background check that goes in it has evolved since we started. It used to be nine months, 12, 15 months to get a product. So you buy it, wait for your paperwork for a year or more. You’d almost forget about the product. And then all of a sudden it’d pop up one day. Well, last year, everything went digital. And so now everything’s digital. You go from months or years wait time to days, hours, weeks.
00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini
So you can order this stuff online and get it shipped to you?
00:04:41 – Kyle Grob
No, so you can’t really ship it to your house. So you still have to go to a dealer or go like that. You’re still submitting fingerprints. You’re still submitting your photos. But the process is now all digitized. There’s no manual entry on the ATF side. Everything goes through much faster. And again, we’ve seen, you know, three hour wait times. Where you fill out your paperwork, go to a long lunch and all of a sudden your suppressor is approved.
00:05:04 – Rico Figliolini
So if you have a gun permit or a carry permit, does that make it easy?
00:05:08 – Kyle Grob
It doesn’t really because it’s a completely separate background check. So this, every suppressor you purchase is its own background check. So you treat it like a firearm purchase every single time, except it goes through a kind of a different, it goes through the FBI on the NIC side, which is their background check service. But it goes through separate checking on the ATF side as well. So it is a little bit more involved process than buying a handgun or a rifle or something like that. But similar agencies touch it, I guess.
00:05:38 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. This being the state of Georgia, other states have different ways of doing things. You’ve been to trade shows. You’re involved in the industry a bit. Do you see Georgia being a good place to do business here in this market?
00:05:52 – Kyle Grob
Georgia is a very friendly state. And even just manufacturing in general, you’ve seen all the companies that have moved here. You have, you know, most major automotive companies are either building or about to build here. You got SK batteries. You have some big companies that are moving to Georgia. And then film. I mean, film is massive here now with all the tax breaks. And so you see a lot of stuff coming to Georgia from an industry standpoint, but it’s also very firearms friendly. There’s a lot of big companies here in Georgia. You have Glock here in Georgia. You have Daniel Defense. You have a lot of really big companies. I think Remington’s got a place here. So it is very, you know, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina. There’s a lot of very friendly states when it comes to manufacturing and firearms.
00:06:35 – Rico Figliolini
So how do you go about selling your product then? I mean, if you go to trade shows, RFPs?
00:06:40 – Kyle Grob
So on the military side, it’s more RFPs, it’s more contract basis. We partner with a lot of firearms companies because a lot of submissions for weapons systems require, you know, we’re viewed as kind of an add-on to a weapon system. Yeah, it’s an accessory. And then on the law enforcement side, we go demos, we have dealers. And then on the commercial side, we have distributors that distribute to dealers. And then we have dealers that essentially are walk-in brick and mortar stores. And we sell directly to them as well.
00:07:07 – Rico Figliolini
So for most people that may not know, why would someone want a suppressor on the gun? Why would a police officer, let’s say a SWAT team, want to suppress it? What makes it?
00:07:17 – Kyle Grob
Really the biggest one is health and safety. It’s the biggest one. So from an officer-involved shooting, or say if he shoots without ear protection, every shot is permanent hearing damage. So if he shoots one in his entire career, he’s permanent hearing damage, he’s on disability from an auditory standpoint. You look at, you know, what you could do, and then you look at, you know, God forbid all the school shootings we’ve had and school resource. When you shoot inside of a building, it’s even magnified. So it’s very, very loud in general, and then you put it inside of a building and it gets worse. So there’s been cases where you’ve seen lawsuits where, you know, a SWAT team or someone’s gone into a house or a building and essentially, you know, saved someone, but they discharged their short barrel rifle inside the house. And then everyone that’s not wearing ear protection, i.e. the family, they’re all deaf or hearing damage, and they end up suing the city. And we see it a lot. And so from a health and safety standpoint, there’s that. You could look at accuracy. And then you look at, on the hunting side of being more courteous to neighbors. It allows you to hunt closer to, you know, other people and stuff like that. Yeah, so there’s so many things that add to it. And then you add, you know, on the military side, it helps with being able to, you know, hide your location and just be more effective. Suppress flash and stuff like that. So a myriad of uses, but really the bigger one is the health and safety side of things.
00:08:40 – Rico Figliolini
I was speaking to a person today that on his old farm he used to shoot his rifle and stuff. And he told me he said, this ear? Pretty much gone. He says now hearing aid. Because he didn’t think that he needed a, you know plugs or anything. A suppressor probably would have helped him. Well at least the plugs might have helped a little bit. But no one thinks about that.
00:08:59 – Kyle Grob
You don’t, you don’t. And you look at the law enforcement side and kind of the heat of moment, you don’t think about it. It’s not something, you’re either fighting for your life or, you know, your split moment decision. Like you don’t think about putting your plug on or throwing a plug in or something like that. It’s a split second decision. So with suppressors, you can really mitigate a lot of that risk. Now, does it make it the Hollywood movie side? No. The only thing that gets even close to that is 22. And it’s because the subsonic is very quiet like that. Any centerfire rifle cartridge you’re never going to get away from supersonic crack. It’s only so quiet you can get it. It is a suppressor, not a silencer. And that’s a probably a very heated topic. It’s a movie thing, yes. But in practical application they do a lot of work for the size of the product and what you use it for.
00:09:50 – Rico Figliolini
So now going from suppressors to the medical industry. You know when you showed me around and you talked to me about mechanical therapeutic systems for a company you’re doing work for inside the perimeter. That you almost had to double the size of your floor space, essentially.
00:10:07 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so it’s kind of an interesting story. We go back to, we’re a precision manufacturing company. We make contract stuff. We do defense. We do a little bit of everything. And it was kind of a friend of a friend. Their business was scaling and really needed help scaling the manufacturing side of their product. And it was really a right place, right time. It kind of fit in our warehouse. While it’s not exactly what we make, precision assembly, scaling, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, all that stuff. That’s what we do every day. So I’m just building something a little different versus what I have been building. So it was a great opportunity. Again, the right side of the perimeter is Atlanta company. And it was just a really good right place, right time. Good fit for what they were looking for. Good fit for us on the diversification side. So it’s just it really worked and we’re growing weekly. Yeah, we’re blowing walls down and yeah we’ve tripled the space twice now since we yarded in like October of last year. So it’s very very quick.
00:11:07 – Rico Figliolini
When I walked through and you gave me the tour, I mean there were quite a few people just in that place doing the assemblage. I think you even told me, you said well, how far down can you? Millionth of an inch? Precision?
00:11:21 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so it’s like our EDMs and some of our stuff, we calculate microns, millionth of an inch.
00:11:27 – Rico Figliolini
So that’s an industry, obviously, you want to get more into.
00:11:30 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, it is. It was interesting. I had kind of heard about the medical manufacturing side, and the more we dug into it, the more I realized how many companies like the company we’re helping are out there. And they have a great idea, a great concept, but they’re either doctors or they’re pcs or biomedical. You know they’ve developed great product but they don’t know the manufacturing side or they don’t know how to scale the logistics. Yes, scaling. So it’s, there’s so many good ideas that maybe never ever come to market or never could reach the potential they could because they don’t know the back end. They don’t know the manufacturing, they don’t know how to. Make five of something is very different than making 500, is very different than making 5,000. And it’s just a different skill set. It’s a different knowledge base. And we’re very good at it. And it was a really, really good fit. And it’s something we believe in. We believe in the medical stuff as much as we believe in the defense. Every day we’re building something to help someone else.
00:12:29 – Rico Figliolini
And to get people to understand a little bit, this particular thing was a therapeutic.
00:12:34 – Kyle Grob
Yeah it’s a, without going into too much detail, it’s a stroke therapy device. It’s used for rehab of stroke patients so that they can actually rehab at home versus having to go into a therapy office. And so it’s just grown immensely and that’s, the product’s done well.
00:12:50 – Rico Figliolini
So how do you go after that market? You know, so if another business person, you know, when you, when you diversify, it’s not easy, right? You’re all set in one way. You have 100% of the direction going one way. How do you do that? If another company was listening to this, how would they be able to diversify? So what challenges did you see?
00:13:10 – Kyle Grob
The challenges, like I said, we very much stumbled into this one. Not saying we weren’t looking, and that’s kind of how we did it, but honestly, it was network. And the guy that owns this company, owns another company and he’s an investment group with another other. So a lot of it is networking and being open and willing to take on a challenge that you may not. Be like, oh I have no business in that, well if you’re good at what you do over here and you can see you can cross the lines you can compare, you’d be surprised what you can do. And then you go to the trade shows. Like there are medical device trade shows. Go to those and walk around and say, hey I’m a manufacturer, or I’m this, I’m looking at getting into this market. Do you have a need for X, what I do? Putting yourself out there and going like, look, this is out of my market, but I’m good at this. I would like to try this and just be open and willing to, A, to fail because you’re going to fail more than you succeed, but be willing to try. And that’s the big thing was the leap. Like we took a leap to do this. I had a good feeling that we could do it. But at the end of the day, like you still have to take the leap.
00:14:17 – Rico Figliolini
You’re a CEO now and you were a founder, but you were on the board. You were chairman of the board?
00:14:22 – Kyle Grob
No, no, not chair on the board. I was more on the technical side. So as we were growing the business, I was CTO. And so we were heading kind of down a different path and it was just a the board kind of wanted to see a different change in the way the company was run. And again, my background, why I said, I wasn’t running the day to day, most more on the manufacturing side and technology and patents and stuff like that. And so, board made a shift and I took back over the company. You know, I go from running it many years ago, to running again. Which happens a lot in small companies. And it was a, we wanted to head down the manufacturing path and that’s what I know. So we made a change and I stepped back in last year and been riding the train ever since.
00:15:11 – Rico Figliolini
Good, good. It’s great to have a company expanding and doing well in Peachtree Corners.
00:15:13 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, yeah. Happy to be here.
00:15:17 – Rico Figliolini
Being an employer of veterans, being steeped in family military and stuff, you do outreach, you do community fundraising in that field, in that area.
00:15:29 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, we do, again, more in the defense space, but we do some charity work with several organizations. And again, we donate product. We do stuff for raffles and fundraisers, and we do a lot of stuff like that. Because I really do believe in giving back to the market and giving back to those people. So it’s something we do a decent amount of. I would like to do more this year. That’s kind of what we’re trying to find some other organizations that do stuff with. But we try to do as much as we can. There’s one group, and I’ll be happy to say the name, but Guardian Group. And it’s Guardian Long Range. And they have a precision rifle series. It’s a shooting competition, but it’s for fun. And they have four or five stops all around the U.S. And we outfitted all their rifles that they let people use for trials and stuff like that. We outfitted all the suppressors. So maybe their first competition experience is with a suppressed rifle. So we do stuff with them every year. A guy named Gary is the one that founded that. So great group. But he has a lot of, most of his stuff is for foster kids. He’s a foster kid himself, and he does, every single dime of that goes right into helping foster kids, helping place foster kids, and stuff like that.
00:16:41 – Rico Figliolini
Wow, that is neat. That is cool. I didn’t think about that. So, you know, leadership, company, what comes to mind when you’re, you know, when you’re looking ahead for the next few years?
00:16:55 – Kyle Grob
Really, my biggest push is diversification. Is trying to grow the medical side for sure, grow my contract manufacturing, and really try to build some stable streams around. Everyone knows the firearms industry goes up and down. It’s always cyclical. And so trying to build a larger company where I can have some overlying pathways and diversify and stuff like that so that I can clip the waves and be able to grow the business without relying as much on a very cyclical market. So that’s really the big try. We’re pushing a lot of technology. We’re trying for a patent a year, or a patent every two years. Yeah, we’re four deep already, with two more applied. So we do a lot on the patent side, a lot on the testing and development side. But yeah, growing the medical is really the big one I’m focusing on in the next year or so.
00:17:45 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, one of the things you have in the house is a firearm range. You told me, and you can put a .50 caliber?
00:17:52 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so we shoot up to .50 caliber indoors. Yeah, so we have a, it’s a lab as much as it is a range where we can do all of our instrumentation and we develop based on data. So we use it. We shoot it in almost every single day. We’re doing testing and development. We do, you know, demos for customers and stuff like that. But yeah, we’ve, pretty extensive room back there.
00:17:54 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, it’s amazing. Small. Smaller than this conference room.
00:17:58 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, yeah. It’s not, it’s not very big. It’s not a big long range, but it’s heavily instrumented.
00:18:22 – Rico Figliolini
I can’t even imagine shooting a 50 caliber in there, how that would sound.
00:18:25 – Kyle Grob
Oh it, unsuppressed it’ll lift the ceiling tiles. It’ll pressurize the room, yeah so.
00:18:31 – Rico Figliolini
So lots of work yeah expanding you’re looking towards the future and stuff. One of the biggest problems I guess, and we’re going to go right into that is finding employees. Finding skilled employees or motivated employees. Maybe not even skilled, maybe motivated. How does that?
00:18:49 – Kyle Grob
I’ll trade motivation for skill. I’ll trade because what we do is kind of unique. Even on the manufacturing side, we have very nice machines. We do things to a very, very high tolerance. And even with machining background, we’ve found that some people have either preconceived notions or bad habits or stuff like that. We’re getting to the point now where I would rather have someone that has a little bit of mechanical aptitude, some basic knowledge, or someone out of trade school, and I’d rather just teach them. And finding someone that’s willing, even on the medical side, I’d rather have someone come in that wants to just come in and work every single day, take pride in the product they put out. You don’t have to even be that knowledgeable about what we do. I’ll train you and do whatever we need to do, but someone to actually come in and do it is one of the biggest struggles we find. We’ve had you know, multiple staffing agencies and all stuff like that. And we have people, we had some people the other day that came in for four hours, just left during lunch, never came back. And yeah, just it’s, the workforce is, it’s been disappointing, I guess. And seeing, especially on the technical side, I mean, the craves, the trades, the crafts, like a lot of that stuff is dying. Like people are not, you look in the like tool and dye. Oh, that’s enough. That’s no, so most people don’t know how injection mold stuff works and like that. The craftsmen that build those tools, that is a dying art. There’s only one or two schools in the U.S. that do it. I don’t know any of those guys that make less than six figures. None of them. And, you know, you look at plumbers and electricians and welders. I come from a welding background. I knew plenty of welders in the nuclear field that have multiple houses in multiple states. They never wanted for money. They always had plenty of money because it’s such a very small niche thing and there’s not many people that go into it. And so what we found with the growing, we’ve had to do a lot of automation because we cannot get the people. So we’re putting robotics in, we’re putting automation system in just because I have a certain number of parts that I have to make a day and we’re not hitting the numbers with the people we have. And it’s really hard to find people that want to come in and work. And we have a climate control facility, the nicest machines, our oldest machine, CNC machine is from 2018. It’s the oldest machine we have in the whole building. Most stuff is within two years old. So we work highest machines, highest quality product this, and just having someone come in every single day and want to work. It’s been very difficult to find. And that’s it. It’s been. I guess upsetting a little bit of how hard it’s been.
00:21:25 – Rico Figliolini
I think we talked a little bit about that when I was here last time. And you’re on the board of Maxwell High School Technical, I think?
00:21:33 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, so Maxwell High School, it’s a vocational high school, essentially. It’s a trade high school. They’re over in Lawrenceville, I think. So high school kids in Gwinnett County, if they want to go to that program, I want to say it’s junior and senior year. If they are heading down that path, they essentially will get bused to Maxwell for half their day and come back. And they have machining and welding, hvac, nursing, culinary, carpentry, all kinds of stuff. And you can get some vocational certificates in high school over there. And so I sit on the board over there and I help advise of curriculum of what do kids need to learn if they want to head down this path? They want to head down, I don’t care if it’s machining or engineering or anything like that. Like what are basic skills. I mean we have people that come in their 20s that don’t know what a screwdriver is. I mean, it’s like, that sounds crazy, but until you meet people and you know, I don’t think the school systems are doing people favors. And so I’ve been really trying to help where I can and you know, try to like, look, let’s try to teach people young. I didn’t have that when I was in school. Like I had to learn everything the hard way.
00:22:42 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. And you were talking about this. You started at 15, I think.
00:22:46 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. So I started machining in, you know, high school. I started welding at 12. I grew up on a farm.
00:22:51 – Rico Figliolini
12.
00:22:52 – Kyle Grob
And so it’s one of those that, you know, I had a very good upbringing. Like I was shown, my great grandfather was a master carpenter. Great uncle was a master machinist. Like I grew up in a trade family. And so like, I got exposed to that stuff very, very young. I was very lucky. A lot of people aren’t like that. Most of their parents are maybe in IT or finance, and they want to go be a machinist or be a welder or something like that. So there’s no, you know, maybe the parents don’t know how to get into that. And so the kids find out at a later date. Well, what if they could start finding out in high school? They start learning, you know, your STEM schools, your vocational schools, that kind of stuff.
00:23:31 – Rico Figliolini
I think like Paul Duke STEM, for example, they’re a hybrid school, right? So it’s, you have kids that are technically STEM kids, but then you also have other kids who are learning CAD and 3D printing and stuff like that. So more of technical stuff that they can actually leave the high school knowing that stuff and then find the job doing it. So that’s the only place I know that’s like that, short of the Gwinnett Science and Technology High School. I forget where that is now. But when I grew up, I mean, granted this, you know, my high school was 50 years ago. Half a century. That’s horrible. Okay. But when I grew up, we had shop classes. So metal class, printing class. In fact, I took printing. I should have taken the auto class because that really works now. But I took printing. And when I was going to college, I worked at the print shop right around the corner. So I made good cash because there weren’t that many people that knew it. And I literally could run two or three presses at the same time. They were small presses. But there were even people back then that would be like, well, what are you in a rush for? Why are you doing what you’re doing? And I’m like, because I’m getting bored running this long run in this one press. I could do this other one while this is going. So it is to some degree motivation, some degree technical knowledge.
00:24:50 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, but a lot of it still drive. Strive.
00:24:53 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. For sure. To be able to make that money. I mean, most parents think, well, I don’t know about most parents. What I think is people got into this four-year college degree thing. Which is way more expensive now than it used to be. And you’re looking at people, who was it, the head of OpenAI, was essentially saying you don’t have to go, the head of NVIDIA was. It was like you used to want to be able to send your kid to do computer programming. And he’s essentially saying, you know, you don’t need to be doing that anymore because it can be done in plain english on OpenAI, essentially. So where are they going?
00:25:36 – Kyle Grob
Good question.
00:25:37 – Rico Figliolini
I see signing bonuses for 10 grand on HVAC here in the metro area sometimes. How do you solve that? I mean, you’re on the board of the high school, but how do you?
00:25:48 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, but it’s one high school. And it’s one high school in a state. And I know there’s other vocational schools in other states. A lot of it just seems to be the state has to look at it holistically in the whole state. And go like, look, this is worth putting money into. This is not football. This is not baseball. This is not your support sports like that. It is an alternative path that is not your commonplace. So it really has to come. And I’ll give the state of Georgia and even Gwinnett County very, very good accolades of, you know, taking the leap on that school and funding that program and pushing it and keeping to push it and grow it. And so, but it has to start at a state level. The state has to be able to go,this is worth putting money into to future. Because you have to do it now for the kids that are coming up. You know if you want to get, if you want that kid that’s in elementary school right now to look at that that program, it already has to be in place so that he will know about he or she will know about it by the time they get into middle school and then by the time they get in high school they can apply for it.
00:26:50 – Rico Figliolini
I think the stigma, but the stigma needs to go away also, right? Because there’s a stigma of like, you’re not going to college?
00:26:57 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. You’re not going to amount to anything if you don’t go to get a four-year degree.
00:27:02 – Rico Figliolini
And it used to be okay if you knew computer engineering and programming. You’d come out of school. Some people, some leaders in that industry would say, don’t waste the four years. We’ll train you during the four years.
00:27:13 – Kyle Grob
Come work for me now.
00:27:15 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Google used to do that. Some of these other companies started doing away with four-year degree minimums to be able to do that because they weren’t finding what they needed. But now they’re finding it in a different way. But I agree with you. Funding that type of stuff makes a whole lot of sense but it’s taking that stigma away to say, you know.
00:27:33 – Kyle Grob
It’s okay to be a plumber. It’s okay to be a carpenter. It’s okay to, you know wash cars. Because I have a friend of mine who started washing cars then he managed a car wash. Now he owns six of them.
00:27:46 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah again, it’s a bit of drive.
00:27:50 – Kyle Grob
Yeah, but he had the drive and he knew that he had to start somewhere. And I think a lot of people are scared of starting at the bottom of something. And but, it’s one of those that like they’re all these crafts all these trades are very inviting they want people. They’re begging for people to come work.
00:28:06 – Rico Figliolini
You know what? You don’t you don’t need to drive as much. You need to be able to, I think take pride in what you do. You don’t need to go into something and say, well, I want to start my own business because some people don’t want to. They want to do a nine-to-five. That’s fine. They can make lots of money doing nine-to-five.
00:28:22 – Kyle Grob
They can make good money doing nine-to-five, yeah.
00:28:25 – Rico Figliolini
Check out the company. Alright, so we’ve sort of come to the end of our interview. Is there anything I’ve left out that we haven’t talked about that do you think you should mention?
00:28:37 – Kyle Grob
No, I said I can go on for days about the labor and trade schools and stuff like that. But no, I said this. It’s kind of a little bit of my story and kind of where we’ve come from, where we’re heading and what I’m passionate about individually and what I want to do for the community.
00:28:52 – Rico Figliolini
Excellent. So if you all want to find out about the company, check out the website. I’ll have the, actually, what is the website?
00:28:58 – Kyle Grob
It’s kgm-tech.com.
00:29:01 – Rico Figliolini
I’ll have the link in the show notes as well. If you have any questions for Kyle, just email him off the website. Or leave your comments in the, you know, depending if you’re watching this on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, or if you’re watching this on audio podcast, just send the comments to me and I’ll forward it to Kyle. So, but thank you everyone. Thank you to our sponsors as well, to Vox Pop Uli and to EV Remodeling Inc. Appreciate you all being with us. Share this UrbanEbb podcast with your friends. And if you look, if you know anyone that’s looking to get into the technical field, Kyle could be a good mentor probably. I would think. Thank you Kyle.
00:29:41 – Kyle Grob
Yeah. Thank you sir.
00:29:41 – Rico Figliolini
I appreciate it. Thank you guys
Related
Peachtree Corners Life
Inside the Solicitor General’s Office: Lisamarie Bristol on Justice in Gwinnett County
Published
6 days agoon
March 25, 2025On this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini speaks with Gwinnett County Solicitor General Lisamarie Bristol about her work addressing the county’s growing case volume and implementing new justice initiatives. From launching a public resource website to tackling a 4,000-case backlog, Lisamarie shares how her office is improving efficiency and accessibility in the legal system.
She also discusses innovative programs like the Diversion Program, the Duty Attorney Pilot Program, and the Special Victims Unit—each designed to enhance fairness and provide second chances where possible. Tune in to hear how Gwinnett County is adapting to its rapid growth, the role of technology in legal processes, and how community partnerships are strengthening justice for all.
Key Takeaways & Highlights:
- Understanding the Solicitor General’s Role – How the office prosecutes misdemeanors, traffic offenses, and quality-of-life cases.
- 4,000-Case Backlog Solution – Strategies to streamline processes and improve case resolution speed.
- New Legal Resource Website – How Gwinnett residents can access critical legal information and victim advocacy services.
- Diversion Program Success – Over 1,400 successful cases, providing alternatives to prosecution and preventing repeat offenses.
- Special Victims Unit – Dedicated to handling sensitive cases like misdemeanor sex crimes and vehicular homicides.
- Teen Dating Violence & Social Media Risks – How technology is impacting legal cases involving young people.
- Expanding Access to Legal Support – Partnerships with Mosaic Georgia, PADV, and HIMSA House to assist victims and underserved communities.
- Justice System Challenges – Addressing mental health, substance abuse, and legislative changes affecting prosecution.
Listen in for an insightful conversation on justice, reform, and the future of law enforcement in Gwinnett County!
Resources:
Gwinnett County Solicitor Website: https://gwinnettsg.com/
Campaign website: www.lisamariebristol.com
Mosaic Georgia: www.mosaicgeorgia.org
PADV: www.padv.org
Ahimsa House: www.ahimsahouse.org
Transcript:
00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini
Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I appreciate you guys joining us. We’re in our little smart city just north of Atlanta. I have a great guest today, Lisamarie Bristol, Solicitor General for Gwinnett County. I appreciate you joining me, Lisa.
00:00:18 – Lisamarie Bristol
Thank you so much, Rico. It’s a pleasure to be back with you.
00:00:21 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, this is our second podcast together. I think the last one was just before you got elected?
00:00:29 – Lisamarie Bristol
Yes.
00:00:29 – Rico Figliolini
Right? ‘22?
00:00:30 – Lisamarie Bristol
It’s when I was still campaigning so probably about three years ago now. Oh my.
00:00:34 – Rico Figliolini
Yep, yeah. You took office January ‘23 so a good tenure. So lots to talk about right? But before we get to that I just want to say thank you to our sponsors. And we have two great corporate sponsors both based in Peachtree Corners, both family run. EV Remodeling Inc is a company that does great work. You have a dream home, they can build it, renovate it, add home space to you, renovate your bathrooms, your kitchens. They design your space like they want to design your life. So 260 families plus have been really happy with their work. So you should check them out. EVRemodelingInc.com. We appreciate their support. And Vox Pop Uli. Vox Pop Uli is family run as well. I want to thank Andrew and Daniel for supporting us. You have a brand, you want to bring it to life. These guys will put your logo, your brand on almost anything. Think of truck, car, vehicle wraps. They’ve done over 1,600 last year, I think alone. So check them out, trade show things, embroidering, whatever you need. If you have a logo and you want to put it on an object, challenge them because I think they have yet to fail whatever we need done. So it’s kind of cool. So check them out, voxpopuli.com. So I appreciate them doing that and supporting our journalism, our podcasts, and the magazines that we produce. But let’s get to Lisa. Let’s get to, do you prefer Lisa or Lisamarie?
00:02:11 – Lisamarie Bristol
Marie, actually.
00:02:13 – Rico Figliolini
Okay, Lisamarie. So you’ve been tenured in the job of Solicitor General for Gwinnett County since ‘23 of January. For those people that aren’t aware, tell them what the job entails. What does that job do in this county?
00:02:29 – Lisamarie Bristol
Great. Well, thank you so much again for having me here today. I’m really honored. Full circle moment. You were the first podcast I did when I was first campaigning for this seat. So it is wonderful to be back here. As Solicitor General, my job as the elected prosecutor is to handle prosecuting cases in state court, recorders court, and we handle all of the misdemeanors, the traffic offenses, the code enforcement, animal cases. So everything that’s not a felony comes through my court. My office is responsible for prosecuting cases in 11 courtrooms. We are the second largest office in the state of Georgia in terms of Solicitor General offices, and we are definitely a high volume office. So anything from DUI, domestic violence cases, death cases that are misdemeanor amounts, as well as traffic offenses and quality of life cases like junkyard and animal barking cases. All of those are prosecuted through my office.
00:03:33 – Rico Figliolini
Wow. That’s a lot. And I remember when we first spoke back then that there was a huge caseload backlog of I think over 4,000 cases in ‘22 and it was going to be a challenge for anyone that took office, the amount of courts, the amount of work to be done. And trying to make it in an efficient way. So you’ve started some programs to help better work the system if you will versus the system working you. So one of one of the things you all set up and maybe you could tell us about it. It’s the launching of the new website and what that does for anyone that needs to interact with the agency, with the department.
00:04:20 – Lisamarie Bristol
Absolutely. One thing I realized is a lot of people understandably just don’t really know what my office does. And the reality is, is most people will interact with a Solicitor General’s Office traffic court or something at that level. Lots of people get traffic tickets or they may be the unfortunate victim of a traffic accident. There’s lots of, you know, lower level misdemeanor kind of public safety or public nuisance crimes that may touch our community where they may be a victim or a witness to a car accident case or something that occurred in their community, not necessarily severe violent crimes all the time. And so one thing that I thought was really important was reaching our community. And reaching our community in a way that they got an opportunity to understand what we do, how we do it, why we do it, in not a very traumatic way. And so we created this website which allows us to give out information that we know we’re constantly being asked about. Things like record restrictions for people with older cases and older convictions to clear their record. So we have lots of information on there about that. Lots of information about our victim advocacy program and how victims and survivors of crimes can receive resources and help and assistance if they need it. We also talk a lot about what my office does and how we can help people and what we’re here to do. So if you go to GwinnettSG.com, there’s just lots of different nuggets of information. One thing on the website that I’m especially proud about is we started a safety resource library where we’re trying to periodically add different topics, whether it’s teen driving safety or DUI, a safety PSA, so people can kind of go there and kind of get like the high level nuts and bolts about different topics that affect everyone in our community and just get some quick information.
00:06:26 – Rico Figliolini
Well, you also have some additional links to other websites that are helpful as well, it seems, right? Gwinnett County Courts website and all that.
00:06:36 – Lisamarie Bristol
Yes, we have websites and links to all of our other county stakeholder partners, as well as lots of resources to other agencies that serve victims in the community. So whether it is somebody who needs help for domestic violence, they need shelter, they need resources, food, culturally relevant services. We’ve tried to provide kind of a one-stop shop if this is where somebody ends up to find all of the things that they could possibly need. Additionally we have you know the generic contact us page where if you reach out to us if you can’t find the information on our page, contact us, send us an email. And if we don’t have the answer we will definitely try and point you in the right direction of who does.
00:07:21 – Rico Figliolini
And the good part is that the site can be read in not just Spanish, but Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, Dutch, Chinese, Arabic. Quite a few languages.
00:07:34 – Lisamarie Bristol
Yes, whatever language you need. I mean, Gwinnett County is the most diverse county in the entire United States. I don’t know if anyone had the opportunity to see our chairwoman deliver the state of the county earlier this month. We have, for the longest time, Gwinnett’s been known as the most diverse county in the Southeast region of the U.S. We’ve recently been recognized as the most diverse county in the country. I think that’s phenomenal. And as such, I thought it was very important to have a website that could properly serve such a diverse and vibrant community. So yes, all of the languages are available with a click of a button.
00:08:15 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that must complicate things, I’m sure, in the courtrooms as well, right? A little bit.
00:08:20 – Lisamarie Bristol
Yeah, it does. And we try and have, you know, court certified reporters as quickly as possible when needed. And I’m grateful for the resources that we do have and definitely trying to expand the resources that we have even within my office. One of the things that we definitely worked on was making sure some of the core victim resources that we put out on a regular basis, we develop them in more than just English and Spanish. We expanded them, I believe, to Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, some of the more regularly seen languages that we were seeing throughout the community to make sure that we could reach people where they are.
00:09:00 – Rico Figliolini
For sure. I mean, there’s a large Korean population, Vietnamese population in Gwinnett County. Yeah. So it must be. So, I mean, with the growth of the county, which continues to grow, with second largest county in the state, a million plus residents, and that’s going to keep growing probably as much as 20% over the next decade, I bet. Easy. How does that affect your office? How does that affect budgeting and the things that you have to do?
00:09:30 – Lisamarie Bristol
Well, growth is a thing. Actually, the day I took office, my office grew. So we gained an extra judge in our circuit, a seventh state court judge. And gaining an extra seventh state court judge meant growing my office by an extra team and that was day one. And yes we do continue to grow, we do see an increase in numbers of cases that come in. I think we’ve seen a growth of approximately 2,000 cases per year so far that coming through state court. Two to three thousand citations per year and increasing coming through our recorders court. And the growth is something that we do have to deal with. I have increased my staffing levels and kind of restructured, not kind of, actually restructured how my office handles cases in an effort to be as efficient as possible. We have flipped how we look at our cases. So we are front loading a lot of the work. And what I mean by that is the effort that we’re putting in, every single case that comes through my office has to be touched. It has to be investigated. We have to reach out to the victims. We have to make these first critical touches and calls and safety planning and things like that. That has to happen no matter what. At the beginning of 2024, we had approximately 14,000 cases open in this office for state court alone. But by front-loading the work, by having my amazing investigations unit, my amazing victim advocate unit, who all since I took office has been nationally credentialed and poured a lot of training into both teams. What we’re able to do is we’re able to figure out which of those cases need further resources and need to be prosecuted at a higher level versus which ones we can divert and put into our diversion programs. Or which ones we need to go ahead and put in our accountability courts by identifying those low level offenses by identifying those low level or non-frequent fires so to speak, we’re able to kind of reserve some of that energy and efficiency so we can put that towards the cases, the more serious violent cases that we know need our attention.
00:11:48 – Rico Figliolini
So we’re talking about the implementation of the diversion unit essentially. And how that frees up the case, well not frees up but certainly frees up the time. I can see why you want to front load that to just, it’s almost a triage in a way because the flood keeps coming, right? It doesn’t stop. You can’t even put up your hand and say, whoa, it’s going to get more just essentially even just because of the expansion of population. Just the natural thing of it. So how do you identify these cases sooner than later? What makes you delay them or divert them? What criteria do you use?
00:12:31 – Lisamarie Bristol
That’s a great question. So diversion for those who don’t know, free trial diversion is an alternative to prosecution. So what it means is that someone who either has a minimal or no criminal history is given the opportunity to still be held accountable for their behavior, but rather than it ending up with them having a criminal conviction and criminal history, it gives them an opportunity to participate in this program pre-adjudication and keep a clean record if they successfully complete the program. So typically, a diversion program will be for someone who is either a youthful offender with very few cycles on their criminal history, less than three, someone who’s not been convicted of any felonies or any violent crimes, someone who’s maybe had a couple of traffic citations, anything that’s not violent or overly serious, things like that. They come into the program, they have to pay a fee. They usually have to do some forms of community service. The fee is not exorbitant. They’ll do some community service and they may have to do, well, they will have to do some sort of treatment. Maybe it’s anger management. Maybe it is a values clarification course, if it’s a theft-based class. Maybe it’s defensive driving if it’s a traffic offense or something of that nature. But they complete their portion in hopes that we are addressing what got them there in the first place, right. And once they successfully get through the program, which takes about six months, with no further arrests or any run into the law, the tradeoff is we will expunge their record. We’ll dismiss their case and the record will remain clean. So it gives them an opportunity to have. Yes, they did mess up. Yes, they did get a case. They were held accountable. They did have to pay their fine. They had to be supervised for six months. They had to go through this program, but they hopefully learned a lesson from it. And they have a chance to have a do-over without having the tarnish of a criminal record on their back.
00:14:37 – Rico Figliolini
So does this, just because the question pops to mind, I’m sure that other people might have the same question. Number one, are these minors or this would be anyone?
00:14:48 – Lisamarie Bristol
It could be anyone. It depends on their criminal history. So if, for instance, someone who is in their 50’s for the first time comes into contact with the criminal justice system and has a slip up and they’ve never done anything, they too would be eligible for our diversion program and would be able to maintain a clean history.
00:15:13 – Rico Figliolini
Go ahead. I’m sorry.
00:15:14 – Lisamarie Bristol
Well, as I’ve said before and what I campaigned on is knowing that convictions even to misdemeanors can have such a dire impact on people’s lives. It can keep from getting student loans, from you know stable housing, from jobs, from serving in the military. There’s a lot of things that can impact them. People with criminal histories may be prohibited from even getting a liquor license which may prevent them from being able to get a job as a server at a restaurant. So our goal is for those who are low risk, who have made a mistake, who may be restorative, to have that opportunity to do so. And so we’ve really expanded our diversion program. We’ve expanded our reach. We’ve tried to get people into our diversion program as quickly as possible. And I’ll tell you, our numbers are impressive so far. Between ‘23 and ‘24, we put in about 1,900 people into our diversion program, 1,900 cases, excuse me, with over 1,400 cases successfully completing it. So we have about a success rate of successful completion of about 74% on our diversion cases. We haven’t tracked this year yet.
00:16:31 – Rico Figliolini
So I guess the question for me would be a couple of questions. One is, how do you keep track of that? That’s a lot of people. You know, how do you keep track of it and make sure that it’s done in a comprehensive way? Because, you know, people can do things and fool around and stuff. And maybe you’re not getting quite all the information. But so how can you track that reasonably well? And the second part is when you expunge the record, what if they come in back into the system? Do you still, will you still know that they’re a repeat offender at that point? Or because the case is, the records expunge, you don’t have that record. So I guess that’s the two questions that I know that would come to mind to a listener.
00:17:19 – Lisamarie Bristol
Great questions. So for the first one, how do we keep track? Well, first, my office keeps track of, we have a team that is dedicated solely to our diversion program. And so their sole responsibility is keeping track of sending out the offers, maintaining the offers, signing them up, keeping up with their monthly check-ins. They are actually supervised by the probation office, not by my office, but they are responsible for staying on track of them and at certain timelines, checking in to ensure that certain cases have hit certain benchmarks to see that we’re on track. If someone has absconded or has disappeared or is not doing what they need to do, that team then pulls that case. We’re notified by probation. We pull that case and that case is then put on the regular track for prosecution, which would account for the 26% of people who unfortunately did not successfully complete the program. So we have multiple ways to track it, both internally within my team, as well as the independent probation office that handles the actual supervision of the people in the program. In terms of how do we know if they’re second offenders, the great thing is, well, what people are going to always know is for criminal records, there’s levels, right? As a criminal justice agency, we will always see somebody’s entire criminal history. So even though their record is expunged, that means for employers, for housing, for those reasons, yes, it is expunged. But law enforcement will always be able to see it. So I will always have access to their entire criminal history and see whether or not they’ve already been afforded an opportunity to go through diversion on a previous case. So those are all things that are checked prior to them being admitted into our program.
00:19:13 – Rico Figliolini
Cool. Okay, great. That answered my questions on that. So glad to see that that would work that way. Anything else about the diversion unit that you’d like to share?
00:19:25 – Lisamarie Bristol
I think one of the things I’m really happy about with our diversion unit is we are working really hard to expand the service providers within it. And by that, I mean, we’re trying to find as we are such a diverse county and not just in culture, but in needs. So we’re really trying to find diverse service providers that we can refer people to. That means having a variety of different types of anger management courses, not just always sending people to the same provider. The reality of it is, is if you have, say, a 23-year-old young lady, she might respond very differently to an anger management course then, let’s say a 30-year-old man. And we’re trying to be mindful of things like that and having a better rolodex of options so that people can be placed with the most impactful provider that will actually help them buy into the reformation and actually make a difference in what they’re doing.
00:20:26 – Rico Figliolini
Are you working with nonprofits in Gwinnett County as well that do outreach of this sort?
00:20:32 – Lisamarie Bristol
Yes. And as we go around and we meet new nonprofits, I have members of my team who are able to kind of vet what they’re able to do, how they’re able to do it, and whether or not we can refer people not only through our diversion program, but sometimes through regular deed bargains with our defendants. Sometimes the victims in cases need some of these resources. So it’s really been helpful to kind of build these relationships with our community partners and other nonprofits. so we know what’s out there and so that we can utilize them and they can get the support as well.
00:21:08 – Rico Figliolini
Cool. There’s another program that you implemented as well, the Duty Attorney Pilot program. I know you’re proud of that as well. So tell us a little bit about that.
00:21:19 – Lisamarie Bristol
One thing we recognized when I took office is that, you know unfortunately some people are unable to bond out of the jail. They get arrested on a misdemeanor charge and they may have, they may, they will have a bond, but they may be unable to post the bond for various reasons. And for every day that they’re in jail, that leads to housing instability, job instability. It can really have a huge impact on them. And some of these crimes are, again, you know, nuisance crimes or nonviolent crimes that could destabilize them. One of the things I worked really hard with and did take partnership with other community partners, with other stakeholders rather, was getting a schedule so that we could have duty defense attorneys scheduled to be at each one of my jail calendars. We do three jail calendars a week so far. Hopefully they’re going to increase that soon. And at each of those jail calendars, there is a duty defense attorney. That means every person that we can get ready and put on those calendars, has the opportunity to resolve their case, even if they would otherwise not have had that opportunity or they would have had to wait a little bit longer for an appointed attorney to maybe get to them. The reality is we don’t have a public defender’s office here in Gwinnett. And our indigent defense defendants are dependent upon the attorneys who take the cases. And sometimes they’re stretched thin. Sometimes there’s complex things happen. People get stuck in other courtrooms. And what was happening is sometimes the defendants in jail got stuck because their attorneys could not make it for various reasons. I really wanted to address that. And having the duty pilot program has worked. It’s worked a great deal. I’m very proud of it. We’ve been able to increase our volume, increase our calendar sizes, and really start to move those cases on a more consistent basis. Because, honestly, the cases that we’ve identified that can be fast-tracked, our goal is to get them out of the jail, let them be held accountable for whatever they’ve done, and keep moving forward. It saves the county. It’s better for us in terms of community safety, and that’s definitely what we’re working towards.
00:23:38 – Rico Figliolini
So, obviously, you’re addressing a lot of the pressing challenges of the office, and you’ve done it, right, since ‘23. The, there’s other challenges as well. And you’ve implemented another program, the special victims unit program that you all did. And very important part, right, for the other side of that crime. So tell us a bit about the special victims unit.
00:24:03 – Lisamarie Bristol
So when I took office, one of the things I also recognized is there are some cases that just require extra care. I’m very fortunate I’ve had the experience to have worked with all types of crimes throughout my career on both sides. Whether it’s been from traffic, through serious violent felonies, as both a public defender and a prosecutor. And sometimes there are crimes that just require a little bit more TLC, a little bit more attention, more training to deal with them. We have a great deal of misdemeanor sex crimes that the legislature has carved out to be handled in state court now. And those are crimes of sexual nature that occur between consensual teenagers, anywhere between 14 and 18, sometimes 13 and 17. And frankly, those are just very sensitive. The subject matter is sensitive. All the facts usually surrounding the topics are sensitive. Both parties on both sides, usually the parents and guardians involved, it can be very sensitive. And I recognized really quickly that it was important to have a team that could really dive deeper and focus in on that, that I could spend extra time training and focusing their attention on handling those cases with the extra care they really do require. So our misdemeanor sex crimes, our vehicular homicides, which are cases where unfortunately due to a traffic accident, someone has passed away. And those are horrendous cases to deal with, but unfortunately they happen. So it’s an accident that a loved one has passed away. Again, very sensitive, very highly emotional at times and requires a little bit of extra attention. And so there are just certain crimes that have been, that we’re seeing an increase in volume at times in the office. Gwinnett has the largest school district in the state. So a lot of kid cases and just needed that extra touch. And so creating that Special Victims Unit was my solution to that.
00:26:16 – Rico Figliolini
Are you finding, I mean, so there wasn’t anything like that before? Or is this new? Are you improving on what might have been there?
00:26:28 – Lisamarie Bristol
Special Victims Unit is brand new to this office. There wasn’t anything like that in this office before.
00:26:34 – Rico Figliolini
Are you finding any trends in that part? Let’s stick to that for a second. When you say, you know, we have the largest school district, you know, and parents worry about the safety of their kids, both inside the school and outside. Are you finding any trends that you’re seeing that you’d like to share?
00:26:53 – Lisamarie Bristol
What we are seeing is we know that teens are engaging in intimate and romantic relationships younger these days, and they’re exposed to a lot more. They are, whether it’s on the phones, on the media, what have you. And we are seeing that they are exposed and more experimental with things earlier now than probably several years ago, 10 years ago, even. I think that’s part of the reason why this whole kind of Romeo and Juliet portion of sex crimes is carved out. So what my office is trying to do is not only are we not only just the creation of the special victims unit, we’re also trying to be very proactive. So for instance, February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. And my office participated in a number of activities trying to get ahead of it. And what we did was we participated in resource tabling here at the courthouse where we set up tables with tons of information about teen dating violence, where we could share the importance on signs of healthy dating, management partnerships, and just regular partnerships amongst teens. We actually went out and we were in five different high schools throughout the month of February, where we were invited over their lunch periods to meet with various teenagers throughout the Gwinnett County Schools and talk to them and meet them where they are about healthy dating habits, healthy boundaries, how to seek help if they felt like they were in an unsafe situation. Whether it’s a friendship or an intimate partnership. Because what we do know is sometimes teens don’t feel comfortable or don’t want to talk to their parents. So we were able to give them other resources. Here are some toll-free numbers you can call. Here are some safe adults you can speak to. Speak to your teachers, speak to your counselors, if that’s what you need to do. There are some red flags you need to consider. So we’re really trying to be proactive with educating the public as well, not just being reactive.
00:28:58 – Rico Figliolini
Are you seeing any activity or exposure to social media that you have to attend to in some of the cases that you do?
00:29:08 – Lisamarie Bristol
We do. Sometimes a big part of it is explaining to teens the impact of some of the things that they’re doing on their phones and the potential pitfalls to some of that behavior. And a lot of times going out to the schools, whether it’s just a teen dating, violence awareness, tabling event, or just being at their career fairs or going to career days and speaking to different youth groups and answering those questions has been really beneficial. We also participated in a teen summit where we did a panel discussion, there was an attorney, an advocate, and an investigator from my office that all participated in the Teen Summit, which was in partnership with PADV, the Partnership Against Domestic Violence. Huge event over at Gas South last month. And they had the opportunity to ask those kinds of questions. What is, you know, what happens if I take this picture and I send it to my friend or if I get this picture and I send it out to my other friends? So I think having those conversations with young people in a space where maybe they feel a little bit more comfortable asking those questions has definitely been helpful. And we’re certainly trying to make sure that when we’re talking to them, they understand who we are and they’re meeting us not on the worst day of their life. So they can build that kind of trust and rapport with us.
00:30:32 – Rico Figliolini
I like the way you put that not on the worst day of their life, yes. Because some kids don’t you know, I think critical thinking sometimes is lacking, depending on the age. And they think you know they get a picture from from a friend from a friend and they think it’s okay to put it out because they didn’t shoot it you know. And it’s like you know whatever. But yeah some of these kids just, you want them to grow up a little faster in how they think, but you don’t want them to grow up too fast, right?
00:31:02 – Lisamarie Bristol
Exactly.
00:31:03 – Rico Figliolini
Technology, you know, that’s always, we’re talking about phones and smartphones and all sorts of things. How has technology affected you? Good and bad, either in office to make efficiencies or in other ways? Are there innovative technologies you all are using? How does that work?
00:31:26 – Lisamarie Bristol
So one of the things we were able to do in coming into office is we did apply for some federal ARPA funding. And, you know, the ARPA funding was earmarked for offices affected by the COVID backlog. And I was like, hey, that’s us. We are definitely affected by the COVID backlog. And very grateful we were able to apply for some of that ARPA funding to enhance and upgrade a lot of the technology in our office. Whether it is scanners for investigators so that they can move quicker in uploading evidence along with our trial assistants, just making sure we have the equipment that my team needs to work more efficiently. So those are things that we were able to do and does help us do our job better.
00:32:17 – Rico Figliolini
You talked a lot about community outreach just before. You talked about preventative. Preventing crime, crime awareness in the community, promoting that. Are there any significant partnerships or collaborations that you’re doing with other agencies within the county that may not have been done before that you’re expanding on?
00:32:38 – Lisamarie Bristol
Yes. One of the first partnerships that we were able to forge was with Mosaic Georgia. Mosaic Georgia is a nonprofit here in Gwinnett County, and they service victims and survivors of sexual assault crimes. They do free sane exams. They do free counseling and forensic interviews and anything that somebody may need. If schools reach out to them, if a victim reaches out to them, they’re a one-stop shop. They’re an amazing organization. Mosaic is someone, is an organization that I think is critical to a county like Gwinnett and the work they do is just so important. I was really excited to develop a partnership with them. They are one of the nonprofits that receive benefits from the annual 5K that my office does. It’s our signature event. So every October, we’ve done two so far. We do our Dash for Domestic Violence Awareness 5K. It’s the first Saturday in October at Alexander Park. And the proceeds from that 5K, every single penny we raise, whether it’s from registrations from runners and participants or sponsorships, is divided amongst Mosaic Georgia, Partnership Against Domestic Violence, or PADV, which is another nonprofit that services survivors of domestic violence both here in Gwinnett County. They also service them in Fulton County. We have a shelter here in Gwinnett County under PADV. They assist survivors with getting TPOs, temporary protective orders. They will help house them for about 90 days as they get back on their feet and give them some housing stability, child care, a little bit of job training to help people who are leaving those really hard situations stabilize and have a moment to catch their breath with dignity so that they can hopefully make that pivot and launch to a better place. And we also formed partnerships with the HIMSA House. HIMSA House is probably one of the more unique organizations that my office has partnered with. On a steady basis, the third recipient of proceeds from the 5K. HIMSA House houses animals. When people are leaving domestic violence situations, what a lot of people don’t realize is about 70% of people who would leave a violent situation do not because of their pets. And they don’t want to leave their pet behind. They have no escape to bring them. HIMSA House will house their pets up to a certain amount of time. And not just cats and dogs. And I ask them every year what’s the most interesting animal they’ve had for the year. They’ve housed horses, snakes, dogs, cats. They have quite an interesting list. But it gives that survivor that extra level of peace so that they’re able.
00:35:40 – Rico Figliolini
I didn’t even think about that. That makes a lot of sense. When you think about that the other things come to mind also then. Yeah, it’s just amazing. So let’s shift gears a little bit and because you know you’re not you don’t live in a silo right? Georgia State House legislators they’d like to pass laws and, you know even if we need them or don’t need them, the reforms that are happening at the state level and legislation, they tend to impact a variety of people, a variety of organizations. I am sure they impact sometimes the prosecution of cases or stuff. What approach do you have to that? And what do you see happening in the statehouse currently that might affect Gwinnett cases?
00:36:28 – Lisamarie Bristol
Yeah, that is an excellent question, especially. Like of us just getting over crossover day. I think what we’re seeing in the legislature is sometimes we have lawmakers who have the best of intentions and they want to fix one problem and it sometimes causes a domino effect down the line. And we don’t always have the opportunity to be like, wait, wait, wait, let’s stop and think how this can play out because you’re going to, you’re going to pass this lovely law and then you’re going to hand it to me to enforce it. And so the way I approach it is I really do try and be open and have relationships with my Georgia delegations. I actually spend as much time as I can down at the Capitol while they’re in section. So I’ve been down there quite a bit. I have conversations with different committees. I’ve testified before the committees and offered input on legislation that is being put before the Senate or before the House to make sure that they understand the impact of what it is that they’re trying to put out there and maybe reconsider some of the wording, reconsider some of the clauses. And I think having that open dialogue and having the availability to do that makes a huge difference. And I think it makes an impact because they know before they do something, they know they have a partnership in their prosecutors and they can say, hey, is this going to mess you up? How is this going to mess you up? How do we shift that? And we’ve definitely seen some improvement, I think, on certain things, not all things, by having that communication.
00:38:13 – Rico Figliolini
Do you, are there specific legislative reform or policies you would like to see updated that hasn’t been touched yet?
00:38:24 – Lisamarie Bristol
I would love to see us have some updates on or some better clarity on our intention with the misdemeanor sex cases. That’s been one of the things that I’ve been talking about probably the most since taking office, just in terms of intent and direction and some better guidance. It’s a really sensitive topic, and I would love to dive a little deeper into that. And generally, you know, most recently they passed some more law. I don’t know if they’ll make it to the governor’s desk or not, but I know it’s about crossover day regarding how we are assisting victims. We need to be victim-centered and whether or not victims can include their pets for TPO protection and things like that. So I think we’re seeing the legislature becoming more sensitive and aware to a more victim-centered, trauma-informed approach. And I think that’s important in this work that we’re doing.
00:39:24 – Rico Figliolini
Okay, cool. Mental health, substance abuse. I mean, we touched upon that a little bit. Is there anything you want to share about that as far as some of those issues, mental health issues, basically?
00:39:39 – Lisamarie Bristol
I think mental health is an issue that we’re continuing to see in the community as we continue to search for resources. I think that’s going to be our biggest downside is finding the right amount of resources to assist the people who need it. I think we’re trying. I think we’re at least acknowledging that, you know, there are people that we’re scared of and the people that we’re upset with and the people that are just in new settings. And I think we’re finally moving into an era where we know we can’t treat them all the same. For the people who, their real issue is mental health. It becomes, okay, well, what can I do? So you don’t just keep coming back. We don’t quite have the answers yet, but definitely working on it to make sure we’re not just putting them on that hamster wheel so they keep turning back.
00:40:27 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. I think we all feel to some degree we’re on a hamster wheel, right? Day keeps going, which is that by the time Friday comes, Monday comes, we’re still doing the same old, same old, and you want to make sure that you don’t keep doing that, right? So, okay. I mean, you’re only in this now. It’s been two years? Well, two years.
00:40:52 – Lisamarie Bristol
I’m in my third year now. Yes. Two years and two and a half months.
00:40:57 – Rico Figliolini
So too early to talk about a legacy, of leaving a legacy in Gwinnett County. But what would you like that to be if that was the case? What is the most important thing that you’d like to make sure you left once you do leave?
00:41:14 – Lisamarie Bristol
That’s a really great question. Thank you for that. I would really love to know that you can look back at the work that my office does, the work that my team does, the work that I do, that it makes an impact, that it leaves people better than how we found them. That I understand that a big part of what I do is supporting victims during some of the hardest times of their lives. Trying to keep the community safe during, you know, really hard times, whether it’s DUI or domestic violence cases, or whether it’s a family grieving their loss of a loved one. That can be really hard work. My desire is to have a legacy in knowing that people look back and say, even though it was a really hard time, Solicitor Bristol’s team treated me with compassion and kindness and respect and dignity, whether they were the defendant or the victim or the witness. And that even when held accountable, they came out knowing that what happened to them was fair. That is the legacy I really want to leave because sometimes you may not like what happens to you. You may not like being held accountable, but you can still acknowledge that it’s fair. And I think that’s important to me. It’s very important to me that what the work we are doing, we are supporting the victims. We’re educating, giving resources and doing what we can, but we’re still treating everyone with dignity and compassion and being fair in how we do it.
00:42:51 – Rico Figliolini
I’ve got to believe being a mother of three, middle schooler and high schoolers, that that probably informs a little bit about how you feel about doing these things.
00:43:03 – Lisamarie Bristol
Absolutely. Everything that I do, I’m always mindful that my children are watching me. And I never, ever want to do anything that I would be ashamed to do in front of them. So absolutely.
00:43:14 – Rico Figliolini
Well, yeah, the kids are definitely watching even when we’re thinking they’re not watching.
00:43:19 – Lisamarie Bristol
All the time.
00:43:21 – Rico Figliolini
Final question, I guess. You came in on, I won’t say it was a wave or anything, but you came in during a time of a lot of elections going on in ‘22, a lot of changing of the seats, if you will, changing of the chairs. It feels like musical chairs sometimes, they keep going back and forth. But I think there was some good expansion, some good things done. What would you consider saying to someone seeking a career in public service or law enforcement in Gwinnett County, what would you say to them that they should know about from your experience?
00:43:59 – Lisamarie Bristol
I think anyone who wants to serve publicly has to know it can’t be about them. It has to be about people. It’s a very humbling experience, and you may think you’re right, and you may think you have the best approach, and you might. You might be correct in that, but this work is not for the faint of heart. I will say, knowing when you walk into public service, you are walking into a situation where you are dealing with a cruise ship, not a speedboat. And it’s going to be small, incremental changes that make the biggest impact. And sometimes it’s easy to get lost in thinking, I’m not doing enough. But if you take a breath and you look back over it, and know where you’re heading, it’s worth it. It’s absolutely worth it. And so when I look back at where we started on January 1st of 2023, where my team is today, it was small. It was small steps along the way, but I am incredibly proud of the work that we’re doing. And I’m absolutely looking forward to continuing it on into a second term.
00:45:11 – Rico Figliolini
Excellent. So we’ve been speaking to Lisamarie Bristol, Solicitor General in Gwinnett County. Appreciate the time you’re giving us. Thank you, Lismarie. Hang in there with me for a minute. I just want to say thank you to our sponsors again, EV Remodeling and Vox Pop Uli for their great support of these podcasts, the magazines, and all that we do. If you have questions for Lisamarie, certainly if you’re watching this on Facebook, YouTube, or X, leave them in the comments, post them. I’ll have links in the show notes as well so you can reach out to her directly. If you’re listening to this on an audio podcast like Spotify or iHeart, certainly share it with your friends and share our video podcast as well. We appreciate that. It’ll be easier for other people to find our podcasts as well. So Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners. Thank you, everyone. And thank you, Lisamarie.
Related
Business
Why Patient Experience Matters: A Conversation with Dr. Aristo Shyn
Published
1 week agoon
March 23, 2025On this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini sits down with Dr. Aristo Shyn, owner of Link Dental Care, to discuss his journey from corporate dentistry to running a thriving private practice. Dr. Shyn shares insights on the challenges of entrepreneurship, how he built a patient-centric practice, and how technology is transforming modern dentistry.
They also dive into Link Dental Care’s community involvement, the role of social media in business growth, and the importance of creating an exceptional patient experience. Whether you’re interested in dentistry, business ownership, or local community impact, this conversation offers valuable takeaways.
Key Takeaways & Highlights:
- From Corporate to Private Practice – Why Dr. Shyn left corporate dentistry to build his own patient-focused practice.
- The Power of Technology in Dentistry – How 3D imaging, digital scans, and upcoming Botox treatments improve patient care.
- Growing a Business – The challenges of launching and expanding a dental office without prior business experience.
- Community Involvement – Supporting local schools, charities, and offering free dental makeovers.
- Navigating Insurance & Patient Care – Why transparency in billing is crucial in healthcare.
- The Role of Social Media – How Link Dental Care’s Instagram skits helped grow their brand and even go viral.
- Balancing Work & Family – Juggling a growing business while raising two kids.
- Future Plans – Potential expansion, but always staying patient-centered under one roof.
Listen in to learn how Dr. Shyn built a thriving dental practice while prioritizing technology, patient experience, and community engagement!
Transcript:
00:00:32 – Rico Figliolini
Hey, everyone. This is Rico of Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett County, just north of Atlanta. We have a great guest here today, Dr. Aristo Shyn, who owns Link Dental Care. Thank you for allowing us to do the podcast with you today.
00:00:48 – Aristo Shyn
Thank you for having us. I’ve been calling you our very own Joe Rogan for years now, so it’s an honor.
00:00:54 – Rico Figliolini
I’ve done over 250 episodes. I feel like I could be Joe Rogan. I get the head for it. Before we get into the show, though, let me say thanks to our sponsors. We have two. EV Remodeling, Inc., and Eli, who owns it, that lives here in Peachtree Corners. Great family. They do great work. They do design to build, whole house renovation, or your bathroom, your kitchen, or an addition to the house, whatever you need. They’ve done over 260 homes throughout the metro area. I think you should check them out. EVRemodelingInc.com is where you can find that. Vox Pop Uli, our second sponsor, is also here in Peachtree Corners, also family owned. So they take your brand and they bring it to life. So think about it. You have a brand, you have a car, vehicle. They do, I think this past year, they did over 1,600 vehicle wraps alone. You go to trade shows, they’ll put up a whole setup for you. You need shirts, they’ll do that for you. You need just one or you need 1,000, they’ll do all that for you. If you have a logo and you want to imprint it on an object, bring it to them. Challenge them. It’s amazing what they’ve done. So check them out. Vox Pop Uli is the company, and we appreciate the sponsorship of these podcasts, the magazines, and our journalism. Now that we’ve done the sponsors, I appreciate the conversation we’re going to have today. Aristo’s been, Dr. Shyn has been our family dentist for quite a while for all my kids and my wife and myself. So seeing you guys grow from a very small office that was probably big enough for you when you started.
00:03:06 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah, you’ve been with us since the beginning. Yeah, very humble beginnings.
00:03:09 – Rico Figliolini
So just moving from that, I saw you know you guys were getting more and more patients. The place was getting filled and now you’re in a larger location, a very beautiful place here right on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, Holcomb Bridge Road here. So tell us a little bit about your origins, where you started.
00:03:28 – Aristo Shyn
How far back do you want me to go?
00:03:30 – Rico Figliolini
Where were you born?
00:03:33 – Aristo Shyn
So I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, next to UMKC, which is where my dad went to dental school. And then moved to Alaska afterwards. Stayed in Alaska from ages 2 to 14. And then I moved to Florida, pursued a golf career, and then naturally transitioned to dentistry after that.
00:03:57 – Rico Figliolini
Naturally.
00:03:58 – Aristo Shyn
Yes. And then I’ve been in Georgia since 2012.
00:04:01 – Rico Figliolini
That’s amazing. You went from Missouri, where I’ve never been. I’m a Brooklyn kid. Kid. No longer a kid, but from Brooklyn. So I don’t know that place. Alaska, which is, for me, you know, grizzly bears is what I think of. So you went, right? From grizzly bears, snowstorms, to Florida, alligators, rocks, and hurricanes. And now Atlanta, of which you find almost none of that, actually.
00:04:25 – Aristo Shyn
It’s nice.
00:04:27 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, it must be different, right? But you went to start with a golf career. When did that even take hold?
00:04:40 – Aristo Shyn
In Alaska, of all places. Yeah, I was pretty good at it. Again, we moved to Florida to pursue that, but I think dentistry was my true calling, and I think I made the right choice.
00:04:55 – Rico Figliolini
Well, and you were kind of young too, I think, when you got your dental degree?
00:05:00 – Aristo Shyn
Yes. I try not to talk about that too much, but I was 23 when I graduated.
00:05:07 – Rico Figliolini
I saw that. I was like, that’s amazing. And so you’ve been practicing since then, obviously.
00:05:10 – Aristo Shyn
Mm-hmm.
00:05:13 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. So you’re in Atlanta. You moved here in 2012. You decided to start your business in less than a year of moving here.
00:05:23 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah, I think my first job in Atlanta was a corporate job. It wasn’t for me, to say the least. I think I lasted about seven months before saying, I got to do this. I got to do something else. I got to do this on my own. And that’s how I came to Peachtree Corners.
00:05:45 – Rico Figliolini
So just to be clear for people to know, it’s corporate dentistry is what you were working at. So corporate environment with multiple offices and stuff is a whole different business model, I think. Isn’t it?
00:06:02 – Aristo Shyn
Yes, to say the least.
00:06:08 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. You might not want to say it, but I’ll say it. Corporate dentistry is not that great. When you don’t have an owner that owns the business and doing the work that’s passionate about his patients and his community, it’s way different than dealing with someone that’s billing out of Texas let’s say or they have multiple 20, 30, or 90 offices throughout the country. And they sound like they’re local because they sort of keep the name of the place so they sound local but they’re really not. And so they’re driven by money because they have a big nut to pay.
00:06:36 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah, you’re just trying to get me into trouble right now.
00:06:39 – No, no, I’m saying it so it’s okay.
00:06:42 – Aristo Shyn
Listen, I would, in general, and this is from my own experience and what my colleagues have experienced as well, it’s just a lot of, and I think there are good dentists there, but unfortunately they don’t have the autonomy or the control over the whole operation. So I would say a lot of corporate offices, a lot of chain offices, are profit and production driven versus being patient-centric.
00:07:02 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, I can’t argue with that.
00:07:05 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah, I mean, for example, and this you’ll find often in the industry, when you have your morning huddles, a lot of times at those offices, you’re looking at the schedule for that day. And if there’s not enough production on the schedule, you have to find crowns or implants somehow. And I’ll let our audience use their own imagination for that one. But when we have our meetings, we don’t really talk about that. And we talk about how to streamline logistics and how to improve the patient experience. And these days, fortunately or unfortunately, we’ve been doing some Instagram skits. I’ve been putting my staff through a whole other level of stress.
00:07:58 – Rico Figliolini
You all have to visit the Instagram channel that he has. He comes up with all the skits himself. Some of them are really cool. They’re all pretty good. I mean, some of them are hilarious.
00:08:09 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah, we really, you would expect, you know, before and after photos or us selling something. But I think we’re just trying to have fun there. I really don’t know what we’re selling, but it’s fun. I think it still gives us exposure in a different way. We have a live follower counter there. We’re trying to get that up right now. So follow us, please.
00:08:27 – Rico Figliolini
What is the Instagram? It’s Link Dental Care.
00:08:30 – Aristo Shyn
It’s @LinkDentalCare.
00:08:32 – There you go. So follow them. They want to hit 1,000, like, you know, soon. But no, I think that’s a great team building to be able to do that. There’s a lot of pressure sometimes in doing work and such, and every day is different. I think we would talk before a little bit about how you, you know, you go from one patient speaking English, let’s say, to another patient and speaking Spanish or maybe Korean. So multiple languages here in the office, and multiple challenges, dental challenges, right?
00:09:06 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah. I mean, due to the range of services that we offer from fillings, crowns, to root canals, implant surgeries, sinus surgeries, we get quite the variety of cases here. And then there are days where in one room I’m speaking obviously English, and then next room, I’m speaking Spanish. The other room, I’m speaking Korean. And I think we did a count earlier. We speak a total of nine different languages in this office.
00:09:38 – Rico Figliolini
It’s amazing that you speak three languages, at least.
00:09:43 – Aristo Shyn
Two and a half. We’ll call it three.
00:09:43 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. You get by on it. That’s good. So busy, busy work. Technology, though, drives a lot of dental practices now, too. So tell us a little bit about some of the technological improvements you’ve made here. Some of the technology you’ve brought in.
00:10:01 – Aristo Shyn
Well, everything’s new here. So it’s all digital. All new x-ray units, we have our 3D cone beam imaging machine, we have a 3D scanner, we’re doing really cool stuff with digital photography not just for before and after cases but also to communicate with our lab. We’re doing botox and dermal fillers soon. Busy.
00:10:29 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that’s amazing. Botox. How does that work in dental?
00:10:34 – Aristo Shyn
I think it’s been requested quite a bit. We haven’t started it yet. We will very soon. It’s not just for, I don’t think it’s just for cosmetics, but it can do a lot with TMJ and related issues.
00:10:51 – Rico Figliolini
Now, when you started on Peachtree Park, it was just you. I think your mom was helping at the front desk.
00:10:55 – Aristo Shyn
No, she wasn’t there at the time.
00:10:57 – Rico Figliolini
She wasn’t there. She came later, maybe.
00:11:01 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah. It was, I think it was a thousand square feet. I don’t think anything was digital at the time. And I had, it was me, one and a half hygienists, one assistant, and one person in the front. Yeah, I still remember I could actually stand in the middle of the office, and if I did a 360, I could see everything. The front office, the four chairs, the lab.
00:11:23 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, I was just thinking the same thing. That’s how small this place was. How many square feet is this place?
00:11:33 – Aristo Shyn
I think it’s just over 3,000.
00:11:38 – Rico Figliolini
And you took on a new, also an additional practitioner with you as well?
00:11:41 – Aristo Shyn
Oh, yeah. New staff, front offices, expanded assistants, hygienists. Another doctor. I mean, she’s been terrific.
00:11:42 – Rico Figliolini
Dr. K?.
00:11:51 – Aristo Shyn
Yep. Dr. K.
00:11:52 – Rico Figliolini
So business has been going well. So that’s good, no?
00:11:54 – Aristo Shyn
It’s been busy. It’s been busy.
00:12:00 – Rico Figliolini
Can’t complain. And there are challenges, right? So let’s go back a little bit. Challenges of opening a business. What would you say to an entrepreneur, to another dentist that wanted to do the same thing? What challenges did you have to overcome when you did that?
00:12:16 – Aristo Shyn
When we first started everything I mean, I was still learning. I had no business experience, I had no HR experience. I mean, I was still learning dentistry at the time so you know the normal course for I’d say acquiring a dental office is, you know you’re usually out in the field for a few years and then you kind of pick up on things and you know slowly transition. But everything happened at once for me so I don’t recommend you do that because it’s quite the learning curve. But going back to everyday challenges, though, I would say half of my stress is just due to my staff, which I love very much, who I love very much. I think we have the best staff ever right now, but you’ve got to deal with staff every single day. So there’s always something. And then beyond that, it’s insurance. Insurance is an issue for, I think, everyone involved in the insurance game. And then after that, it’s just dealing with a wide range of patients and cases that we have coming in, which is also fun for me. But there’s also some focus and stress, and we’re always on our toes. So there’s that aspect to it.
00:13:35 – Rico Figliolini
I think part of that stress probably is because you’re, of your concern for your patients and stuff. I mean you’re sharing that stress with them right? Because some of them, because like you said insurance can be an issue. You know they come in they have to do certain things insurance may or may not cover it or you know, yeah. I mean so, has that changed in the state of Georgia a lot over the past decade?
00:14:01 – Aristo Shyn
I don’t know, insurance is kind of like a foreign language to me. We try our very best to be transparent with everything, I mean not just in my communication with our patients but also you know with our front desk communicating you know regarding finances and numbers. But you know, we try our best, that’s all I can say.
00:14:19 – Rico Figliolini
No that’s good. That you know, I mean that’s the toughest part I think when it comes to medical.
00:14:23 – Aristo Shyn
And our front desk goes to bat for patients if there’s any issues with insurance we don’t just give up and you know tell them that it’s on them so yeah. I know my front desk works very hard.
00:14:36 – Rico Figliolini
Okay cool. You know, the care that you show into the community as well, right? You’re involved with the community. So let’s cover that a little bit as well. What do you like doing in the community? What have you done? Where has Link Dental Care been involved in when it comes to community organizations, events and stuff?
00:14:55 – Aristo Shyn
Well, it’s very different now than when I first started. And I’m very happy and proud of where we are today. For example, I mean, even last year we were able to sponsor the Norcross High School Marching Band, local photography club. I’ve worked closely with Norcross Co-op for quite some years. And it’s, you know, when we interview for dental school, you know, one thing that we’re always saying is we want to be part of the community. We want to be involved in the community. And, you know, that wasn’t the case when we first started. Now that we’re here. Yeah, I plan on staying here and being more involved as time goes on.
00:15:37 – Rico Figliolini
That’s cool. You know, I mean, the biggest thing that we do at the magazine and stuff is that we like to be a cheerleader for businesses that are giving back to the community, doing things with the community, especially if you’re pulling from this community. You know, your patients, your customers, and all that. So being involved makes sense.
00:15:57 – Aristo Shyn
Yeah. And I think we’ve done quite a bit of charity over the years. We don’t advertise it or we don’t really post a whole lot of it on social media. But outside of working at volunteer clinics, we try to take on at least one patient a year and give them a makeover, which they wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. That’s something I’ve been doing.
00:16:21 – Rico Figliolini
That’s cool. That’s great that you’re able to do that. When the business gets to a certain point, and you’re facing these everyday challenges, right? At the end of the day, what do you do to release that stress, that pressure? I mean, what do you do outside of the office? You’re not playing golf anymore.
00:16:53 – Aristo Shyn
No, it takes too much time.
00:16:54 – Rico Figliolini
Do you get out of the office? What time do you close up?
00:16:57 – Aristo Shyn
Well, it’s a good thing I still like what I’m doing. But yeah, life’s gotten busy. So the way I see it, I mean, I do have a few hobbies, but really it’s been work and my kids right now. So when I’m working, the way I see it, it’s overtime in a football, basketball scene. And then when I’m with my kids, it’s game seven, triple overtime. So that’s where all my focus has been after work.
00:17:28 – Rico Figliolini
Sure, sure. You have two kids, I think? Two kids. Good-looking kids. So, you know, you’re expanding. You’ve done your expansion. But there’s a future, right? I know you want to stay here. You want to expand. What does the future look like for Link Dental Care? For you?
00:17:44 – Aristo Shyn
We just moved in here. We’re talking about expansion again.
00:17:47 – Rico Figliolini
Are you really? You just moved in here. How long has it been? It’s been a few years. Can’t you stop?
00:17:58 – Aristo Shyn
I mean, a few. I mean, patients and staff have asked me in the past, what do I plan to do? Do I plan on opening multiple offices or another location? And to answer one part of that question, I think when a dentist branches out to two, three, four offices, there comes a point where you’ve got to stop being a dentist and become more of a businessman. And I still like what I’m doing a lot. And I really want to keep our practice patient-centric and really emphasize that we are a people business, not a tooth-cutting business or a production business. But, you know, I definitely plan on staying in Peachtree Corners. We’re not leaving. I mean, if there ever is another expansion, you can rest assured it’ll still be under one roof. That’s been always important to me. And I mean, going forward though, I think we’re just, we’re going to continue doing what we’ve been doing. We’re going to continue to stay up with technology, continue to reinvest in the office and the community.
00:19:19 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. This is a great place. People want to take the tour. I mean, 3,000 square feet is a lot of space. I think you have plenty of space to expand in. What should people know about you maybe that they don’t know? Is there anything interesting that you want to share?
00:19:41 – Aristo Shyn
I can share what our dental practice focuses on. I think a lot of times patients and dentists alike, they emphasize, they put their emphasis a lot on good dental care. And that is absolutely important. But, you know, to us, you know, good dental care alone doesn’t really, it doesn’t always equate to a good patient experience. And I care a lot about the patient experience. So that means the patient experience starts from the first time you call into our office, from the time you walk through our doors the first time. From the way you’re greeted from the front office, from the way, you know, our assistants or hygienists take you back to the clinical area. So, you know, bedside manners and having clear communication. So, you know, when you’ve put in all those factors, you know, the receiving good dental care, although quite important, it’s not the only piece to the puzzle. So that’s been my focus.
00:20:48 – Rico Figliolini
Cool. Patient-centric, essentially. Well, we’ve been speaking to Dr. Aristo Shyn. It’s a great practice, you guys have. I’m glad that he’s my dentist also, my family dentist. He has been doing a great job. So I appreciate you giving us some time and telling us a bit about your business.
00:21:06 – Aristo Shyn
Thank you.
00:21:07 – Rico Figliolini
Thank you. Everyone, if you have any questions, you can actually check out the website, which is?
00:21:13 – Aristo Shyn
LinkDentalCare.com. There you go.
00:21:15 – Rico Figliolini
And Instagram, it’s the same handle, @LinkDentalCare, right? Anything else you want to share? Count is 455, so we need to get that up to 1,000 apparently.
00:21:25 – Aristo Shyn
It was 200 a few months ago. I’ll tell you one more thing about Instagram before we end this. Within a couple months of us actually trying on Instagram, we actually went viral on one video. We got 1.3 million views.
00:21:41 – Rico Figliolini
Damn, which video was that one?
00:21:43 – Aristo Shyn
That was last year. It was the one about our 3D scanner. So I thought I figured it out and I was almost ready not to come into work the next day. And then here I am doing a podcast with Rico.
00:21:57 – Rico Figliolini
Sorry, it’s not a YouTube content or TikTok creator yet, but he’ll get there soon. Thanks everyone. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. Of course, we’ll have links in the show note and you can always find Dr. Aristo Shyn here at Link Dental Care. So thanks again, everyone. Take care.
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