Fresno's Best Jordan Mattox

Marco Tovar is a Fresno-based photographer and educator specializing in the Wet Plate Collodion process, a photographic process from the 1850's. Marco's process documents the people of the Central Valley.
Marco's Website
Books:
The Creative Act: A Way of Being Rick Rubin
Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind Jocelyn K. Glei
The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993 Charles Bukowski

Today, we have Diane Friederichs who is the founder of FART (Foster - Adopt - Rescue - Transport), an amazing animal rescue service in Fresno. Diane is doing amazing work for animals without homes. This was an incredibly fun and wide-ranging conversation. Below the book recommendations, you can find all the links for how you can support her amazing work. 
Books: 
Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. Brene Brown
The Waking Up App
Diane's Links:

FART LinkTree


Diane's FB
Diane's IG 
FART FB
Help Us FART IG
TikTok
YouTube
Website

Today, we have Danny Bernstein on the show. Danny is the Founder and Managing Partner of HawkTower, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on underleveraged California, including the Central Valley. HawkTower invests in scalable early-stage technology companies that address real-world opportunities and imperatives outside traditional entrepreneurial patterns and investment behaviors.
 
Prior to HawkTower, Danny spent 20 years in Silicon Valley, holding executive roles at Google and Microsoft. In 2012, Danny successfully sold Meebo, a Sequoia Capital-backed Web 2.0 startup, to Google. At Google, he ran business development, strategic partnerships, and developer programs for products like Google Search, Google Assistant, Google Research, Chrome/Web Platform, Google Identity and Sign-In, Firebase, and others. At Microsoft, he led critical product lines for Microsoft Teams.
 
Books: 
 
Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City Brad Feld
 
The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley Victor W. Hwang and Greg Horowitt 
 
 

Today, we have Dr. Lorin Lachs on the show. Dr. Lachs is a professor of psychology and the chair of the psychology department at Fresno State. He has a number of research interests including Multimodal speech perception, Perception of Spoken Language, Psycholinguistics, Perception of Virtual Reality, and Video Gaming Behavior, having published a number of academic articles in these fields. We have a wide ranging conversation that includes many of these topics, their practical, and a host of other topics including free will and determinism, neuralink, online language tools, the replication crisis and much more. Please enjoy our conversation.
Books:
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language Steven Pinker
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Douglas R Hofstadter
The Expanse Boxed Set: Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate James S. A. Corey

Today, we have Leonard L. Longmire on the show. Leonard is a professional DJ and general creator of vibes for the city of Fresno. This is an episode we gush about the music we love, explore DJs craft sets, discuss the importance of music venues, and much more.
Books:
The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors Frances Cress Welsing
Miles: The Autobiography Miles Davis
 

Today, we have Jon Forrest Dohlin on the show. Jon has been the Chief Executive Officer and Zoo Director of Fresno Chaffee Zoo since February 2021. Born and raised in California, Dohlin received a BA in Biology from Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, and a Masters of Architecture from Parsons School of Design in New York. He worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) at the Bronx Zoo as an Exhibit Designer and in Construction Management before becoming the Director of the WCS New York Aquarium in 2008. This was such a fun conversation about one of Fresno's greatest attractions, and Jon seems like the perfect person to be at its helm. Please enjoy!
Books
A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain Future David Hancocks
Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness Guy Maclean Rogers 
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel James McBride