The Indiana Century Podcast

Kory Easterday

What if Indiana didn't just participate in the next century... but built it? Join the conversation as we transform Indiana from a crossroads into a command center of American innovation. This isn't left versus right. It's forward versus stuck. Each week, we explore practical, sovereign solutions to our most pressing challenges: from energy independence through next-generation nuclear power, to revitalizing our heartland with high-speed rail and a circular hemp economy, to guaranteeing healthcare access in every county. This is more than a podcast. It's a blueprint for Hoosier Sovereignty: a vision of state-led investment in public-owned infrastructure that creates permanent competitive advantage. We're talking concrete engineering, detailed financing, and a workforce trained to build what we'll own. Forget partisan politics. We're building the Indiana Innovation Triangle. Join us as we chart the path from extraction to ownership, from dependence to sovereignty. Subscribe to hear how we build the next century of Indiana, on our terms. Topics include: Energy Sovereignty (SMRs/Nuclear) • High-Speed Rail & Connectivity (Fiber Optic Network) • Agricultural Renaissance (Hemp/Carbon Farming) • Healthcare System Overhaul • State Banking & Finance • Workforce Development (Indiana Century Corps) • Community Benefits & Anti-Corruption For listeners of: Practical infrastructure policy, state politics innovation, energy independence, heartland economic development, and anyone who believes solutions should be built, not just debated.

Episodes

  1. 5D AGO

    The Indiana Century Corps | Indiana Century S1E8

    Who builds America? The roads, the bridges, the power plants, the rail lines. Who pours the concrete and turns the wrenches? Who shows up every day and does the work that makes everything else possible? Right now, the answer is complicated. We rely on private contractors, out-of-state crews, a patchwork of trades that varies by region and project. The average age of a skilled trades worker in Indiana is pushing fifty. Major projects get delayed because there aren't enough workers. Small towns can't find electricians or plumbers or heavy equipment operators. The people who know how to build things are retiring, and there's no one behind them. The Indiana Century Corps is our proposed answer. A civilian builder-operator corps. Not the National Guard. Not the military. A sovereign workforce, owned and operated by the people of Indiana, trained to build and maintain everything we've been talking about. The ICC has four branches. The Energy Corps, based at Purdue, trains reactor operators, fuel handlers, grid operators. The Connectivity Corps, based at Grissom with a dedicated High-Speed Rail Institute, trains rail operators, track crews, fiber splicers. The Agriculture Corps, based at Vincennes and regional hubs, trains hemp processors, co-op managers, carbon measurement technicians. The Resilience Corps, based at Regional Health Hubs, trains community health workers, Clinic-in-a-Van operators, Animal Corps members. Every member goes through twelve weeks of boot camp at Grissom. Not military, but disciplined. Safety, teamwork, the builder's mindset. Then eighteen to twenty-four months of A-school. Then assignment to a crew. Then advancement: crew member to journeyman to master to leadership. Where do the people come from? Young people who need a path. Veterans who need a mission. Displaced workers who need new skills. Rural kids who want to stay home. And the inmate pipeline: non-violent offenders released under cannabis legalization become the first ICC class. They go to Atterbury, live in one set of barracks, repair and update the next set. They learn construction skills from union journeymen. Then they move to Grissom and build the ICC boot camp itself. The next class moves into Atterbury. The cycle continues. People who were written off become builders. Featured book: A History of America in 10 Strikes by Erik Loomis. A labor history that grounds the ICC in the long struggle for worker dignity. The sanitation workers in Memphis carried signs that said "I Am a Man." That's what the ICC is about. Not just jobs. Dignity. Not just skills. Purpose. IndianaCentury.org

    38 min

  2. MAR 24

    The Last Mile & The Light Beam | Indiana Century S1E7

    There's a kid in a library parking lot tonight trying to do homework. There's a farmer who can't get the data he needs to make decisions about planting. There's a small business owner losing customers because her website won't load. There's a grandparent who hasn't seen their family in months because video calls keep dropping. The digital divide isn't abstract. It's real. And it's not a technology problem. It's a market problem. Private internet companies build where it's profitable—dense neighborhoods, affluent suburbs—and leave the rest of us behind. This episode is about a different model. State-owned fiber. Open access. Co-located with the high-speed rail network we're building. One trench, two assets. The rail project pays for the digging. The fiber rides along. We talk about what fiber enables: rural kids doing homework at the kitchen table instead of the library parking lot. Farmers using precision agriculture tools that save water and fertilizer. Telehealth appointments that don't require a three-hour drive. Small businesses competing globally from towns of five hundred people. We also talk about who holds the switch. Featured book: The Master Switch by Tim Wu, a history of information industries and the cycle of consolidation. And why open access infrastructure is the only way to make sure no one ever holds the switch. This isn't government control. It's public infrastructure for private competition. The same model we use for roads, for electricity, for water. It works. And it connects every Hoosier, not just the profitable ones. Sovereignty isn't given. It's built. IndianaCentury.org

    43 min

  3. MAR 17

    Not A Train, A Spine | Indiana Century S1E6

    The interstate highway system was a marvel. It moved goods faster than ever. It connected cities. It made America an economic powerhouse. It also bypassed every small town it touched. Main streets emptied. Downtowns hollowed out. The places where people used to run into each other couldn't compete with exit ramps. We optimized for moving things. We forgot about connecting people. This episode is about building something different. High speed rail, but not as transportation. As infrastructure. As the spine that holds the body together. The Innovation Triangle connects Indianapolis, Lafayette, and Kokomo in thirty minutes or less. Not someday. Now. Electric trains powered by our own SMRs. Stations that become new Main Streets. Fiber running alongside, connecting every Hoosier. Health hubs co located where the trains stop. We talk about how it gets built. The technology. The route. The funding. The constitutional amendment that protects property owners while making it possible. And why this isn't about getting from one place to another faster. It's about turning a region into a neighborhood. Featured book: The Master Switch by Tim Wu. About who holds the switch, and how we can make sure no one ever does. IndianaCentury.org

    38 min

  4. MAR 10

    Atoms for Prosperity | Indiana Century S1E5

    The nuclear power your parents feared and the nuclear power we're building are related in name only. In Episode 5 of The Indiana Century Podcast, host Kory Easterday kicks off the deep dive on Pillar 1: Energy Sovereignty. This is an honest look at why nuclear, why now, and why Indiana is perfectly positioned to lead. You'll learn: 🔥 The fire we're all standing in – Why getting off fossil fuels isn't optional, and why renewables alone can't do the job at our current consumption levels. 📊 The economics nobody talks about – Drawing on the groundbreaking "Chasing Cheap Nuclear" research by Jessica Lovering and Jameson McBride, we break down the trade-off between scaling and learning. Why the first SMR will be expensive. Why the 50th will be cheaper than coal. And why South Korea is the model we need to copy. ☢️ The waste opportunity – The $15 billion Yucca Mountain failure. 95,000 tons of stranded spent fuel. $62 billion in federal liability. And how Indiana can turn America's mistake into our revenue stream. ⚠️ The risks, honestly addressed – What radiation actually is. What really happened at Chernobyl. Why meltdowns can't happen in modern SMR designs. And a preview of deeper dives to come. ✏️ Nuclear 101 (whiteboard edition) – Atom splits, heats water, makes steam, spins turbine, makes electricity. That's it. That's the whole thing. Featured Research: "Chasing Cheap Nuclear" by Jessica Lovering & Jameson McBride (2020) Featured Book: Atomic Awakening by James Mahaffey If you've ever wondered whether nuclear can be safe, affordable, and ours, this episode is for you. Sovereignty isn't given. It's built. IndianaCentury.org

    48 min

  5. MAR 3

    Sovereignty, Not Subsidy | Indiana Century S1E4

    We've been told there are two paths for a place like Indiana. The first: beg corporations to build here with tax breaks and subsidies. Cut the ribbon. Celebrate the jobs. Then watch, a decade later, as they leave for a better deal somewhere else. The second: accept decline. Watch the young people leave. Watch the Main Streets empty. Tell ourselves this is just how it is. Both paths lead to the same place: extraction. Both assume our future is something that happens to us, not something we build for ourselves. In Episode 4 of The Indiana Century Podcast, host Kory Easterday names the third path: sovereignty. This episode lays the philosophical foundation for everything that follows. You'll learn what sovereignty actually means and how we use it as a practical framework for building. We break it down into four elements: ownership, capacity, infrastructure, and will. And then we introduce the Five Pillars of the Indiana Century Project: Energy Sovereignty: A public utility authority building Small Modular Reactors across the state. Power owned by Hoosiers. Profits that stay here, funding schools and property tax relief through the Host Community Fee. The ultimate goal: zero spent nuclear fuel and 100% renewable energy. Connectivity Revolution: High-speed rail connecting Indianapolis, Lafayette, and Kokomo in 30 minutes; with eventual connections to other hubs. State-owned fiber running alongside the tracks. New Main Streets for towns that lost theirs. Agricultural Renaissance: Farmer-owned processing co-ops. The Indiana Premium brand. The Hoosier Heritage Land Trust. The Indiana Carbon Bank. And the Indiana Grain Reserve, giving farmers the power to wait for a fair price. Health & Compassion: A Hospital Receivership Authority that takes over failing hospitals instead of letting them rot. Rural health hubs. A Clinic-in-a-Van fleet blanketing all 92 counties. The Animal Stewardship Corps. The Funding Flywheel: Truck tolls. Cannabis revenue. Host Community Fees. The Bank of Indiana: a state-owned bank partnering with local lenders. The Indiana Future Fund: a sovereign wealth fund targeting $100 billion by 2050. Constitutional locks protecting it all. Featured Book: Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey J. Kaye This isn't left vs. right. It's forward vs. stuck. Sovereignty isn't given. It's built. IndianaCentury.org

    50 min

  6. FEB 24

    The Loneliness of a Broken System | Indiana Century S1E3

    We call it the Crossroads of America. But what happens when a place optimized for moving goods forgets how to connect people? In Episode 3 of The Indiana Century Podcast, host Kory Easterday follows the $5 billion extraction from Episode 2 to its final destination: not a spreadsheet, but a feeling. The emptiness of a downtown that used to be something. The silence at a dinner table where a parent can't answer "What is there for me here?" The scroll through your phone when you're surrounded by people and still alone. This episode diagnoses the three levels of disconnection: The Civic Level: Since 1990, Indiana has lost 60% of its independent retail stores, 30% of its rural library hours, 25% of its community centers, and half of its active union halls. These were "third places," where trust was built over coffee, over cards, over conversations that happened just because people happened to be there. When they vanished, the habit of showing up vanished with them. The Familial Level: The Succession Crisis from Episode 1 isn't just about land and jobs. It's about stories that stop being told. Skills that die. A farmer with no one to pass the farm to. A tradesman whose kids moved away. Two kinds of loneliness, facing each other across a table that used to be full. The Psychological Level: When community structures atrophy, we're forced back on ourselves. Friendship becomes networking. Leisure becomes content. We're taught to see ourselves as isolated competitors, and that distrust is the fertilizer of loneliness. Featured Book: The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Their decades of research reveal a devastating truth: more unequal societies don't just have more poverty at the bottom. They have worse outcomes for everyone; rich and poor alike. Lower life expectancy. Higher mental illness. Less trust. More violence. Inequality is a poison that seeps into every corner. But this episode isn't just diagnosis. It's also the introduction of the cure. The Indiana Century Corps, a sovereign workforce, modeled on the CCC and the discipline of the Nuclear Navy, is introduced as the antidote. Not just a jobs program, but a community-making machine. Crews that train together, build together, and create the shared project that pulls us out of isolation and into common purpose. The core insight: You can't have sovereignty without solidarity. You can't have solidarity without trust. You can't have trust without places to build it, and projects to build it through. Episode 3 connects the economic extraction of Episode 2 to the loneliness we all feel, and lays the groundwork for the solution: rebuilding the conditions for trust itself. Listen to understand why your loneliness isn't a personal failure, it's a system's output. And why the cure is building together. IndianaCentury.org

    30 min

  7. FEB 17

    The Crossroads Trap | Indiana Century S1E2

    We call ourselves the "Crossroads of America." It sounds strong. Central. Essential. But what if that identity has become a trap? In Episode 2 of The Indiana Century Podcast, host Kory Easterday builds on the diagnostic foundation from 1,067 conversations and follows the money ($5 billion of it) to show exactly how wealth created by Hoosiers leaves our state every single year, never to return. You'll learn about the four extraction tolls draining Indiana's future: The Energy Toll: $850 million in utility profits sent to shareholders in North Carolina and OhioThe Harvest Toll: $2.8 billion in agricultural value-add we never capture because we ship our grain out as raw feedstockThe Health Toll: $1.1 billion in hospital and insurance profits funding corporate offices in St. Louis and TennesseeThe Financial Toll: $275 million in bank dividends sent to Wall StreetThis episode explores the ideology that made this extraction possible, the "shareholder value myth" that transformed corporations from community institutions into financialized engines with one purpose: maximizing returns for distant investors, no matter the cost to places like your Indiana hometown. We trace how this doctrine turned our "Crossroads of America" identity from a geographic fact into an economic mandate: be the low-cost node. Provide cheap power, cheap land, cheap labor. Let the value pass through. Collect the toll. And watch the communities along the highway slowly hollow out. But diagnosis is only half the work. Episode 2 ends with the pivot: from extraction to ownership. From being a low-cost node in someone else's supply chain to becoming a high-value hub in our own sovereign network. Featured Book: The Shareholder Value Myth by Lynn Stout This episode is the economic groundwork for everything that follows. Listen to understand who's been cashing Indiana's checks, and how we can start cashing our own. IndianaCentury.org

    23 min

  8. FEB 10

    1,067 Conversations: Hearing Indiana's Truth | Indiana Century S1E1

    How do you build a new future for Indiana? You start by listening to the people who live here. In this foundational episode, host and Navy nuclear veteran Kory Easterday shares what he learned from 1,067 recorded conversations across all 92 counties; from factory floors to family farms, from small town diners to college campuses. You’ll hear the three universal patterns that emerged from these conversations, completely transcending partisan politics: The Math That Doesn’t Work: Why wages have stayed flat for decades while costs for housing, energy, and groceries keep climbingThe Infrastructure of Loneliness: How crumbling roads and vanished community spaces are isolating Hoosiers from one anotherThe Succession Crisis: Why farmers, small business owners, and teachers fear their legacy (and Indiana’s identity) won’t be passed onWe begin with a story: a grandmother’s journey from rural Indiana to downtown Indianapolis that should already be possible with today’s technology, but isn’t. We trace how a builder’s mindset, forged in the Nuclear Navy, leads to a systems-view of our state’s decline. And we arrive at the core insight from a thousand voices: Hoosiers don’t want dependency. They want sovereignty. This episode lays the diagnostic groundwork for the entire Indiana Century project. Before we discuss reactors, rail, or hemp, we have to agree on what’s broken. The solutions start next week. Listen to understand why “Crossroads of America” has become a trap, and how we can transform it into our greatest platform. IndianaCentury.org

    29 min
  • 8 Episodes

About

What if Indiana didn't just participate in the next century... but built it? Join the conversation as we transform Indiana from a crossroads into a command center of American innovation. This isn't left versus right. It's forward versus stuck. Each week, we explore practical, sovereign solutions to our most pressing challenges: from energy independence through next-generation nuclear power, to revitalizing our heartland with high-speed rail and a circular hemp economy, to guaranteeing healthcare access in every county. This is more than a podcast. It's a blueprint for Hoosier Sovereignty: a vision of state-led investment in public-owned infrastructure that creates permanent competitive advantage. We're talking concrete engineering, detailed financing, and a workforce trained to build what we'll own. Forget partisan politics. We're building the Indiana Innovation Triangle. Join us as we chart the path from extraction to ownership, from dependence to sovereignty. Subscribe to hear how we build the next century of Indiana, on our terms. Topics include: Energy Sovereignty (SMRs/Nuclear) • High-Speed Rail & Connectivity (Fiber Optic Network) • Agricultural Renaissance (Hemp/Carbon Farming) • Healthcare System Overhaul • State Banking & Finance • Workforce Development (Indiana Century Corps) • Community Benefits & Anti-Corruption For listeners of: Practical infrastructure policy, state politics innovation, energy independence, heartland economic development, and anyone who believes solutions should be built, not just debated.

Information

  • Creator
    Kory Easterday
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    8
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Indiana Century Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Indiana Century Podcast