Tom Linebarger | Where to Use and Not Use Hydrogen to Decarbonize Our Power Sector

Learn from Tom Linebarger, Executive Chairman of the Board and previous CEO of Cummins on the role of hydrogen in decarbonizing the power sector. Tom puts hydrogen into perspective compared to alternative clean power solutions and stressed the importance of a global carbon tax to advance our clean economy.

We end on a personal note and learn about the importance of "life outside of work" and "providing a hand-up for others."

About what a little bit of serendipity, a lot of hard work and a lot of support from giants can mean...

Tom Linebarger is the Executive Chairman of the Board and previous CEO of Cummins.

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This article is part of the series: Hydrogen Innovators Podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00.47] [Music Playing]

[00:00:04.70] Karen Baert: Dear listeners, welcome to this episode of the Hydrogen Innovators. It's a podcast series is produced by the Stanford Hydrogen Initiative, spotlighting bold innovators in hydrogen all the way from academia to industry. You can find our podcast series Hydrogen Innovators on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I'm Karen Baert, recent Stanford MBA graduate, entrepreneur and innovation strategist at the initiative, and I'm thrilled to be your host for this week's podcast.

[00:00:31.97] Today, we have the privilege to welcome Tom Linebarger, Chairman of the board at Cummins. Tom, thanks so much for being here with us today.

[00:00:41.21] Tom Linebarger: Good to be with you.

[00:00:42.71] Karen Baert: Having been at Cummins for more than two decades, Tom held a variety of roles from supply chain management and finance to COO, and served as the CEO of Commons for a decade as well. Besides his work at Cummins, Tom is involved in multiple organizations, sits on several boards, and served as co-chair of the Global Hydrogen Council. Tom grew up in California. He received undergraduate degrees in both management and mechanical engineering, and the latter, if I remember correctly, was at Stanford.

[00:01:13.22] A few years later he did come back to the farm for a Master's degree in manufacturing systems from the School of Engineering and a Master's degree from the Graduate School of Business. Tom and his wife, Michelle, have two adult daughters, Alex and Emily, and enjoy traveling to spend time with them. Tom, we've been looking forward to this conversation. We cannot wait to learn from you on all things power and hydrogen. We will start with a quick introduction about Cummins, hydrogen, and hydrogen in the power sector, and we will end the podcast learning a bit more about you, your impressive career path, and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:50.74] Tom Linebarger: It sounds great, and thank you for that kind introduction, Karen. I really appreciate it. And I'm happy to be with you.

[00:01:55.84] Karen Baert: We are excited to have you here today. So let's start with Cummins. Cummins is a $25 billion global biotechnology company. And with its new business unit, New Power, it's really pioneering new technologies to sustainably power the future. Would you mind elaborating a bit on these new technologies and the importance of hydrogen related technologies in that category?

[00:02:19.00] Tom Linebarger: For sure. So Cummins is more than a 100-year-old company, and we have a history of innovation. The company started as the first importer of diesel engines and built the diesel engine industry in the US, along with many other competitors, and really is the last surviving independent diesel engine maker in the US. And to do that, not only did we have to bring the new technology in more than 100 years ago, but we had to go through several generations of complete technology change in the diesel engine industry.

[00:02:54.08] The Clean Air Act was the most significant that people would know, where we reduced criteria pollutants of the diesel engine by more than 99%. So there was a significant change in technology, and Cummins had to do a fair bit of innovation in the technology of those to reduce criteria pollutants, while still improving fuel economy and making the engine affordable. In fact, many of those technologies we sell all over the world now, and helped Cummins grow significantly.

[00:03:24.29] So when we started working on climate change as the new problem to solve, almost everyone in the company saw it as a new innovation challenge, in the same way, we saw reducing criteria pollutants. So we set our sights on, how do we grow our business while still attacking this really important, and in fact, arguably the most important existential problem of our day, which is climate change. And diesel engines are a major contributor to carbon in the world. So there's no question that not only do we have an opportunity here, but we have a duty to contribute to a significant reduction in carbon.

[00:04:03.25] So we started working on a number of technologies, both inside engines and outside engines, things like batteries, fuel cells, along with how using alternate fuels in engines. And we built an entire strategy around making sure that we would have the right technologies to help decarbonize our industry. We packaged the new technologies, the ones where we did not have a history in them, in the new power space.

[00:04:29.77] So we acquired seven companies. We started doing partnerships externally, and we put all those together into this New Power division so we could start to run it more as a business rather than a scattering of separate companies that we bought. But equally, in our engine business, we also invested significantly in technologies to reduce the carbon footprint of internal combustion engines. So the idea is to show up in the market with a range of technologies, depending on the application, and be able to make sure that no matter what way the infrastructure goes, or which way customers decide they want to go, we're there with the technologies that will decarbonize our industry.

[00:05:11.23] We call that strategy, by the way, Destination Zero. We gave it a name, because we needed to explain it to investors and other people what we were doing. And so Destination Zero was the name of this strategy.

[00:05:23.77] Karen Baert: Great that's a very helpful overview. Thank you for that, Tom. Maybe to follow up on that, could you elaborate a bit. You talked about seven acquisitions to rapidly ramp up on new technologies. And then, obviously, looking at your engine business as well and how we can decarbonize there. What's the role of hydrogen in all of this?

[00:05:42.89] Tom Linebarger: Yeah so that's a great question. So in the New Power space we have a number of technologies. But the big ones really are fuel cells and electrolyzers. So electrolyzers to produce hydrogen and fuel cells to use them in applications like trucks and trains and other things. Batteries, which again, I probably don't need to say much about that, because I think people understand that.

[00:06:09.27] And then we also are looking at other technologies, other formulations that could be useful in batteries. So we of course, have batteries now that are nickel metal hydride kind of batteries, and lithium ion batteries. And then we're looking at how-- looking at sodium ion and other technologies. So we have a range of investments and companies that are exploring these other technologies for batteries. Similarly on the hydrogen space, we are trying to invest in companies that might have new approaches.

[00:06:41.23] And the reason we did those acquisitions was to ensure that technologies that were happening outside of our company, we were bringing in electrochemistry and other things that were not capabilities of Cummins over the last 100 years, but utilizing the capabilities we have inside the company, like understanding the applications, knowing the customers, being able to scale production and things like that. Inside the core business, we're also using hydrogen for internal combustion engines. So another application we see for hydrogen is to actually use it as a fuel in internal combustion engines.

[00:07:16.32] And hydrogen engines produce very, very highly efficient, high efficiency engines and they burn quite clean. And significant reduction in carbon. I mean near 100% reduction in carbon, if the hydrogen is produced with electrolysis. So anyway, we are seeing hydrogen throughout.

[00:07:38.40] The way to think about hydrogen is, molecules are easier to transport and move around the world than electricity is for longer distances. And we can have more dense fuel on a mobile vehicle. So vehicles or things that are moving and need a lot of energy. Hydrogen looks like it could be a good application. For things that are relatively shorter range, don't move so much, batteries look like they can store all the energy and the cost of batteries, storage is going down. So we're trying to think about high energy, lots of mobility for using molecules like hydrogen. And we're thinking of batteries for shorter range and lower energy use applications, is, broadly speaking.

[00:08:27.29] Where that process is, that trucks and buses, are those going to be all batteries or all fuel cells? I think nobody knows. But right now, we're pushing both technologies to the limit.

[00:08:40.75] Karen Baert: And I love that summary. High energy, lots of mobility, goes into the direction of hydrogen. All right, time to dive deeper into hydrogen. We've reached a global consensus that in our efforts to avoid the worst climate impact, hydrogen is and will increasingly be an important piece of the puzzle. Now the jury is still out on in which use cases hydrogen should be prioritized and which ones it shouldn't. And I'd say that the power sector in particular is one where expert opinions diverge.

[00:09:12.09] I'd love to share a few statements and welcome you to agree or disagree and tell us why. So first one is the role of hydrogen in long duration storage. So the technology to convert power to hydrogen and back to power has a round trip efficiency of around 20 to 45%. Now, in comparison to mature long duration storage technologies such as pumped storage, hydro power, and compressed air energy storage have round trip efficiencies of 75% and 55% respectively. Therefore, hydrogen technology faces an efficiency disadvantage in long duration storage, and should only be used when there is no other options available.

[00:09:53.88] Tom Linebarger: Yeah, broadly speaking, I think the efficiency calculations are right. And I think that the challenge-- you said there's a kind of a broad scale alignment that hydrogen is going to play a significant role. I still don't even think that's quite right. There is a lot of people that think that. But there are some people that think hydrogen's role should be relatively modest. And I think the reason-- and when I say modest, it's still significant. I mean, right now hydrogen molecules are used all over the world. And it's a huge molecule that's used in all kinds of things today.

[00:10:32.05] And I think almost there is broad scale agreement that we should be decarbonizing all that hydrogen. So whether it's ammonia for fertilizer, or steel or other things. We should be decarbonizing our use of hydrogen and making sure that we help remediate those very difficult industries by producing our hydrogen with green-- at least with blue and green hydrogen and not gray. Everyone agrees that, I think.

[00:11:00.50] But moving them into energy applications, power, or even some of these other high energy, I think many-- there are still people that think batteries will win everywhere. And you can guess who some of those people might be. They're mostly making batteries. But I would say that I agree with your statement that it will play a role.

[00:11:20.15] And part of the reason is that if we all agree that climate change is kind of the existential crisis of our time, we should be building infrastructure and capability to use all these technologies. Already, we already sell battery electric powertrains for trucks. And some of our customers that want to use them. For example, in California, can't get enough grid to charge more than 13 trucks at a time.

[00:11:49.45] So big utilities like Southern California Edison will say, in the next four years, we can give you enough power to charge 13 trucks. They have an order for 200. So how are they going to do that? And I don't mean to say that that won't eventually be solved, but eventually the planet burns up. So to get moving faster, what we should be doing is building infrastructure and hydrogen and batteries. Recognizing that efficiency of batteries is higher if you can produce your electricity using renewable sources, directly build a line, have enough distribution and transmission to get it. That's the most efficient solution.

[00:12:32.63] The problem is building enough transmission distribution is a non-trivial problem. And that's what I was going to add to your efficiency argument. That efficiency is great as long as it's dispatchable. And the most efficient thing really is to just ride your bike. But we don't all do that. Because dispatchability of a lot of power, being able to use a car, and is much more useful for a lot of things than riding your bike.

[00:12:57.38] So what we do is we say, well, I'm going to accept less efficiency because I can use more power here at this moment. And I just think that's the broad idea. Efficiency is great. Dispatchability is equally important. So that's the way my brain always works.

[00:13:11.96] So back to your power storage problem. My view is hydrogen's role is going to be a medium term storage. Long term storage, if you can build a lake and pump up the water, you should do that. The problem is that's not so easy. That's a big infrastructure project. A lot of people don't want dams and things near their house. I mean, there's a lot of challenges with building enough pumped storage, and that means I need to know where I want it, and I need to always want it there.

[00:13:40.74] So I think when you think about hydrogen, I can build relatively modest, I can make relatively modest investment in hydrogen storage, and I can get medium term storage pretty well. I think short term storage, most people think batteries will eventually get to a place where they can be competitive. And then long, medium term storage. I think hydrogen plays a big role. But again, I guess I would think in my own mind, efficiency and dispatchability every time I talked about energy.

[00:14:09.89] Karen Baert: That's a very clarifying answer, and I think a great reminder that we can't just optimize for efficiency, right? There's a time component that we need to be taking into account. And speed matters in this decarbonization challenge.

[00:14:23.30] Tom Linebarger: Speed and flexibility. I think the ability to say, like, I don't know exactly how much I'm going to want here, but I'm going to start with this much. And then I'm going to move to that much. That sort of ability to break it into pieces means I can start moving now. And I think that was one of the insights when we were doing Destination Zero at Cummins that we had, that the longer we wait, the worse the problem gets. When we set our zero carbon at 2050, and then our 30% reduction by 2030. And we are trying to follow the Paris Climate Accords, and when we needed to make our reductions, we realized that if we don't start moving now, there's not enough time from 2035 on to make up for it.

[00:15:06.08] So that's why we said we need to figure out ways to decarbonize internal combustion engines, and use infrastructure that's here. Otherwise, what we're doing is waiting until all the charging infrastructure is perfect in the US and everything is renewable, and we might wait too long. And so I think being able to move things is the most important thing. And that's why I think even those that think batteries eventually win, I'd still say you should build hydrogen infrastructure now to do-- to start moving the needle. Start decarbonizing as quickly as you can.

[00:15:42.16] And that means, of course, a lot. We need to also invest in a lot of electrolysis and blue hydrogen stations. Cummins plays no role in blue hydrogen. I still think those investments are really important, though, so that we can start to decarbonize what are some very hard to remediate industries right now. Don't wait.

[00:16:01.83] Karen Baert: In the context of speed, you mentioned the importance of using existing infrastructure where we can. That I think that's a great transition to my second statement. Hydrogen and hydrogen derived fuels will play an increasingly important role in the power sector. Natural gas fired power plants will be coal fired with hydrogen, and ammonia will be used in coal fired power plants to gradually reduce emissions while continuing to use existing infrastructure.

[00:16:30.45] Tom Linebarger: Yeah, I do agree it will play an important role. Each of these things are at one level, really exciting developments and another level experiments. People are trying to figure out, what do I really get from these different-- how much benefit do I really get from putting-- mixing ammonia in it, etc.? And of course, now there's not enough green hydrogen for people to buy to actually make the decarbonization benefit come true.

[00:16:58.62] But I have especially seen it in Asia. In Korea and Japan, the amount of experimentation people are doing on how to make hydrogen an important part of the fuel, their fuel mix in the power sector and the shipping sector. It's the investments are massive and you can kind of see why. Both Korea and Japan are major energy users and have to import all their oil. They really don't have-- and they don't have a lot of source, a big source of renewables either. So their idea is to say, hydrogen can be our new fuel, and it allows us to decarbonize. And also we can transport molecules, which is what we need to do since we don't have so much renewable energy source.

[00:17:42.64] And so they're making tons of investment and a lot of innovation. I think that's going to be good for the world that they're making those kind of investments. Places like Australia and Saudi Arabia and other places who are major sources of fuel today, of one sort or the other, coal, or in the case of Australia, or oil in the case of Saudi, are also asking themselves, how can I be a provider, a global provider of the new fuel, hydrogen, since I'm-- that's a big part of my economy today. I want to figure out how to turn that into decarbonized fuel in the future. And both are making major investments to be a source of hydrogen. And both, of course, have a lot of sun, and so a good source of renewable energy. And I see investments happening significantly.

[00:18:32.74] The hardest challenge for, I mean the challenge we should all be conscious of, these experiments are good, the investments are good. I still think the number of investments, actual movement on the ground towards decarbonized solutions relative to the enthusiasm about it, the number of announcements you hear, it's still too slow. It's way too slow.

[00:18:59.32] And what we all should be advocating for is more improvement. I want more examples. I want on the ground changes. And that means if you have one big experiment to mix ammonia in to a coal fired plant, that's great. What I want to know is, what's the plan for all the coal fired plants in the US over the next 10 years? And I want to see when 30% of them have already made the investment. When are 30% done?

[00:19:30.29] And I just think that's going to take a level of commitment by the government, by the population at large. It's going to cost a lot of money. We're going to have to subsidize things or regulate them in, one or the other. But there's a cost to be paid. And I just think as a society, we're going to have to figure out how to make that investment, or else the solutions will be too long, and the implications for our planet too severe. You mentioned I was from California, so I-- the outdoors is core to everything I love, and I worry about the impact even of a delay in our getting decarbonization past 2050. A small delay could have severe impacts on our planet.

[00:20:21.01] Karen Baert: I couldn't agree more, and I think it's important to recognize that the sustainability challenge is one of the biggest challenges mankind has ever faced. And it will come at a cost. On that note, curious to hear your thoughts on the recent famous American Inflation Reduction Act. I wonder how the act impact Cummins, impact Cummins clean energy and hydrogen business, and whether you're worried about free market distortion potentially favoring specific technologies or geographies?

[00:20:54.47] Tom Linebarger: Yeah, Cummins was an outspoken advocate for the Inflation Reduction Act, even though there's lots of problems with it. So there was a whole bunch of challenges even in its predecessor bill. But again, I think putting first things first is that we need to get moving on climate change. And so I have lots of worries and objections to different parts and tax clauses and things. And I could pick apart all those. And the political process is never simple. There's some sausage making that happens at very difficult to like in total.

[00:21:32.15] But again, I just think that we need to get moving. And if this is what we can do, this is what we can do. It was basically my attitude about it. So we advocated strongly to get it, to get the bill passed in some form, just for the climate change provisions. And they are important. They do provide incentives for-- and right now, as I mentioned, there is a cost. If you want to generate clean hydrogen, green hydrogen, excuse me, from electrolysis. It is more expensive than gray hydrogen from natural gas. It just is.

[00:22:06.70] So if you want to be competitive as a source of hydrogen, there needs to be a subsidy or a tax or something, or it's just not going to be. Will it eventually get close to the same? Yes, especially if we recognize the cost that carbon exacts on our world, and taxed it accordingly, they would be even now. But we don't. And therefore there needs to be a subsidy of some kind or a tax of some kind.

[00:22:38.94] So as a sort of generally free market person and an economist, I have some economics in my background. I would love just to have a carbon tax everywhere. Just start increasing the tax on things that we don't want, as opposed to giving subsidies to things we do want. Because I think it's just a cleaner way to do things. I know when things cost more money, I buy less of them. And I think that's true of most people.

[00:23:05.98] The problem is politicians have a lot of problems to solve. Environmental justice problems, regressive issues, like are poor people going to pay more of that tax than rich people. There's a lot of challenges in the whole thing. And I get that. I'm not trying to be naive about that. I just, again, I would just continue to say, first things first. We have to stop the planet from burning up.

[00:23:28.92] So I think we should have a carbon tax for sure. And I think the IRA also provides some subsidies that are really important to get moving. The distortions in there that are most concerning to me is the sort of buy American policies in there. Because, again, I do think it's a global problem, and I do think it's going to take the resources of the entire world to solve them. And there's such a strong, a strong motivation for American political leaders to try to protect vested interests in America, to make sure that union jobs are protected, or this company is protected. And it's an instinct I totally understand. And it's really not helpful towards finding-- towards for innovation.

[00:24:18.95] Innovation comes when everyone has a chance to compete on the same basis, and we buy our technologies wherever we can get them. So again, I did advocate for fewer buy American policies and things like that. But broadly speaking, I still think it's a better than nothing bill. And we should be all advocating for doing the most we can do, and stop looking for perfection, because we have to move.

[00:24:48.91] Karen Baert: And it seems like you're really plugged into the policy landscape as well. So on that note, we'd love to ask you, having been in the lead at the global biotechnology company for a decade, you really are at the forefront of what's happening in technology, market and policy impacting our transition. If you had a magic wand, what's the one thing you would change to accelerate the progress?

[00:25:14.32] Tom Linebarger: I would put a carbon tax. I would have a carbon tax across the board, and I like the way that Europe started it, which was to start with a relatively modest one, and then increase it over time so that the distortion effects are relatively modest. And then I would provide subsidies to lower income households to purchase things that you want. I think moving-- when you have subsidies, moving them to the end customer is better than having them as intermediate subsidies.

[00:25:44.45] So I'd have tax on all carbon, and I'd have subsidies go to the end consumer. So if, for example, if you make less than a certain amount of money, we give you a big tax credit to buy, or we give you a credit to buy an electric car. If you're rich, we give you no credit. You can buy-- rich people can buy Teslas without a subsidy. But I think for poor households where their choice is higher, gasoline gets too expensive. Give them a subsidy to buy their electric car, maybe put it in their car chargers. Car chargers for free.

[00:26:20.26] Help people deal with the increase in their monthly expenses that's driven by the carbon tax, by making it easier for them to purchase lower cost electric cars. And actually then their use, the cost per month goes down. Because electric is cheaper to operate than gasoline. And same across the board. So as carbon tax has effects on poorer populations, provide subsidies for them to buy things that are in-- using our decarbonized already. And therefore they help us with the change.

[00:26:52.06] But I think you have to do both at once. I think if you just put the carbon tax on, and don't help poorer families, you end up with a yellow vest protests like we had in France, where people say, "Why are we paying for all these things?"

[00:27:05.82] Karen Baert: I love this combination of carbon taxes, which helps to accelerate progress, and subsidies to make sure we don't leave anyone behind. Thanks so much, Tom, for helping us understand these nuances in the hydrogen industry. I think it's very important to acknowledge that hydrogen is not going to solve all problems, and we have to think through where we should be using the molecule and where we shouldn't in decarbonizing our industry and economy.

[00:27:31.62] Now it's time to learn more about you. Last year, you were one of the first speakers at the Stanford Hydrogen Conference, and the start of your speech was pretty memorable. It stayed with me. You started off with context about your upbringing, your family and what and who got you to where you are today. And that introduction clearly forged a personal connection with the audience. Would you mind elaborating a bit more on how your upbringing, and more specifically, your mother's unconventional and impressive path, shaped you?

[00:28:05.48] Tom Linebarger: Yeah. So the introduction, by the way, I oftentimes want to introduce myself to an audience that doesn't know me, because I think it's hard to understand where somebody is coming from if you don't know who they are. I once had a very smart leadership coach tell me that people need to know who you are before they will really focus on what you have to say. So that's oftentimes why I do that for a new audience, like you heard.

[00:28:32.90] But just back to your specific question. So I grew up in California, not far from Stanford, actually, and my mom and dad were married when they were quite young. They both were in San Jose State, and my mom was only 19, and my dad was 20 when they were married, or 21. And I was born just a year later. So she was a young mom, with lots of challenges, just being a young mom.

[00:28:59.51] But then they divorced six years later. And so my mom was then-- had two unruly boys, and no job and no money, really. So she went back to school, went back to San Jose State and finished her degree. We were on state assistance then, welfare they called it at that point. But she figured out how to make it all come together. She figured out how to pay bills, how to use food stamps, et cetera.

[00:29:24.89] And I think the thing that I focus on most now is that I don't think I ever felt at a disadvantage to other people in a significant way. And I think that's because she worked so hard to make sure that we were provided for in a way that we could go to school and feel like we belong there. And this was in Menlo Park and then Palo Alto and then finally in Los Altos was our final house. It's hard to imagine in Los Altos now, just given the price of housing. But believe it or not, back in those days it wasn't quite so expensive, because that was a long time ago.

[00:29:59.50] Anyway, the point is that she, I think, set me on the right footing, and demonstrated to me two things. One was that everybody can achieve when given the right help and assistance, and sometimes that assistance comes from outside. Like people need a hand up sometimes. That's just the way it is. And when given that hand up, they can achieve amazing things.

[00:30:24.20] And the second thing was just the value of hard work. Like when you put your mind to something and you really go at it, not only can you achieve great things, but you're proud of yourself, and being proud of yourself makes you less subject to the whims of other people, less dependent on their approval and et cetera. So those two things were important lessons, I think, for me throughout my career. I know that as a CEO of Cummins, which was an amazing job, by the way, the best ever. Very proud of that. Of what we did there, and that company, and everything associated with it.

[00:31:00.89] I always felt like I'm going to have to take some chances here, and they may not all work out. And one day they may just decide that I'm not the right person to lead the company, and maybe I should move on. It turns out it happens to a lot of CEOs. They know, they're there for a while, and then they're changed out. And I wanted to make sure that I knew that I am not my job. That I am-- I work very hard, I do my best, but I'm not my job. And so if they decide someone else is better, I'll be fine. I'll just, I have my family, and what's important to me.

[00:31:35.95] And I always told myself that to make sure that I was proud of my own work, and I wasn't dependent on being a CEO or something else. And it really helped me when I stepped down as CEO on August 1st, and all of a sudden, after all these years of working, here I am. I'm just a guy, an old guy. Now what? And actually, the world looks like a lot of opportunity to me now. It doesn't feel like I stepped down. It feels like I stepped out into fresh air and something else. And that's exciting.

[00:32:06.07] And I think that's because I was not my job. I was who I was. And I think my mom kind of helped me feel like, if you do hard work, you own it, and you don't have to depend on others for that.

[00:32:18.81] Karen Baert: Well, that's so inspiring. And I love the emphasis on the importance of providing a hand up for others, as well as identity beyond professional identity. Thank you for sharing that personal context with us, Tom. We're getting to the end of the podcast already, and I'd love to end with a question that we ask every podcast guest.

[00:32:40.02] I have this strong belief that we all stand on the shoulders of giants. The giants who came before us, and to use Isaac Newton's words, "Standing on their shoulders is what makes us see further." And in that context, who inspires you most and Why

[00:32:56.37] Tom Linebarger: Well, I couldn't agree more with your view about that. I think that's for sure true. And I had two managers at Cummins, Tim Solso and Joe Loughrey. One was the CEO. One was the president that I worked for. And I don't think there's a single thing about management that I didn't learn from those two. They were amazing. They were people who helped me grow from a smart, hard working guy into an actual manager that could manage things.

[00:33:27.10] And they were inspiring and they gave me confidence. They gave me skills. I mean, they were amazing. I already mentioned my mom, who was, of course, set me on the right track. And the only other one I would mention is, I had a leadership coach I mentioned briefly that I-- her name was Pam Curtis, and I think she helped me go on the most important leadership journey I went on during my career, where I did a lot of work on self-awareness and emotional intelligence that changed me from a half a leader into a full one. One who is good at strategy and good at management, but maybe not so good at connecting with people. And the ability to share my story and all that you heard came from work I did with her about just being more aware of who I am and how I got that way and why that's a beautiful thing and not a problem. I think was really important in my leadership journey.

[00:34:23.58] So those are four people that I think of. There's many more. I mean, so many more. But I'll just list those four because I know you need to end this podcast one day, but there's just so many shoulders. It's hard for me to limit them. I really think that my opportunity to lead Cummins was a little bit of serendipity, a lot of hard work, and a ton of support and help by people who taught me and had faith in me and guided me and helped me solve problems. There's just so many of them, and I'm grateful to all of them. A deep gratitude to them.

[00:35:04.87] Karen Baert: That's really, really meaningful to hear about so many different giants and all the very different ways in which they've lifted you up. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. It's been such a privilege to learn from you and be inspired by you today. Thank you so much for taking the time, and we obviously look forward to continuing to follow you and Cummins and all the ways in which you advance the Clean Power transition and can't wait to continue to cheer you on from the sidelines.

[00:35:32.35] Tom Linebarger: Well, thank you so much for including me in this, Karen.

[00:35:35.21] [Music Playing]