The Growth in East Tennessee’s Tech Industry with Travis Howerton

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Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Connect the Knox.

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I'm Julia Hurley, your host for the show, Connecting Knoxville to the Nation.

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Today's guest is Travis Howerton, local entrepreneur, CEO, and

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founder of a massive tech company that protects Some of the world's

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biggest secrets over at ORNL and some pretty big places like that.

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Travis, please introduce yourself to our group of people across

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the nation that tune into our podcast and thank you for being here.

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So I'm Travis Howerton.

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Uh, as you mentioned, I'm one of the co founders and the CEO at RankScale.

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I spent 20 plus years in U.

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S.

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national security.

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Um, I retired as the first Chief Technology Officer of the U.

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S.

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Nuclear Weapons Program, went over to Oak Ridge National Lab and

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ran their IT Service Division for a couple years, and then, uh, led

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digital transformation globally for Bechtel, uh, for a few years.

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Uh, now, everywhere we went, we kind of found that compliance

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processes kind of slowed everything down in these large organizations.

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And we got frustrated enough that we decided to do something about it.

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And we, we, uh, built a company that's automating

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many of these risk and compliance challenges that help

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the largest companies in the world innovate faster.

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That's a lot.

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I don't, I may or may not have seen you.

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I'm not sure.

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Were you at the NOW conference?

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I've been to the ServiceNow conference in the past, but not, uh, recently.

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Or are you talking about the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop?

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Yeah, Nuclear Opportunities Workshop.

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I actually attended this year.

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Oh, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it this year.

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I was at, uh, the Department of Energy CyberCon conference.

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But I have attended in the past, and

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Of course, the DOE has their own cyber call in conference.

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That's amazing!

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Yep, and uh, but I am a proud member of ETEC for many years, so we

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do generally try to support economic development in East Tennessee.

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I love it.

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Okay, so for everybody out there, we have

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so many people that tune into this podcast.

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One, because a lot of people relocate to the Knoxville, Tennessee area.

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East Tennessee is very ripe for relocations.

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We're using a lot of acronyms.

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Let's throw that out there and kind of and help people understand

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one, what we're talking about and two, what that means for them.

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What it means for Knoxville is that it's, uh,

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we're becoming more of an entrepreneurial city.

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And so when you think of traditional venture capital, you think

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of San Francisco and Austin and Boston and these big mega hubs.

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We were able to raise a very large Series A round, uh, at a very atypical place.

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And so what's changing in the world post COVID is the

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money's not always isolated in these centers now, which

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opens up investment in, uh, new areas like Knoxville.

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And what makes Knoxville interesting is you've got

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a strong university in the University of Tennessee.

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You've got cheap power in TVA.

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You've got a lot of entrepreneurial talent at Oak Ridge National Lab.

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And you put all those things together with a very friendly

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business climate and a very, uh, relatively low cost

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of living relative to those other hubs I mentioned.

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And it starts to become a very attractive place for outside investment, which

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helps grow businesses, which helps attract more of those people to Knoxville.

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Yes, I so agree.

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And eTech is something that I've been in and out

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of, I would say for the better part of now 12 years.

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I remember ETEC when their coffee is actually started at 5 30 a.

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m.

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I know they've gone to 7 30 a.

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m.

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So it's been a minute.

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But for those out there that don't know, ETEC, East Tennessee Economic

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Council, and we have the TEC Corridor between Oak Ridge and Knoxville,

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Oak Ridge National Lab, Bechtel, which used to be Bechtel Jacobs.

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Y12, K25.

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We have, what is that new company that just got

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Bill Gates to invest in the Knoxville market?

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Is it Kairos Power?

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Oh no, but they're new as well.

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They were at the NOW conference and they're talking about

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Trillium mining and bringing like a gram of Trillium here

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that can power almost an entire city on one gram of Trillium.

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We are definitely becoming a hub for clean energy investment.

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Uh, especially with their background and expertise in nuclear.

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So if you read some of Bill Gates books, who most people

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would not describe him as a staunch Republican, right?

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But uh, he, he is big on nuclear being the only answer to climate change

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in any reasonable amount of time that is cost effective in any way.

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So you see in all these really high tech clean energy

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nuclear companies that make safe nuclear reactors.

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And so when you think nuclear, most people think scary, Chernobyl, Oppenheimer

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movie, all those sorts of bad images come to mind, but these are microreactors.

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They're very small.

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They're inherently safe and they put off no

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fossil fuels or anything bad for the environment.

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So it's You Exciting.

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So if you look at the capabilities we have at Y 12 and ORNL, the capability we

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have at TVA, and then the money coming from the governor's office to accelerate

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nuclear, it's an exciting time to be doing nuclear things in East Tennessee.

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It really is.

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So tell everybody out there how you are

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encompassing all of that into your company.

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So we just want to be part of the ecosystem.

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So we're big on rising tides, float all boats.

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And so you just want to create opportunities.

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So whether it's in engineering and nuclear, For us, we're a

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high tech, uh, sort of traditional San Francisco style startup.

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So you want to be in high tech and cyber,

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there's going to be options in Knoxville now.

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And so it's, uh, I never thought living in Tennessee that this opportunity

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would be available to me that we could raise this kind of money.

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We could build a big company, uh, like you would in San

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Francisco or Austin, that you could do that in Knoxville.

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But we're hoping to set a blueprint for it, um,

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so that others can follow and do the same things.

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Uh, but it's, it's exciting.

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There's a lot of opportunity for new jobs.

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We've got a bunch posted now.

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Um, and so it's creating jobs.

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People are relocating to Knoxville to be part of RegScale

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and we hope as we grow that more and more of that happens.

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We're excited for you.

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I love to learn all about the new businesses coming to the Knoxville market.

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It's one of the best things about this podcast.

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We get to announce local people who own local things, who

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globally and nationally make a difference in this market.

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So that's huge.

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You live in Oak Ridge, you went to Oak Ridge, tell us about you as a person.

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So I live in Oak Ridge.

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So I worked in the Department of Energy, which their hub is here in Oak Ridge.

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So I've lived here since.

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2010, I grew up in Knoxville, went to Central High School, got my first degree

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at Pellissippi State, then went to Tuscaloosa College, got my master's at

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Boston University, spent a little time at headquarters at DOE in Washington, D.

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C., but Pretty much have always maintained a residence here in East Tennessee,

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but currently live out of Oak Ridge, love it here, work out of Cherokee Farms.

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So, we put our office in the new research park just across from the

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hospital on the water there at the UT campus, which is a beautiful

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location, gives us great access to the brightest students on campus

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as a recruiting pipeline and we've really enjoyed it out there.

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So let's talk about that.

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What do you look for as far as maybe interns or recruitment?

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I know, uh, and many people I'm sure assume if they don't know that you

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do have to have some special clearances to be able to work in the career

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that you're working in, especially with the companies that you work with.

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What does that process look like for maybe a student looking for

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that opportunity maybe to be in engineering or nuclear energy?

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Or something along the lines that you would want them

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as an intern, or possibly as a hire in the future.

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Yeah, so at RegScale, our R& D office is in Knoxville, so we're looking for the

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best and brightest computer scientists, uh, software engineers, data scientists.

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Um, uh, who want to work in high tech entrepreneurial sort of environment.

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They don't want the traditional corporate ladder.

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If they'd like to get on the ground floor of something, build it, have

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more of a creative entrepreneurial spirit is kind of what we look for here.

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Um, we recruit nationally for our marketing sales, other sorts of

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opportunities, but in general, all of our R& D is local here in Knoxville.

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Uh, it does, we, as you mentioned, we do national security

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work for the Department of Defense and other places,

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so it does come with expectations of clean living.

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So, you know, you can pass a drug test, uh, and those sorts of

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things, uh, nothing unsavory in your background, but if you can meet

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those requirements and you enjoy engineering on complex problems.

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Um, uh, there's opportunities at Rexco.

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We all know that real estate is location, location, location.

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Our team at Just Homes Group has the true expertise,

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pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities.

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Whether you're looking to buy or sell a home right here

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in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have

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the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area.

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Call Just Homes Group today.

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I love that.

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I love that so much.

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So tell us about the next year of your growth plan.

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Where would you, where are you on target to be?

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What are your future plans and where would

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you like to be in the Knoxville market?

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So over the next year we plan to continue growth.

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We're growing rather rapidly now, so we've raised our Series A.

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So in the next year or so, somewhere in that

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time frame, we'd like to raise a Series B.

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At that point, we should probably double in size or so.

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So that'll be the next huge tranche of growth for us as we

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go try to capture this continuous controls monitoring market.

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But that's the trajectory we're on.

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We're still a hyper growth company and looking to continue on that track.

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Tell me what you mean by continuous controls.

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So, in the past, big companies would buy these tools called GRC tools,

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Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and basically it's a way of looking at

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what you're doing, making sure you're meeting the requirements, generating

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tons of paperwork manually, having people review it, do risk assessments.

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But it's a way of making sure when you're big that you're

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following all the laws and regulations, that you're not

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incurring undue risk to your business, but it's insanely manual.

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And the bigger you are, the more burdensome these processes get.

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So you think large government agencies, financial institutions, utilities.

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Um, what we've done is the I would say that doesn't really

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work in a cloud native world that's moving at light speed.

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Nobody has time to write this paper, much less read it.

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Um, and so when you look at that, we thought

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we'll move everything to compliance as code.

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We'll make the paperwork update itself.

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It'll be more real time.

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We'll use AI and other things to just Make tons of labor and pain and

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costs go away and improve the risk posture for businesses at the same time.

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And so, uh, the biggest of the big companies

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have found this approach very attractive.

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So it's the same outcomes you would always get in

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GRC, just done in a very modern and different way.

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Uh, that has a strong business case, and

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that's really been the engine for our growth.

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I love that.

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Tell me about how you incorporate AI.

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I know that's such a hot button topic.

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Recently, the government still can't keep up with any conversation

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in that whatsoever, and it is, it is genuinely growing faster

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than we can even talk about a regulation or cap on that.

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How are you all incorporating and controlling your AI usage?

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So, there's a couple things there.

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One is that will continue to be the case.

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So, Um, if you're familiar with Moore's Law, it's basically that

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processing speed is, is sort of doubling, uh, every few years, and it's

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an exponential, and humans don't do well with exponential equations.

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They just go faster than human brains can keep up with.

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So, at some point, the thing gets its own momentum.

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Uh, where we're at today is we're not on the fear

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mongering side of it's just going to take everybody's job.

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What we're trying to do is supercharge people, where, um, you might

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have 10 people's worth of work, but you can only afford two of them.

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There's these massive backlogs.

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You can only afford three.

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How do we make each one of those people perform like five people?

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That's where AI can really help.

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Um, so it gets out of these stare and compare exercises that happen in audits.

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It can do a lot of that work for you.

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Bring the information to the human who can make the right

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risk based decisions, but get them out of doing a lot of

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the low value work that it takes to get to that point.

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And so what we're trying to do is improve quality of life for the

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humans, get more work out of them for the same amount of input.

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Um, and sort of supercharged humans.

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So at some point, it will get good enough in the future where you may not

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need as many humans in some of these areas, but it's not to that point yet.

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I love that you say supercharged humans.

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I think that should be your slogan.

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RegScale, we supercharge humans.

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All right, tell us a little bit about you as a person.

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And we've got about 12 minutes left in this conversation.

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So let's really flip the scales to who you are, who your family is.

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Like, what do you find relevant in the Knoxville market as far as

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bringing your business here and what has made you decide to stay?

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So, uh, married with two kids.

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So my, my wife, Beth is a real estate agent.

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So when you talk about the, uh, people who are

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relocating to Knoxville, she's a buyer's agent.

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She's been one of the top ones in Knoxville

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for years over at Slime and Real Estate.

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And so the more people who are relocating the better.

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So yeah, so Beth is my wife.

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Um, and then we've got our two girls, Taylor and

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Sarah Beth, they go to Concord Christian School.

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And so we like, uh, the, the family values.

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So, uh, we got her kids in a private Christian school.

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We like the business climate.

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Um, her, her family's close, so we got access to convenient babysitting.

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And so for me, I'm a nerd.

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I just like to code and play video games and other, other things.

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Uh, my wife is more fun than me, so she's the

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one who likes to, to travel and do other stuff.

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Uh, but, uh, uh, day to day, mostly like working, building the business.

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That's it.

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I'm a crappy golfer, so if I get a chance to go out

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and play golf, I enjoy it, and that's about it for me.

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What growth opportunities do you see for younger people to be able

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to want to stay and live and raise a family in the Knoxville market?

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I think it's better than ever.

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So, uh, in the past, sort of pre COVID, some of the top tech jobs

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and other things, if you wanted that career, you had to move away.

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And so, uh, there wasn't really any option

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to pursue the top careers in those fields.

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and live in Knoxville.

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Post-COVID, workforces are getting increasingly

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more distributed where you can work from anywhere.

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We all live on Teams and Zoom and other things and so what they found

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is they can get cheaper labor in some of these places that aren't

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San Francisco and get the same level of productivity out of them.

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So the opportunity to be able to do those things is greater.

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Also, Knoxville itself is booming, uh,

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economically, uh, the number of jobs moving.

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Not just the high tech on our side, but manufacturing jobs, other things.

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So the ability to find work here, I think it is on the other side

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where we're, um, uh, we're constrained as employers to find enough

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talent because there's so many jobs being created right now.

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And so that's also why you see so many people moving here.

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Because that's not true everywhere.

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Lots of places are shrinking.

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Other places are rising.

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You know, it takes a while for those trends to happen.

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But if you look from here to Chattanooga to Nashville, Tennessee's

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done a great job of creating very friendly business climates.

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And, uh, you can see it from Oracle, the new Ford factory.

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Just across the state, Tennessee's just been booming.

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Yeah, Tennessee's definitely changed quite a bit over the last decade.

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Nashville has tripled in capacity.

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Chattanooga has doubled.

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I anticipate Knoxville will do the same in the next five to six years.

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So we are always keeping an eye out on how to

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maintain a conversation with the younger generation.

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We have a lot of different possibilities for growth and opportunity and

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jobs, not necessarily Uh, a conversation in Knoxville to keep them here.

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We are definitely no Nashville or Austin as

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far as the ability to provide things to do.

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Um, I feel like we're growing in that arena

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and shifting the conversation over to that.

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What are some of your favorite things to do in Knoxville when people visit you?

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What is your hidden gem, I guess you could

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say, as far as a tour goes or a suggestion box?

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I like the lake.

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I love being on the water.

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There's lots of lakes here, so if you're

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into lakes and boating, lots of opportunity.

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The Smoky Mountains here.

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We like to go to Dancing Bear up, uh, into the Smokies.

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I think that's fun.

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That's one of the best places to eat in all of Tennessee.

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Amazing food, amazing service up there.

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Nice quiet little place to get a lodge.

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They got a little coffee place at the bottom.

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So like, we like to get away for weekends up to Dancing Bear periodically.

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So that's, I think, one of the hidden gems.

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My wife loves to tailgate at UT football games, so that

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never gets old, and we're good again, which is a lot of fun.

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And then there's a lot of good places to eat

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now downtown, from Gay Street to the Old City.

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We have like three or four places I really enjoyed.

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I'm a foodie.

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I like to travel and go to high end.

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Restaurants and other things.

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We just didn't have a lot of that, but there's probably

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seven, eight solid spots downtown that are as good as

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anywhere you'll find in Nashville or one of those places.

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So we don't have the music scene or the big, uh, some of the bigger

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amenities that Nashville has, but it is a great place to raise a family.

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There's plenty to do here.

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And if you like the outdoors, there's a lot to do here.

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Yeah, I absolutely agree.

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And South Knoxville being so close to the mountains and having access

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to hundreds of acres of protected land makes it a very hikable,

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bikable, family oriented place, as well as a high end restaurant place.

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Well, definitely has a lot of food and entertainment.

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So Travis, wrapping this up, tell us a little bit about, again, just go through

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what it is that your company RegScale provides, does, and kind of pitch it.

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Hey, listen, while you're out there, visit blank, you know, tell people where

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they can find your company and apply for these amazing career opportunities.

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Because what you're doing for Knoxville is

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huge, and I think people really need to know.

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So if you go to regscale.com and click the

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careers, you can always see the open jobs.

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We are growing and constantly hiring, so

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we're looking for the best and brightest.

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And so if you're interested in an entrepreneurial experience, we'd encourage

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you to apply for any of those jobs that seem like they might fit your skill set.

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If you're struggling with risk and compliance challenges, and you're

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sick of writing paperwork that nobody wants to read and nobody wants

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to write, And you're looking for a better answer, come check us out.

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Uh, we might be able to help solve some of your problems.

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Uh, and if you're just new to the area and you

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want to get connected in business, reach out to us.

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We can plug you into ETAC and, uh, the Knoxville, uh,

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Entrepreneurial Center and KTAC, the Knoxville Technology Council.

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There's a lot of things going on and ways to get connected in the community.

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So if you're new to the community, you want to get involved,

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want to get connected, We're happy to connect you up as well.

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I love that so much, Travis.

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Thank you so much for being a guest today.

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Everybody, listen up.

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We have such an amazing, dynamic year planned ahead for our interviewees.

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Stay tuned for the next episode of Connect to the Knox.

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I'm Julia Hurley, your host, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

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Until next time.

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Thank you for tuning into the show.

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Make sure to like and subscribe.

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Leave a five star review on your podcast player of choice.

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And if you would like information on moving

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to Knoxville, send me a private message.

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As always, this is Julia Hurley connecting Knoxville to the nation.