Humtown, a family-owned producer of 3D sand cores and molds, was founded in Columbiana, Ohio.
Since its founding in 1959 as a small pattern shop, they have now become a global leader in 3D printing.
The owner was recently awarded the honor of Ohio Small Businessperson of the Year.
It is the Chamber Music Connection’s 35th anniversary. The nonprofit music academy has been teaching children and adults chamber music here in Columbus.
We will learn more about the expert behind the programs and all they have to offer.
The award-winning documentary "No Sleep Til Kyiv" was released in January. A volunteer representing Ohio's 8thand 10th districts as a delegate for the American Coalition for Ukraine was featured in the film.
We will hear more about his advocacy and efforts.
It's all part of this week's edition of Fascinating Ohio.
Guests:
- Mark Lamoncha, CEO/president, Humtown/Ohio’s 2026 Small Businessperson of the Year
- Deborah Barrett Price, artistic director, Chamber Music Connection, Inc.
- Jon Gudorf, realtor/truck driver for Ukraine humanitarian aid
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All Sides and WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye State with an interesting story to tell. HumTown, a family owned producer of 3D sand cores and molds, was founded in Columbiana, Ohio. Since its founding in 1959 as a small pattern shop, they have now become a global leader in 3D printing. Mark LaMoncha, the son of the original founder, has been instrumental in growing the business. And he was recently awarded Ohio Small Business Person of the Year by the Small Business Administration. Welcome to All Sides Mark.
Mark LaMoncha: Good morning, glad to be here.
Juravich: So you were awarded Ohio Small Business Person of the Year. How did that feel, getting that award?
LaMoncha: It was surprising and exciting at the same time.
Juravich: So yeah, so you were surprised, but I mean, you've created a pretty good business there. I mean what does it mean for you as a small business owner to be recognized out of the whole state as doing a good job?
LaMoncha: What it really means is that an award really has no value unless it can create momentum going forward. You wanna reflect on that and then be able to, I think it's maybe a chance to be an ambassador for other people. Mentoring goes both ways, but I've been mentored into all my life and if I can help somebody else, business isn't always easy.
Juravich: Yeah, so tell me a little bit about HumTown Products. So HumTow, it used to be called HumTower Products and it used be HumTowan Pattern making pattern molds for metal castings made in foundries. So you began working there and learning the family business, you know, years ago. What made you fall in love with the family business all those years ago?
LaMoncha: Well, you know, when a parent has a business and, you know, you can take your children in there because, you know, your protecting them. And so I went in probably when I was about 10 years old to start to learn pattern making. And, you know, just because your parents very gifted at taking a drawing and turning it into a beautiful wood object that can make sand molds to make trains or, or a pipe or any kind of a metal Casting You have to look at the drawing, lay it out on wood, and my father was gifted with spatial perception.
Everybody's level of looking at a drawing and imagining it onto a layout is different. So there was a little frustration that I wasn't as gifted as he was at that. So I worked at that for four or five years. And then when I was 16 to 18, I left for about two years to work at one of our suppliers that actually repaired vehicles. And then at 18 when I got out of school, my father asked me to buy back in and and start to make Zancores. And then we grew that pretty rapidly.
As a matter of fact, within a couple of years to 24-7 and then to 220 people. And so I really, I had no time to actually go to college. So I hired in mentorships in every aspect of business. So when I brought that up on how valuable it is, you become a product of the people and the level and speed of learning that you need.
I remember doing probably 20 semi-loads a week of sand cores and molds to the Columbus Steel Casting, which was founded by Prescott Bush. And that created an epicenter up until about 2009, where we hit the great recession and industry goes through changes. And that's where we came into the 3D sand printing.
Juravich: Well, tell me, yeah, tell our listeners first, what is a sand core? And then we'll get into the 3D printing.
LaMoncha: So when you look at your engine, when you go to put oil in there, that engine is made out of a molten casting. And in order to do that, first they have to make a mold comparing that to like a bucket on the beach and making a mold of the shape of that bucket. Now you have this very complex engine that has to be broken down into probably four or five different castings. Somebody has to make the the mold to mold the sand into.
And then assemble that sand and pour liquid metal into it. And as that metal is cooling, the glue or the resin that holds it together disintegrates and then the sand falls away. And then they take that block to a machine shop, they machine it, they drill it, put the pistons in and all the other parts. And then that's how you have an engine in your car.
And castings are in pumps, they're in switches, they're valves that we use for our water systems and for our waste. In most cases, you never see a casting, unless you lift the hood on your car and you look at that engine. But your brake calipers in your car that stop your car, those are castings and have to be made from a drawing into a mold. And then the mold is molded with sand into it. And then. They pour the liquid metal on, and that's a casting.
Juravich: Tell me about the decision to pivot to 3D printing molds. Did you just see the future and you knew this is what we need to do?
LaMoncha: Well, I've always been fascinated with innovation and what's next, you know, like, uh, like with the, when we used to have the video stores and then it would take three days to download a video. And once the speed came up, it was easy to see that we, you that that would change. So in the same way in our company looking at, you what was next, a lot of times though, too, there's disruption in the economy.
So in 2009, when we hit the Great Recession... That's when we went from 220 people to only three, but because we had already been looking at what was next, that gave us the ability to pivot and be able to emerge out of an economic crisis quicker by coupling with Youngstown State University. And a lot of times the emerging technology is very expensive.
And they can get the equipment that they really need to partner with a company, an industry that can provide the space and all the other costs other than the machine. So that was really where the pivot came in when we joined up with Youngstown State University, the Youngstoun Incubator, and America Makes, which is the federal additive technology center in Youngstow Ohio, and they became We were helping them do engineering projects, and we were getting the benefit of commercializing this 3D sand printing from what a lot of people think of additive manufacturing is for a prototype. We were able to commercialize that to actually have more of the 3D San printers in one building than anywhere else in the world, at least for right now.
Juravich: This is Fascinating Ohio from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News, and we're talking about small businesses with Mark LaMoncha, CEO and President of HumTown, and Ohio's 2026 Small Business Person of the Year. I guess I should have asked you this sooner, but why is your business called HumTow?
LaMoncha: Well, there was a crossroads about seven in the Columbiana Waterford Road and they were actually humps that established that. And that was quite common, you know, in a country in the rural days. I guess maybe it might be fitting to go along with the fact of equipment that is humming. So.
Juravich: I thought of it like we're humming along here, you know, making our things, you know.
LaMoncha: But we hope so, humming sounds like a high performance thing to me too.
Juravich: Okay. Can you talk a little bit about, I mean, you mentioned the 2008 financial crisis and how that was really hard on your business. I mean I can't imagine going from 220 employees down to three, but can you talk about your visual earnings system and how it basically saved your business, improved productivity, got you out of the financial crisis?
LaMoncha: Well, and I went up and studied Lincoln Electric. It was a fascinating company. They had an annual bonus that was fairly high, but it's difficult for a lot of people to see a goal that's a year away. And my fascination with my brother-in-law and I building computers from scratch and building servers and integrating what they now call Industry 4.0, the machines were interesting, but technology is even... Much more of the reason, that's my greatest interest.
So we took these machines that were from the 1960s. We built a DOS, they call it ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning. Then we built a human machine interface to transfer the knowledge from the computer to the Siemens network. And how the visual learnings worked is every cycle of the machine, there's a certain amount of money that is in the quote for any part that you make so what they do when they log in they actually every cycle you know say if it was two dollars a piece if they can cycle that machine you know ten times and it's twenty dollars an hour.
And what happens then is the magic happens when they're able to build and construct their own earning rate and with an unlimited potential, they start to develop innovation isn't something innovation is something that comes in from inside of a person. So they can see in each within each cycle, they can see if they can move that from $20 to $22 to 24. And it was interesting, it took five years with the U.S. Patent Office to actually get them.
And it a video that we had made that we sent and the patent examiner looked at it on a day when they were snowed in and not able to work and called our patent attorney in Columbus and said, I finally get this. Because a lot of us are more visual than reading. And so they... Granted the patent for that, and then it took about another three years. When they log in, they actually compete against each other based on their earning rate, and a lot of times factory work and machine press operating becomes kind of boring. So I really believe the future is, you know, kind of bringing Disney into the workplace or in this case, I would call it eSports.
Juravich: Yeah.
LaMoncha: I really think that will make manufacturing a lot more exciting and engaging for our current generations.
Juravich: Well, yeah, I saw a video you made with your different employees talking about seeing their earnings literally on a computer screen, and if they work a little faster, work a little harder, it goes up. If they make a mistake, it goes down. So I can definitely see how it improved productivity, but also created a healthy sense of competition. But also from that video, it also created a health sense of camaraderie. Your employees seemed to, do you consider your employees kind of like a little network of friends and family?
LaMoncha: After 2009, I kind of realized that we were kind of running a lot of our factories in the United States, you know, really off of a 1930s operating system and our handbooks and our, you now, so that was why, you really when I met now, coach, Lieutenant Governor Trestle came as coach Jim Trestel in 2014 to one of our locker room meetings.
And he really helped me start to see that we need to move from a workplace mindset to a performance mindset, like we expect of ourselves or when we go to watch sports. And I really think we have to transition from that 1930s and we have start to use the newer things because your phone operating system seems to get updated every three or four days.
But we really, as CEOs, which in the past We're chief executive officers, I believe. Now we have to become coaches empowering others. And that was where the industrial athlete book was written so that we could start to see that it's not about the visual warnings and the technology by itself, it's about developing this whole new mindset that if America, we were at 38% manufacturing employment after World War II, and now we're actually at 7.8 is what came out in the executive order with tariffs.
We have to, as a red, white and blue issue, as Americans, we need to raise that number back up to over 20%. And we have amazing advanced and additive and manufacturing 4.0 technologies to do that. So my favorite sport is manufacturing. And I want America to win the Olympics of manufacturing once again.
Juravich: I like that you call your your workers are a team and that manufacturing is a sport. We have been talking with Mark LaMoncha, CEO and president of HumTown, also Ohio's 2026 small business person of the year. Mark, thank you so much for your time today.
LaMoncha: Thank you, it's great to be here.
Juravich: And this is Fascinating Ohio from all sides. Coming up, we're gonna learn about growing a passion for chamber music in children. That's when All Sides and Fascinating Ohio continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All Sides and WOSU, where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye state with an interesting story to tell. For the past 35 years, Chamber Music Connection has been devoted to providing the people of central Ohio with instruction and opportunities to embrace their passion for chamber music. And since its founding, the CMC has invited students to join from all walks of life and has maintained a policy of no audition required. They just asked students to bring their instrument and a love for the music. Its founder, Deborah Barrett Price, is a highly accomplished violinist, juggling everything from teaching at Denison University to playing in multiple orchestras, to spreading her love of chamber music through the CMZ. And she's here with us today to talk about her life and experience. Welcome to All Sides, Debbie.
Deborah Barrett Price: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Juravich: So what started your passion for music? Did it start when you were a little kid? Oh yeah.
Price: My dad actually majored in music, ended up becoming Episcopal priest, but continued to play. My mom, we found out about 10 years ago, actually has perfect pitch and she was a nurse. I was like, how does the one musician or one person in our family who's not a professional musician end up with the perfect pitch and the rest of us have to work really hard to get that skill going.
But yeah, they had me, my dad had us playing two music as soon as I could hold my instrument. My sister was a professional cellist and my brother. Is a flutist, though his profession is bridge. Like the card game bridge. Oh, okay. That's what we did growing up. You either played bridge or you played chamber music. So here we are.
Juravich: Okay. I was like, he's building bridges. Um, so, so has it always been violin for you or did you? No, actually I'm a violist. Violist. I'm sorry.
Price: Yeah, all my degrees. That's okay. I do play violin as well. I do teach it as well, but and I started on violin, but all my degrees are on viola.
Juravich: Viola. Okay. Um, so what motivated you to start wanting to teach alongside performing? I mean, you could just focus on the performing, but why teaching too?
Price: Yeah, I've always been drawn to teaching. Even as a high school kid, I was dancing six hours a day, six days a week. I was in a little company and they encouraged us to mentor. And so I choreographed and mentored younger students. And from there, when I decided to shift to music, it just came pretty natural.
And I think both my parents are highly into education as well on their own. And it was just that window that kind of opened or that door that kind open and I just followed it and. It's so gratifying and it's so fun to share the music and just the time together that we develop an understanding and collaboration with each other. It's just so much fun.
Juravich: So tell me about the idea to form Chamber Music Connection. Where did the idea come from and how did you create it from scratch?
Price: Well, I worked with a program called the Jefferson Academy of Music when I was at Ohio State. I was the teaching assistant there. And they recruited me. And that program had changed a bit. And a friend of mine named Erika Eckert, who was the original founding member of the Cavan Eastern Quartet, which also formed at Ohio state actually, she came up to me and said, hey, my mom who was teaching in Delaware, Ohio at the time said, she always wanted to start a chain music program and she wondered if you would do it.
And I was like. Naive enough to say yes. Oh, I see. Yeah, so that kind of how it started. I had done other programs that were short. And I just, I didn't realize I was pregnant at the time. So I literally started this program when I was nine months pregnant with my now 33 year old son.
Juravich: Okay. That math works within 35 years, yes. This is Fascinating Ohio from all sides on 89.7 NPR News, and we're talking with Debbie Barrett Price, founder and artistic director of Chamber Music Connection. So I wanted to better understand what chamber music is compared to just all classical music. So when I looked it up, it said that, historically, it's described as the music of friends. It focuses on intimate conversational interplay between musicians where everyone plays a unique role. So how do you describe it to people? Do you like that music of friends? That's a phenomenal description. Yeah. I just searched it up. Yeah, that's great.
Price: That's great. The technical description is music that is usually written for two or more players, usually less than 20 with one on a part, but that just doesn't sound anywhere near as fun as being part of a conversation with friends. And it's absolutely that. It's a time to collaborate with each other, to learn to problem solve.
It is a great relationship builder, including the fact that we, like at this point, some of our students that met 20 and 30 years ago are still friends. They're still connecting with each other. We have an alum who's in Paris, France, and some alum here, well, one's in DC, and two of them are here, still in Ohio. They still connect every year together. And they all met in 1992 at our first festival.
So it was really fun to hear about those relationships. And so many of the alumni have come back and said that whatever they're doing in their life, whether they're a lawyer or an engineer or. Doctor or in music, they say that the chamber music was what really gave them the foundation for what they do with their job now, with problem solving, with talking to each other, to collaborating. It's just an incredible, I guess I would refer to it as a conduit to relationship building and understanding a workplace environment, along with being a lot of fun. Yeah.
Juravich: Tell me about this. I mentioned earlier the no audition required part of your mission statement. How did you come to decide that? Because that can be dangerous, I would think. I got a lot of...
Price: Questionable well a lot of my colleagues were just like how you can't do that you can't start a program you can how do you group the kids and the thing is that auditions give such a tiny little glimpse of what a person is as a musician and in chamber music so much of is how you work together that it really doesn't matter to me to hear okay here you want to put this group together because they're all really high level but that doesn't mean they're going to work together well.
And so what we do is we ask them how long they've been playing, what instrument do they play, how old are they, what experience they might have with private lessons. And I've grouped students that way for 35 years and I've changed students four or five times in this 35 year process because you're gonna learn from whoever you're in and whatever situation you're in and the only time I changed one that I really recall was I had a student come as an eighth grade bass player.
He's now in the Philadelphia Orchestra. His name is Nathaniel West and he came to me at eighth grade having played the bass for about a year or two. You're thinking, okay, not that advanced. This kid was amazing. And when I brought him to his group, I saw how he was playing and I was like, I think, you know, maybe we'll give you a different group. He goes, I like my group. I said, okay. We'll give it two groups. No
Juravich: Okay, and what type of instruments are we talking? I mean all instruments or do you focus mainly violin violas?
Price: Yeah, the majority of string, you know, the the majority of chamber music is really written for strings and piano. But I also have wind players. I actually just I have an intern right now is a trombonist. And we just performed last week. And together we played a viola viola cello trombone.
It was so fun. We performed for about 45 middle school students and they loved it. But we have flutists, clarinetists, we've had vocalists. We even had a vocal viola piano on from the top.
Juravich: Yeah, so From the Top is an NPR music program where students perform basically live on the road. I don't know if it's live, but on the radio. On the radio, yeah.
Price: On the radio. They highlight the best young classical musicians in the country. And so it's very competitive to get onto the show. And yeah, so we've had, we also had a very interesting flute, sorry, bassoon and bass. And we're going to the Fish Off National Chambers of Competition coming up next week with a group that is two violas, oboe and Sorry, two flutes, viola and oboe.
Juravich: Two flutes, viola and oboe. I'm trying to picture it. There's actually nothing written for this group. So did you compose something for them?
Price: Something for them. We have done a lot of transcriptions, spent many many hours doing some arrangements. It's been a blast of doing Piazzolla, they're doing Ravel string quartet for this combination that we created, Haydn and a piece by Beef Tank who is a composer out of LA who actually changed the arrangement for us and dedicated it to the Chambers of Connection. So that was really fun. So you get to work with live composers.
Juravich: So to go to a competition like you just mentioned, that fancy name. Um, do you have to, do have to win smaller competitions or do you have to audition into the competition?
Price: Yeah, I have to do videos and it's it is the most the oldest most prestigious competition in the world So it's very much like the Olympics. So for a group for an organization like ours that says, you know, no audition I That was one of the things that my colleagues would say to me You're never gonna get really high-level players if you do that. Well, we've been at fish off We've been At the Coltman and st. Paul string quartet competition. We've done it all of the top
Juravich: competitions. Prove them wrong Debbie, prove them wrong. Another program that I found interesting is you have a gig program, so you're getting these kids real jobs as real musicians. Tell me about that.
Price: Yeah, so when, you know, people want to have a wedding or a party or, you know, any kind of special events, they can come hire our students who we train to do these gig programs, to do gigs, go out there and play music, background music or concerts. And they make between 40 and $50 an hour each student, which is still way less than what you'd have to pay a professional group, but for those students, it's kind of nice and you're helping support them. And they're getting real life experience getting out there and performing together.
Juravich: So if someone listening right now is like, Oh, I need a gig. I have a gig coming up. I need to, yeah. How do they, do they just reach out to you through your website? Exactly.
Price: Just go on our website and there's a musicians for hire tab that they can go to for the gig program. Oh that's fun.
Juravich: Yeah. Well, I also noticed you're on the advisory board of Chamber Music Columbus, so I wanted to ask you about the relationship of Chamber music connection with the other CMC. Yeah, with the CMC, yeah.
Price: They changed their name from the Columbus Chain Music Society to Chain Music Columbus. I was like, oh, we have two CMCs now, but it'll be fun. What are you gonna do? Yeah, what are you going to do? But we've been working with them for many years.
I think our first real collaboration was in 2006 where we did a side-by-side with the groups. They're the people who bring in the professional artists and we're the the people who are developing the students and the artists and the supporters for the future. So. Together, it's been a fantastic collaboration. We do master classes, they provide scholarship money for students who couldn't afford to go, and that's a big thing.
I really, right from the very beginning, said I don't want any student to feel that they cannot participate because of the financial constrictions of their family or the situation. I want them to find their way here, and we're gonna find a way to make it work for them.
Juravich: Now, you know, we talked about the definition of chamber music, but you just talked about the like unique pairings that you all put together. Does, do you know it, does, would chamber music Columbus put a trombone in one or is that more a unique to you situation?
Price: Situation. That's kind of unique to me for the entire world. They always look at me like, what are you up to now? I've done so many unique combinations, but I think it's more important that the people together have a chemistry and have common goals, and that we're working towards those common goals than if their instrumentation is traditional.
But Chambers of Columbus does bring in some very interesting ensembles. They just had a wind group come in from the St. Martin, Academy of the Fields from Europe. But they do mostly traditional. Chamber music that they perform you know that they're bringing in the artists to perform. But you can live a little outside the box. I can totally go outside the box and I loved going outside.
Juravich: All right, so tell me more about these scholarships. I mean, do people have to pay to be a part of the Chamber Music Connection, or they pay for the lessons?
Price: It's a tuition base. We don't offer any private lessons. We do help people find private teachers if they're interested in doing that, but they're not required to take private lessons to be part of the program. There is tuition. It's very, we do our best to keep it very low. And in general, it's anywhere from $7 to $15 an hour where when you break it down, so it's pretty cheap. We have a summer program coming up in July, and we always have had scholarship assistance.
So we get donations, you know, we're a not-for-profit, 501c3, if anybody's out there who would want to help donate and have a kid or be able to join us, that'd be fantastic. But we're always looking to help out students to get them to be able to have this opportunity.
Juravich: You mentioned your summer program a couple of times. I'm picturing, is it like a summer program?
Price: It is kind of like a summer. It's a day camp. They can come for half days or full days. We do have students who come from all over. Generally, it's mostly central Ohio students, but we've had kids drive from Cleveland every Friday for our regular program from Cincinnati, Dayton, Zanesville, and then the summer program. Sometimes we get people from New York or West Virginia. We've had a couple come from Canada. But it's a program. Okay.
Juravich: Okay, and so your 35th anniversary is right now. So it's 35 summers that you've been doing this. 35 summers, right? So like 34 years of CMC, but then 35 summers of the summer program. When you started it, did you think you'd be around doing it for 35 years?
Price: I had no idea what was gonna happen. Honestly, I just wanted to have some fun with the students and do something that I knew would be rewarding for them. And it's just developed into such an amazing program that has defined so many futures for kids, not just in music, but as like I said earlier, in all their careers, and also in arts administration.
We've had a lot of our, we have a program called the fellowship program, which is. A high school, it's a program designed similar to a graduate teaching assistantship. It's what I did as a graduate-teaching assistant, but at a high school level. So they're in there working with us to learn the ins and outs of running a not-for-profit, helping with grant writing, helping to mentor students, helping group programs, working on, I did a whole series of pedagogy videos which are based out of a program called iclassical.com out of Switzerland.
So it's now worldwide that they can study pedagogy through the videos. You're going to lose me on pedagogi. What's that? The art of teaching. The art of teaching, so the one thing about chamber music is that it's not something that we teach how to teach. We just kind of get in there and play chamber music.
So in my experience growing up, it's like, oh, you have chamber music at the university. Well, okay, you just put the script together and you play music, you learn music. You learn the repertoire. But you don't really learn how to teacher it. And that was something I felt very strongly about. And so I started this. Teaching actually through Ohio State summer teacher program. I was teaching chamber music 25 years, well 30 years ago now. And at that point teachers kept saying, will you make some videos? I wanna use these for my students.
Finally COVID hit and I had time and we put them together. And we have about eight hours of videos now, very short snippets, three minutes here, five minutes there, two minutes even, on how to teach chamber music, how to work, teach students to work together and to collaborate. And now we've also published in a book, "The Art of Collaboration" by Annie Fallard, who's the first one is the Cavani string quartet. She included us in her book as well.
So that's something I think that's really. It's just something that happened only here in Ohio, in Worthington, Ohio, out of nowhere, or like up there with people from Colburn and Juilliard and all these other phenomenal conservatories and here's this little program, Worthingtown, Ohio. Which is why I'm sure it's one of the reasons why we were recognized by Lincoln Center. Yeah.
Juravich: What what were you recognized for?
Price: Oh, we received their, it's kind of a long name, but it's the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center gave us the award for extraordinary service to chamber music. And we are the only educational organization that has received that award. And it's not something you can apply for. It's something that the board goes to. Yeah, it was quite remarkable. Was that re-
Juravich: Was that recently?
Price: It was in 2018, we got that so. Not too long ago. The other people are famous artists, chamber music artists, and another program called the Marlboro Festival, which is the top of the top, of the chamber music world. Um, do you still play?
Juravich: Do you are you are? You still like a working musician? I am a working music. Where are you where you work? I'm
Price: I'm actually performing soon in Springfield. I'm doing some chamber music with a couple of my colleagues and friends. Chris Sternberger has called us in to play some chambers together on May 16th, and then I have the Cavani string quartets coming in on May 15th.
Here in Columbus we'll be at Kissemini Lutheran Church on Friday night at 715. So if anybody wants to Here's some more chamber music but Yeah, I do a lot of performing. I perform in New York all summer at a festival that my son started that he also learned from doing CMC. He was like, I can do this.
So at 19, he started a festival that is called the Kroger Arts Collective, which now has 150 artists that come through. They've won million dollar grants from New York State. They're building a housing residence and about to break ground on a stage house for an amphitheater in upstate New York. So it's kind of amazing.
Juravich: How do you balance your time with the summer program here and being in New York? That's a good question. I
Price: I know I-90 quite well. Yeah, no, I'll be there for a few weeks and then I'm back here for a week and then back there. But one thing we did learn is you can really get a lot done over the internet. It's an amazing thing, right? It's amazing thing especially when it works well.
Juravich: 35 years ago, that probably wasn't the case. I know, yeah. We didn't even know what a cell phone was then. Well a lot has changed and you're right there with it. We've been talking with Debbie Barrett Price, founder and artistic director of Chamber Music Connection. Thank you so much for your time today. Yeah, thank you so. I really appreciate being on the show. And coming up, we're going to talk to a real estate agent turned humanitarian who is helping in war-torn Ukraine. That's when Fascinating Ohio From All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All Sides and WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye state with an interesting story to tell. John Godorf of Dayton is one of many volunteer drivers from around the world making the treacherous journey to war torn Ukraine to deliver needed supplies. It's a trip he's made multiple times and he's going back in late June.
The mission, to reach Ukrainian soldiers and deliver critical reinforcements to the front lines. Gudorf and others are featured in an award-winning documentary, "No Sleep Till Keef." Here are two little bits of audio of John in the documentary. In the first, he's narrating part of the route that he's driving.
Jon Gudorf: We have just set off from Lyft 99 in Tallinn. We're driving through downtown to the south of Estonia, near the border with Latvia.
Juravich: And on that same drive, he also makes a connection to another time in history.
Gudorf: In my mind, this is also equivalent to 1930s with Czechoslovakia and the Nazis, that appeasement does not work with dictators.
Juravich: John Gudorf joins us now. Welcome to All Sides, John.
Gudorf: Good morning, Amy. Thank you for having me.
Juravich: I want to start with the obvious question. How does a real estate agent from Dayton become a volunteer in this extraordinary all volunteer relief effort that's taking place a continental way? How did you get involved?
Gudorf: Good question. So the first gentleman to join one of these convoys Stan Miller, who's also in the film He was the first one. He had a connection somehow and then he did a five-minute video called freedom convoy and He sent that round to my uncle a fellow estate planning attorney Who I help out I saw the video once and thought okay, I can do that You know, I'm not necessarily a tough guy going to the front lines With a rifle, but I can drive a four-by-four pickup truck or a van To help the soldiers and help the cause
Juravich: You're leaving on another trip soon, June 30th, so what is involved in getting ready for a trip like that? Do you have to go through any special training?
Gudorf: Not really, I do always say, you know, myself included the first journey. You know, you're worried about bombs and missiles and drones and the like, and obviously see the footage. But yeah, the driving is the most dangerous part.
And I think what I've learned after many trips is just making sure your stop, making sure if you do have two drivers, which is recommended to get some sleep while you're not driving. And, uh, but yeah, we do have two way radios, uh for, for when there's several vehicles, I have done solo trips, which is kind of nice. You can just pull over when you feel like it. Um, but, uh yeah, not, not to make it casual, but there isn't a whole lot, uh, to prepare for, um, other than if you are with the big convoy featured in the movie, you will be waking up at 5 AM and, uh it, they run a tight ship, so you just have to be ready to go and follow instructions.
Juravich: So the goal is you're getting supplies to soldiers who are fighting on the front lines in Ukraine, right? What kind of supplies are you delivering to them?
Gudorf: So the primary thing is the truck itself. So the four by four pickup trucks, primarily some vans, some medevacs, ambulances for wounded soldiers. We do provide winter tires and spare tires. Um all the components of a truck we have drone jammers uh there's nafo provides two drone jammers which is electronic warfare to hopefully take the russian incoming drones out of the sky without firing a shot uh night vision cameras are equipped now on most of the vehicles and then we do supply uh some drones themselves as well mostly reconnaissance but you know your for everyday Mavic.
Drone and the last time we actually, as drivers, did a small little whip around and managed about 7,000 euros of drone batteries that we bought in Estonia and brought with us within a few days before we left. So that was, that was pretty cool.
Juravich: How many trips have you driven?
Gudorf: I've done four with NAFO. I've five solo from London with British Ukrainian aid was getting a bunch of vehicles donated by the city of London through their emissions scheme. So they're trying to get diesel vehicles off the roads. It took some real campaigning from a lot of people in the UK to convince the mayor of London to have those vehicles not put in a scrap yard but actually donated.
To Ukraine where they're extremely valuable. So we had all sorts, you know, vans, we had big passenger vans. We had delivery vans and then I've done a few trips with Ukrainian Action as well, another great charity out of London founded by an American and his Ukrainian wife. They do it a little differently. They just drive from London to Poland and then other people take them across border from there. They even do work trips for people like Um, you know, group, groups, um, sorry, I'm rambling a little bit.
Juravich: No, you know, you're fine. Yeah, I well I guess yeah, so you've done so you're done a lot of these trips basically for
Gudorf: I think 12 or 13, you know, yeah, 12 or 13, eight or nine trips into the country.
Juravich: Did you ever feel in danger on any of these trips?
Gudorf: A few times, yeah a few times. One story I do like to tell, I went on a solo trip. I delivered the, I think it was a big van to Khmelnytskyi or Vinnytsia, one of the central Ukrainian cities. Great hosts there.
When they're in non-4x4 vehicles, they tend to go to charities in the sort of middle of the country. Who then deliver supplies more like food, clothing, boots, anything they can get their hands onto the front on a weekly basis. And they happened to have a British car that had been delivered somehow to them that no one else wanted to drive further into the country. It was missing the gear knob and whatnot.
It was just like a small, normal car. So yeah, okay, I'll take it to Keefe. Delivered it to a gentleman kind of on the roadside. Got an apartment, and then that night, it was in the summer, there was a huge thunderstorm, which woke me up with lightning and thunder. And I thought it was missiles and air defenses going off, but it was just nature.
And it just sort of reminded me how lucky I am to get the train back out after these trips and that, you know, Ukrainians have been living with this kind of anxiety. For over four years now of every single day or night being attacked. And you don't know if a thunderstorm is a bomb or not.
So I can't even imagine. And so the bravery and heroism and the fact that I think almost 2 million Ukrainians have come back into the country since the full-scale invasion to basically they see living. As resistance, you know, they, the phrase living well is the best revenge. Well, they just living, staying alive and, and, um, you know, resisting Russia's attempt to erase them from the earth to keep Ukrainian society alive and well.
Juravich: You're listening to Fascinating Ohio From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with John Gudorf from Dayton, who is one of many volunteers driving supplies into war-torn Ukraine. And he's featured in the documentary, "No Sleep Till Keev." And I wanted to ask you about the documentary. It was shown last weekend at Studio 35. You had a question and answer session afterward. The film is available for free on YouTube. Can you tell us a little bit more about how the film came about and how you ended up in it?
Gudorf: Yeah, so the film came about a couple movie producers, one from Florida, one from California, were part of the convoy. So Peter Duke was, again, he knew Stan Miller, he was part of a convoy about, I think, six months prior to the film and had the idea immediately like, wow, we really need to get this out.
Um, so that people know what's happening and you know, this is one of many such groups and convoys, uh, from throughout Europe. I happen to meet a guy on the border of Poland and Ukraine, um, Nathaniel who started Utah for Ukraine. And he happened to be driving a car from Germany with someone else, you know to donate and he's now part of the convoy. He's now a part of our new group, 50 states for Ukraine, but Yeah, so I just happened to be there. I mean, honestly, I had no idea whether he was gonna be filmed. I think they told us a few days ahead of time and that we would be talking. Yeah, it certainly added an element to the journey.
Juravich: You mentioned that the primary person in the film is Peter Duke and listeners may know him. He's the co-founder of A&E's "Zombie House Flipping" show. So yeah, so famous in one way. And then he made this film because he wanted to just, did he wanna raise awareness of the fact that there's these people who are, like you, who are driving around Ukraine trying to help. Is that, was that, what was the reason why he decided to do the film?
Gudorf: Yeah, I think to show what is being done, to show that you can make a difference in a small way, to just show this sort of civilian lifeline of supply that is being all over Europe. And I think, to encourage Americans of all political persuasions that this is really something we should be behind.
You know, that we should all be supporting Ukraine, that it is a really simple choice, that this is a country that wants independence just like America, and perhaps represents it even better in the present time. Let's not go too far there, but that Russia is an invading force that has been the enemy of freedom for well over a century.
And has repeatedly proven that they have imperial ambitions. So I think, you know, we go from that macro perspective in the film all the way down to just, hey, okay, if you're one person, you can actually do a little something. And like Mother Teresa said, when someone asked, you now, why she kept up with all of her efforts, she said, well, you it may be a drop in the ocean, but without the drops, the ocean would be empty.
Juravich: Mm. And you recently traveled to Washington, D.C., with about 700 other advocates to lobby Congress. What message were you trying to convey? Were you trying remind them about Ukraine?
Gudorf: Yes, for sure. And thankfully we have a lot of support, especially here in Ohio, just tremendous support from some of our representatives. And we were targeting one particular piece of legislation to begin with around sanctioning Russia, which would cost the taxpayers nothing. That's been a bit controversial lately. The idea was to lift sanctions on Russia to reduce the price of gas. I'm not sure how effective that's been, driving past the pumps the other day. But...
Juravich: And there's a few other forces involved with that now, but yeah.
Gudorf: Yes, so I think we are in a time where we're not necessarily all on board from all branches of government, but our efforts in Congress are very much to stay in touch with those who support and to lobby those who may be on the fence and may be feeling pressure from the executive branch to act differently than we believe they should.
The sanctions bill is very directed at oligarchs in Russia. There is a Senate bill directed at the shadow fleet tankers, which are these unsafe ships that are carrying Russian oil and also to bring back the at least 20,000 Ukrainian children who have been abducted by Russia during the four years. That that has been being tracked. So I don't see how anyone couldn't agree with that one. So yeah, those were our primary focus.
Juravich: We're running out of time, but I wanted to talk more about the you're going back. You're going to continue doing these drives. It's an all volunteer effort. How is it funded? How does your group get the money to get to get over there to do the drives?
Gudorf: Yeah, so we fund our own expenses, all ourselves, the trucks. Our next convoy will be with a group called Car for Ukraine. So people can check us out online. We're actually called 50 States for Ukraine. And we specifically have an Ohio battalion.
So we've just reached over $20,000 of funding. So that's. Um, each truck's about 13,000, so we're getting close to, uh, two out of three, which is our goal, a gentleman from Athens, from Ohio university is coming with us, we'll be leaving London on July 4th, uh intentionally to celebrate the 250th anniversary in our ex colonial power and driving to a country which represents freedom, uh as much as anyone.
Juravich: We have been talking with John Gudorf of Dayton. He's one of many volunteers driving supplies into war-torn Ukraine, and he's featured in the documentary, "No Sleep Till Kiv." Thank you so much for joining us today, John.
Gudorf: Thank you so much, Amy.
Juravich: And this is Fascinating Ohio from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. If you missed any part of today's show or any show, you can listen back at wosu.org slash all sides. Be sure to subscribe to the All Sides podcast and every episode is available to listen to for free in the WOSU mobile app. You can also be sure to like All Sides on Facebook and follow the show on Instagram. We're looking for more Instagram followers. The handle is @allsideswosu. Thanks for listening, I'm Amy Juravich, this is 89.7 NPR News.