This episode features Justin Gammage, co-founder of Illuminex AI, an airfield inspection startup, and Director of Partnerships at the University of Miami's Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing. He came up as a material science PhD and spent his early career at General Motors before pivoting into the partnership-building work he does today.

On this episode, we cover:

• How Justin went from troubleshooting problems on the GM assembly plant floor to running research collaborations with universities, and what he had to unlearn to shift from manufacturing certainty to research "what-ifs."
• Why selling into airports is slow: 18–24 month sales cycles, unpaid pilots, and a decision chain that can run 10 people deep at a major hub.
• The mindset that runs through everything he does: you're never selling to "Toronto Pearson," you're selling to one person whose mortgage and next raise ride on your project delivering.
• Networking tips from a self-described introvert who finds it genuinely hard to walk up to strangers, including his two go-to moves for surviving a conference room full of people he doesn't know.
• The 2008 financial crisis wake-up call that reshaped how he thinks about his career, plus the mentor "aha moment" that taught him partnerships live or die on whether people actually like working together.

Justin’s Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-gammage-846bb613/

https://www.illuminex.ai/

https://idsc.miami.edu/justin-gammage/

Andrew’s links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcburney22/

https://elderado.ca

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