This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Spring is starting at the Home Depot and bringing you everyday low prices so you can wake up your yard this season. Shape up your lawn with top-brand outdoor power tools like Ryobi 40-volt mowers that have up to 50 minutes of runtime. Bring in a splash of color with spring blooms and fresh plants from the Home Depot Garden Center.
Then refresh your garden beds and keep them clear of weeds with Earth Grow mulch. Five bags for $10 to make your yard feel like new. Start your spring with low prices now through April 2nd, only at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See home depot.com slash pricematch for details.
Shop now. Big adventures, family chaos, untethered exploration. The Nissan Pathfinder is built for it. Powered by a lauded V6 engine and smooth nine-speed automatic transmission, the new Nissan Pathfinder is Adventure on Wheels. With seating for up to eight, a premium interior, and available second-row captain's chairs, it's adventure in comfort.
And with 284 horsepower and 6,000 pounds of towing capacity, Pathfinder is Adventure Unlimited. The new Nissan Pathfinder. Power your adventure. Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Owner's Manual for additional information.
Always secure cargo. Hey there, I'm Kat. I'm a college athlete. I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, which caused back pain and stiffness every day. With Cosentics, I'm able to stay active.
Cosintic secukinumab is prescribed for adults with active psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, or non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis, available in both IV infusion and self-injection. Don't use if allergic to gostentics. Get checked for TB before starting. Increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. like TB or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections.
Some were fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough, had a vaccine or plan to, or if IBD symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTIX or COCENTIX.com. Move and feel better.
Ask a rheumatologist about COSENTIX. No one knows what the future holds, but you deserve a weather app that can help. Weatherbug is easy to use and provides forecasts for your every need, from storm warnings to pollen levels, right at your fingertips. Get the fastest local alerts and comprehensive 10-day forecasts wherever you are. It's hyper-local, real-time customizable alerts.
Make sure the weather never takes you by surprise so you can plan every day with confidence. Download the free weather bug app from the App Store today and start getting accurate weather forecasts 24-7. I tell myself, it's not about comparing. But then I start wondering, what can they lift? Are they adding more weight to their barbell than I am?
And suddenly, I'm not training. Then I realize my journey is not theirs. I've earned every step.
So I smile. My smile is the shape resilience takes to keep me moving. To put more smiles out into the world, Colgate has supported female athletes for over 50 years with the Colgate Women's Games, the nation's longest-running indoor track and field series for girls and women. Colgate, your smile is your strength. And we return to our American stories.
The oldest surviving photograph in the world was taken in 1826. For reference, that's when John Quincy Adams was president. who coincidentally is also the first president to be photographed. Though needless to say, photography has been an industry for a very long time. Our next story is about a family involved in that industry.
Use our own Monty Montgomery. with a story. Our story begins in Joplin, Missouri, the hometown of Joshua and Derek Carter. The grandsons of Duane Steinley. but they had another name for him.
We called him Bob Ob. That was kind of his grandpa name that we called him.
So we were always saying Bob Ob and stuff like that. And Josh and I were very, very close to our grandfather, partly because, so we have a sister that's eight years younger than me and ten years younger than Josh. And when our mother was pregnant with our sister, she was on bed rest and was not doing very well for many, many months. And so that's actually at that point is when my grandfather semi-retired from the business to come over to Joplin. And before it had always been, you know, kind of a treat of getting to go and spend the weekend at our grandparents.
And then getting to spend every day for a year with our grandfather was just so much fun. He lived with us and took care of us and took us to school and we spent all day, every day with our grandfather. And our grandfather was a very curious person. He liked to learn and was always interested in finding out about new things. He traveled all over the world, all over the country, learning anything that interested him.
That was something that he. He always was very good with us about as well. He would take us as little boys, and we would just drive all over the place. He'd take us into shops, or he'd take us to, I believe, we went to a power plant. The one that I remember, we were driving through the field, and I remember I was probably six or seven years old.
I asked him, I said, Well, you know, what is that massive thing out there just outside of Pittsburgh, Kansas? And he said, Well, that's a power plant. Do you want to go find out how it works? And I said, Well, sure. And he pulls up to the front gate of the power plant.
I was six, and Josh was probably eight. And he says, Well, I've got my boys back here, and they want to learn how the power plant works. Can someone give us a tour? And the front gate guy said, Well, I suppose, and they called the manager of the power plant down, and we got a two-hour tour of the power plant. Free 9-11 world, so.
Yeah. That's kind of how he was. He always wanted to find out how something worked or what was going on. And, um Our grandfather first got interested in photography when he was in high school. He started out doing wedding photography and shooting um children and and things like that.
That's what he spent summers doing, saving up money to buy more photography equipment. And he never really thought that he was gonna Be a photographer as his profession. It was a hobby, it was something that he thought that he'd go on and get some other type of a business job or some other type of a career. But he really enjoyed photography all the time as soon as he started shooting in high school. He did college, and then before he graduated college, he was drafted for the Korean War.
And so he went to Korea. He actually arrived in Korea just as the war was. Coming to an end, and he was a crystal grinder for the radio, but he also did photography while he was there. and he was also kind of a um practical jokester. And uh and so the guys would play pranks on each other and one of the stories he told us was the the radar technicians would shoot the radar at him as he was walking across with his bag of flash bulbs and he would buzz a light.
would would shine and he all of his flash bulbs would go off all at once. And so that was always a fun story that he would tell of his time in Korea getting zapped with the radar so that all his flash bulbs would go off. He kind of developed somewhat of a reputation in Korea as a jokester, as Josh said. And some of the officers came and wanted to play a joke on one of the higher-ranking officers. And so they got our grandfather to go and take a picture of the officer.
And then he went and took a different picture of the latrine and superimposed it during the developing process. And the officers gave it to the higher-ranking officer as a joke towards the end. But the higher officer was so impressed by it, he thought it was a great joke, and he actually got my grandfather a job to go and take photos of the whole fleet as they were leaving because he was impressed with his photography skills. When he returned from Korea, he got his degree in math and business. And he had a good friend who was in the Navy, and they had both just gotten out around the same time.
And so, one of the things that they really enjoyed from their travels was pizza. And there were no pizza places in southeast Kansas at that time. And so, they decided to go in together and open the first pizza place in Parsons. It didn't do very well, and he kind of sat down and re-evaluated what he wanted to do and what kind of a business. He said, Well, I always loved photography.
Maybe I need to do something with photography. And so he became a salesman for film actually. And he would go to Wichita and Kansas City and Tulsa and buy wholesale film and come back and sell it to drug stores in the local area. He did that for two or three years, really, and he realized that a lot of the drugstores that he was selling in were sending all the developing off to Tulsa, Kansas City, or Wichita to have it done because there weren't anyone doing the developing, there were no labs in this area. And he said, Well, I've got a lot of experience in the darkroom of doing developing.
And so, my grandfather kept selling film during the day, and then at night, he offered an overnight developing service, just a one-man kind of shop that he'd spend all night in the darkroom developing everyone's film so that it could be ready for the next morning. It was a very slow process to begin. But Duane quickly made a name for himself in the photo processing industry because of his innovative strategies and fast pace of work. He had photo huts.
So little kiosks all over the region where people could drop off their film and it would all get processed and then sent back out to the huts. And so that was a very successful endeavor for him in the late 70s. Our mom tells us a funny story too about something you might not think about, but game film, football games, they would film it all and all of the coaches in the whole area would be sitting out in our front lobby, all sitting next to each other after they just had a big game against each other the night before to pick up all their game film. And so we offered an overnight service to get all the game film ready so they could go and watch it the next day. I think one of the next big things that really launched the business, I think it's It's always been told is the great disc film debacle of 1983.
For those who might not know or don't remember, Disc film was film, as the name suggests, wrapped around a plastic disc inside a camera. The photos were low quality. and they were harder to process than normal film. But that did not mean people didn't use them. As Dwayne's photo was about to find out, a major retailer offered a major special for Christmas in 1983, and that was 80% off of disc film processing.
And it was guaranteed that you would have your disc film processed and returned to you by Christmas. And they did this only about a week and a half or two weeks before Christmas. And they didn't think it was gonna be a big thing because disc film was not popular at all at that point. And so they thought we just need to get rid of all this disc film. It turned out that it exploded and they had several tractor trailers full of disc film that needed to get processed.
And so there was a lab down in Arkansas that just could not handle it. And so they started calling all of the other photo labs within a 200-mile radius saying, Can you help us? Can you help us? And no one was, everyone turned it away and said, We have no interest in wanting to process that much disc film, especially a week before Christmas. And my grandfather said, Send us all the trucks and we'll figure it out.
And they worked all through the day and all through the night for about 10 straight days and got all of this disc film processed by Christmas. And it kind of being able to accomplish that endeared him so much to some of these major national retailers that ever since that point, he started getting a lot more work and contracts from some of the major national retailers because he had made kind of this name for himself right before Christmas in 1983. And then through the 2000s, we were one of the largest and ultimately the last Kodachrome lab. And you've been listening to Joshua and Derek Carter tell the story of their grandfather. And it's a story about so much more.
It's a story about innovation. It's a story about change. I mean, how many people even remember the photo mats, those little huts all over the country where you ran film to? Though there is a renaissance of film and old school developing. It is not how most of us process our photographs anymore.
It's instantaneous, it's on our phones, and we text them along. When we come back, the story of the last days of Kodachrome. Here on Our American Stories. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse, being understaffed or being poorly staffed?
Well, that's a trick question, because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, just say to yourself, this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certifications, and everything else you're looking for. Or, go a different way. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a higher than non-sponsored jobs.
It really is a no-brainer. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast.
Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now. Indeed.com/slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
All right, two truths and a lie. Here we go. I went to college with college football coach Jim McElwain. I began my broadcasting career doing play-by-play for the Las Vegas Stars, and I've been a Verizon customer for 15 years.
Okay, I lied. All three are true. A Verizon isn't as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring in your ATT or T-Mobile bill, To a Verizon store, they'll give you a better deal. That's right, a better deal on the best network with the most ways to save on plans, streaming, and phone deals.
So take that ATT or T-Mobile build to your local Verizon store today, get a better deal, and start saving. Based on root metrics, best overall mobile network performance US second half twenty twenty five. All rights reserved must provide recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. Spring is starting at the Home Depot and bringing you everyday low prices so you can wake up your yard this season.
Shape up your lawn with top-brand outdoor power tools like Ryobi 40-volt mowers that have up to 50 minutes of runtime. Bring in a splash of color with spring blooms and fresh plants from the Home Depot Garden Center. Then refresh your garden beds and keep them clear of weeds with Earth Grow mulch. Five bags for $10 to make your yard feel like new. Start your spring with low prices now through April 2nd, only at the Home Depot.
Exclusions apply. See home depot.com slash pricematch for details. Shop now. To test the new Pathfinder, Nissan turned to the boldest creators of all. Kids.
Their drawings sparked a wild idea. Brought to life by a Hollywood director, a stunt team, and the SUV that makes the unthinkable unforgettable. No tricks, just V6 power, practical effects, and the rugged new Pathfinder. Watch how it all came together and discover why JD Power ranks Nissan number one in new vehicle quality among mainstream brands. For JD Power 2025 U.S.
Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards. Awards based on 2025 model year. Newer models may be shown. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Glabwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM.
I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Mpata. we discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing. At IBM Research, what we always do is answer what is the future of computing. Whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together. It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future.
Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff? Yes. Building actual Physical machines. Yeah, it's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience The culture of building hard things.
that others have not done before. Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point. When it will mature, right? Yeah.
My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far are we from that point with content? By 2029, we'll build the first fault-tolerant quantum computer. That is one that can run a very, very large Large problem. To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, Visit ibm.com slash quantum.
And we're back with Our American Stories and the story of Duane's photo in Parsons, Kansas. When we last left off, Joshua and Derek Carter, the grandsons of Duane Steinley, the founder of Duane's Photo, were telling the story of how their grandfather came from the Korean War. tried his hand at pizza making, and ultimately ended up doing what he loved for his career. And that is, of course, all things having to do with photography. Eventually, they would become the last Kodachrome lab in the United States.
Let's continue with the story. In the early 2000s, as digital was starting to take over, film was in decline and so we were ultimately the last Kodachrome lab. Kodachrome, released in 1935 by the Kodak Corporation, was the first real success in color photography. And it was a huge deal in the film industry. But processing it was a bit of a hassle.
Uh Kodachrome has a very, very complex and difficult to manufacture chemical formulation. The reason why Kodachrome was so popular is it had extremely vibrant colors, but you only got those extremely vibrant colors because of this very, very intense and very difficult process to produce it.
So, due to both EPA regulations as well as just manufacturing costs, Kodak decided in the late 2000s that it was not going to be effective to continue producing it. And so, they also did not feel like it was going to be a good investment to find new chemicals that would be able to continue the production. The news got out six, eight months ahead of time that come into 2010, there would be no more Kodachrome processing. And by that point, we were already the very last lab in the entire world that was processing Kodachrome. Uh So those last six months were it was a really just crazy time for the company.
People were showing up from other countries with thousands of rolls and boxes begging to make sure that theirs got in before the last oil was processed and before the chemicals ran out on it. By the very end of it in 2010, when it finally stopped, national news was broadcasting from the parking lot and people were camped out in the backfield and it was a crazy event, really.
So in 2017, a bunch of film folks knew this story and decided to make a movie about it. And so that movie is called Kodachrome. And this movie has now made it onto Netflix and people are seeing it. And so we are having a resurgence of people sending film again as well.
Something else we've seen since Kodachrome too. A lot of folks have been making, I guess you could call it a pilgrimage to Parsons to drop their film off personally. We'll have a group once or twice a week that comes in and they'll come in from each side of the country, say, oh, I just drove here, you know, did 14 hours in the car to drop this film off and I just wanted to see the place and see where it all happened.
So we'll give them a tour and let them see everything that goes on in the lab. An interesting side note. Joshua and Derek weren't full-time employees of their grandfather's business during the whole Kodachrome fiasco.
So how did they end up there and why?
So I was working for a large national consulting firm actually doing business turnarounds. And I was working at a law firm in Joplin. In 2018, my grandfather had asked me to come in and look at some different options of how can we grow the company or how can we get more of a presence online. Because in a lot of ways, the company was still kind of operating in 1999.
So in 2018, is when Derek and I were really starting to look at the company and seeing what the options were with it. And he was actually running the business full-time up until the day he died. It was looking like the business might finally close after 60 years, and he did not want that to happen. And we took over and kind of started our journey here.
So I'm 27. I'm 30.
So We went through a pretty long process when we first got here of trying to learn it. You know, we had knowledge about. Film and cameras and things growing up, just being in this family, it's kind of hard not to learn a lot of things or pick it up from our grandfather. But in terms of actual film processing things, there was a very steep learning curve for us when we first got here. And that's something that there's a lot of folks who have been here 20, 25, 30 years who've made their whole career and were very good about, you know, really being experts in the industry.
And so it's something that we've learned a lot from them. But then also, you know, we found a number of things. Our grandfather really wanted to make sure that a lot of this info was passed down. And when I was first going through his office and his desk and things, one of the most helpful things is he actually wrote in the late 1980s a guide to photo finishing that had all the notes for the lab of everything you need to remember and everything that you need to do to be able to have everything running in the building really well. And we found, we continue to find a lot of those things.
So, you know, we pour over. As much of that information here as we possibly can to make sure that we really kind of become experts in this field because we don't necessarily, we're not brought up in it, you know, when it was in its heyday in the 80s and 90s. But then also, There's been a huge resurgence in film amongst younger people. It's much like the resurgence in vinyl records. For us going and trying to deal with ever increasing volumes of film now, it has been probably the biggest challenge for us is being able to use equipment designed decades and decades ago.
And so we've had to also try and get creative with how we're doing it, looking at we've got a 3D printer in the back for printing up gears and different parts and things. And then we're always looking for people who can help us. And it's amazing. A lot of these people either knew or knew of our grandfather and we'll call them because we see that, hey, you used to work in the industry or you make a part that could be used and they say, oh, I remember selling that to your grandfather in 1985. I'd love to help you.
And a lot of people have come out of retirement specifically to help us and to help get things back going. We're still reaping the benefits of the relationships that our grandfather made three decades ago. We've also learned a lot more about our grandfather from being in this business and talking to people who knew him in a different way from how we knew him. And those stories have been some of the most interesting. We were talking to the head of one of the big.
National organizations and said that his first encounter, he told me about his first encounter with my grandfather when he was a very young man. And he said that at all of these trade shows, my grandfather used to organize a big card game for all the CEOs and all the retail organizations and Kodak and all those people. And they'd all come and he'd have a card game. He said the first time he went, he was expecting, you know, my grandfather to let everyone win to try and get business. And he said, oh no.
My grandfather took all their money and they were all upset. My grandfather said, oh, well, if you want your money back, you can give me some business. I'll give you a discount. And he said he got a lot of business that way because everybody just thought it was hilarious that, oh, Dwayne went and took all their money at the card game. And so, yeah, that was one that we had never heard before and didn't know about.
But there's a lot of those kind of stories that we learn about our grandfather kind of, you know, by meeting people who knew him that we wouldn't have known otherwise. Our goal, we certainly want it to continue as long as possible. We want to keep. You know, having film grow, and that's something that we really try and promote the industry with young folks. A lot of the new people who are shooting film are 18 to 25, and we are very, very excited about that.
It's something that they're picking it up, and we want them to keep shooting film as a hobby or a passion for the rest of their lives. And if you know, we can support them in that, that is certainly our goal. Is you know, until the last roll of film on earth is out there and been developed, our goal is to keep it open and keep doing it. And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery. A special thanks to Joshua and Derek Carter.
who shared the story of their grandfather, and also a special thanks to Katrina Hein. for finding this story and getting us the audio. The story of the last days of Kodachrome and the last Kodachrome lab in the United States. And in the end, a family business story. And we love them here on the show.
The story of the last days of Kodachrome here on our American stores. Yeah. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this?
Your first date? Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league, anyways. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Think Verizon is expensive? Think again.
Anyone can bring their ATT or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal.
So bring us your bill. Walk in, run in, pogo sticking, teleport if you can. Ride on the back of a rollerblading yak or flying on the wings of a majestic falcon. Any way you can, bring your ATT or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. Based on Rootmetric's best overall mobile network performance, US second half 2025, all rights reserved, must provide very recent post-paid consumer mobile bill in the name of the person reducing the deal.
Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. No one knows what the future holds, but you deserve a weather app that can help. Weatherbug is easy to use and provides forecasts for your every need, from storm warnings to pollen levels, right at your fingertips. Get the fastest local alerts and comprehensive 10-day forecasts wherever you are. It's hyper-local, real-time, customizable alerts.
Make sure the weather never takes you by surprise so you can plan every day with confidence. Download the free weather bug app from the App Store today and start getting accurate weather forecasts 24-7. This is Julian Edelman from Games with Names. I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time.
And one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate. As a Jewish athlete my identity is something I am proud of. But I also know what it feels like to be singled out for it. That's why this new commercial for the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate that aired during the big game really hit home. It's about showing up for someone when they're targeted, even if you don't have the perfect words.
And sometimes standing next to someone is enough. And you can show support by sharing the blue square. To test the new Pathfinder, Nissan turned to the boldest creators of all. Kids. Their drawings sparked a wild idea.
Brought to life by a Hollywood director, a stunt team, and the SUV that makes the unthinkable unforgettable. No tricks, just V6 power, practical effects, and the rugged new Pathfinder. Watch how it all came together and discover why JD Power ranks Nissan number one in new vehicle quality among mainstream brands. For JD Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com/slash awards.
Awards based on 2025 model year. Newer models may be shown. Mm-hmm.
