The Confluence Cast

Most entrepreneurs will tell you their business started with a plan. Jacquie Mahan will tell you hers started with a hunch, a deep affection for the autism community, and what she admits was an almost irresponsible amount of self-confidence. Jacquie is the founder of The Awesome Company, a Grove City-based custom screen-printing business that employs autistic adults and is about to turn 10. Her path to running it is a slightly chaotic one that includes an art gallery in the Short North, a brief

This is the second of two conversations I recorded with the Democratic candidates for Ohio Secretary of State. If you caught the first one with Dr. Bryan Hambley, welcome back. If not, it’s worth going back to — but this one stands on its own. Today I’m sitting down with State Representative Allison Russo. Russo has been in the Ohio House since 2019, when she flipped a Republican-held seat as a first-time candidate and went on to serve as House Minority Leader — the top Democrat in the chamber.

The 2026 statewide races are officially underway in Ohio, and I sat down with both Democratic candidates for Secretary of State. Today you’re hearing the first of those two conversations. Dr. Bryan Hambley is a leukemia physician at the University of Cincinnati and a political newcomer. He grew up on a small family farm, got pulled into electoral politics through the 2024 anti-gerrymandering campaign, and entered the Secretary of State’s race about eight months before his primary opponent. He’s

With petitions filed and the 2026 statewide races now officially underway, a lot of the attention is on the governor’s race — and understandably so — but there’s a primary happening further down the ballot that deserves a real look: the Democratic primary for Ohio Secretary of State. This is an office that most voters don’t spend much time thinking about, but it touches on some of the most consequential questions in Ohio politics right now — who draws the maps, how elections are run, who gets t

With petitions filed and the 2026 statewide races officially underway, Ohio’s political landscape is beginning to take shape. The governor’s race is already drawing national attention, with former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton emerging as the sole Democratic candidate and Vivek Ramaswamy entering the Republican primary with endorsements from both Donald Trump and the Ohio Republican Party. But beyond the top-line names, there are deeper dynamics at play—primary challenges, party

Most people experience regional planning only after decisions have already been made. When a new development breaks ground, a transit project is announced, or new housing pops up in our neighborhood. What’s far less visible is the quiet work that happens long before those moments: the data collection, forecasting, mapping, and analysis that help a region decide what it’s actually planning for. In this episode, I sat down with Dave Dixon, Director of Data Analytics and Strategy at the Mid-Ohio R