Retaining our Risk-Takers

I’ve had some great email conversations with Debora Dranseth of Dickinson State University in North Dakota where I will be doing a series of talks in several agurbs® next April.

She recently wrote an editorial for a western North Dakota magazine about the young people who are leaving the state, comparing them to their ancestors who settled the state in the 1800s. She relates how our country was built by people who took risks and were willing to give up everything they had to move across the country in their covered wagons.

Today studies in ND show that ½ of the young people graduating from high school or college plan to leave the state. Dranseth says, “I believe that the graduates who exit the state are not necessarily the “best and the brightest” but the risk takers; those who are willing to take on the uncertainties of leaving the state where their families have lived, perhaps for generations, and venture out into the unfamiliar.”

“Successful entrepreneurs are creative, resourceful risk-takers. Thus, it is critical for the future of North Dakota that our communities, our law makers, and our educational institutions work together to find ways to retain these young risk-takers and foster in them the entrepreneurial spirit and vision that will help our state thrive.”