To North Dakota from the SW

I’ll be in western ND and eastern MT all this week giving a series of talks in small and medium sized towns. Scott Molander, co-founder of the 500+ store Hat World chain and ND native, and Mike Fladeland, community coordinator for Montana-Dakota Utilities, both sponsored and are giving me a great tour of this beautiful state. The landscape reminds me of western Brazil, where I spent 7 great years when I was in my 20s, bringing back wonderful memories for me.

First stop on Monday was Crosby, ND (population 1089), Scott’s hometown, which is only 6 miles from the Canadian border. Scott has invested and given back greatly to the community. I talked at the High School to the junior and senior class in addition to a good representation of citizens from Crosby. Crosby went to state this year in basketball and has won the state Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) competition for the past three years. And those young people knew their stuff…they had some wonderful questions for me after my talk. Great group of kids!

Crosby is pushing hard for people to move to the town, even offering free building lots. They’ve had a family move from CA who is developing a call center for a Silicon Valley company. Shawn and Esther Oehike moved their electro optics company, SEO Precision, to the community. Their story was very interesting.

The Oehikes lived in Albuquerque but were frustrated by the lack of support for non-Venture Capital backed companies. They found Crosby on the web (another example of why communities must have a good web site), visited the community, found them to very receptive and moved here 2 years ago. Esther is CEO and Shawn is the Chief Engineer. He was one of the designers of Ronald Reagan’s star wars programs, working on laser weaponry. His expertise was on the steering mirror, which Shawn explained to me, “is the enabling component that allows for the laser tracking. Without it, nothing would work.” He showed me how precise his laser is, able to bounce it beam off of a steering mirror that can hit a dime 20 miles away and keep it there. SEO is turning that star wars technology into consumer products.

I saw their prototype product which will allow a single light, enhanced with SEO’s patented spinning mirror, to light up 40,000 sf with a single bulb that only draws the power of a 50 watt bulb. Imagine the benefits to night farming and other activities that take place in out of the way places!

The Oehikes have adjusted well to small town living. Their 2 sons are both in High School, were members of the state winning FBLA team, are participating in local sports and have easily made friends. In the words of Esther, “It was a very good move for us and our boys have both got much more involved in things like sports than what they ever did in Albuquerque.

Crosby moved the Oehikes into a retrofitted J. C. Penney store that has offices on the first floor, apartments on the second and lab space in the basement. The city is developing a Tech Center for other small businesses in the building that it hopes to attract to the town. Crosby is a small town on the move with a great approach on how to continue to grow their community, creating opportunities for the young people that I talked to at the High School.