BoomtownUSA by Jack Schultz

Bill Cook Comes Back Home to Canton

2009-05-10T09:21:00.005-05:00

He spent his first grade of school in nine different schools in nine towns, following his traveling salesman father. But, by the third grade his dad bought three grain elevators near Canton, IL and the moving around was over. Bill Cook spent the rest of his formative years there. At the age of 32, Bill Cook started Cook, Inc with $1,500 in a spare bedroom in a $165/month apartment in Bloomington, IN. Today, Bill Cook is a multi-billionaire, having grown Cook into a leader in the medical device industry.

Cook is best known for his incredible restoration projects in French Lick and West Baden, IN. I’ve written a number of blogs on them, that you can read here.

I was back in Canton this past week doing a talk at their Economic Development annual meeting. I was supposed to do the event in 2008, but was bumped by Bill Cook who was back home in Canton. I would have bumped me, too!

Canton was largely a one industry town, having grown up around The Plow Works, a 33 acre site adjacent to their downtown. Plows were made in Canton from 1852 until International Harvester, which bought the business from the local owners in 1919, closed it down in the early 80s.

Mayor Kevin Meade told me, “The whole town revolved around that plant. Our high school nickname was the Plow Boys and later the Little Giants, named after one of their product lines. The company whistle, which now sits on top of city hall, blew seven times per day and literally ran the whole pace of the town. It was incredibly devastating when they closed down.”

I had visited Canton in the mid 90s to look at the old IH plant and site, but it was well beyond our capabilities at the time. And, today the site still sits there, having gradually been cleaned up from its brownfield status.

And, it might still be an empty site in 2020, but for a letter Mark Rothert, head of ED, wrote to Bill Cook a couple of years ago. Cook invited Rothert and Mayor Meade over to Bloomington to talk about Canton. From that initial meeting and further visits, Cook decided to return home to refurbish the old Randolph Building (shown in picture), a $2 million restoration that opens this month.

Later this year, a new Cook Group factory that will hire 300, opens on the old Plow Works site. My guess is that future investments are on the way for Canton, from the hometown boy who made good and returned home to invest.

After my talk, an elderly lady approached me and said, “I went to school with Bill Cook. We graduated in 1949 and will be celebrating our 60th class reunion in September. I used to date Bill and didn’t think he would ever make more than $1,000/month. I was sure wrong! My one regret in life, is that I wasn’t nicer to him in high school.”

My question to the audience at my talk was, “How many future Bill Cooks do you have in Canton. What are you doing to nurture them into future entrepreneurs? What are you doing to stay in touch with them after they leave home?”

Those are the key questions that every small town should be asking themselves. It could be the difference between having empty buildings and sites, or having vibrant, economic activity in the future.

Switching to Twitter

2009-03-16T07:46:00.000-05:00

After sitting out from the blogging scene for several months, I’ve decided to switch more of my energy from blogging to tweeting. I will continue to post some blogs when I have items that I want to expand upon. However, I’ve found that being able to quickly put out a number of items in one day on Twitter allows me to look at more items and is of greater interest.

Since I started blogging in late 2004, I’ve done just under 2,000 blogs. With Twitter, I’ve done over 200 tweets in less than two months.

You can sign up for my twitter account at www.twitter.com/jackschultz.

I also have recently started a facebook page which you can access at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=635513330

I hope that you will continue to stay in touch and let me know what you are doing in your towns. Feel free to email me at anytime at jschultz@agracel.com.

Mary Lee Emmert: Remembrances of a son-in-law

2009-02-27T08:32:00.002-06:00

My mother-in-law, Mary Lee Emmert, passed away this week. Here is what i said about this wonderful woman yesterday at her memorial service.

I want to tell you about a pioneering woman, one of the most amazing people that I’ve met in my life.

Mary Lee Green was born in San Benito, TX. It was always Mary Lee and not just Mary. And, you only called her Mary Lou ONE time!

If you’ve ever driven down into the valley, you’ll have remembered San Benito by its huge water tower with the picture of Freddie Fender, boasting San Benito as his hometown. Last month Mary Lee was talking about that water tower when she was down visiting us, a bit dismayed that Freddie Fender was her hometown’s claim to fame. After she left we thought of renting one of the big billboards along 77 and adding

San Benito
Birthplace of Mary Lee Green Emmert
And in little type… also Freddie Fender

She would have loved it!

The next time you drive down to the valley, please look at that big Freddie Fender water tower and think of Mary Lee’s billboard. I only wish we had time to put it up for her to see!

Because, in our eyes even though Freddie Fender was a character and well known around Texas, our Mary Lee was known in countries far from Texas, but more on that later.

When her mother suffered debilitating health problems and passed away, Mary Lee was raised by her loving father Bill in Sinton. In Sinton, her women role models were Aunt Ruby and Mrs. Landrum who looked after young Mary Lee when her father was working in the oil fields. I wish that I would have known Aunt Ruby and Mrs. Landrum as I’m sure that they would have some rare stories to tell about young Mary Lee. As I reflect upon those days, it must have been tough for her but is also where she developed her determination, independence and willingness to explore everything new whether it was new people, new ideas or even new lands.

One of her proudest moments that she often related to us, was sneaking off with a friend to see the scandalous Elvis Presley at the Corpus Christi Coliseum.

From Sinton, she went to college at Texas A&I, now Texas A&M in Kingsville, where she first met the love her of her life and lifetime partner, Pete Emmert, a bull riding, stereotypical cowboy from Refugio. I believe it was love at first sight or at least that is what I would love to believe.

During summers she worked at the old Liechtenstein Department Store in Corpus, not so much for what she could earn but more for the discount she got on purchases and the interesting people of Corpus that she met.

Pete and Mary Lee were married on January 2, 1957, spending their honeymoon in Monterrey. Pete’s future boss gave them $100 for their honeymoon, quite a sum in those days. Mary Lee thought that they should blow the whole $100 on activities in Monterrey, but Pete was more financially grounded, wanting to save some of the $100. They went home with money in their pockets. It was one of only two arguments I ever heard of her losing.

While Pete was finishing his degree, Mary Lee taught English at a largely Hispanic school in Kingsville, one of the early pioneers of teaching English as a second language. Her pioneering work was starting! Upon Pete’s graduation from A&I, they moved to Las Vegas. But, probably not the Las Vegas you are thinking of, but rather Las Vegas, New Mexico. And, Las Vegas, New Mexico is about as far from Las Vegas, Nevada as you can get. They spell remote there with a capital R!

And, it was not only remote but also cold, VERY cold. I’m certain that the first time that Mary Lee saw snow in her young life in Las Vegas it was exciting. But, by the time her first born Betinha was born in February and Mary Lee had to go into town a week before she was due because of the snow drifts, I’m guessing that the thrill of the white stuff had long passed.

I’m also guessing that it was Mary Lee who found the ad in the Cattleman’s Journal, advertising for ranch managers for new ranches that the King Ranches and Swift Meatpackers were opening in the exotic country of Brazil. Tropical Brazil might be just as remote as Las Vegas, New Mexico but it had to be warmer! A train trip to Chicago for the interview, where the interview of the spouse and their ability to adapt to a strange country and language was as important to Swift-King as the ranching ability of the manager, resulted in a job offer and off they were, on literally “the slow boat to Brazil”, landing there on December 9, 1958.

And, even though the King ranches in Brazil were even more remote than New Mexico, Mary Lee fell in love with them. The hardships of no roads, no electricity or phones didn’t deter her. The fact that it took two to four days, depending upon weather, to drive the 350 miles from Sao Paulo to the ranch, added to the excitement of a new language, new surroundings and of course new friends. I told you she was a pioneering woman!

New children started coming every two years almost like clockwork. After Betinha; Jimmy followed in 1960, then Theresa and finally Michael. With the closest American school that 350 mile drive back to Sao Paulo, Mary Lee again pioneered in homeschooling her four children, decades before homeschooling became a fad. Of course, Mary Lee wasn’t going to be just teaching it strictly by the book. Classes were taught around the swimming pool, heavy on Greek Mythology, Art History, English and Social Studies. Less so on math and science. And, lots on Texas history! Mary Lee was a true Texan at heart and her children were going to learn everything and more that they would if they were at school in the states.

In the beginning, they would take states-side leave every two years, when Mary Lee would plan the usual visits with family and friends and also long sojourns on Padre Island. As important were educational trips that took the family to Colorado, Wyoming, Mexico and of course all over the vast state of her beloved Texas.

I’m told that when the Emmert kids were getting bored on one of these trips, they would make statements like, “Gosh, there are a lot of streets named Sam Houston. Wonder what that guy ever did?” They knew that it was sure to illicit a reaction and a twenty or thirty minute lecture on what this Texas hero had accomplished. There were certain buttons like that which could be pressed, almost guaranteeing a known response.

Mary Lee and Pete’s Brazilian ranching life was a true partnership. While Pete might have earned the paycheck, even he would admit years later that Mary Lee had as much to do with his success as his knowledge of cattle, horses, pastures and ranching. Theirs was a true partnership with Mary Lee taking care of the guest house, visitors and making sure that any cattle or horse buyers felt right at home. Famous international guests like Henry Ford II, Prince of Turin, Daniel Ludwig, and even TV stars like Starsky and Hutch were constant guests. Starsky and Hutch fell in love with Mary Lee’s Texas accent and asked her to read Uncle Remis’ Burr Rabbit to them over and over.

The big event of the year was the annual Leilao or cattle sale when 60 quarter horses and 20 Santa Gertrudes bulls and 65 heifers were sold each year, It was THE event in the cattle business in Brazil. Preparations included finding accommodations for those travelling from afar as well as preparing a churrasco for 800 and a late night dinner/party for 200. All with extreme style and grace.

It was at the Leilao in 1980, that an American farm boy who was raising soybeans in the wild west state of Mato Grosso attended and instantly fell in love with Mary Lee’s oldest daughter, Betinha. As the two began dating and became more serious, Mary Lee tried to dissuade her daughter, warning her, “Do you want to drive a combine for the rest of your life?” Fortunately, Mary Lee lost the second argument of her life.

In 1981 Mary Lee and Pete moved back to the USA, running the Chaparrosa Ranches for B. K. Johnson in LaPryor, TX. They were the same winning team that they had been in Brazil, with Pete running the ranches and business and Mary Lee anything that had to do with marketing, something at which she excelled.

They say that you never want to outlive your children and Mary Lee and Pete suffered when son Jimmy was killed in an auto accident at Sul Ross University in Alpine, TX. Later Pete would suffer through rectal cancer and passed away on December 20, 1993, leaving Mary Lee a widow at only 61. It was a very traumatic time for her and someone of lesser will might have given up on life after losing the love of her life.

But, Mary Lee went pioneering again. She signed up for the Peace Corps and was assigned to the Philippines where she taught English for two years, living in incredibly primitive conditions on less than $100/month. Even though all the rest of the Phillippines Peace Corps were “kids” in her words, they gained a great deal of respect for the “old lady” (their words) from Texas who ended up becoming someone they looked up to, respected and friends until today.

Later, she moved back to the Corpus Christi area, finally landing in Trinity Towers where she didn’t lose her knack for collecting new friends like most of us might collect seashells. Everybody always knew Mary Lee and she made everyone feel as though they were special.

She continued to reunite with her many friends in Texas from her days when Pete was on the Santa Gertrudes board, her Texas A&I days and even from her schoolgirl days in Sinton. She was usually the leader of reunions and get togethers, always taking on new challenges with enthusiasm and wonder.

She was very proud of the accomplishments of her children and grandchildren and delighted in the almost daily calls that she received from her children. She died peacefully this week, a proud, proud Texan.

Banks Lending More!

2009-02-23T09:29:00.004-06:00

"Banks need to start lending again!"

That has been the rallying cry from DC, over the past several months. While, I've found that small town banks are carrying on business as usual, the large ones and Wall Street appear to be be frozen up.

As you can see from this graphic from the St. Louis Fed, it is a good thing that the small town banks are still lending and carrying the USA forward.

Perhaps it would help if the national media looked beyond the Beltway and Wall Street for their information.

Beach Adventure or Women are From Venus, Men are From Mars

2009-02-16T16:08:00.002-06:00

One of the major attractions of TX to us is the long stretches of virgin beaches and that the state allows you to drive right on the beach, right next to the pounding surf. We took off on Sunday morning from South Padre Island (SPI) up to the Port Mansfield Ship Channel, as far as you can go on the island.

It was a rather cold (mid 60s) morning for SPI, windy and with a fog hanging over the horizon. We were hopeful that as the day brightened, we would see the fog lift and the wind diminish for our romantic, leisurely drive up the beach. We hoped to have a nice picnic lunch, catch some sun and walk on the deserted beach.

It took us a little over an hour to drive the 27 miles up to the ship channel, passing a handful of cars the last half of the journey. A couple of miles back down the beach, Betinha said, “Can you please stop the car.”

And that is where our stories diverge.

Betinha’s version
“Stop the car. I want to walk down the beach to look for shells. You can pick me up in awhile.”

So off I went, walking fast at first but gradually slowing down, wondering where Jack was. I turned around a couple of times in order to walk back but the strong winds (20+ mph) right in the face hurt my ears, so I just kept on walking down the beach. There was no way he could drive past me as there was only one beach and only a small track of packed sand that he could drive on.

And, I kept walking….walking…walking. No Jack! Did he have car trouble? Is he lost in his book? Where is he?

Wish I’d brought my phone or a watch. I wonder how long I’ve walked?

Carrying all of these great shells and the neat message in a bottle, is getting a bit awkward. Hope that he shows up soon. Wish I’d brought some water and my phone. Where can he possibly be?

Jack’s version
“Stop the car. I want to walk into the dunes back there.”

So I pulled over and got out a great book I was reading and didn’t look up from it for over an hour. Hmmm, I wonder why she didn’t come back from the dunes. Oh well, she must be exploring. Back to the book!

Two hours! Maybe I should go out to look for her. Checking her footsteps in the sand (isn’t there a song by that name?), I headed toward the dunes, calling our her name. Remembering her previous warnings about rattlesnakes (BIG rattlesnakes) in the dunes, I walked v-e-r-y carefully, keenly watching for anything that moved, as I climbed up onto the highest dune I could find. Damn, this is a big island! “Betinha!!!”

Nada! Only a howling wind and blowing sand!

Fortunately, the phone worked. “Hello, 911! My wife is lost in the dunes….Ok; I’ll wait here for the park ranger.”

More trips back and forth between the dunes and car with a phone that worked about half of the time because of our remoteness, wondering how we were going to mount a search for her before nightfall, what was I going to tell our boys, thinking about how cold it was out there with that wind blowing, etc. I wasn’t moving the car because I wanted for the trackers to see her footprints in the sand. Hopefully, not her last!

Betinha
Finally, a park ranger pulled up and asked, “Are you Mrs. Schultz? Can you get in the pick-up truck with me? You know, we’ve lost kids before, but you are the first adult who’s gone missing!”

Jack
Finally, a voice mail that they had found her on the beach! Wonder how she found her way out of the dunes?

So I started driving down the beach to meet the park ranger and her. And drove…and drove…and drove.

Reunion
Four hours after that “Stop the car,” we were reunited. We won’t go into the conversation back down the beach, leaving that to your imagination. Let’s just say that it seemed to be a lot longer drive back down the beach than up to Port Mansfield. The picnic lunch went uneaten.

Later, we tried to figure out if she had walked 12 or 15 miles in those 4 hours. The next morning, Jack had to duck when he asked, “You ready to go for our regular walk on the beach this morning?”

EagleBay Auction Results

2008-12-23T09:04:00.002-06:00

The online auction that I wrote about November 19th ended up raising $8,257 which will be used for Make-A-Wish and the local United Way. Great results from a tremendous local company (Paterson) helping some great charities.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-23T05:30:00.002-06:00

I hope that all of my readers have a wonderful Christmas and great New Year.

I'm going to take some time off from blogging and be back next year.

Duck Stamps

2008-12-22T05:30:00.003-06:00

One of my favorite movies is “Fargo”, the 1996 film about a car salesman who hires two men to kidnap his wife for an $80,000 ransom. The star of the show is the pregnant small-town police chief Marge Gunderson, played by Frances McDormand, a role that won her an Academy Award.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Marge is lying in bed with her husband, Norm. Norm is a wildlife painter, who lacks a bit of confidence. Here is the dialog from that scene:

Norm Gunderson: They announced it.

Marge Gunderson: They announced it?

Norm Gunderson: Yeah.

Marge Gunderson: So?

Norm Gunderson: Three-cent stamp.

Marge Gunderson: Your mallard?

Norm Gunderson: Yeah.

Marge Gunderson: Oh, that's terrific.

Norm Gunderson: It's just a three-cent stamp.

Marge Gunderson: It's terrific.

Norm Gunderson: Hautman's blue-winged teal got the 29-cent. People don't much use the three-cent.

Marge Gunderson: Oh, for Pete's sake. Of course they do. Whenever they raise the postage, people need the little stamps.

Never in a million years, would I have believed that there actually is a Hautman painter, something that Norm mentioned several times in the film with his awe-shucks, “Oh the Hautmans will probably win.”

Turns out there really are the Hautman brothers. Bob, Jim and Joe have won the Federal Duck Stamp Contest, the most prestigious event in wildlife art, eight times since 1990. Brother Joe won the competition in 2007 and Jim placed second this year.

I’m learning all sorts of things out on the road. I’m just not certain that some of them are going to ever do me any good.

Small Town...Big High Tech Cluster

2008-12-19T05:49:00.000-06:00

Warsaw, IN (population 12,415) has always amazed me. This town in NE IN is 45 miles west of Ft. Wayne. It is a stand-alone town that is the county seat of Kosciusko County, a county that has 42% of its jobs in manufacturing (35th highest percentage in the USA), paying an average of $55,974. And, what has brought on this prosperity?

Warsaw bills itself as the “Orthopedic Capital of the World” and with three of the top five international orthopedic firms headquartered here, it’s easy to understand why no one disputes its claim. These three (Zimmer, DePuy and Biomet) collectively produce over $10 billion in sales, hold 65% of the worldwide knee replacement market and 60% of the worldwide hip replacement market, and employ over 7,000 people in Kosciusko County.

This unique cluster started when Revra DePuy married the local sheriff’s daughter, taking her back to MI. When she grew homesick for Warsaw, he moved his young family to the town. There he invented the fiber splint to set a fracture, quickly replacing the wooden barrel staves that had been used up to then.

Later, the national sales manager for DePuy’s company suggested to Revra’s widow that the company add aluminum splints to the product line. When she refused, J. O. Zimmer left the company and started Zimmer Holdings, now the largest employer in the county with 2,800 employees.

Later a Zimmer employee, Dane Miller, left that company to set up Biomet along with local investors.

Recently, when Zimmer announced plans to invest another $19 million to expand its foundry operations, adding another 100 local jobs, Richard Stair, VP of Global Operations and Logistics told Inside Indiana Business, “Warsaw really is a jewel in the state of Indiana. It’s impressive that in the city of Warsaw several of the largest orthopedic companies in the world are selling devices globally to help people live a better quality of life.”

It started in Warsaw. It continues to grow in Warsaw. Do you have any potential clusters that you could exploit to create a cluster like Warsaw has done?

Tom Sawyer of Cattle Drives

2008-12-18T05:51:00.003-06:00

For six generations the Kerns Family has been driving their cattle each spring up into the Big Horn Mountains in north central WY. About 15 years ago making a living raising cattle became much more difficult. So they decided to begin offering to let “wannabes cowboys” tag along on the ride.

This year’s ride back down occurred from September 6th to 13th, a 4000+ foot descent down to their Double Rafter Ranch in Ranchester, WY. The cowboys spend at least eight hours/day in the saddle, sleep on the ground and get roused out at 4 am for biscuits and gravy. And, for that privilege they each spend $2,000.

The Kerns refer to their drives each year as, “City Slickers (the movie) is just a pony ride!” You can see a video of one of their drives here.

That Famous Brain Bank

2008-12-17T05:24:00.001-06:00

Many towns that I visit bemoan the fact that, “there aren’t any jobs here. Everyone moves away as soon as they can. We are down on our luck.”

If you are one of those towns, pay attention to my blog of yesterday and this one today. Bill Cook was born and raised in Canton, IL, and went onto great fame and fortune, starting his own medical equipment company. But, he did all of that in Bloomington, IN, where he went to college.

Mark Rothert, head of the Spoon River Partnership for Economic Development in Canton, wrote to Cook a year ago. Here is what the letter said:

Dear Mr. Cook:

My name is Mark Rothert and although we have never met we share a common bond of growing up in Canton, Illinois. I read an article about you in the Dec./Jan. 2007 issue of "Bloom Magazine" and thought I would write.

Canton has probably changed since you grew up here, but it was a great community then and still is today with much potential. However, Canton does face some major challenges. They include the former International Harvester Brownfield site, deteriorating housing, fewer employment opportunities, and a declining downtown.

I am the director of the Spoon River Partnership for Economic Development, a local 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit economic development organization for the Canton area, tasked with bringing new development, jobs, investment and business to the area, including revitalizing the downtown and the former IH site. I understand you played an integral role in the revitalization of Bloomington's downtown. I would be interested to come to Bloomington and meet with you to learn more about your past projects, talk about what we hope to achieve in Canton, and gauge your interest to help.

Basketball and music aside, I know you also deeply care about community, preservation, and producing results out of ideas. Your philanthropy in the Bloomington area to provide for the community, preserve historical sites and create results is truly admirable. It reminds me of what the Orendorffs and Ingersolls did in Canton so many years ago. Canton was once a booming town but has taken many hits over the past 30 years as I am sure you are aware. However with the support of successful Canton natives, we can become as proud of our city's future as we are of its past.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my request.

Cordially yours,Mark A. RothertExecutive DirectorSpoon River Partnership for Economic Development

Two weeks later, Mark Rothert received the following letter back:

Dear Mark:

Thank you for your letter. As you know, Canton has always been a special place for me.You are more than welcome to visit Bloomington and discuss the problems I see in Canton. We can tour Bloomington and have a look at what has happened in the last 25 years to this city. Mrs. Aimee Hawkins-Mungle has my itinerary and she can set up a day we can be together.

Best regards,

William A. CookChief Executive OfficerCook Group Incorporated

From that letter and subsequent visits Cook has begun a major reinvestment into his hometown. Do you have any Bill Cooks that used to live in your hometown?

Write to them today!

I Gotta Meet this Guy!

2008-12-16T05:09:00.004-06:00

I’ve written several times this year about Bill & Gayle Cook’s efforts to resurrect and restore two early 1900s resorts to their past glory in French Lick, IN. You can see those blogs in our archives (May 3, May 29 and October 16, 2008).

Now, he’s back home in Canton, IL, where he was born and raised (graduated Canton Senior High School, 1949), doing something similar. But, first let me tell you a bit about the Cooks.

They started their business, Cook Group, in 1963, in a spare bedroom of their apartment in Bloomington, IN. The company quickly became a leader in medical technologies and is still headquartered there. The Cook’s have done very well, landing on numerous lists of the wealthiest Americans.

Here is what Forbes said about Bill Cook in October in their Forbes 400 List:

Used blowtorch, soldering iron and plastic tubing to develop cardiovascular catheter. Now the world’s largest privately held medical device manufacturer. Products include stents, embolization coils, needles, vena cava filters. Sales now $1.5 billion. At work by 5 a.m.; eats in company cafeteria.

In June, Cook returned to Canton to purchase two historic downtown buildings that date from the 1880s. Already they have taken off the exterior façade, stabilized the buildings, and are beginning the meticulous restoration of buildings that Cook shopped in as a youth. When completed, the buildings will consist of retail space on the first floor and well-appointed apartments on the second.

And, then last week he was back again to announce plans to rehab an old International Harvester industrial site that has been unoccupied since the early 80s into a new manufacturing plant that will hire 100 jobs and help to bring added vitality to the adjacent downtown. The plant will produce high tech “vascular introducers” or tubes that go into blood vessels so that stents can be inserted.

Cook compared what he is doing to planting a seed, “Once it blossoms, we anticipate the roots will spread throughout the community and nourish further growth.”

And, he returned home with these projects, because, as he added, “My personality came from here.”

We need more Bill Cooks in this world!

Tomorrow: How Canton enticed Bill Cook back home.

Tool Crib of the North

2008-12-15T06:44:00.001-06:00

“It was the most incredible operation that I’ve seen in my 30 plus years in the business,” was how Bill Brennan explained to Jeff Smith and me at a recent holiday bank party in Chesterfield, MO.

He was telling us about Acme Electric in Grand Forks, ND, a company that he had just visited that is part of his own tool buying cooperative that supplies his Brennan Tools. His enthusiasm was so great that I decided to research. Here is what I found.

George Kuhlman, who passed away in 1995, started the company in 1948 out of a garage in downtown Grand Forks. His son, Don, who runs the company, said of his dad, “He ran the business out of his wallet. At the end of the month, he’d empty the wallet and see who’d paid and who still owed him money. He had a very good sense of right and wrong that he passed on to me.”

From very humble beginnings (that is their second location on the right), the company has grown to nine retail stores in ND, MN and IA and a 177,000 sf distribution center. Two hundred families make their living at the company’s operations.

In 1999, Amazon came calling, looking to expand into internet tool sales. Acme sold them their Tool Crib of the North catalog division which Amazon renamed Amazon Home Improvement. It is still headquartered in Grand Forks.

In my travels, I’ve found some great examples of very innovative North Dakotans. I’m glad that Bill Brennan filled me in on another one.

Catch 'em Quick....Save 'em!

2008-12-12T06:06:00.002-06:00

In 1969, a juvenile judge in Fort Lauderdale looked at a kid standing in front of him in court and knew that a sentence in standard juvenile justice would be the end of any bright future the young man might have. On a hunch, he called a friend who was the director of a marine research agency asking for a favor. He asked the friend to take this young man, put him on a boat, work with him as a marine biologist, give him responsibility and keep him away from his neighborhood. A month later, the friend called back asking for eight more kids.

From that first delinquent, Associated Marine Institutes (AMI) has grown into 57 programs in eight states. The programs have expanded beyond just marine to include environmental programs, farming, dog training for the handicapped, horse training and even programs for girls with babies.

To date, over 80,000 students have gone through the AMI Program, with 70% of them never having any more problems with the law.

Do you have an AMI type program in your town?

Will our Kids be Ready?

2008-12-11T05:28:00.001-06:00

“Within the next six years, 89 percent of jobs in Illinois’ fastest-growing sectors will require some education or training beyond high school. Yet, we have 41,000 dropouts per year from our high schools. One out of every four students who start freshman year drop out; two of the four will graduate but not go on for much higher education; and only one of those four will get out of high school with the skills to really excel,” stated Robin Steans, Executive Director of Advance Illinois, who was in Effingham to explore ideas of what could be done in rural Illinois to help turn these alarming statistics around.

Advance Illinois is a non-partisan, non-profit that is focused upon improving the educational and resulting work experience of all Illinoisans. It is chaired by former Governor Jim Edgar, the best governor we’ve had in our state in my lifetime, and Bill Daley, former Secretary of Commerce and brother of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Joe Fatheree, last year’s IL Teacher of the Year and Effingham educator who I’ve written about in the past, is one of the fourteen directors of the organization.

The consensus of our group discussion was that most of the current problems begin at the lower grade levels when parental problems often lead to long term problems.

Mike McCollum, principal of Effingham High School said it best, “They might drop out when they are 17, but they give up in the third grade.”

Debbie Owens, Assistant Superintendent added, “We’ve seen a dramatic change at home. Today less than 25% of the students live in a two-parent home with their biological parents.”

As I’ve studied the educational system over the years, I’ve become more convinced that we’ve got to reach the very youngest students, making certain that we don’t have ANY that fall through the cracks. And, with falling enrollments and the resulting squeezing of budgets, we’ve got to do more with fewer resources. I’m convinced that using more volunteers and concentrating recourses in critical education-only programs is needed.

One such program started several years ago at two of our local schools, is a mentoring program that places a volunteer with at-risk students one-on-one each week. The program has grown to over 130 mentors-mentees. I participated until my travel schedule didn’t allow me to be certain that I would be with my mentee each week, something that is critical to the success in the program. During my short tenure, I had one student whose parent committed suicide during the school year and another whose mother was in jail for prostitution and drug dealing. Talk about at-risk!

The program costs the school district about $30,000 with over $150,000 donated in time, material and cash from the community. Yet, the school district is looking at cancelling the program in 2009/2010 because of funding problems. It seems like a very short sighted savings but a very long term cost.

Rainiest Town in LOwer 48....Twilight Mania!

2008-12-10T04:24:00.004-06:00

Who would have thought that being known as the rainiest town in the lower 48 states, would lead to fame and fortune?

Forks, WA (population 3,120) has that distinction, although I didn’t know it at the time that I visited it in July 2005 on our way up the western slopes of the Olympic Peninsula on Route 101. I just knew that it seemed to rain all of the time on our visit. I only learned in researching this blog that they get over 120 inches per year.

The town was built upon logging and they still call themselves the Logging Capital of World. But, logging is for the most part, long gone. Like many other rural towns in the mountains of the west, Fork’s logging was killed off in the early 90s when the spotted owl became more important to some people than rural jobs. But, I digress!

In 2005, Stephenie Meyer decided to write a series of books about a young girl, Bella Swan, who moves to a small town and falls in love with a pretty boy, Edward Cullen, who turns out to be a vampire. Meyer chose Forks after doing an internet search of the rainiest spot in the USA.

The Twilight Saga, a series of four books and a new movie released last month, have grown into a mini-Harry Potter cult. The local Chamber has cultivated “Twilighters” who are beginning to flock to the town to see. They’ve put together maps, tours and even redone a 1953 Chevy pickup truck that Bella drove in the book. They’ve started an annual look-alike festival to commemorate Bella’s birthday on September 13th, the first one this year drew over 1,000 people.

Those efforts have resulted in more than 7,000 Twilighters visiting the town in 2008 with many more expected with the release of the first movie in the series.

I’m not sure what part of “fiction” these Twilighters don’t understand, but Forks is leveraging a very unique resource. I hope that they can leverage it for a long time.

Tween Craze Entrepreneur

2008-12-09T05:30:00.001-06:00

Maddie Bradshaw, who is now 12, first got the idea for Snap Caps when she was 10. She started making necklaces out of bottlecaps that she decorated around the kitchen island in her home with her mom and six year old sister, Margot.

When her innovation started to become a craze, they set up M3 Girl Designs LLC. The M3 is for Maddie, Margot and Mom. The new company quickly outgrew their home and today has 15 employees, four sales reps and sells 30,000 bottlecaps per month in over 500 stores nationwide.

Maddie is now writing a book about her experience, “Beyond the Lemonade Stand,” which will focus on how to start a business from a kids’ perspective.

I keep preaching about these incredible Millennials who are going to be the most entrepreneurial generation in the history of the USA. Any Maddie’s in your town?

City Winery

2008-12-08T05:02:00.003-06:00

I’m always looking for new ideas that might work in small towns, and today’s blog takes us to a big city, the very BIG city of New York City, where I found an interesting new business called City Winery.

The idea for City Winery is that it is a place that you can go to get assistance in making your own wine. The restaurant/winery ships in grapes from all over the country and then assists you in producing your own special vintage.

The operation started in September when a refrigerated truck delivered 10 tons of wine grapes from Napa Valley. About 200 New Yorkers are now making their own wine from those grapes, each producing their own barrel of wine (about 250 bottles) at a cost of around $7,000. While a bit pricey for most, it is an idea that could possibly work in certain agurbs®.

But, even if you have no interest in doing anything, get onto their website and sign up for their updates. The City Winery does an excellent job of promoting their offerings with frequent emails, something that every business in our towns should be doing.

Mr. Agracel 2008

2008-12-06T11:44:00.001-06:00

Each year at Agracel we try to raise money in different ways to help support the very needy charities of our local United Way. This year Lynn Higgs, our own fundraising dynamo, decided to hold a competition with myself, Agracel’s president Dean Bingham and CFO Mike Mumm competing for the very prestigious title of being known as Mr. Agracel for the rest of this year.

Votes were collected in donations for the favorite candidate throughout the month of November with a total of over $3,000 raised in the effort.

I am very pleased to report that Dean Bingham is the new Mr. Agracel. He was honored on Thursday with an outfit chosen by Lynn and her “dress the guy” committee. Dean is shown in the photo receiving congratulations from Linda Hemmen, head of United Way, and Tina Schwinke, the campaign chair for 2008.

A complimentary lunch was given by Chuck Keller at his elegant Hilton Garden Inn to Dean and our team, along with a complimentary manicure, pedicure and hair cut given by Desiree Wasser of The Beauty Shop and also a pair of the famous Sarah Palin glasses donated by Eric Zeller of Visionary Eyewear.

I can’t wait to see Dean’s manicure on Monday!

Your Own Dollars

2008-12-05T06:23:00.001-06:00

In today’s economy, I’ve heard of more people putting their money under the mattress. Well, if they are going to do that, why not have it be your community’s currency?

Several towns have developed their own currency, something that was common in the Wild West of yesteryear and made a comeback during the Great Depression, as a way to encourage local purchases. It is perfectly legal to do, as long as you don’t make it look like the real thing and you do the project as a not for profit organization.

Communities can print up their own currency, with serial numbers, anti-counterfeiting details and even pictures of local landmarks or famous (or not so famous) local citizens. The local residents benefit through an advantageous exchange system, say for example a hundred traditional dollars that can be converted into 150 or 200 local dollars.

Ithaca, NY has been doing it since 1991. That’s their currency on the right. Berkshire County, MA started theirs in 2006 and has had about $2 million exchanged for BerkShares.

Looking for something new to do in your community? You might want to research this idea.

The Cure for High Prices? Why, It's High Prices!

2008-12-04T05:20:00.001-06:00

An old commodity adage is, “The cure for high prices, is high prices.” And, we’ve seen that in the oil market in 2008.

In my travels around the USA this year, I’ve been amazed at the number of times that I’ve spotted oil rigs along the road drilling for oil and gas, something that I’ve not seen as much of in past years. Was it a coincidence, or were there more rigs operating in the country? Here’s what I found out.

Baker Hughes does a weekly count of the number of oil rigs operating in the USA. It hit an all-time low in 1999 when oil dipped below $20/barrel (Do you remember those days of $1 gasoline?). In July, when oil peaked at $146/barrel, the rig count had quadrupled to over 2,000, the first time that it had shot across that threshold since 1985. Now that oil is falling in price, so is the rig count, which was down to 1,941 in the latest report.

The peak for rigs was in 1981 when they very briefly topped 4,500 rigs operating. The fall-off in drilling in the 80s was caused by falling oil prices and the high cost of credit. The joke in oil towns back then was, “Open a bank account and get a free oil rig.”

The other side of the supply-demand equation is that we are driving much less this year than in 2007. The U. S. Department of Transportation reports that we drove 78 billion fewer miles in the first 10 months of this year when compared to the previous one, about 5% less.

It’s supply-demand at work! And, the cure for high prices, is just that, high prices.

Shop the Region

2008-12-03T05:11:00.001-06:00

One of the key drivers of attitude in a community or region is the local newspaper. Some take an approach of “if it bleeds, it leads” and try to sensationalize controversy. Others still report those negative and sensational stories, but do so further back in the paper. A few others go the step further to take a very proactive role in helping to positively shape their community and region for the better. I’ve run into many in my travels around the country.

I was with one such newspaper publisher in Carbondale, IL, where I was taking part in their innovative quarterly Southern Illinois Community Leader’s Breakfast, which brings together communities from throughout the broad expanse of southern Illinois. Dennis DeRossett set the breakfasts up four years ago and they’ve grown into a Who’s Who of Southern IL.

I’ve known Dennis for about ten years, dating back to a short period of time when he was publisher of our local newspaper. He’s stayed in touch and follows where I’m speaking. I’ve been amazed at the number of times that he has been a publisher in one of the towns that I’m going to visit, calling me with tips on what and whom to see when I’m there touring and speaking.

A particular passion of Dennis’ this year is his “Shop Southern Illinois” this Christmas season. The Southern Illinoisan Newspaper has taken it on as a cause and Dennis spoke of it at the Community Leader’s Breakfast, “We need to help promote the unique things that each of us has in our communities and shop where we live rather than just automatically driving to the big city to do our shopping. We’ve got some very unique and wonderful shops scattered throughout southern Illinois.”

And, Dennis is putting his money where his mouth is, giving away $5,000 in shopping money to be spent in the region.

We need more Dennis DeRossetts in this world.

$25/Hour to Walk Dogs?

2008-12-02T05:37:00.000-06:00

I was talking with one of my “city slicker” CA cousins recently about life out west. This cousin related that her 24 year old daughter was making $25/hour as a professional dog walker and babysitter in San Francisco. And, that was her take-home pay! The company she worked for obviously had to charge some type of premium over her wage.

HUH!!! Is this world crazy or what?

The theme song for the classic TV Show “Green Acres” started bouncing around in my head as she was talking….

Green acres is the place to be
Farm Livin’ is the life for me
Land spreadin’ out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan…just give me that countryside

I hope that your dog doesn’t mind finding its own way around the neighborhood, out here in the agurbs®!

Small Bank Says NO!

2008-12-01T05:20:00.000-06:00

I first reported on Evergreen Federal Bank in Grants Pass, OR on September 13, 2005 after a tour and talk there (you can see the pictures and article in our archive) after a visit. The bank was making a huge difference in the community with its reinvestment into the town’s art programs and downtown redevelopment.

Brady Adams, president of the $300 million bank, has spoken out against the bailout of banks saying, “We don’t have people coming to us and saying we got them into trouble. We kept them out of trouble.”

Evergreen made loans to people that it thought would pay them back, the typical risk/return calculation that bankers have been making for centuries. It didn’t get involved in the euphoria of Wall Street securitization of loans like many other banks in OR and other places, not making exotic negative amortization mortgages with no money down that today can’t be repaid. Instead, Brady made loans that, “required people to put real equity into a home purchase and to have the amount of income to pay it off”.

Today, Evergreen, which owns no foreclosed properties, has only foreclosed on one home in the past 10 years and has only four delinquent loans out of 2,000 on its books. Its capital continues to grow, it is making money and its liquidity is good because its borrowers are making their loan payments like clockwork.

Brady and Evergreen are not an anomaly. I see it in virtually every small town I visit in America today. Rural American banks are,5 for the most part, doing just fine today just like they’ve been doing for the past decades.

Black Friday Madness!

2008-11-28T06:11:00.001-06:00

I knew that I had to go see for myself, when my son James kept talking about today’s Black Friday sales that were going on at Kohl’s, where he works. James, the night owl of the family, was excited about having to go into work at 3:30 am. James!

So, when I woke up at 4:30 this morning, I slipped on my clothes and drove into Effingham. I had expected to see several cars on the Kohl’s parking lot but not full! And, so full cars had overflowed onto the grass in all directions! Sunrise was still 2 hours away.

The line to check out snaked from the front to the back of the store, with at least 200 people in line. Theresa Schackmann and her daughters Erin & Nichole who were close to the cash registers had been in line for over 30 minutes and my cousin Janie Schultz was at the back, holding a place for her daughter-in-law Michelle who was still out finding bargains. It was “old home week” in the checkout line as I met a host of friends who I hadn’t seen in awhile.

By now my curiosity was piqued so it was over to Wal-Mart. After driving the parking lot for 15 minutes, unable to find a parking spot, I opted for a grassy lot across the road. Absolute bedlam, were the two words that came to my mind as I tried to navigate my way in the store. I gave up trying to get to the electronics department, and judging from the dozens of abandoned shopping carts in the aisles, so had a number of other people. It was difficult enough to get through the aisles just walking!

Menards hadn’t opened yet but the line outside the store of over 100 people obviously wasn’t letting that stand in their way. Stocking hats and camouflage hunting jackets were the fashion choice of those shoppers waiting for the “door busting” bargains.

If you aren’t a “true shopper” and consider Black Friday a day to catch up on projects like I do, take a few minutes to experience the incredible buying power of the American consumer. It is alive and well in Effingham!

Water, Water, Water!

2008-11-26T06:11:00.004-06:00

One of my fondest memories of being out on the road, traveling this great country of ours, was a breakfast I had with Leland Speed in January 2005. Leland, a young thinking 70 year old, was head of the MS Development Authority, having taken the job for 2 years at a salary of $1. He had founded and was still chairman of two public REITs headquartered in Jackson, MS, but was asked by Governor Haley Barbour, one of the best governors I’ve seen in creating new jobs for his state, to head up economic development activities in MS.

At that breakfast, Leland laid out a vision of creating multiple lakes in rural MS to serve as an economic development tool for those communities. His thought was that not only would the lakes help to create jobs and tax revenue in these communities, but they would also help to attract entrepreneurs looking for second home locations who might decide to open new businesses. Leland had an “out of the box” idea that was brilliant with little downside.

Jack Moody, who is in charge of developing this lake program in MS, is planning a symposium on the subject in Jackson, MS, on February 4, 2009, that I plan to attend. He is going to have demographers, developers, contractors and economic developers in to lay out Leland’s vision. A PowerPoint on the subject and its economic impact for a community can be seen here.

Moody was also my tour guide of several lakes in the Hattiesburg, MS area. Our first lake was Canebrake, a 250 acre lake that was developed by Dr. Bennett York, a local oral surgeon. Moody called it, “the nicest such development in the state,” and after seeing the clubhouses, golf course, infrastructure and houses, it was easy to see why he saw it as the best.

With Canebrake almost completely built out, York has moved onto Big Bay, a 1,100 acre lake that he hopes to have dammed up by early in 2009.

With 83,500 miles of potential streams that could be developed and five feet of rain each year, most of which flows out of the state, the potential for lakes in MS is incredible. I can’t wait to get back there in February to learn more.

Perseverance or Luck?

2008-11-25T05:37:00.000-06:00

Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” He was known for both, often laboring for months on an idea for a new product or process. What I learned in Laurel, MS, is that sometimes that 1 percent can also be luck.

Laurel, MS, (population 18,393) was started as a lumber town in 1882 and became known as the Yellow Pine Capital of the World by the 1920s. Numerous sawmills dominated the industrial base of the community and the piles of sawdust grew into small mountains in the town. One of those sawmill owners wrote to Thomas Edison asking for his assistance in finding a use for those piles. Edison sent a young assistant, William H. Mason, to try to find some use for this sawdust.

Mason set up a small laboratory and began experimenting with the product, but was unable to find any solution. Fortunately, he didn’t give up and he discovered Masonite by accident when the stove in his laboratory exploded when he was at lunch. When he returned he found that the pile of sawdust next to the stove had been transformed by the heat. He soon found that by heating the sawdust and then blasting it with steam, he could form them into boards that had a high bending and tensile strength. And, unlike other similar products which used formaldehyde and glues, Masonite, which used only natural products, was also an environmentally friendly “green” product. Although I’m not sure that being “green” was considered a huge plus in 1924.

Mason set up manufacturing operations in the town, eventually hiring over 6,000. The company, now owned by an LBO outfit, still has operations in Laurel.

Do you have any “piles of sawdust” in your town that a young William Mason might be working on?

Millennials Redeveloping a Town

2008-11-24T06:16:00.004-06:00

“When we took it over it was a Bill’s Dollar Store that looked like the metal clad building across the street. Before that it was the post office and a theater that dated back to 1901,” Blane Carpenter and Joshua Miller, both 29 years of age, were telling me about the history of the main building in downtown Ellisville, MS, (population 3,900) that they had redone over the past two years.

They went on, “We bought it for $120,000 and now have about $650,000 in it without counting our labor. It took us about six months just to demo and clean it up before we even started doing any build-out.”

Adding a balcony to the building really enhanced its appearance. Blane and Joshua ended up with six commercial units on the first floor and six apartments (4 with 2 bedrooms and 2 with one bedroom) in the 12,600 sf building.

As I toured the building with them, they pointed out that most of the apartments are rented out to 20 year olds, just like them, who are all on entrepreneurial career tracks. It is exactly these young entrepreneurs and professionals that a downtown redevelopment like this can bring to a town like Ellisville.

Dropouts! What are you doing?

2008-11-21T05:20:00.001-06:00

“We are losing 14,000 students/year who are dropping out of our schools in Mississippi!” Dr. Hank Bounds, State Superintendent of Education in MS, told the Education Summit in Ellisville, MS. “That is a school bus full of students, each and every day of the year!”

The math on that number of students is staggering. According to the MS Department of Education, the lost lifetime earnings for one year’s worth of dropouts is $4 billion; MS would save more than $121 million in health care costs/class; and an additional $117 million annually in Medicaid savings.

I’m seeing a few communities that are starting to more fully understand the long term impact of the increasing numbers of dropouts, setting up ‘dropout swat teams’ that are both mentoring and intervening to prevent dropouts in their schools. They’ve found that if they can get a dropout back into school within days of dropping out, they have a much better chance of keeping them in school.

Colin Powell’s foundation, America’s Promise Alliance, has taken on dropouts as a major initiative. Earlier this month they developed a 90 page guidebook on what you can do to prevent dropouts in your hometown. You can download this guidebook here.

Are you making plans to prevent your dropout rate from increasing and improving your schools like Jones County, MS? Your economic future depends upon it.

Education--From Good to Great!

2008-11-20T05:30:00.000-06:00

“When people think of Mississippi, the first thing that comes to mind is not our educational system. When you look at all of the data, we rank at or near the bottom in virtually every metric that relates to education. But the steps that you are taking here today are excellent ones that can help to turn it around for your children,” stated Dr. Hank Bounds, State Superintendent of Education for MS, as he addressed the Education Summit 2008 in Ellisville, MS.

This eight county summit grew out of the strategic planning process for Jones County, the largest of the eight counties in southeastern MS. According to that plan, “Challenges with education was the biggest obstacle standing in the way of positive economic development in our area.”

When looking at the data for the State of MS, you can see the challenge. The state ranks as the lowest in % of adults over 25 with a high school diploma (72.9%); third lowest in bachelor’s degree or more for adults over 25 (16.9%); and highest in poverty at 21.0%. Dr. Bounds pointed out the direct correlation between high poverty rates and high school dropout rates adding, “And, there are states that are making determinations on how many prisons they are going to need to build by looking at reading scores in the third grade. It all ties back to education.”

The goals of the summit were fairly simple:

1. Celebrate our many accomplishments in education.

2. Learn why it is essential that ‘together’ we build on those successes NOW!

3. Leave with a sense of purpose and a mission to join together with a goal to helping make our schools second to none.

I related to the summit our own experiences in doing site selection projects for new manufacturing plants in rural America. The educational system and attainment are critical factors that we look at in our many searches. A trend we are seeing is that many new factories require that everyone in the plant have at least a two year, associates degree, and in some cases, a four year degree. Education is becoming the big differentiator and the competition is not just with neighboring towns and states, but rather with countries like China, Korea and others.

My travels around the USA have left me with a very favorable impression of MS. Our company has made multi-million dollar investments in three buildings in the state and I see their future as a very bright one, especially with the passion and enthusiasm that I saw at the summit on education.

Local EBay Auction

2008-11-19T05:29:00.003-06:00

Today starts the bidding for a locally run E-Bay auction by one of our local businesses in Effingham. The ‘e’ in this auction stands for ‘eagle’ as in Eaglesoft, a local start-up dental software company which is now part of Patterson Dental. All of the items are donated from local merchants and Patterson suppliers. The proceeds of the auction will go to our local United Way and the Make a Wish Foundation.

This is the third year that they’ve done this auction. Last year they raised over $8,000. This year’s auction will run through December 12th.

If you have a need for an ice cream maker, GPS system, iPod, gift certificates or many other items be sure to get online and bid, bid, bid.

What a great idea to help raise funds for those in need, from a great innovative company here in my hometown.

Housing Off the Grid

2008-11-19T05:25:00.001-06:00

The first and only time that I heard of towns being “off the grid” was at a talk in Alaska, to an association of the Aleutian Islands. They told me of their problems with trying to run towns that were “off the grid” of not only highways but also all other services like electricity, water, sewer, etc. Imagine having to have all necessities flown in during half of the year because ships can’t dock because of the weather.

In my talk in Gila County, AZ I met a group that is developing homes “off the grid” in rural AZ. Yes, there are roads that go there and the sun shines all year round there. In fact, sunshine is going to be the key driver for the Climbing Rock Estates, a 204 home subdivision 25 miles south of Globe, AZ.

Randy Gross, the developer of these homes told me, “These homes will be completely solar powered with propane backup to power the swamp coolers and to power the appliances in the house.”

When I go back to Globe in two years, I’m going to go visit this new development to see what it is like to live “off the grid” in AZ.

Why City Folk Shouldn't Move to the Country!

2008-11-18T18:12:00.001-06:00

Click to enlarge!

Copper Mining Center

2008-11-18T06:21:00.002-06:00

From meeting with young agribusiness leaders of the future, I flew to Globe, AZ (population 7,486), a town up in the mountains an hour and a half east of Phoenix. It was very similar to Elko County, NV where I had been earlier in the week, in that it is largely a mining area (in this case copper) that is looking at how they diversify their economic base at a time when mining is booming.

Chris Martin is head of the South Gila County EDC. Gila is pronounced Heela, not Giila, like I mistakenly did. Unfortunately, I seem to make one mispronunciation in every talk that I do. It goes with the territory. I did check out how to pronounce Miami, AZ, a neighboring town in the county, learning that the older folks pronounce it Mi-am-a, whereas the young people pronounce it Mi-am-ee.

Martin has energized his board and has initiatives working on broadband in the rural towns, has helped to set up a tool lending library and is setting up industrial parks and working on cooperative tourism efforts.

One of the projects applauded at the 4th Annual Southern Gila County EDC Summit was how two local women, Sylvia Kerlock and Gloria Ruiz, put together a partnership with the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Power Systems (APS) within a week to build a $60,000 basketball court in Winkelman (population 443). Winkelman last had a basketball court in 1993. The picture on the right is the inauguration of that court earlier this year.

During the past three months we’ve seen copper prices fall from over $4/pound by half. Copper is probably one of the most cyclical commodities and the work of groups like Martin’s are so important in helping to build a stronger, more stable base for the future. They’ve already invited me to come back in two years to see how they are doing on their goals.

Agricultural Future

2008-11-17T05:59:00.001-06:00

I had a great time with the Agricultural Future of America (AFA) geared toward college students focused upon careers in agriculture and the Agricultural Future of America’s Alliance (AFA Alliance), made up of former AFA students who are employed in agriculture and related businesses. It is a dynamic group of young millennials (ages 12 to 27) who are going to transform this country for the better. They’ve got an incredible amount of energy, enthusiasm and vision for people so young.

Both AFA and the AFA Alliance are supported by the main players in the ag sector, the input suppliers, end users, financial partners and commodity associations. They provide a forum and meeting area for young people in a dynamic and critical industry for the USA.

In my presentation to them, I talked about the great things happening in the agricultural sector with niche products, alternative energy and improving worldwide diets. However, I also talked about the Achilles Heal of ag, which is the rapidly increasing aging of farmers in this country. Only draw bridge operators are older in age than farmers. When your average age is 60+ years, you are not as likely to take as much risk and get a bit set in your ways.

That’s why I’m so excited to see young people engaged in agriculture. Groups like AFA and the Alliance are critical to helping make transitions to this newest generation.

Bonneville Salt Flats

2008-11-14T05:52:00.003-06:00

As a kid I was enthralled with stories of the Bonneville Salt Flats. I finally got to visit them last week when I was in West Wendover, NV. I remembered the incredible speeds that were attained on the Salt Flats but learned some new things about them on this trip.

Abe Jenkins was the first one to set a new speed record on the Salt Flats in 1910 when he zoomed at 60 mph on a Yale Motorcycle. The next year, a car was finally driven over 50 mph there. Within only three years the new record for a car was set at 141.73 mph!

Records continued to fall until 1970 when Gary Gabelich piloted The Blue Flame at a speed of 622.40 mph, and didn’t leave the ground!

The salt flats were formed on the floor of an ancient lake, which was once over 1,050 feet deep. The lake was 145 miles wide and 346 miles long but has now retreated to what is the Great Salt Lake near Salt Lake City, a hundred miles to the east.

I knew about all of the land speed records that had been set at Bonneville, but wasn’t aware of all of the movies that have been filmed there. The Salt Flats act as a natural “green screen” which allows any background to be added to a film. Blockbuster films like Con Air, Independence Day, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, The Hulk and many others were filmed here.

The old Westover Air Base has been used for several of these films as well, the most memorable of which were Con Air, staring Nicholas Cage, where the concluding scenes were filmed, and Independence Day. That’s a picture of the Con Air plane that still sits on the base and the old hanger is the one that Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller and Bill Pullman as President Thomas J. Whitmore, use in the last battle with the aliens to save the earth. Both are some of my favorite movies!

Can you tell that I’m having a ball traveling around this great country of ours?

Wendover Will

2008-11-13T05:10:00.002-06:00

The first thing that grabs you when you drive into West Wendover, NV (population 4,721) is Wendover Will, a 90 foot high mechanical cowboy, the tallest in the world. With over ¼ of mile in neon lighting tubes, I wish that I had been there at night to see him lit up. Will came into existence in 1952 to help pull people off of the Lincoln Highway which ran through town.

As we drove over the Silver Zone Pass at 5,940 feet, the town of West Wendover, NV and Wendover, UT began to come into view. And, just beyond the twin cities lies the Bonneville Salt Flats. More on them tomorrow but what was an incredible site was how the nature of the Great Basin Desert combined with the Salt Flats; one can actually see the curvature of earth. I was told, that the phenomenon is even more pronounced at night when you can see the lineal trail of headlights travelling west on I-80. I’ll have to get back to see that!

West Wendover is a gambling town with charter flights from the Midwest helping to fill its 1,800 motel rooms and six casinos. Recently a 1,000 seat concert hall was constructed at a cost of $21 million, bringing in such acts as Gretchen Wilson, REO, Randy Travis, America, Amy Grant, Bill Engvall, Lee Ann Womack, Smash Mouth, The Guess Who, Sawyer Brown, Gary Allan, David Spade and Willie Nelson.

West Wendover has made history a number of times. On June 17, 1914, AT&T erected the last of 130,000 telephone poles that finally allowed a transcontinental telephone conversation. In the first call ever, Alexander Graham Bell was in NYC, his one-time assistant Thomas Watson was in San Francisco, the president of AT&T was on Jekyll Island, GA and President Woodrow Wilson was at the White House. Bell picked up the phone and asked Watson, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you,” repeating his very first phone call. Watson, in SF, responded, “It would take me a week now.”

The Wendover Air Base was constructed at the start of WWII and trained over 1,000 bomber crews during the war. The most famous of those was the crew of the Engola Gay and Bock’s Car which dropped the only nuclear bombs in history. That’s my tour guides in Elko County, Elaine Barkdull Spencer and Stacy Sawyer in front of a replica of that first atomic bomb.

Rebuilding After a 6.0!

2008-11-12T04:56:00.005-06:00

“I was down in the basement working on the computer and thought that my husband Zach was dribbling a basketball upstairs very quickly. Then the room started to move and I knew that it couldn’t possibly be a basketball.” Elaine Barkdull Spencer was explaining to me her initial reaction to the 6.0 earthquake that hit Northeast Nevada on February 21, 2008.

Even though Nevada is in a seismic area, it is uncommon for them to have earthquakes of this magnitude. The epicenter was six miles outside of Wells, NV, an oasis of water wells on the California trail. The town dates from Christmas Day, 1869 and the old historic downtown still has most of its buildings standing, or at least they were until the 6.0er hit the town.

We stopped by Wells (population 1,346) on our way to West Wendover, NV (tomorrow’s blog) to survey the damage. I was hoping that several of the residents from Wells would make the trek to my talk in West Wendover, because I told several stories of the revitalization of towns like Greensburg, KS which was wiped out by an EF-5 tornado and the MS Gulf Coast which suffered from the incredible force of Hurricane Katrina.

But Elko County is a B-I-G county, with over 17,000 square miles of land area. You could fit the states of MA, DE, CT and RI within the borders of the county and still have room left over to put in all of the Florida Keys. And, no one from Wells made the 60 mile trip over to West Wendover.

Wells has some incredibly historical buildings in its old downtown area. I hope that they find the funds and the will to rebuild them to their past glory.

Diversifying Elko

2008-11-11T05:48:00.003-06:00

“I’m Jack Schultz and I approve this message,” was how I started my talk after the introduction. I was in Elko County, NV (population 47,010) the day after the election and the response to my intro got a good laugh. The good citizens of Elko were glad that the election was over. Being a battleground state, they got inundated with advertising and campaigning. I was amazed when I learned that during the presidential campaign season this rural Northeast NV county had three visits from Sen. Obama, one from Sen. McCain and a late visit the night before the election from Gov. Palin. Talk about the critical importance of certain regions and states!

I had been in Elko two years ago today, when I was there to help them inaugurate Frontier Telephone’s first-in-the-nation wireless broadband service in the town of Elko (population 16,708). Elko had immediately jumped at the chance to install the new technology as a way to help diversify their economy. They also were in the early stages of setting up a major rail-park as part of that diversification strategy. At that time, Elaine Barkdull Spencer, the dynamic Executive Director of the Elko County Economic Diversification Authority (ECEDA), passionately told me of her desire to diversify away from its dependence upon the notoriously cyclical mining industry.

Frontier’s broadband service has resulted in a number of new businesses starting up and the rail-park is almost operational. The county purchased an 810-acre ranch that ran along the main line of the UP Railroad from San Francisco to Chicago, turning 60 acres of into a multimodal transload facility and warehousing yard and industrial park. Already land has been sold in the park to Pacific Steel, SAS Global, Spirit Minerals and Ormaza Group. Pacific’s project is now under construction.

Elaine told me of ECEDA’s goals, “Even though we’ve got 37 mines here in northeastern Nevada that pay incredibly well, we know that we’ve got to look at how we diversify. We’ve identified five areas for development: Small manufacturing to use our skilled workforce; food processing for our abundant water; distribution with our rail and road assets; construction companies; and mining support companies.”

Mining is still in a boom phase, even though the main product of gold (Elko County is the largest producer of gold in the USA and fourth largest in the world!) has fallen from over $1,000/ounce earlier this year to $700. It will have to fall a great deal more to fall below the estimated break-even price of $400/ounce and even then production would not stop because of the ten year time period to re-permit a mine that is closed down. The “Carlin Trend” gold vein which runs from Carlin, NV (population 2,161) where I did my talk, over to Elko, is 50 miles long and about five miles wide. There is plenty of gold in “them thar hills!”

Elaine spoke of her own two sons, both of whom work in the mining industry, “I never wanted them to go into the industry because of its notorious boom and bust cycles. However, the money is so good that they both ended up there. My oldest son who is 27 makes over $100,000 per year as an electrician in the mines and the other is 26 making just shy of $100,000 per year, supervising a crew of 32, all of whom are older than him.”

I was impressed with her efforts to find other jobs for the communities in Elko County.

Top Historic Destination in the USA!

2008-11-10T05:46:00.000-06:00

One of the agurbs® that I probably write about more than any other is Columbus, IN (population 39,059), a very unique, well-diversified community in southern IN. Imagine my surprise when I picked up National Geographic’s Traveler magazine and found Columbus ranked as the top historical destination in the USA and eleventh in the world out of the 109 ranked.

Here’s what they said about Columbus:

Although it’s surprising to see a Midwestern burg (wish they had used the term agurb®!) in the company of Dijon and Stockholm, this “jewel in the region” boasts “world-class” mid-century modern architecture. The “charming downtown historic district” adds to the attraction, but the countryside’s “unchecked growth” makes for a “terrible gateway.”

Other towns and agurbs® that I’ve visited and are mentioned in the Traveler article are:

Ashland, OH (19); Red Wing, MN (23); Port Townsend, WA (24); Asheville, NC (33); Natchez, MS (40); Galena, IL (45); Lexington, KY (46); Sitka, AK (48); and Santa Fe, NM (75).

Small Banks Thrive

2008-11-09T11:25:00.003-06:00

There was a great article in the NY Times yesterday on the advantages of small banks. Cited as an example is the First National Bank of Orwell, a $36 million bank in Orwell, VT. Founded in 1832, it is Vermont’s smallest bank. Loans are up 22.6% from last year while deposits are up 7%. The picture on the right is Mark Young, president of the bank, with a customer.

The Federal Reserve wants small banks like this to go away, hoping that their TARP program will help to eliminate over 1,000 small banks. Bad decision!

Look at the graphic below which shows returns and charge-offs for banks in the USA by size. Returns are highest and charge-offs lowest for small banks! Why would you want to eliminate them? What are the Feds thinking?

Football Helmets

2008-11-07T05:27:00.004-06:00

If you watch football this weekend and pay particular attention to the backs of the football helmets, you’ll see the name Schutt. Schutt Sports makes helmets along with other athletic equipment in Litchfield, IL (population 6,815). The company dates to 1918 when Bill Schutt started making basketball goals in his hometown. From very modest beginnings, the company has grown to several hundred jobs in the town, with other plants in IL and PA.

I was in Montgomery County, IL (population 29,810) for their first ever Summit to discuss economic development last week. Litchfield is the largest town in the county.

Schutt is looking at consolidating their various operations in Litchfield, wanting to do a 100,000 sf expansion onto their main plant. Litchfield is looking at various options on how to assist Schutt in their expansion. One of the graphics that they asked me to send was the following, which shows the impact of a 100 manufacturing jobs like Schutt on a community:

The Impact of 100 Manufacturing Jobs

* 415 more jobs
* $12,700,000 more personal income/year
* $5,000,000 more bank deposits
* 7 more retail establishments
* $7,700,000 more retail sales
* $540,000 increased tax revenue
* $2,000,000 more service receipts

Information provided by Illinois Chamber of Commerce

You can’t have enough good paying manufacturing jobs in a town. I hope that Schutt expands and continues to grow in Litchfield.

Miner to Publisher

2008-11-06T06:44:00.002-06:00

Some people and many athletes have an incredible desire to succeed/win. I met one of those people at my talk in Sesser. “I want you to meet Jim Muir,” Mayor Mitchell introduced, “one of those miners I told you about who lost their job when all of the mines here closed their doors. Unlike a lot of them, Jim went back to college got a degree in journalism and started his own magazine last year.”

After Jim and I chatted for a few minutes, he went out to his car and returned with three of his latest issues of Southern Illinois Sports Connection, a four-color 50 to 60 page monthly magazine that is chock full of interesting information on high school, college and community sports in the southern ¼ of IL. From his first issue in August, 2007 it looks as though the magazine has grown each month.

It continues to inspire me, when I meet new entrepreneurs like the Jim Muir’s of the world who when are handed lemons of losing their job, take those lemons and make something better for themselves.

Rebuilding, Diversifying

2008-11-05T05:04:00.001-06:00

One of the most painful changes that I’ve reported on in my travels around the country, is the gut-wrenching changes that towns which are virtually dependent upon one firm or industry for their jobs goes through when structural changes occur wiping out those jobs. I was in such a town last week.

Mayor Ned Mitchell, of Sesser, IL (population 2,128) was telling me a bit about the history of his community, “We had five coal mines in the county and had 12 within 25 miles of Sesser. Each employed between 500 and 800 miners who got not only great wages but excellent benefits because all of them were United Mine Workers mines. They all shut down soon after the passage of the Clean Air Act.”

One of his aldermen, an ex-miner piped up, “When I went to the mines in 1964 I was taking home $24.25/shift and when I was let go in 1992 I was up to $135/shift.”

Sesser has yet to recover from that downturn with unemployment still topping 12%, but Mayor Mitchell and the town aren’t giving up. They are hoping to develop more amenities to lure more visitors from nearby Rend Lake, which has 3 million people visit each year. And, they are improving the community in many ways. Four new baseball fields, one of which is being done by the St. Louis Cardinals at a cost of over $200,000, are in the works along with a new soccer field. A new 2007 TIF district is facilitating the tearing down of old, abandoned houses, replacing them with modern ones. And an old 1914 Vaudeville Theater/Opera House and adjacent café where I did my talk, is helping to revitalize the downtown.

New scrubber technology is leading to a resurgence of Illinois coal and several of the old mines are slowly reopening, but coal is probably never going to be the economic powerhouse that it was in the past. Towns like Sesser realize that and are getting on with a new, more diversified future.

Small Town Promise

2008-11-04T04:49:00.001-06:00

You’ve probably heard of the Kalamazoo Promise which promises a four year college education to anyone who graduates from the local high school. The promise has created a boom in Kalamazoo, MI which had been spiraling downward prior to announcing its promise.

I learned of a similar promise in a small town of 1,000 near my hometown, but this town’s promise is not well publicized and as a result it hasn’t had the economic impact that I would like to see. The town is dormant, with a population that is aging in place.

Several years ago, a local farm family left several thousand acres of farmland and cash in trust for students of this farming town. With todays land values, that trust is today well north of $10 million. At a 5% spend ratio, the IRS formula for most trusts, the trust must spend over $500,000/year in scholarships. With only 30 students/year graduating from the local high school, the trust not only pays for undergraduate school but also for most of graduate school.

Imagine what could happen in your town with a promise like this! All it takes is one, very forward-thinking family to change a community for generations and centuries into the future.

Extreme Fairbanks

2008-11-03T05:11:00.001-06:00

Historically, Fairbanks, AK (population 86,754) has been known for its extremes. It was always the hottest, the coldest, the darkest and also most remote. North Star, a community branding firm, set out to find what people in Fairbanks loved about their community, using that passion to rebrand Fairbanks. The ad that I love best is on the right. Don’t you love the copy, “Once you’ve been here, you understand their determination to return?”

North Star found that locals loved the Northern Lights, midnight sun, hot springs, Arctic Circle and other wonders of nature. And from those wonders of nature, those extreme conditions have created an unmatched light, energy and warmth.

What is your brand?

Magnificent Mangum--We Specilize in Solutions!

2008-10-31T09:25:00.003-05:00

We’ve loved generating a number of inquiries and stories from recent Agurban articles. One of the many that we received was from Maxine Thomason, Mayor of Mangum, OK (population 2,900). She told of the resurgence in her hometown, adding a dozen new businesses to their downtown in the past year. The closing line of her email really piqued my interest: “Our motto is “We Specialize in Solutions.”

After several emails back and forth, here is what I learned about Mangum from her.

In 2004 The Mangum Star News was the only business operating in one entire block in our downtown district. That year a building on this block was purchased and the owner began to renovate a long neglected section of the building that faced an alley. It was his dream to make some small business spaces with an upstairs loft apartment.

At the same time, a potter and her husband had retired and moved back home. She had lost her lease on a space and was looking for a new location. Bingo! Problem solved. During this same time period we had begun to seek out other artists living in our area. We were astounded to find how many there were. Soon 3 more galleries had opened in the same alley. The City Commission renamed the alley--Artists Alley. They are featured on the cover of this year's Oklahoma Travel Guide for Great Plains Country. They are award winning and will be doing an exhibit at the Governors' Gallery at our state capitol in December.

With this experience Mr. Kane soon renovated the front spaces for a new coffee shop known as The Latte Da. Within the span of a year we have added Reelz, an arcade and movie theatre, Tumbleweeds, a computer service business, and the Mangum Tag Agency. With new windows, awnings, sidewalks and landscaping the block now became a great place to locate.

AdCraft Signs, a large sign business from Phoenix, purchased the remaining two buildings on the block and are creating spaces for both the sign business, an ice cream parlor, and one additional office space to be rented out.

Where are the other 2 businesses? On the next block, Mr. Kane has just purchased and renovated another building and Movieland is opening this weekend. Two blocks away, Laurel and Taylor, a beauty salon has opened for business. Cactus Jack's, an antique and photographic restoration business joins The Quilt Whisperer, an antique quilt restoration business, as two of our newest businesses. Did I say 2? There are even more. Each a small wonder.

Someone once told me that for small towns survival is not a given-you have to work for it. We believe it! And we are!

I’ve said it many times. All it takes is just one or two people with a passion in their town to really make a difference. Fortunately, Mangum has them. Do you?

ROOTs in OK

2008-10-30T07:36:00.002-05:00

Becky McCray writes a wonderful blog on small town business survival from Alva, OK. She keeps me informed about some of the wonderful things that are going on in north-central OK. Recently, she sent me an email on a program in nearby Enid, OK. Here is what she told me:

ROOTs, which stands for Recognizing the Opportuni-ties of Tomorrow, is a local organization comprised of volunteers who want to show the bright students of Garfield County they don’t have to leave the area to find bigger and better things.“Our goal is for them to complete their education and come back to Enid to start their families and careers,” said ROOTs volunteer Jennifer Kisling.The organization began in 1996 when the group’s founders noticed the top students in the area were going away to college and then moving to larger cities searching for opportunity.“(ROOTs) is designed to show (high school) juniors in Garfield County what Enid has to offer,” said Kisling.

The two day program is aimed at the top juniors in the local high school. How about doing something like this in your town?

Love Those Tours

2008-10-29T09:23:00.000-05:00

Handmade in America in western NC was the first group that really turned me onto the power of tours. Those 21 counties turned an independent bunch of artisans into a coordinated marketing effort that today has evolved into a $500 million industry, positively impacting hundreds of small towns.

In Wausau, WI, I was excited to find tours of maple syrup producers, dairies and cheese, orchards, beer and wine.

I didn’t know until last week that you could visit 116 different cheese producers in WI, 60 orchards, 116 maple syrup boilers, 26 vintners and even 25 brewers. Throw in Lambeau Field in the ‘frozen tundra’ and you’ve got weeks of exploring that you can do in the state.

While dairies, cheeses, maple syrup and beer probably don’t shock you about WI, I’ll bet that you didn’t know that central WI is THE market for ginseng. Over 95% of the ginseng root exported from the USA, mostly to the Far East, is grown here. Ginseng berries turn red in August and harvested in September. The roots are harvested a month later.

There are a lot of niche producers in WI. If you get a chance, pick up one of their tour maps and explore.

Far-Away Place

2008-10-28T06:26:00.003-05:00

“We really got everything going in 2003 when we decided to put a parking garage in the downtown area in conjunction with a new office building that today has over 350 people working in it. It has been affectionately called ‘Garage-mahol’ ever since.” Jim Rosenberg, a long time city council member and my tour guide of downtown Wausau, WI (population 38,426) explained to me on our walking tour.

Wausau has always stuck in my mind, from watching the wonderful ads that Wausau Insurance used to run on TV with the local train depot as their background. Do you also remember their, “W-A….USA (in the middle) and then a ‘U’…for Wausau?”

Jim explained to me the origin of the name Wausau, “It is Indian for ‘a far-away place’,”

From that first project, Wausau has completely redone their downtown area with a theater renovation (1350 seats), new condo hotel project, and many historic building restorations.

Recently, Lawrence and Jane Sternberg left a $1 million legacy gift through the local Community Foundation (280 funds--$29 million in assets) for a river walk along the Wisconsin River, which sits adjacent to Wausau’s downtown.

The river is becoming a destination for whitewater enthusiasts, having hosted the Junior Olympics earlier this year.

It was a brisk and informative tour of a very interesting downtown.

Rice to Riches

2008-10-27T06:30:00.003-05:00

From the founding of the USA up through the late 1800s, the center for rice production was in SC. The crop gilded the lowcountry of the state as Europeans clamored for the nutty-tasting rice that quickly turned SC into one of the richest areas in the New World, as the Europeans referred to us.

However, the opening of the Suez Canal allowed South Asian rice to flood the European market and SC quickly lost its competitive edge as the low-cost producer of a product that it excelled at, something that recently repeated itself with textiles.

Campbell Coxe of Darlington, SC is determined to bring SC back to its past glory of rice production. This fifth generation farmer who operates out of one of the state’s oldest antebellum plantations started planting rice to help attract waterfowl to his commercial hunting operation, Roblyn’s Neck Hunt Club. Each hunter would receive a Christmas gift of his hand grown rice, clamoring for more.

In 1997 Coxe began to commercially cultivate his Carolina Plantation Rice. Today he raises 200 acres of Basmatic aromatic and 30 acres of Carolina Gold, selling his production through specialty retailers like Whole Foods, Fresh Markets, Viking Culinary, Charleston Cooks and others. You can also order it directly online at his website.

American Farmers…finding new ways to develop unique niches. There are lots of Campbell Coxes in this country!

Love Dakota Cabin Quilts Ezine!

2008-10-26T13:44:00.004-05:00

Every Sunday, I enjoy reading Dr. Laura Walker’s ezine from her Dakota Cabin Quilts. While I’m not a quilter, what she has to say from very rural Hettinger, ND (population 1,307) is always of interest. Here is what she had to say this morning.

Friday morning at 9 am sharp, I drove down Hettinger's Main Street, and pulled up to park in front of Dakota Cabin Quilts. I paused to enjoy the beautiful autumn morning and noticed other merchants arriving at their shops, keys in hand, opening up for the day. Across the street, someone swept leaves from the sidewalk in front of the insurance agency. To the north, I heard the wet sound of a window being washed, followed by the squeak of a squeegee. I gazed with pride at our storefront, our pretty window displays (thanks Ellen!), and saw some of my favorite quilts hanging from the ceiling near the front of the shop.

Our small town is blessed with a vital, healthy, busy Main Street. Hettinger has very few vacant buildings compared to communities of a similar size. Our Main Street businesses include: a grocery store, a variety store, a NAPA, a print shop, an antique shop, White Drug (with great gifts too), a KB Jewelers (with gift and books), Prairie Rose Floral, three hair salons, two banks, three insurance/investment agencies, three bars, two restaurants, and a dry cleaner.
Main Street Hettinger has a couple of great non-profits, including the "Clothes Closet", a second-hand shop staffed by volunteers, stocked with clean, inexpensive clothing and housewares. Profits generated by the Clothes Closet are donated back to the community. And, a few years ago, the Hettinger Theatre Board and local tradespeople came together to build a wonderful theatre in an empty building on north main. On the weekends, the smell of popcorn wafts up and down Main, and local teenagers have a tradition of meeting at the Sunday matinee.

I like to think of our end of the street as the "Arts & Crafts" area, as the Music Studio, Fried Photography/Scrapbook Shop, Wild Crocus Embroidery, and the Quilt Store are clustered together on South main.

Just north of us, the largest building on Main is KMM, a manufacturing company, and the second largest employer in town (after the medical center). KMM is a family-owned high tech manufacturer, based in Kildeer, ND, and one of their regional facilities is in Hettinger. At KMM, workers assemble small components that go into military equipment and air craft, and the company has contracts with Boeing and the US Department of Defense.

The phrase "From Wall Street to Main Street" has been ubiquitous this Election cycle, endlessly repeated by politicians, pundits, and news reporters. There is no doubt that the economic downturn is directly affecting Main Street businesses across the nation. As a business owner, I can't help but worry about the economy. But, as a consumer, I know that I can make a difference by carefully choosing where I spend my dollars. From groceries to gasoline, clothing to housewares, and for holiday gifts, I have renewed my commitment to shopping at the small businesses in our region, and plan to do my online shopping at small specialty e-stores rather than large chains.

If we all work together to support "Main Street USA", we will make a difference.

Miscanthurs--What?

2008-10-23T07:26:00.001-05:00

They don’t grow much corn in western ND. It doesn’t rain enough, irrigation water is not readily available and the soils are not prime. However, there are some new technologies and crops which could open up areas of the Great Plains for biofuel production and hopefully positively impacting rural towns in ND and other states.

An article in ScienceDaily last month cited one of these crops, “In the largest field trial of its kind in the United States, researchers have determined that the giant perennial grass Miscanthus x gignateus outperforms current biofuel sources—by a lot.”

To offset 20% of U. S. gas production with corn or switchgrass would require taking about 25% of U. S. cropland, but Miscanthus could do it with only 9% according to research from the University of Illinois. By being a perennial, Miscanthus gets an earlier start on the growing season, starting to produce green leaves about six weeks earlier than corn and staying green well into October when corn starts shutting down in August. It also requires little fertilizer for optimal production.

One of their key findings was, “Our highest productivity is actually occurring south, on the poorest soils in the state. So that also shows us that this type of crop may be very good for marginal land that is not even being used for crop production.”

Key your eye on this crop, miscanthus.

Small Town Brewer Passes On

2008-10-22T07:29:00.001-05:00

Any fifth generation business goes through a number of critical events in its 100+ year life. Most don’t make it to the third generation, much less the fifth. A business like beer brewing which had to live through the thirteen years of prohibition from 1920 through 1933 was especially hard hit. Thousands of local brewers never reopened their doors with the repeal of prohibition.

One of those that did reopen was the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company in Chippewa Falls, WI, which survived during prohibition by brewing soda water and near beer. The company dates to 1867 when Jacob Leinenkugel traveled to Chippewa Falls, WI (population 12,925) in the northwest part of the state to serve the large lumberjack population.

Fourth generation brewer Bill Leinenkugel who ran the company from 1971 to 1986 passed away last month in his hometown at the age of 87. He orchestrated the transition of his brew from largely a local into a regional one. During that time the number of brewers in the country fell from 350 to less than 40, as national companies like Anheuser-Busch, Coors and Miller transformed the industry. When Miller’s new budget brand Old Milwaukee threatened the Leinenkugel brand, Bill successfully repositioned his beer as a classier and more expensive alternative.

Even though the company was sold in the late 80s to Miller Brewing, the brewer is still run by fifth generation cousins Jake and Dick Leinenkugel in Chippewa Falls.

Bill Leinenkugel still sipped a bit of his favorite brew until a few days of his death. When asked his favorite, he responded, “I’ve got two. Leinenkugels and a free beer.”

Movement and Change

2008-10-21T07:45:00.005-05:00

When I was in Arco, ID, a participant enthusiastically gave me a Horizons brochure from the Northwest Area Foundation, a foundation that I’ve seen making some great progress in a number of towns along the northern tier of states.

I loved the opening shot from Horizons:

From waiting to leading…from talk to action…from poverty to prosperity…from a few to many…from despair to hope…from indifference to pride.

Horizons is a visioning and action plan on how communities in the eight states that it serves can take proactive steps to reduce poverty and help to build the type of community that they want to live in. To participate, towns must be less than 5,000 in population; have a poverty rate above 10%; and be broad based in the community.

This wasn’t my first view of the programs of the Northwest Area Foundation, a foundation set up in 1934 by the son of James J. Hill who was known as the “Empire Builder” for what he accomplished in setting up the Great Northern Railroad. The Foundation serves the eight states that the railroad crossed (MN, IA, ND, SD, MT, ID, OR, and WA). Last year the foundation gave out $24 million from an asset base of $465 million.

One of the very innovative parts of the Horizons program is their blogs from the towns that they are working with. You can see their blogs here. Check out places like Cando, ND (a shout-out to my favorite named town!) which talks about their farmers market, children’s summer theater and parades.

I love researching people like James J. Hill who was a farm boy from Ontario who wanted to be a sea captain. He arrived in St. Paul, MN but missed the last ox-cart caravan of the season heading for the west coast in July, 1856. He got a job for the winter as a shipping clerk at a steamboat company, never leaving. From very modest railroad endeavors he assembled The Great Northern Railroad in 1889 which stretched from St. Paul to Seattle, the northernmost railway in the USA. His fiscal conservatism allowed the railroad to escape being one of the few to not go bankrupt in the general Panic of 1893.

Today, the Northwest Area Foundation is still doing good and giving back to the region that helped it achieve success.

We're in Webster's! How Cool is That?

2008-10-20T06:28:00.001-05:00

My wife Betinha was doing some research for me the other day for a talk that I’ve got to do overseas next year on BoomtownUSA. She ran across Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary, a dictionary of new words in the new century.

Guess what was one of the new words that Webster’s selected?

AGURBS!!!

Her comment, “Our grandkids (still unborn) will think that is really cool!”

I was hoping to not have to wait so long to think it is cool. Or, as we say at Agracel, “It sure beats a sharp stick in the eye.”

The Great Flood of '08

2008-10-17T05:47:00.003-05:00

While it made headlines during June, other than in IA the memories of the Great Flood of 2008 have largely been ignored by the media. It seems to be much more newsworthy to continue to study a big city like New Orleans still living with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina rather than with the “git ‘er done” approach of rural IA.

I was in Cedar Rapids recently for a board meeting, seeing first hand the devastation that was wrought upon that city and neighboring towns along the Iowa and Cedar Rivers.

Mark Hanson, VP of sales for the local Caterpillar dealer, explained what happened, “We got around 70 inches of snow last winter and had snow on the ground from Thanksgiving until April. Then we were hit with huge rains during all of April and May. The river started rising in early June and by June 9th they estimated that it would crest in Cedar Rapids at 20 feet, about a foot above the previous record set in the floods of 1993. By the 11th they were estimating 24.7’ which would have made it a 500 year event. On the 13th it finally crested at 31.3’. 1,300 city blocks were flooded, including the entire downtown.”

It is estimated that over 2,000 houses will need to be demolished because of the devastation of this flood. Six to seven thousand people lost their jobs. For a town of 130,000 it was truly a 500 year event, one that they hope never to repeat.

And, what happened? Well there wasn’t any looting that took place. Neighbors helped neighbors. Strangers helped strangers. The city pulled together.

Companies like Hy-Vee and Aegon set up massive kitchens to serve meals to volunteers and those without homes. Caterpillar donated the use of over 50 earth moving machines to non-profits in the community to assist in their clean-up efforts. Other businesses also pitched in to start the rebuilding.

It’s similar to what I heard in the aftermath of Katrina on the MS Gulf Coast, when those in need generally cited the efforts of Home Depot and Wal-Mart for helping them in the immediate aftermath of their disaster.

Would the USA be better off “outsourcing” disaster relief to the Red-Cross and private industry?

Incredible Restoration

2008-10-16T05:21:00.001-05:00

It was called the “8th Wonder of the World” when it was built in 1902, having the largest free-standing dome in the world. It wasn’t until the Astrodome was built in 1965 that a larger dome was built!

West Baden Springs was built in less than a year at a cost of $414,000. It was a world famous haven for celebrities, politicians and underworld figures until the Great Depression when it was sold to Jesuits for $1 and was operated as a seminary for 30 years. Then it fell into disrepair.

Fortunately, in the mid 90s Bill and Gayle Cook from nearby Bloomington, IN together with the Historic Landmark Foundation of Indiana purchased and stabilized the rapidly deteriorating masterpiece. My wife and I were there in the early 90s and it was way beyond what I ever thought was salvageable. But thanks to the Cooks, West Baden Springs is back to its old glory.

The Cooks have invested over $500 million into the preservation, restoration and revival of both the West Baden Springs Hotel and the nearby French Lick Springs Hotel, another turn-of-the-century destination hotel/spa.

Only a local couple like the Cooks would have dared to take on a project like this, pouring their heart and soul in addition to their money into a project that restores a wonderful part of southern IN history.

Tinkers Camp

2008-10-15T12:09:00.004-05:00

“I want to instill mechanical curiosity!” That was the goal of Charles Holder, CEO of Hol-Mac Corporation on why he started Tinkers Camp this past summer. He went on, “The camp offered hands-on activities relating to the concepts of hydraulics, machines, electricity, welding, physics, math and drawing.”

Holder started the camp together with Jones County, MS Junior College. Twelve eighth and ninth graders from two local schools took part in the camp with each two students working together with an experienced mentor on real-world projects.

The camp was such a success that the MS Development Authority (MDA) is looking at how they roll it out throughout the state.

Who comes up with ideas like this?

Joy Foy from MDA filled me a bit on Mr. Holder, “His parents died when he was a teenager and he sent his younger sister to live with relatives but he stayed on the farm. He kept the cows milked and made a living for himself from that young age, going on to put himself through college. He has started his own business making heavy agricultural equipment and has made a very good living all these years and is a man of his word.”

We need more Charles Holders in this world!

Who Pays?

2008-10-14T05:44:00.000-05:00

During this election cycle, there has already been a great deal of talk about “the rich vs. the poor”, especially as it relates to income and income taxes. I decided to try to figure it out for myself rather than only listening to the politicians and talking heads on TV. Here is what I found.

The IRS does an annual study on whom and what is paid in income taxes. Their latest study is data from the 2006 tax period. They break down their data by percentiles.

To get into the top 10% of taxpayers you needed to have an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $108,904 in 2006. That group of taxpayers earned 47% of the income but paid 71% of the taxes.

The top 1% of taxpayers, which required an AGI of at least $388,806, earned 22% of income but paid 40% of the taxes.

The bottom 50% of taxpayers earned 13% of AGI and paid a record low 3% of the taxes.
Most surprising to me was the way that the various percentiles share of taxes have changed over the past twenty years. In 1986 the top 1% paid 26% of the total tax compared to 40% today. The top 10% paid 55% compared to 71% today. And the bottom 50% paid 6% compared to only 3% today.

I wonder what will happen to our country when the bottom 50% doesn’t pay any of the income tax?

Hadn't Thought of That!

2008-10-13T06:10:00.000-05:00

Dean Samuel, a good friend and long time partner, recently sent me an email that was one of those “ah-ha” moments. His son, David, a serial entrepreneur who has successfully started and sold two companies to Time Warner and Sony for tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, recently moved from Silicon Valley to NC for quality of life reasons for his young family.

In David’s early research of the Research Triangle there is one glaring shortfall, despite its many successes. Dean wrote, “Few companies have gone public. When a company goes public, it spawns hundreds of high achieving millionaires who in turn break out on their own to create new companies. Think Microsoft, Oracle, etc. The whole area explodes with innovation and risk taking. If they stay private, no one leaves and no new companies are created.”

Interesting thought that I’d missed up until that email. I’ll check it out in my travels around the USA.

Fourth Year Anniversay

2008-10-11T06:03:00.000-05:00

Today marks the 4th anniversary of when I started doing my blogs. Since then I’ve posted 1852. Thanks for reading them and sending me your comments (both good and bad) about what I’m seeing in my travels around the country, research that we continue to do and my observations on our societal and political life in the USA.

Sustainable Small Town Development Series

2008-10-10T05:45:00.001-05:00

Allan Hooper of Consumers Energy in Jackson, MI has one of the best feels for economic development in small towns. He has been very instrumental in pulling rural MI together for an annual summit on small town development, one of the best that I’ve seen in my travels around the country.

Allan has compiled a number of great papers on the subject from around the country on their website. You can read about small town trends, community survival, local entrepreneurs, using community assets, economic gardening and engaging community alumni. Alan’s great book on “101 Quips, Quotes and Concepts for Sustainable Small Town Development” is also there.

I hope that you’ll check it out.

The Promise!

2008-10-09T05:38:00.000-05:00

“Ten years ago we lost 14,000 jobs over a four year period. This year we’ve already added 5,500!” Ron Kitchens, CEO of Southwest Michigan First was addressing our quarterly Community Celebration of Excellence event in Effingham County, IL.

He used a sailing analogy to explain what Kalamazoo, MI did to turn itself around, “If you’re sailing and the wind dies down, you’re in trouble. Sailors of old had three choices when the wind died…drift into the rocks and hope you survive, drop anchor and wait or do what is called ketching. The captain would have sailors row the anchor out as far at the anchor cable would allow and drop it. Then, all hands on deck would pull the boat toward that anchor.”

He went on, “When we were stranded as a community, we decided to ketch our way to prosperity. Education is the rope that we are using to pull ourselves toward the future.”

“Several years ago, we did an evaluation of ourselves and found that we were a city in trouble. We quickly realized that we were going to be broke in three years. Our schools were going downhill, losing ½ of their kids in ten years.”

The plan developed, called the Kalamazoo Promise, is a commitment that if you attend Kalamazoo schools you’ll have tuition and fees paid to attend any public college or university in the state of MI.

And the results of that bold promise?

“In the last two years we’ve had 1,400 new students in our schools. They’ve come from 33 states and 8 foreign countries. Our dropout rate has been cut in half. We passed our first school bond referendum in over 40 years! We are racing to the top.”

Another innovative program in Kalamazoo is their College Student Internship Program which they’ve recently started, paring college students with local businesses. A student can earn $3,000 for the summer with a $500 bonus if they meet the employer’s expectations. A local private foundation will match that $500 bonus and also award them a $5,000 scholarship. Their goal is that ½ of the students will end up returning to Kalamazoo after graduation.

“We’re marrying education with the opportunity to succeed in Kalamazoo.”

Kitchens pointed out that at least 24 other USA towns have copied the Kalamazoo Promise, with many others looking at it.

Last week I received an email from good friend and Boomtown advocate Joy Foy from MS. Here is what she reported to me about similar programs in her state: “Lee, Monroe, Itawamba, Union, and Pontotoc Counties have all announced scholarship programs to cover tuition for any student to attend 2 years of community college. We’ve got others also looking at copying.”

Steve Bushue is passionately setting up a similar program in my home county, Effingham. Initial funds have been raised and plans are to greatly expand so that we can kick off our own Effingham Promise.

What are you promising your young people?

The Sky is Falling!

2008-10-08T06:53:00.002-05:00

One of the things that continues to amaze me is how many people extrapolate the recent past out into the long term. Too often this causes people to both become over enthused when the trend is up and to see nothing but calamity when it is down. We’ve seen it in the past with the fear of robotics causing the demise of USA manufacturing in the 60s, OPEC in the 70s, Japan in the 80s, the “giant sucking sound to Mexico” in the 80s, China in the 90s and housing today.

If you look at the history of housing, a house was always a depreciating asset until the 1950s (see graphic at right). When you bought or built a house, you expected it to go down in value much like we think of cars today. You don’t get upset at your car dealer when a one day old car is worth 20 or 30% less than the previous day. As a result few people buy new cars as an investment. They buy them to drive!

So it was with housing, at least until recently. The tax code, allowing the deduction of interest, and governmental assistance for home buyers has pushed American homeownership to almost 70%, a record. Efforts to push it even higher resulted in loans being made to people who didn’t have much of a chance of paying them back.

Housing prices increased at rates slightly above the inflation rate for much of the 80s and 90s. The Case Shiller Index, which measures housing prices in the top 20 metro markets increased at a 3.7% annual rate from 1987 (when it started) through 2000. However, in 2000 when the .com bubble burst, money flowed from the stock market into the housing market. From 2000 through its peak in 2006, the index soared by 11.2% per year, three times as fast! Suddenly, everyone was into “flipping houses”, never thinking that housing prices could ever go down.

But the bubble popped and down they went. Since peaking in the second quarter of 2006, the index has decreased by 8.6% for the past two years, a decrease but hardly a catastrophe. Prices today are equivalent to what they were in early 2000s. Granted, there are some areas that have decreased more than 8.6%/year but generally they are also the regions that increased at a much faster rate in the early 2000s.

I’m convinced that the housing crisis will stabilize in the next couple of years and slowly start to rebuild from a base that is much more solid than it was in 2006.

An aside:

If you want to see how your area has done on housing values go to this website and click on your state. You also can drill down and see how values have changed in the MSAs in your state. As an example, in CA the housing index moved from 40 in 1975 to 640 in 2006, a 16x increase! Put another way, a $100,000 house in 1975 was worth $1.6 million in 2005.

Idaho Wheat

2008-10-07T06:29:00.002-05:00

Driving to/from places like Arco, ID is one of my favorite times. I love being in the wide open spaces, without many cars on the road, able to cruise along seeing the incredibly beautiful American landscape. My trip from Jackson, WY to Arco and back, a total of about 7 hours on two different routes was especially enjoyable.

Not only did I drive through some incredible mountains and high mountain deserts but also some beautiful farms in those seven hours. In the agricultural areas I was surprised that potatoes seemed to rank behind wheat and alfalfa.

I learned that Idaho produces about 100 million bushels of wheat each year, with over ½ of it going into export markets, primarily to Asian customers. An oddity of Idaho is that it is one of the few places in the world where they grow five of the six different classes of wheat. They grow Soft White (made into cakes and cookies); Hard Red—both spring and winter (bread); Durum (pasta); and Hard White (Asian style noodles). The only one they don’t grow is Soft Red, which we grow here in the eastern Midwest (crackers).

From the looks of the new combines and tractors, it appears that wheat has been a very profitable crop for Idaho farmers.

Mine Hill Tour

2008-10-06T06:02:00.001-05:00

One of the more fascinating parts of my tour of the Lost Rivers Valley was going up the mountain, just outside of Mackay, climbing several thousand feet above the valley floor. The mountain was once the largest copper mountain in the USA and operated from 1879 until the mid 1980s. A whole city, since abandoned, existed on the side of the mountain, with the buildings held onto the mountainside with cables that were anchored into solid rock.

An elaborate system of carts and trolleys brought over one million tons of material down several thousand feet to be separated into gold, silver and other metals. During the mine’s 100+ year life 42,000 ounces of gold; 2 million ounces of silver; 62 million pounds of copper; 1.5 million pounds of lead and 5 million pounds of zinc were extracted.

It was quite a trip up to the top of that mountain and hard to believe that people and animals used to make the trip up and down each day.

Back Home....Working Electronically

2008-10-03T06:32:00.002-05:00

“Live where you want. Work Electronically.” It probably is going to be a promo that you are going to see more in the workforce, especially as the Baby Boomers begin to retire. It is a trend that I’m seeing more often in my travels around the country.

In the Lost Rivers Valley I met Kevin and Cheri Pearson who are living exactly that dream. Here is how Kevin told me their story, “I was born and raised here. Cheri was born in Cadillac, MI. I graduated from college in computer science in 1995 and immediately went to work for Hewlett-Packard in Boise. Cheri and I decided that we didn’t want to raise our two children in the big city and H-P was already letting me work a couple of days a week from home, so I approached them about letting me work permanently from here.”

Cheri added, “Our kids are 13 and 14 now but were only 7 & 8 at the time when we moved here. They have the advantage of being able to play in every sport in the school, something that they couldn’t do in Boise. We’ve never regretted the move although initially it was difficult fighting a feeling of loneliness.”

Kevin goes back to Boise on an irregular basis. He was back there last month but has gone as long as six months without going back to see his boss.

The Pearsons live on a small farm that is about 3 miles outside of Moore. Having a DSL connection at the farm was one of the key decisions on where to live when they made the move back home.

Are you ready for these new electronic workers in your town? Do you have the broadband connections that they are going to need?

High School Tradition

2008-10-02T05:50:00.002-05:00

Towering over Arco is a gigantic bluff with stone outcroppings that appear that they might fall off at any minute. On these outcroppings are a series of numbers written in big block white paint. At first I thought that perhaps they were the numbers of the high school football team, but ‘2000’ and ‘2002’ convinced me that it was something else.

Michelle Holt, head of ED, told me, “It’s a graduating class tradition that began in 1919 and has been going on ever since. Each class climbs up the mountain, hangs one of their members over the edge in a tire on a rope and they paint the class year on the side. The higher they go, the more macho they are.”

Macho is evidently a big thing in Arco, because there were several of the spots that I wouldn’t have gone on a dare.

She went on, “Several of the older classes, who are too old to climb up there, will pay a class to repaint their class year over for them.”

With only 28 students in the graduating class, Butte County High School doesn’t have a lot of students to pick from to find the macho ones to climb up the mountain with their paint brush.

And, the Bureau of Land Management, which technically owns the hill, has informed the school that they aren’t going to allow the painting to take place after 2019, the 100th anniversary of the first class to put their class year on the mountain. I’m certain that it is not viewed as being very PC in Washington, DC, but I’m also guessing that it will be a tradition that will continue long after that year. It’s going to be tough to police that mountain when those high school students decide to climb up there.

It is the most unusual graduating class identification that I’ve seen in my travels around the USA.

Going to the Lost Rivers Valley!

2008-10-01T05:59:00.002-05:00

When Dean Bingham, president of Agracel, heard that I was going to the Lost Rivers Valley, he told me, “Wow! That is a great place. That is where we go camping each year with my Dad. Pickle’s is our lunch stop every year on the way up to Challis.” I stopped in for breakfast, having a wonderful conversation with a round table to local farmers who educated me on their crops and big issues. Drought for the past six years and most of the past fifteen was their major concern, as was the increasing cost of inputs for their crops.

Bob Burroughs, VP of Lost Rivers Valley ED, told me, “We’re seeing a big push of people coming here with second homes. The Sun Valley is pricing many people out of the market, forcing them to move. We’re the next valley over and they are moving here. It is driving our property values much higher, making housing for normal workers way too expensive.” The house on the right, which sits on all of 10 acres, sold for $1.9 million recently.

With seven of the highest peaks in Idaho located in the Lost Rivers Valley, it’s a land of incredible beauty. Hunting, fishing, camping, trails (walking, biking and ATVs) and even a wind trail are huge assets that are slowly being discovered. The wind trail is the first official one authorized in the USA and attracted an airline pilot from Boise who is building a glider park that will allow owners to build along its runway.

These second home owners have great potential for ED. Some have a wealth of business knowledge. Others are going to start businesses from their vacation homes. And, still others with a love for the valley could help to start a community foundation or an angel investor network, two items I suggested that they look at starting.

I fell in love with the Lost Rivers Valley. I hope to get back there. Dean Bingham was right!

Something Doesn't Jive

2008-09-30T05:56:00.001-05:00

I was on my way to Arco, ID (population 1,026) to do a talk and tour for the Lost Rivers Valley Economic Development, a regional ED effort in Butte and Custer Counties of Idaho. Prior to each trip and tour, I spend some time studying and delving into the statistics for the communities and counties that I’m going to be studying.

The data for Butte County (population 2,771) was particularly puzzling for me. The county showed 8,405 jobs (3x the population!) at an average wage of $70,504 (12th highest out of 3,141 counties in the USA!) but median household income was only $31,828 (2,451 in the USA). Something was going on that wasn’t easily understood without being on the ground.

Michelle Holt, Tammy Stringham and Bob Burroughs of Lost Rivers quickly explained to me what wasn’t evident in the raw data. Michelle told me, “The Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which is part of the Department of Energy and focused upon Atomic Energy is located to the east of Arco, but only 2% of its workers live in Butte County. The Nautilus, the first atomic submarine, had their power system developed here. One of our big issues here is that the Federal Government owns 97% of the land in Custer County and 91% of it in Butte County. That really hurts our tax base.”

Arco was chosen as the site for INL in 1949. At the hotel I was staying at in Arco, a framed copy of a newspaper article on the announcement told of plans for Arco to grow to 5,000 to 10,000 in population because of the new installation. It never happened, with the growth in population occurring to the east in much larger Idaho Falls (population 50,730).

INL covers 890 square miles (570,000 acres) in the mountain desert between Idaho Falls and Arco. You seem to drive forever, never leaving their property in the drive from Idaho Falls to Arco. Arco’s sole claim to fame from INL came on July 17, 1955 when it became the first town in the world to be lighted solely by nuclear power for a short period of time as an experiment. Today the Idaho Science Center is located in Arco, with its distinctive “Submarine in the Desert” displaying the sail from the USS Hawkbill, one of the many nuclear subs that had their power sources perfected at INL.

However, the distorted high salaries of INL act as a deterrent to bringing in new industry. As site selectors we often look at raw data from the U. S. Census before ever making contact with a community. Lost Rivers Valley Economic Development has their hands full in getting the message out that INL is an aberration so that people take a look at this wonderful region that I’ll tell you about in the next couple of days.

Ten Years as a Community Foundation

2008-09-29T05:41:00.002-05:00

The Armstrong County Community Foundation in Armstrong, PA invited me in to help them celebrate their tenth anniversary. The foundation started when the local Merchants Bank pledged $100,000 to be paid over a five year period to help launch the foundation’s establishment.

Today, from that tiny beginning the foundation has grown to over $4 million in assets, set into 50 separate funds and distributing $200,000 in 80 separate grants to local non-profits and scholarship recipients.

Patty Kirkpatrick, president of the board for the foundation told me of a new innovative approach to giving, “We’re starting a brand new grant to help us celebrate our tenth anniversary. We’ve going to give special $10,000 grant to a non-profit in the community and let everyone in the community vote for the winning organization.”

The polls opened on September 22nd and will close on October 3rd to see which non-profit will be awarded the $10,000.

Later in the week, I urged the Lost River Valley in Idaho to look at setting up a community foundation, telling them that it was the top thing that I would do in every community that I’ve visited to date. It is by far the best long term investment that a community can make. I’m thrilled that Merchants Bank had the foresight ten years ago to help set up the Armstrong County Community Foundation.

Incredible Industrial Parks

2008-09-26T06:27:00.004-05:00

Never in my 300+ tours of the USA have I seen such well developed and extensive industrial parks as I saw in Armstrong County, PA (population 69,059). Patty Kirkpatrick, county board chair and also president of the board of the Armstrong County Community Foundation (more on them Monday), and Rich Pallilla, head of planning and ED for the county, were my tour guides of the county. Patty was the first female ever elected to the county board in the 240 year history of the county, coming in first in vote totals both times that she ran.

The first park we toured was Northpointe, a 900 acre mixed use park which opened in 2001. Today there are 10 buildings with over 600 employees in them. There are another 600 employees in the West Hills Industrial Park. The county also owns the Parks Bend and Manor Township Parks with over 150 acres available and already several hundred employees in each. Parks Bend also includes a business incubator that has the look of a big barn and silo to easily fit into the countryside.

Armstrong has gone through several booms and busts in its history. Patty told me, “Parker City in the very northern most part of the county had a population of over 20,000 in the early 1900s when it was an oil boomtown. Now they are down to only about 750, but because they are considered a city, they get as much federal funding as the rest of the county combined.”

The oil boom was followed by coal, glass manufacturing and china booms which peaked in the mid 1950s with about 30 to 35% of the population employed in some form of manufacturing. As those industries went into slow decline, Armstrong County planned and executed the construction of these four industrial parks.

I’m certain that the decision to build those parks was not without controversy, but if you aren’t planning for the future, you are only going to go backwards. Armstrong County is ready when the next company comes calling.

Restoring Canals in OH

2008-09-25T06:05:00.003-05:00

The Miami & Erie Canal was completed in 1845 at a cost of $8 million. The 301 mile canal connected Lake Erie in Toledo, OH with the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Grand Lake St. Marys was constructed adjacent to St. Marys, OH to provide a constant source of water for the canal.

Canals were a cutting edge technology in the mid 1800s but were quickly surpassed by nascent railroad networks. By the early 1900s the Miami and Erie Canal was history. Today there are efforts to resurrect several sections of the canal for historical and tourist purposes.

Both New Bremen and St. Marys have efforts underway to redevelop their old canal locks into wonderful historical sites. That is me on the left opening one of the reconstructed locks in New Bremen just like they did in the mid 1800s.

We Need a Tourist Attraction--Let's Go Buy It!

2008-09-24T05:59:00.002-05:00

In 1895, a thirty-five year old German immigrant, Ignaz Schwinn, incorporated the Schwinn Bicycle Company in Chicago. The company quickly became an innovator in the industry, introducing such innovations as a two inch wider tire than earlier bikes and a larger spring-supported seat, both of which provided a much more comfortable ride. As a kid I always rode a Schwinn and dreamt of riding the new String-Ray model when it was introduced in 1963.

Our first major industrial project was building a new bicycle plant and it always fascinated me to see how a new bicycle was built in my many visits to that plant when it was in operation. A dozen years ago I visited the Schwinn Bicycle Museum, near Chicago’s Navy Pier, but problems at the company still owned by the Schwinn family resulted in that museum closing its doors. I didn’t realize that the famous Schwinn family bicycle collection was still virtually complete until I visited New Bremen, OH earlier this month. It was great fun to see the wonderful collection still intact in New Bremen!

The Bicycle Museum of America, as it is now known, was bought by James Dicke II, in 1997 when he traveled to Chicago, buying 162 of the 178 different lots offered at the dispersal auction of the Schwinn family collection. In all Dicke spent almost $700,000 to buy everything from an 1869 Dexter boneshaker that was made in Poughkeepsie, NY to the one-millionth bicycle to roll off the Schwinn assembly line, a 1968 Sting-Ray Orange Krate.

Although rumors were that either Jay Leno or Clint Eastwood were the big buyers, James Dicke II bought the collection because, “My hometown needs a tourist attraction.”

The Dicke family owns Crown Equipment, where his son, fourth generation James III is president of the company. The company was started in New Bremen by brothers Carl and Allen Dicke in 1945 to make temperature controls for coal burning furnaces. When TV became popular, they began manufacturing antenna rotators, which helped to give better reception. While those early products are clearly obsolete today, the company continued to diversify, beginning to produce lift trucks in 1957, something that it continues to do today in the USA and overseas.

From humble beginnings in New Bremen, the company is still producing products there and is where its worldwide administration and product development continues to take place. Local firms put down strong local roots, of which the Dicke family is a great example.

Recession in Ohio? Not Here!

2008-09-23T06:11:00.005-05:00

I was in Auglaize County, OH (population 48,429) for a great tour of six communities in north-west OH. With 35% of its jobs in manufacturing, the 138th highest percentage out of 3,141 counties in the country, I was concerned about what I might find from what I’d been hearing on TV. But, what I found is that you can’t always believe everything that you hear.

The county has built their manufacturing base upon a broad base of different companies and in a variety of industries. Automotive parts are by far the largest sector and Auglaize County has had their share of closures and downsizings but many of the entrepreneurial companies that have sprouted up in a manufacturing cluster like this have thrived and are expanding.

St. Marys (population 8,342), which sits on the edge of Grand Lake St. Mary’s—the largest man-made lake in the USA before the Hoover Dam was built, has developed a sister city program with a Japanese city that has resulted in a half dozen Japanese manufacturers locating in the town. The lake was the first spot in the world where oil was drilled “offshore”, over 100 years ago during the Ohio oil boom.

New Bremen (population 2,991) has one of the nicest downtowns I’ve seen in my travels, largely due to the redevelopment efforts of the Dicke family who owns Crown Equipment. This maker of forklifts employs 2,000 people in the community, having invested multi-millions into their hometown. More on one of their pet projects tomorrow.

New Knoxville (population 891) is home to Hoge Lumber, a fourth generation company that is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bowling alley lanes. The Beijing Olympics volleyball, badminton and other indoor sports were played on Hoge Lumber surfaces. Their high school, constantly ranked as one of the top 10 academically in the state, was the state basketball champion last year despite only having 32 in its graduating class.

Minster (population 2,794) is an old German-Catholic town much like where I was raised in Teutopolis, IL, where the church owns the grade school in the town and leases it to the public school system after 9 am each day, allowing religion to be taught before school each morning. Minster Machines, a 109 year old firm, employs 600 manufacturing punch press machines which are used in the auto and beverage industries. Three-quarters of the soda cans in the world are punched out on their machines. The Dannon Company has the largest yogurt plant in the world in Minster, producing 700 million pounds of yogurt in 2007. Another company produces all of the World Wrestling Federation championship belts.

Wapakoneta (population 9,531), the county seat for Auglaize County, has a 500+ acre mega-site (one of the first in the state) that is shovel-ready for the next manufacturer that decides to leverage the excellent manufacturing labor force in the county. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969, was born 4 miles outside of town. The Armstrong Air & Space Museum is located in Wapakoneta.

It was quite a tour. My notebook was filled with facts and trivia about the many wonderful towns in Auglaize County, OH.

Inspiring Millennials!

2008-09-22T07:25:00.000-05:00

“One quick story—the young lady (14 years old) who was in the audience that night was so inspired that she went home and started immediately working on a web business she has talked about for a while. Her mom told me that she commented that if the kids in your presentation could do it, so could she!”

It’s emails like that that really get me pumped up!!! Kevin Sheilley, head of ED for NorthWest KY Forward, which I blogged on last week, sent it to me after I was there. I had picked Heather out because she was the only young person in the room, when I started doing my stories on her generation of 10 to 27 year olds, called the Millennial Generation. As most of you know, this new generation is going to be the most entrepreneurial in the history of the USA.

What if each of us could inspire someone like Heather to start her own business? Think of the impact we could make in our small towns? Will you help me by doing it in YourTown, USA?

Regionalism in AL

2008-09-18T06:27:00.002-05:00

This week is my regionalism week. Earlier, I reported on an impressive four county regional effort in NW KY. Today, I’ve found a similar project ongoing in AL.

Wiley Blankenship is the president of Coastal Gateway, a five county ED effort that encompasses 25 towns in southwest AL. They’ve raised $3.7 million for the next five years to promote these five counties in a very focused manner.

Their four areas of emphasis are:

Wood Products
Aviation
Transportation and Distribution
Manufacturing

I am impressed with the Coastal Gateway’s start. I plan to see how they develop and succeed.

Year of Alabama Small Towns

2008-09-18T06:27:00.000-05:00

I’m excited about a new program that AL is launching in 2010: The Year of Alabama Small Towns. Preparations are already being made and numerous towns are gearing up for this statewide celebration.

Several statewide governmental organizations are cooperating (tourism, ED, history, Chamber of Commerce, League of Municipalities, etc.). The broad focus is for each town to have:

Special Homecoming Weekend to invite former residents back home
Unveiling of a locally written historical marker
Walking tours of historic sections of town
Dedication of a completed civic project like a park, restored historical building

The state will publish a special book on the towns that participate. They’ve done similar books in the past on the Gardens, Food, Outdoor Activities and Arts of Alabama.

Another previous book that I’m counting on getting sent to me is “The 100 Alabama Dishes to Try before You Die.” I’m certain that several won’t be on my diet, but I’ll plan on trying them anyway.

I hope to get back to AL for their year of the AL hometowns in 2010, with my copy of the 100 Alabama Dishes firmly in hand.

Take Homes from AL

2008-09-17T05:40:00.000-05:00

From KY, I was off to AL, for an Alabama Communities of Excellence (ACE) annual conference. ACE started in 1993 as a comprehensive three-phase approach to economic and community development for towns between 2,000 and 18,000 in AL. So far over 20 towns have completed the program, but from conversations with others at the conference, there are a number of others that will be doing so in the future.

Here were some of the great ideas that I picked up there:

Send a birthday and Christmas card to people who no longer live in your hometown to let them know that they are still important to you.

Thirty AL towns do special walking tours in their small towns.

Have a homecoming and interview people who are 90+ years of age. Publish their stories in the local newspaper.

Set up “graduation coaches” from the community for kids who are at risk (AL had 5,440 students drop out of high school last year!—Imagine the ‘8’ ball those kids are at for the rest of their lives!)

Ideal ED Model

2008-09-16T04:33:00.001-05:00

A trip last week to Henderson, KY for a talk showed me an ED organization model that makes so much sense to me. It is a model that I think you are going to see spreading as regionalism continues to make more sense to more people.

NorthWest KY Forward is a four county effort that started in July, 2005 even though some of the counties first started working together in the mid 90s when they jointly developed the Four Star Industrial Park where they both shared in the costs and revenues from the park. From those first efforts of working together came NW KY Forward, a public/private organization.

What most impressed me with this organization was their simple structure and also their straightforward strategy. The organization is lean with only four employees but the focus is on three areas: 1. Recruitment; 2. Retention and 3. Entrepreneurism. Their strategy is honed onto five industry sectors:

Aluminum
Logistics
Auto manufacturing parts
Prepared foods
Energy

They’ve got strong reasons and logic in supporting each sector. As an example, within sixty miles of Henderson there are 22 companies which hire over 8,000 employees, producing one-third of the aluminum in the USA. There’s similar reasoning for each of the other four sectors.

In a short period of time, NorthWest KY Forward has landed new companies, helped start some new businesses, expanded employment and has a number of future projects on the drawing boards.

Kevin Sheilley, President, told me, “We’ve got four companies looking at doing new projects here that have over 500 acres optioned.”

That is a lot of land and some big projects!

On a side note, Kevin as part of tour, took me by a Tyson chicken processing plant. He told me, “They process 1.25 million chickens per week here. A lot of their production is exported. Surprisingly, the highest value/pound is chicken feet which are exported solely to China.”

End of an Era

2008-09-15T08:52:00.000-05:00

This morning Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy with the intention of dissolving itself. What most people don’t know is that the firm dates back 164 years to its founding not in New York City but in Montgomery, AL. I was just in Montgomery last week, so their origin was more poignant for me.

Henry Lehman started as a retailer in Montgomery, an immigrant from Germany. Shortly afterwards he was joined by his two brothers Emanuel and Mayer. The goods that they sold were often paid for with cotton, the currency of the Old South. The brothers were soon making more money in trading cotton than in selling goods.

This same phenomenon occurred with my own grandfather who started in the hardware business, receiving timothy, red top and clover seed at harvest. He also made more money with the seed than he ever did with hardware. The seed business was a family operation from 1903 until being sold in 1987.

The Lehman’s opened an office in NYC in 1858 and moved their operations there during the Civil War, also known as the War of Northern Aggression in the South.

At the turn of the 1900s they were the main investment bank that financed many of the new retailers of the day like Sears, Macy’s, May and Woolworth’s.

It’s a shame to see them go under.

Normandy--Biggest Loss

2008-09-15T05:50:00.006-05:00

Good friend Joe Dively recently returned from Normandy with his family, after first visiting the site of D-Day with his father and uncle, both of whom fought their way through the beaches of Normandy. If I ever visit France, it will be one of the sites that I want to visit.

Joe told me, “On this trip, we learned the incredible story of tiny Bedford, VA which lost nineteen sons that day.”

Bedford, VA, sits near the Blue Ridge Mountains. Today the town of 6,299 is site of the National D-Day Memorial, but back in the early 1940s it was half that size. Thirty-four young men from Bedford signed up for Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, the first wave to hit the beaches of Normandy. Nineteen of them died within minutes of landing and another three died only a few days later.

One of those who survived was Roy Stevens, who lost his twin brother in the invasion. Here is his story before he passed away last year.

Alex Kershaw wrote a best seller book of their story, “The Bedford Boys,” which I’ve just started reading. Today most of the heroes from that heroic invasion like Stevens are passing on. Hopefully their sacrifices will live on through the memorial in Bedford. I hope to visit it soon in my travels.

Blowin' in the Wind

2008-09-12T05:35:00.001-05:00

Earlier this year, the American Wind Energy Association reported that the USA passed Germany in the production of energy from wind, and now leads the world in wind energy production. And, productive capacity is expected to grow by 45% by the end of 2008 with over 25,000 wind turbines in operation.

Over 200 turbines are under construction in rural ND in four different projects. Both oil production from the Bakken Field which is being compared to Saudi Arabia and wind energy were major areas of discussion at the statewide ED conference I took part in Bismarck. ND has lots of energy!

One of the challenges we face as a country is getting the wind energy that is produced in rural America to the population centers where it can be used. Major enhancements to the electrical grid are going to be required to fully utilize the potential of wind.

Big Cities--Big Problems

2008-09-11T05:23:00.001-05:00

Four bedroom, two bath house with 1,249 sf of living space for $1. Nope. That is not a misprint. It was one of many that I found in a quick search of the http://www.realtor.com/ website for Detroit, MI. Actually there were 199 on the site that were for sale in that city for under $1,000. The picture on the right is one of those I found for $1.

Detroit started to boom as a city in the 1910s when the auto industry began to consolidate there primarily because of the genius of Henry Ford and later the organizational skills of Alfred P. Sloan who took a loose collection of auto companies, started 100 years ago this year in Flint, MI, molding it into the colossus General Motors. It was GM’s CEO Charles Wilson in 1952 who uttered the famous words, “What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what is good for General Motors is good for the country.”

Detroit’s population peaked in 1950 at 1.8 million, when it was the fourth largest city in the USA. Today it is down to 834,116, a population it last passed somewhere between the 1910 and 1920 census. Detroit loses population each day and is why there are 199 houses for sale there for under $1,000.

A couple of weeks ago, I compared North Dakota with San Francisco. In my opinion, it was no contest for ND. Can you imagine what a comparison with Detroit would be like?

AL Passing MI?

2008-09-10T05:11:00.001-05:00

“Within the next three years, Alabama is likely to pass Michigan in per-capita personal income,” was the first line in Mike Connell’s blog from Port Huron, MI (population 32,338). He was referring to a Mackinac Center report on the subject, calling it, “Inconceivable. Unbelievable. It’s a stunner.”

He went on, “Fifty years ago, Michigan ranked 11th and Alabama 47th among the 50 states in per-capita personal income. Eight years ago MI ranked 16th and AL 42nd and the idea of the Heart of Dixie eclipsing the Great Lakes State within a decade would have sounded preposterous.

But, seven consecutive years of job losses mostly caused by Michigan’s reliance upon the auto industry have taken their toll upon that state, even as Alabama has made some significant steps upward. Perhaps most telling for MI is the fact that the state ranks second in the nation in the percentage of its college graduates moving out to other states.

Connell goes on, “In Port Huron, one in six workers is unemployed. Macomb County, where subdivisions once sprouted from cornfields, now leads the state in foreclosures. Hundreds if not thousands of area families would hire moving vans tomorrow if only they could sell their homes.”

Unfortunately, MI is in a one-state depression with few prospects of exiting in the near future. The state was the only one of fifty to experience an increase in its poverty rate in 2007. Its jobless rate at 8.5% is the highest in the country. And, it was also the only state that experienced a decrease in its median family income.

I hope that MI figures out that it has to diversify its economy and also figures out new paradigms of how to work with businesses there.

Watch Those Emails!

2008-09-09T06:23:00.002-05:00

Last week I received an email that claimed that a new world record in harvesting wheat was set this year near Norton, KS. I’ve learned that a lot of emails, especially political ones, are either blatantly false or only half-true, which is often worse. I don’t check them all out, but this one was one I wanted to share with you, so I did verify its authenticity.

Unfortunately, this is one of those emails that is half-true. The record was set, but it was 900 miles north of Norton in Winkler, Canada. In August, 2006 105 combines harvested 162 acres of wheat in 11 minutes, 8 seconds to benefit Children’s Camps International, a local charity that holds kids camps around the world. An estimated 10,000 people came out to watch the feat.

Here is a great article on the email story and the real story.

Winkler’s response, “To the folks in Kansas, there’s no hard feelings…but please break the record! We had so much fun doing it we want to try again! If there are other communities out there who are aiming for the record please let us know.”

Don’t you love that small town “Can Do” (it again!) spirit?

Burgers 4 Bushels

2008-09-08T06:04:00.000-05:00

Fessenden, ND (population 625) has a great idea to help their park district. A group of volunteers is offering to bring a hamburger, chips, cookies and a soda out to the field at harvest. In exchange they’re asking the farmer to dump a few bushels of what is being combined into the volunteer’s pick-up truck as a donation.

Normally, the small town has held an annual fundraiser but decided to try this new approach. Proceeds will benefit the pool, youth baseball programs and also maintenance of the park and cemetery grounds.

It’s an innovative approach for a non-profit, especially with today’s much higher commodity prices, hopefully making local farmers feel a little more prosperous and willing to give a few bushels of wheat, corn or soybeans.

Operation Intern

2008-09-05T08:40:00.001-05:00

I’ve seen several communities that have developed an organized program to help create internships for their college students during summer break. However, ND has a special program and with a tax credit bonus, to boot!

Operation Intern is focused upon the five industry groups that Lt. Governor Dayryple stressed in his opening remarks (focus, focus, focus!!) at the ED Conference in Bismarck: Advanced Manufacturing, Energy, Technology Based-Business, Tourism and Value-Added Agriculture.

The program offers a 10% income tax credit of the compensation paid to an intern. Up to five interns per company are eligible for this program.

I’m impressed with both how ND is trying to bring back some of their “brain bank” with an innovative ambassador program and also how they are striving to find ways to keep their “best and brightest” at home. It’s a smart long term investment that they are making.

Entrepreneurial ND!

2008-09-04T06:16:00.002-05:00

Each time that I return to ND, I become more impressed with some of their entrepreneurial efforts. I found another one on this trip when I met Barry Stiegel, Director of the University of ND’s Youth Entrepreneurship Education Project. Barry is also a candidate for a doctoral degree in education from UND.

This past summer he conducted four youth entrepreneurship summer camps in Grand Forks, Belcourt, New Town and Dickinson, reaching over 100 youngsters in K-8 with an idea of BYOB. Now in my day BOYB had a different meaning than today’s “Be Your Own Boss!”

Two of the camp’s sponsors are The Dakota Foundation and the Strom Center for Entrepreneurship, both started by two fantastic native North Dakotans who have given back BIG-time to their home state. I wrote about Bart Holaday, founder of the Dakota Foundation, in BoomtownUSA. He gained fame and fortune in Chicago as the head of the largest fund-of-funds venture capital firms. Jerome Strom went west and made a fortune in Palo Alto real estate. Now they are both giving back!

Another renewed contact at the Governor’s Conference was with Esther and Shawn Oehlke of SEO Precision. When I first met them in rural Crosby, ND they had recently moved from Albuquerque, NM with their two sons. At the time they had laser technology which could lock onto a nickel from 20 miles away.

When I asked them about that technology, Shawn responded, “We now can keep it locked onto that same nickel from 100 miles. We also can do a laser scan of an eyeball from 100 meters away to determine friend or foe on the battlefield.”

SEO recently inked a deal with Northrup Grumman to supply them with fast-steering mirrors for use in Northrup’s laser systems. And, as their literature touts from a “woman held, high technology North Dakota Corporation substantially owned by North Dakota farmers.”

Entrepreneurism is alive and well in ND!

Back in ND!

2008-09-03T06:59:00.002-05:00

I was back in ND last week, doing my fourteenth talk in the state. I’ve made several swings through the state, logging thousands of miles. Those trips still stick in my mind as being the most memorable ones I’ve done. The state has some incredibly beautiful scenery and the people that I met in my travels have been some of the friendliest I’ve encountered.

There were several hundred economic developers and engaged citizens, in addition to numerous top politicians (including Governor John Hoeven and Lieutenant Governor Jack Dalrymple) and a large group from the USDA Rural Development (including Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer, formerly Governor of ND).

Both Governors stressed the state’s focus for jobs in this new century. Here’s how Lt. Governor Dalrymple said it, “We’re concentrating on energy, value-added agriculture, advanced manufacturing, technology and tourism. Right now we’ve got 15,000 job openings in the state. We’re doing job fairs in places like Michigan where they’ve got over 7% unemployment.”

He went on, “In 2007, we had the highest percentage growth in exports of any other state in the nation. And, it looks like we could be number one again in 2008!”

Having over 15,000 job openings in a state with a population of 639,715 is quite a feat. However, ND has a number of job generators like agriculture, drilling, wind and others hitting on all cylinders. Last year the state’s GDP grew at 7.5% compared to 2.2% for the USA. Since 2001, ND’s GDP growth has been over 50%.

Entrepreneurial High School Course

2008-09-02T06:51:00.002-05:00

On Friday I took part in a class of the first entrepreneurship course taught in our county high schools. The idea for the course was the brainchild of Joe Fatheree, the 2007 Illinois Teacher of the Year who is a local high school teacher. As part of his award he was given some time and money to help design innovative courses. This is his capstone course which is being offered to 22 high school students from five county schools, some of whom have already started their own business, several of which are on the internet.

Joe funded the course through donations from about 50 local businesses, each of which committed $1,000/year for the next three years. It’s a great case of local entrepreneurs investing back into their communities to help grow the next generation of entrepreneurs. We hope to take the program regionally out to surrounding counties. Cheryl Peters of Generation E, who I’ve written about a number of times, has helped provide curriculum and training for the effort.

On Friday, I was one of nine business people who were assisting on a team building exercise at the course. We broke into groups of three and four and our assignment was to take 25 gumdrops and 25 toothpicks and collectively construct a structure with them while only using one arm each. The photo is the winning team of Allison Donsbach, Joe Balda, Courtney Koester and myself. It is the only time that I’ve ever been on a winning design team, so I’ll let you make your own inference of where the talent for our winning design came from.

This weekend I received an email from a parent of one of the students in the course. Here is part of that email.

At the dinner table this week, I was asking my son how his entrepreneurial class was going; he commented "I love it!” (Keep in mind that he tends to hold back on his emotions - so this is off the charts for him).

“It doesn't even feel like school. Time goes by so fast that when class is over, I get depressed ‘cause I know I have to go back to the 'real school'."
I thought this spoke volumes as to the great job you all are doing!!!!!!!!

Keep it up - the impact you are making on these young people is priceless!

The course is being taught by Craig Lindvahl, a wonderfully innovative teacher who is also an entrepreneur in his own right. He is a film maker who has won numerous Emmy’s for his documentaries. We already have dozens of young people who are working in the film industry because of his passion and ability to inspire. I’m convinced that we’ll also be turning out more local entrepreneurs in addition to the next Steven Spielberg.

If you aren’t working on entrepreneurial programs for your town, you are missing an excellent opportunity to reach out to what is going to be the most entrepreneurial generation in the history of the USA, the Millennial Generation of young people!

Come Back Home

2008-08-29T05:51:00.004-05:00

Nancy Herhahn writes a wonderful newsletter from rural NE, Nebraska Rural Living. In this month’s issue she’s has two articles that really caught my attention.

Mary Terry and her husband moved back home to Red Cloud, NE (population 1,131) from Denver, CO where Mary ran a 150 seat restaurant. After sitting around for a year, she and her husband bought the 1893 historic McFarland Hotel, which they are renovating. Already they’ve opened Cutter’s Café in the building.

This is what it is all about in my opinion, but in Mary’s own words, “Since an elderly patron lost her driver’s license, I often pick her up and bring her in for breakfast, and when she is ill, I’ll even deliver food to her. But that’s just what communities like ours are like.”

Another item in Nancy’s newsletter is an experimental marketing campaign she has started to counter negative rural stereotypes and promoting life in NE. The three postcards promote the differences in traffic jams (cars vs. cattle); housing prices ($395,000 vs. $100,000); and security (alarm systems vs. Fido). Check them out on her website.

Katrina Can't Keep 'em Down!

2008-08-28T06:00:00.001-05:00

Some of my most vivid inspirations from my travels have been seeing the resiliency of the American people. Visits to places like Greensburg, KS which was wiped out by an F5 tornado on May 7, 2007 and the MS Gulf Coast which was devastated by Katrina. Today is the third year anniversary of that hurricane making land at Bay St. Louis, MS.

The Gulf Coast Business Council Research Foundation released a report on the recovery from Katrina last week. You can read it here.

After being virtually wiped clean, with hundreds of thousands of people homeless, the MS Gulf Coast has done a wonderful job of rebuilding itself. I’ve been there a half dozen times through the process and been very impressed with both their “can do” attitude and willingness to not make excuses. Now they are almost back to normal after a lot of hard work.

Green Acres--ND vs SF

2008-08-27T04:28:00.003-05:00

I was in North Dakota yesterday at the Governor's annual rural ED conference in Bismarck. It was my 14th talk in the state over the past four years. I’ve travelled thousands of miles through the state and have constantly found North Dakotans to be some of the friendliest people on the face of the earth. I was thrilled to be back.

As I was driving from Fargo to Bismarck the chorus to the Green Acres theme song kept rolling around in my head. Do you remember that show?

Green Acres is the place to be
Farm Livin’ is the life for me
Land spreadin’ out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan…just give me that countryside

So, which would you take, ND or Manhattan? Since we’re in the midst of the Democratic Convention, I decided to compare it to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco. SF has been cited by numerous pundits and writers (Richard Florida probably being the most vocal) as the ideal city of the future.

The populations of ND and SF are somewhat similar. SF has 764,976 residents. ND 639,715. SF has a much higher household income at $57,476 compared to ND’s $40,818, but beyond that one stat, virtually every other stat that I looked at showed ND similar to or superior to SF.

Both SF & ND lost population from 2000 to 2007. SF 1.5%. ND 0.4%.

Both have had a negative outward domestic migration in the past year. SF -1,112. ND -1,136.
The medium age in SF is 39.6 years compared to 37.2 years in ND. USA average is 36.4.

When it comes to families, only 44% of households in SF are married with children compared to 64.6% in ND. USA average is 68.1%. SF has one of the lowest school age populations in the country with only 9.4% in the 5 to 17 age group. ND is at 16.6%. USA is 17.8%.

In 2000, SF had 611,674 jobs. By 2007 the city lost 16% of its jobs, taking it down to 556,621. ND during the same period grew their jobs by 11% from 309,127 to 341,704.

Home ownership is really lopsided! Only 33.3% in SF own their own house vs. 59.1% in ND. USA average is 60.2%. In the past twelve months there were 799 single family housing permits issued in SF compared to 1,919 in the three MSAs in ND (Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks). With a medium housing cost of $799,000 in SF, the average job holder will spend 94% of their income on housing! In ND, it will cost you 24 to 28% for that $135,000 medium priced home.

And, how about the much higher household income in SF? They’ll need it! A $100,000 income in SF will buy you what $53,991 will in Fargo, ND. Groceries are 27% less expensive in Fargo, as is housing at 71%, utilities at 18%, transportation at 17% and healthcare at 18%. All are less expensive in Fargo!

Where would you rather raise a young family?

Just give me that countryside!

Amazing Arcola!

2008-08-26T05:54:00.000-05:00

Arcola, IL (population 2,652) has always had a soft spot in my heart. It was where we did one of our first industrial projects outside of our hometown, building a manufacturing plant for a Japanese auto parts company. What was unique about the project was that we not only started building the project on a handshake (which we’ve done numerous times), but we never did get all of the paperwork finished and ended up completing the project without anything being signed. The closing was the simplest we’ve ever done. They gave us a check and we handed them the keys!

I was back in Arcola to help them celebrate their community foundation which was started in 1976 and has grown to $5.5 million in assets. Think about that! In a town of 2,652!

They give away tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships, helped to restart the local grocery store, gave $1 million to the new school building and $400,000 for their new library. In other words, they are making a difference in making Arcola a better place in which to live!

Have you started your Community Foundation yet?

Love These Updates--This One From MN

2008-08-25T06:05:00.006-05:00

Having now done tours and talks in 300+ towns all over the USA, I love getting updates from new friends from all over the country. Here is one I received this weekend from Julie Rath in Redwood Falls, MN (population 5,459).

Just want to update you…..Daktronics started here in January 2007 with 110 employees, we are currently at 280 and plan to go up to 300 by the end of the year….and 500 by the end of 2009!!! They are doing a community open house this Saturday – production is over expectations here – life is good!

Lamberton – ethanol groundbreaking yesterday – 35 new jobs in Spring 2009

City of Redwood Falls approved a $3.8M family aquatic center. It is have a rock climbing wall, zero entry wading pool, lap pool, two slides, two diving boards, umbrellas and several other water amenities!

We are partnering with Minnesota West Community and Technical College for an extended education center here – partnership with Redwood County, City of Redwood Falls, and business partners – Lower Sioux Indian Community, and two additional funding sponsors to be named shortly.

Lots of things are happening in Redwood Falls! It was a very impressive town when I visited in April, 2007 (see blogs in archives) and continues their very positive momentum. In addition to the aquatic center, Redwood Falls also has a community ice skating rink, civic center, conference center that can seat 500, field house and fitness center. And, in a town of 5,459!

x

At the Convention!

2008-08-24T08:22:00.001-05:00

If you want a unique perspective from the Democratic Convention in Denver this week, tune into my brother Bob’s blog site. He and two friends are on their way out there this morning.

Calling himself the Republican Reporter, his tagline is, “Most reporters are politically biased, I'm one of the few willing to admit to it.”

He got credentials through a local newspaper and will be writing irreverently and with a decided bias. I just hope that I don’t have to send him bail money.

Mobile Dairy

2008-08-22T06:24:00.001-05:00

A local coop in England has come up with an innovative idea to try to help their dairy farmers experiment with adding value to their product. I call it the business incubator on wheels!

In 2002 a group of milk producers there got together to try to figure out how to turn their money losing operations around. One of the ideas thrown around was to add more value to their product by producing such products as cheese, yogurt and ice cream. A lab was set up at Reaseheath College in Nantwich but the distance to the college was a major inhibitor to innovation.

So two of the participants, Sue Prince and Sarah Helliwell, came up with the idea of the Dairy Wagon. Prince Charles was the keynoter at the inauguration of the mobile dairy this year.

Already, John and Jane Marsden produce their own Hope Valley ice cream and Tina Bowler is making her own cheese.

Local production…niche products…they’re both ideas that are growing in importance in the USA. Perhaps this is an idea that we can copy from the Brits to accelerate both trends.

Rails--Fuel Efficient Way to Move Freight

2008-08-21T06:50:00.001-05:00

We first got involved with rail in 1999 when we helped to build the Effingham Rail Road (EFRR) with a great partner, Charlie Barenfanger. At the time we were ridiculed for building such a short railroad, less than 2 miles in length, and the only new railroad built in IL in the entire 20th Century. But we persevered, believing that we could develop a niche with a higher level of service. And, we’ve used the EFRR as a key factor in helping to bring in new industry to Effingham.

One of the major attributes of rail is the relatively low amount of fuel that it takes to move a ton of freight. I’ve always thought that this one factor would become more important, especially in a high fuel environment like today. And, we’ve seen potential clients come “out of the woodwork” as the price of diesel has continued to climb.

One of the rail companies has boasted that they can move a ton of freight 436 miles on one gallon of diesel. It sounded WAY too high to me, so I decided to check it out. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) actually keeps track of data like that! In 2007, the seven class one railroads (all of the big ones) used 4.1 billion gallons of fuel to move 1,770 billion ton-miles of freight, which works out to 435.9 ton-miles per gallon. That is over 100 times more per gallon than a truck!

My guess is that we’ll see a lot more freight moving by rail in the future.