IQ Magazine- Q1 2015

IQ

1ST QUARTER 2015

ECONOMY

A Family Venture— A can-do attitude means jobs for Chisago City. Pg. 14

COMMUNITY

A Healthy Return— Wellness center brings renewal to tornado-stricken Wadena. Pg. 18

PHILANTHROPY

Giving Potential— Dollars in mean dollars out to Central Minnesota. Pg. 46

AGILE & ABLE Inspiring the next generation of motivated leaders is critical to building thriving communities.

Pg. 22

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IQ

Initiative Foundation Quarterly 1ST QUARTER 2015

Contents FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

22

6

28

Leading by Example

Inspiring the next generation of motivated leaders is critical to building thriving communities.

Help Wanted.

Childcare Needed.

Childcare gaps challenge Central Minnesota and the businesses and workers who call it home.

32

36

Under New Ownership

Businesses in transition should consider entrepreneurial newcomers who yearn for the Central Minnesota lifestyle.

Regional Highlights Get the latest economic and community development highlights from the 14-county area.

10

How-to:

Transition Mission Managing

retirements is good for business—and the retirees.

14

Business:

Keeping it in the Family

A can-do attitude means more jobs in Chisago City.

18

Designing Change

How a volunteer group of architects and urban planners is helping Princeton connect to its long-range vision.

Initiatives:

46

Community:

A Healthy Return Wellness center brings renewal to tornado-stricken Wadena.

Philanthropy:

Giving Potential Dollars in mean dollars out to Central Minnesota.

50 52

Home Made: Scamp Hitch a ride to see what makes Scamp Trailers so special.

Where is IQ?

Engineering | Architecture | Surveying | Environmental

CHANCES ARE, YOU’VE SEEN OUR WORK. Learn more at WidsethSmithNolting.com

Alexandria | Bemidji | Brainerd/Baxter | Crookston | East Grand Forks | Grand Forks | Rochester

1ST QUARTER 2015

3

Dear Friends, I learned an important lesson last fall. Sitting in a partially constructed building in a small village in northeast Haiti while talking about life’s basics—food, shelter and health needs—I discovered that emerging leaders are literally all around us.

My big “Aha!” moment? It’s when I realized that the principles for helping people identify solutions and move to action are the same regardless of where you are and what issues are being discussed.

My husband Neal and I have had the privilege of partnering with The Faith Project, a small nonprofit that assists a local leadership council as it works to improve living conditions and build economic sustainability in one of Haiti’s poorest villages. As we sat on benches, swatting at mosquitoes in the sweltering heat while sharing trail mix with partially clothed children on our laps, we learned about the many challenges these villagers face: rampant unemployment, little or no sanitation, limited education and health services and much more.

It would be easy to be consumed by discouragement and simply give up. But something special happened that day. When we explored the assets and positive things going on and inquired about what excited each person on the council, the dynamics of our meeting shifted. People leaned forward. Smiles lit up their faces. They spoke with energy and began to get a vision for a positive future.

Neal and Kathy Gaalswyk in Haiti.

And they made personal Photo by Kathy Adams commitments to take action.

The Initiative Foundation’s mission is about helping people build communities—it’s been a passion of ours for nearly 30 years. In this edition of IQ Magazine we highlight three emerging leaders who will fill the void as longserving Central Minnesota community leaders move into retirement. I think Natalie Keane, a former VISTA service member, says it best: “Age does not have a stronghold on what leadership is. Leadership is within everyone, and it’s the relationships and the collaboration we have with others that perpetuates the leadership skills within all of us.”

Whether in Central Minnesota or Haiti, leadership is simply joining others in finding solutions and moving to action. And when that happens, hope and opportunity will always trump discouragement.

Enjoy the magazine.

Kathy Gaalswyk PRESIDENT

IQ VOLUME 16, 1ST QUARTER 2015

Initiative Foundation President | Kathy Gaalswyk Marketing & Communications Manager | Bob McClintick

Editorial Managing Editor | Elizabeth Foy Larsen Writer | Laura Billings Coleman Writer | Lisa Meyers McClintick Writer | Gene Rebeck Writer | Lawrence Schumacher Writer | Maria Surma Manka Writer | Jennifer Vogel Art Art Director | Photographer Photographer Photographer

Teresa Lund | John Linn | Michael Schoenecker | Bill Jones

Advertising/Subscriptions Advertising Director | Brian Lehman Advertising Manager | Lois Head Advertiser Services | Janelle Breen Subscriber Services | Alyson Twardowski

405 First Street SE Little Falls, MN 56345 (320) 632-9255 | ifound.org

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Service.

Especially for you.

CASS

WADENA CROW WING

TODD

We exist to serve Region 5.

MORRISON

We are National Joint Powers Alliance ® (NJPA), a Minnesota service cooperative that helps municipalities, education and non-profits realize greater efficiencies.

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IQ Initiatives

Regional Investment Highlights BENTON COUNTY

Shared Economics

Quality jobs is the quest in Benton County. More than 40 community members gathered in late 2014 to discuss the role of county government in supporting economic development. County officials and their partners collaborated on strategies and opportunities to create and retain quality jobs through business retention and expansion, recruitment and industrial park development.

CASS COUNTY

Leading Together

Nonprofit executive directors and program staff in Cass and Crow Wing counties are benefitting from new Leaders Circles™ groups that meet in Brainerd and Hackensack. Leaders Circles™ are offered by the Initiative Foundation, in partnership with MAP for Nonprofits, and provide a safe and constructive place to explore challenges within the nonprofit sector.

CHISAGO COUNTY

Tapani Appointment

Congratulations and welcome to Lori Tapani, the newest member of the Initiative Foundation’s Business Finance Committee. Tapani is co-president of Wyoming Machine, a custom sheet metal fabrication company that employs 55 people in Stacy. The committee oversees the Foundation’s business finance portfolio, lending policy compliance and its business loans and investments.

PCs for People

At-risk Brainerd youth have the opportunity to develop information technology skills with the launch of PCs for People, a program that refurbishes donated computers and sells them at a reasonable rate. Run by The Shop, a Brainerd youth center, the program is the service project for Matthew Benjamin, an Initiative Foundation-sponsored AmeriCORP VISTA member.

ISANTI COUNTY

WADENA

CROW WING COUNTY

CASS

TODD

CROW WING

MORRISON

MILLE LACS

Tusen Tack Intern Track

Tusen Tack, a Braham thrift store that has served East Central Minnesota for 25 years, is using an Initiative Foundation grant to support a new internship program. Interns are helping with website development and marketing for the community center, which opened in 2014, and will help to organize new workshops to benefit area youth.

BENTON STEARNS

SHERBURNE

KANABEC COUNTY

Asset Assessment

An Initiative Foundation-funded workshop to explore improved support for low-income households in Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs and Pine counties resulted in several noteworthy discoveries. The Central Minnesota Community Asset event hosted by the Lakes & Pines Community Action Council found, among other things, that reliable transportation is a high-priority need.

MILLE LACS COUNTY

Historic Trauma

With support from the Mardag Foundation, the Initiative Foundation is supporting a series of historic trauma training events for early childhood professionals on the Leech Lake and Mille Lacs Lake reservations. The aim is to recognize how historic trauma affects the communities—and families in particular. In 2015, both communities will teach family and caretaker resiliency skills and encourage parent involvement in early childhood education.

6 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

WRIGHT

Soon to SPROUT

An Initiative Foundation-supported indoor farmers market with a food processing facility is being developed in Little Falls as part of a regional food hub. SPROUT MN Marketplace is scheduled to open June 1 at the Little Falls Manufacturing Complex. The operation will provide year-round access while giving a network of 40-plus growers a place to transform their fresh commodities and expand their markets.

PINE COUNTY

Thriving in Sandstone

The city of Sandstone continues to make headway in the Initiative Foundation’s Thriving Communities Initiative program, with a June target date to complete community-wide projects. The community has had several citywide cleanup days, paint-a-thons and neighborhood celebrations to bring the community together. Plans for a community website to capitalize on natural resources and economic and entrepreneurial opportunities also are in the works.

SHERBURNE COUNTY

Close Brush

The Princeton School District is giving more than lip service to oral health awareness. With help from an Initiative Foundation grant, the district is providing school-based activities and materials, including “Going to the Dentist” books for preschool screenings along with dental supplies—brush, toothpaste and a timer— for kids who attend the before- and after-school Tiger Club childcare program.

STEARNS COUNTY

Building Community

Hats off to the Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation, which was honored for Greater St. Cloud JobSpot, an online regional talent portal. The Economic Development Association of Minnesota recognized JobSpot as a vital economic development tool to link Central Minnesota employers, job seekers, educational institutions and workforce partners. Visit greaterstcloudjobspot.com to learn more.

PINE

KANABEC

E

MORRISON COUNTY

Leadership Launch

CHISAGO

ISANTI

TODD COUNTY

The National Joint Powers Alliance is reaching out into Region 5 with a new program: Leadership Launch, with sessions located in Little Falls, Brainerd and Staples that will help leaders discuss, practice and apply best-practices leadership skills. For more information, visit njpacoop.org and search for the keyword “Launch.”

WADENA COUNTY

Eat. Chill. Click.

After-school programming and operations at the Cyber Café in Wadena are getting a boost from an Initiative Foundation grant. The Cyber Café is a safe, chemical-free space in downtown Wadena. The grant will be used for business planning and to support programming for youth in Wadena County.

WRIGHT COUNTY

Enter Entrepreneurs

The Wright County Economic Development Partnership (WCEDP) is moving forward with plans for a Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (CEO) program for area youth. With help from an Initiative Foundation grant, the WCEDP will invite business and civic leaders into the mentorship program that will offer students hands-on business experience and a chance to build their own start-up over the course of the year.

1ST QUARTER 2015

7

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how to

NEXT CHAPTER: During Larry Korf’s tenure as CEO of DeZURIK, the company experienced 15 retirements, including his own.

Transition Mission How to manage retirements for the good of the business—and the retirees.

By Gene Rebeck | Photography by John Linn

For businesses, an aging workforce presents a major challenge—and an opportunity.

The challenge is obvious: How do you replace a person who has years of valuable knowledge gained through experience?

But there’s also the opportunity: You don’t replace that person.

You do all you can to capture the departing employee’s knowledge so that you can transfer it to the new person. But you also look for someone who can add new skills to the job and add new capabilities to your company. A successful transition plan honors the retiree’s contributions while preparing the successor to make his or her own mark.

Knowledge Transfer One regional company that has developed a strong strategy for managing retirement transitions is DeZURIK, a Sartell-based manufacturer of industrial valves and controls for a variety of industries, including mining and municipal water treatment.

Larry Korf, DeZURIK’s CEO and president until 2013 (he remains

on the company’s board), formalized a retirement-preparation program for the company when he became chief executive in 2007. At that point, “there were a lot of senior management people who were looking at retiring,” said Korf, chair of the Initiative Foundation’s board of trustees. During his tenure as CEO, DeZURIK experienced more than 15 such retirements, one of which was Korf ’s.

Each transition went smoothly, largely because Korf and his team “set up a culture of trust and mutual respect.” Retirees were given time to ease into their transition “rather than going into it cold turkey.” Creating openness and making the process comfortable allowed DeZURIK to capture as much of the seasoned employee’s knowledge and wisdom as possible.

There are a number of approaches for managing employee transitions. Karen Kodzik, founder of Cultivating Careers, a St. Paul-based career consultancy, suggests having the employee identify what he or she does every day. The knowledge they share often “is not obviously reflected in that job description, and it changes as the job changes over time,” she said.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL TRANSITIONS Karen Kodzik, founder of Cultivating Careers, a St. Paul-based career consultancy, offers these tips:

3 Have a strategy before a retirement occurs.

Don’t be caught unprepared. A successful transition is one that doesn’t disrupt a business.

3 Stay supportive.

The company should send the message to the retiree that “you are a valuable employee. We need you to contribute every day.”

3 Inform the successor.

If you’re picking an internal candidate to succeed the retiree, inform that person as soon as you can. “That person may have different plans,” said Kodzik.

12 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

Inform

So how soon should a newcomer be brought in? According to Kodzik, that depends on whether the successor is coming from inside or outside. With an internal candidate, she said, “you have a longer runway.” Kodzik recommends that the new person begin acclimating to the new job six months before the retirement if he or she has much to learn. If the business deems the new person more prepared to jump in, a three-month overlap is sufficient.

As for outside hires, Kodzik recommends the newcomer be brought on board at an appropriate interval of time commensurate to the role they’re filling. She cautions, though, that bringing a new

Support

Honor Where It’s Due

employee in too soon can present challenges. “It is hard for anyone to step into a new role, a new company, wanting to forge their own path while the person who ‘had’ the job still has their fingers in it,” she said.

Businesses also should understand that retirement is a bittersweet and often challenging decision. Many retirees want to keep active, perhaps through board service or starting their own business. The business that a retiree is leaving can help by connecting the departing employee with services, such as community college classes that provide counseling and connections, which can help the retiring employee take the next step on his or her life’s journey.

Providing this kind of help is a way that a company can honor its retirees, in addition to the traditional farewell party. And retirees deserve to be honored. After all, they’ve built a foundation upon which the business can continue to flourish. They can also continue to be a trusted resource even after they have wound down their careers.

At DeZURIK, Larry Korf believes that the transition process he experienced when he retired went smoothly. “It allowed me to transition myself, and it allowed the new CEO to come in and be successful,” he said. “And more importantly, it allowed the business to move forward without losing any momentum.”

These days, Korf is spending more time with his family, particularly cherishing opportunities to be with his grandchildren.

But he hasn’t left the business world. In addition to his work with the Initiative Foundation, he serves on three company boards and two government entities. In fact, he said, “I have more to keep me busy than I realized I would.”

Strategies

Questions to ask a soon-to-be retiree include: • What are the essential things you do?

• What are the essential things you need to do your job well?

• What are key relationships that are necessary in this role?

• What are the best-kept secrets you’ve found that make your job easier?

To be sure, departures can be disruptive. GTS Educational Events, a St. Paul-based event planning firm for nonprofits and public sector groups, is an 11-person business that has seen the retirements of three people in the past three years. Still, GTS executive director Helene Johnson notes, a newcomer can bring beneficial new skills to an organization. One new hire, for instance, developed a mobile application for a Minnesota government information technology symposium that GTS presents. The app allowed attendees to digitally access the program and handouts, interact with others and evaluate sessions on the spot.

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economy

PAUL JOHNSON: “We thought we’d just do it ourselves.”

Keeping it in the Family When a family-owned farm had trouble sourcing egg cartons, they decided to make their own.

By John Reinan | Photography by Bill Jones

The power of family is bringing 25 jobs and a $5 million investment to Chisago City, turning an unused warehouse into a high-tech manufacturing facility that will soon be cranking out up to 80 million egg cartons a year.

With a background in the egg-farming business, Paul and Katie Johnson saw a need for a reliable producer of egg cartons to serve Minnesota farmers. They knew farms were having trouble sourcing cartons locally. So, showing that old farming self-reliance, they set out to meet the need.

“We thought we’d just do it ourselves,” said Paul Johnson. They created a new company, LEI Packaging, which takes its name from the initials of their three sons: Logan, Evan and Isaiah.

But the task was a bit more complex than fixing your own thresher with baling wire. They needed a facility. They needed equipment. And they needed capital.

The Johnsons scouted locations throughout Central Minnesota before settling on a vacant warehouse in Chisago City. They checked

out equipment suppliers from Asia, the United States and Europe.

Family pitched in on that piece. Katie Johnson’s parents were taking a Scandinavian trip last summer and offered to check out a machinery supplier in Iceland.

“They were able to tour the company and meet with some of the engineers,” she said. “And they were very impressed with their craftsmanship and the engineering.”

With the facility and equipment identified, the Johnsons’ next step was pulling together a multimillion-dollar financing package for the expensive machinery and some renovations to the building.

In particular, the 30,000 square-foot facility needed electrical upgrades to handle the massive, highly automated production line.

The loan money came from a variety of sources: North Star Bank, the federal Small Business Administration, the Minnesota Investment Fund, the city of Chisago City and the Initiative Foundation, which provided a crucial $250,000 loan for working capital from its revolving loan fund.

It’s a fairly large commitment from the Foundation, said Dan Bullert, the Initiative Foundation’s business finance manager.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

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The Foundation’s involvement in financing generally ranges from $50,000 to $500,000. In this case, the project couldn’t have gone forward without the Initiative Foundation loan.

“We’re filling a financial gap between the conventional financing sources and the borrower’s equity injection,” he said. As existing loans are paid back, money becomes available in the revolving loan fund to support new projects.

“This is the kind of situation that supports our mission of helping companies, which in turn makes them sustainable.

“We feel that manufacturing jobs are vital to a local economy,” Bullert said. “On average, they pay good wages, usually with a good benefits package. This project will result in the creation of 20 to 25 jobs in the Chisago City area, which is a very significant impact in an area of that size.” The jobs at LEI Packaging will be largely skilled positions, Johnson said, with wages from $15 to $30 or more an hour to operate and manage the sophisticated manufacturing equipment.

“A lot of these workers will be people who understand how to run a computer,” he said. “They’ll be dealing with robots, making adjustments to the machinery. A lot of it is fairly automated.”

Johnson said LEI Packaging expects its workers to come both from within the egg industry and from community and technical college graduates. The company is talking with educational institutions, including Dunwoody Technical College in Minneapolis and Chisago Lakes High School, about potential student internships.

What those workers will find at LEI is a state-of-the art, onestop shop that takes in recycled paper products and turns them into molded-fiber egg cartons. When running at full capacity, LEI will use about 5,000 tons of paper a year, or about five semi-trailer loads a week.

A mix of 80 percent paper and 20 percent cardboard is pulped for about 30 minutes. It goes through screens and filters to remove any glass or plastic. Then the pulp enters a holding tank, where water is added to form a slurry that’s about 3 percent paper.

Vacuum pumps, compressors and presses mash the pulp against a mold to form the familiar egg-carton shape. A robot transfers the wet cartons from the dies to a 150-foot dryer, then a 400-degree “hot press” that irons out any wrinkles.

“It’s an interesting process,” Johnson said. “When you press them, it makes a loud pop, sort of like a soft shotgun noise.”

The whole procedure takes only four to five minutes, and the plant has a capacity of 8,400 cartons an hour, or about 80 million a year. LEI also can custom-print the cartons.

The molding process is a clean one, using no chemicals—only fiber and water. And best of all, LEI’s entire production was pre-sold, through a combination of industry connections and commercial brokers.

“That’s really what made it work—having the commitments up front,” Johnson said.

Since the egg business is thriving nationally and in Minnesota, there should be no problem filling all those cartons. The average U.S. resident eats about 250 eggs a year, according to the Chicken and Egg Association of Minnesota. U.S. farmers produce 92 billion eggs annually, and Minnesota farmers produce 2.9 billion.

With 10.4 million laying hens, Minnesota’s egg production is valued at approximately $168 million a year, and the industry employs about 3,000 people.

The Johnsons began the process in January 2014, and things have gone smoothly, Paul Johnson said. The one major hiccup involved a longer-than-expected testing process on the manufacturing equipment. The Canadian vendor of the Icelandic machinery didn’t certify or test it, so the Johnsons had to manage that process themselves. But they expect to be running at full production sometime in the spring.

With the family farming business on its fourth generation, Johnson hopes that the new packaging business also can become a multi-generational enterprise.

“Hopefully, the kids will be working there someday,” he said.

In fact, they already are. The three boys —ages 12, 10 and 7 — already have jobs at the plant, cleaning the offices, break rooms and restrooms.

“They’ve also got a basketball hoop at the site, so that helps keep them occupied,” Katie Johnson said, with a laugh.

In the meantime, other families in the Chisago City area can begin their own traditions at a startup company that appears to have egg-zactly what it needs to thrive for years to come.

“A lot of these workers will be people who understand how to run a computer.”

16 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

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community

CELEBRATING CHANGE: Former Mayor Wayne Wolden (left) and Brad Swenson, city administrator, see a positive outcome from a negative event.

A Healthy Return The new Maslowski Wellness and Research Center gives tornado-ravaged Wadena a new lease on life.

By Jennifer Vogel | Photography by John Linn

Six mornings a week, Morris Priebe and his wife Karen head over to Wadena’s new Maslowski Wellness and Research Center to hit the track. They usually arrive around 9 a.m.—later on Sundays so they can go to church—and walk for thirty minutes. Then they use the weight machines or relax in the whirlpool.

That the Priebes are able to enjoy these activities so close to home is a pleasure that’s not lost on them. “Wadena’s a small town, so to have something this magnificent, it’s so uplifting,” said Morris Priebe, who was an assistant engineer for the Wadena County Highway Department before he retired. “We see people visiting with friends and neighbors. People are so happy when they are there.”

Residents of Wadena and the surrounding area have good reason to feel excited about their town’s latest addition. The 52,500-squarefoot center, which cost more than $12 million, opened in early December 2014 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Gov. Mark Dayton, Congressman Rick Nolan and many others. It had been in the works ever since an EF4 tornado tore through Wadena 18 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

nearly five years ago, damaging or destroying hundreds of homes, the old community center, the hockey arena, the county fairgrounds, a handful of businesses and the old high school.

The path to recovery has been arduous and expensive, requiring the help of citizens and agencies of all stripes, from parishioners to Boy Scouts, from state and federal agencies to foundations, including the Initiative Foundation, which assisted with community visioning and fundraising. The completion of the Maslowski Center is viewed as a milestone. “The wellness center is the crown jewel and brings things full circle back again to recovery,” said former mayor and Initiative Foundation trustee Wayne Wolden, who served eight terms before being narrowly defeated last November. “I’m very proud of it. To see it come together made my heart swell.”

To build the center, the city raised millions from hundreds of donors, a sizable donation from the Maslowski Charitable Trust, for which the center is named. The Initiative Foundation was an active partner from the outset. “In the hours after the initial damage, we created an online portal to host donations for recovery and pledged $10,000 in matching funds, which was achieved within about 48

“People make decisions on where to live based not just on the work, but on the community and the amenities.” hours,” said Don Hickman, the Foundation’s vice president for community and economic development. “Over the following two years, we helped raise or host more than $2 million in donations” to address immediate and long-term needs.

In addition to replacing public buildings, the city planted thousands of trees and buried previously above-ground power lines to make them more storm-resilient. Parks have been restored and upgraded, in one case with a new warming house, ball field, sidewalks and bathroom. “That is taking an open slate and changing things to make them more usable and more attractive than they were before,” said Wadena city administrator Brad Swenson. “There have been a lot of positive outcomes out of a really negative event.”

There still are things to be done. Specifically, there are 29 residential lots, cleared after the tornado, that remain stubbornly empty. “It’s a tough economic area here,” said Wolden, now the business manager at Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Wadena. Wadena County is one of the poorest in Minnesota. Before leaving office, Wolden championed a tax abatement program for the lots, allowing anyone to build a home and forgo property taxes on the structure for 10 years. So far, the effort has drawn a three-plex.

Some want to see faster economic progress, along with new infrastructure to mitigate the kind of flooding the city experienced last summer. Wadena’s new mayor, George Deiss, plans to target these issues. “After the tornado came through, we lost people,” he said. “My plan is to get some industry here somehow and someway.

I just don’t know what I can find out there, but I am sure going to try to find something.”

The wellness center could help. People considering jobs at the hospital or school or looking to open a business might view the facility as a reason to say “yes” to this city of 4,100. “People make decisions on where to live based not just on the work, but on the community and the amenities,” said Wolden. “I think Wadena is going to grow and prosper.”

So far, the center is a success—at the end of December, it had nearly 500 dues-paying members, verging on its financial break-even goal. One advantage, said center manager Eric Robb, is that nearly half the members don’t have Wadena ZIP codes. They are coming from elsewhere and spending dollars in town, perhaps even eyeing it as a place to live. “People are buying groceries and gas at the gas stations,” said Robb. “What kind of trickle down is there? I think we are getting that.”

Robb hopes the center will serve as a gathering place, whether for birthday parties, sports club competitions, business meetings or overflow school activities. “It’s a great place for people to come and meet together,” he said. “They can not only socialize, but get fit or stay healthy without even realizing they are doing it.” That includes full-time municipal employees, who, between insurance reimbursements and a city supplement, enjoy free memberships.

“It’s a great asset in town and hopefully people are finding ways to utilize it,” said Swenson. Of the tornado itself, he added, “I’d rather not have gone through it. But we didn’t have that choice. We handled it pretty well, and the outcome is good.”

SHARING LESSONS FROM WADENA The Initiative Foundation learned much from assisting Wadena through the 2010 tornado’s aftermath—such as how various players can work together. Now, the Foundation would like to use that knowledge to help other Central Minnesota communities better prepare for natural disasters. “The Tornado in Wadena was the first larger-scale disaster situation we had dealt with as a community foundation,” said Dan Frank, the Initiative Foundation’s senior program manager for community and economic development. “That experience is very much informing us.”

The Foundation is working with others to develop a new approach

that will help deepen and formalize a community’s disaster planning. The effort, called the Philanthropic Preparedness, Resiliency and Emergency Partnership (PPREP), includes 18 groups from eight Midwestern states.

They are collaborating with support from the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities.

“None of it is set in stone yet,” said Frank, but one idea is to target communities where disasters are most likely to strike and proactively engage local players to establish who will do what, “so they have a plan in advance for how they will react if there is a disaster.”

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LEADING BY

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By Laura Billings Coleman | Photography by John Linn

Inspiring the next generation of culturally agile, skilled and inspired leaders is critical to building thriving rural communities.

What will you need to make your community a better place?

When Don Hickman, the Initiative Foundation’s vice president for community and economic development, put that question to a gathering of rural leaders a few years ago, he was surprised by the answer he got from an elected official in his 70s.

“What I really need is someone to run against me,” the man told the group. “I want to retire, but I don’t see anyone standing up to take my place.’”

Replacing the more than 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day in the United States from long careers and community leadership roles will be critical work for the small towns and 22 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

rural communities of Greater Minnesota. Compared to the Twin Cities, where one in 56 people will be tapped to take on a leadership role, the average rural Minnesotan has responsibility for six or more top jobs, according to University of Minnesota Extension rural sociologist Ben Winchester—roles that can range from running small businesses to serving on community and nonprofit boards and supporting the leadership of area churches and schools.

Which means it’s crucial for our communities to tap the talents and passions of established leaders and those who might not yet think of themselves as leaders. “We need to plan ahead about how to help pass the baton and encourage that

NATALIE KEANE: “Sharing a meal is so powerful, because you are sharing more than just the food.”

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“

Network in places that aren’t only related to your professional self. It builds your confidence and pushes you out of

”

your comfort zone.

EMMANUEL OPPONG: “I grew up in a collectivist culture, where the whole group is emphasized.”

next generation of leaders to step up,” said Hickman. “It’s important to build these connections because not only do these traditional leaders have a lot of wisdom to share, the new leaders we’re seeing in that 18- to 35-year-old demographic reflect the diversity that’s helping to grow the region, combined oftentimes with a deep sense of purpose and community service.”

skills, abilities and agility of next generation leaders and build connections between generations, cultures and the communities where they’ll live and work.

Here are three emerging leaders who can help us all better understand what it takes to make a difference in Central Minnesota. We guarantee you’ll be hearing more about them in the years to come.

what makes a leader?

EMMANUEL OPPONG

“The most effective emerging leader is someone who is solution-focused as opposed to problem-focused,” said the Initiative Foundation’s Chris Fastner, senior program manager for organizational development who works closely with younger leaders who are serving regional nonprofits through the Americorps Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA) program. “I’ve seen it again and again in our work with VISTA that there are some people who bump into hurdles and get stuck. And there are other people who encounter hurdles and go right over them.”

To harness their potential, the Initiative Foundation is creating an Emerging Leaders program. Funded by a $200,000 Leadership Network Grant from the Bush Foundation, the initiative is designed to increase the 24 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

As a psychology student in his native Ghana, Emmanuel Oppong was troubled by the stigma faced by people suffering from mental illness. “In my culture, you’re either ‘crazy’ or you’re ‘normal,’ and there’s not much middle ground in between,” said Oppong, who started his graduate studies at St. Cloud State University in 2010 at the urging of his sister Eunice AdjeiBosompem, also a graduate of SCSU. “Only I forgot to ask her about the weather, so I found out the hard way,” said Oppong, 30. “The first winter was so brutal, I asked myself every day what I was doing in Minnesota.” It wasn’t just the harsh climate that made Oppong feel left out in the cold. “I grew up in a collectivist culture, where the whole group is emphasized, and your uncles and your

Oppong’s leadership

Tip

aunties and your neighbors are like parents to you,” he said. “In American culture, it’s about independent living, and I struggled at first without a support network.”

Though he spoke British English, Oppong had trouble understanding American idioms and the expectations of his professors. After a tough first semester, he contemplated giving up and going home, but his sister encouraged him to stay and get involved in the community—a move that made all the difference. “I decided I couldn’t be an average student concerned about academics only,” he said. “When I graduated, I wanted to show that I had made myself known and developed my skills professionally.”

Oppong committed himself to community service, earning the President’s Student Leadership Award for his work mentoring youth at the YMCA, serving on SCSU’s student government, getting involved with social justice causes such as the Community Anti-Racism Education Initiative and volunteering his time with nonprofits such as Books to Africa and Talent Emergence International, a nonprofit that works with former child soldiers. To earn his clinical therapy license, Oppong also interned at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in St. Cloud, working

with incarcerated clients and their families.

“Emmanuel is one of those people who took the opportunity of being in another land, and said, ‘How can I learn something and give something back at the same time?’” said Dr. Manijeh Daneshpour, a professor of marriage and family therapy at SCSU, who now supervises Oppong’s clinical therapy work at Recover Health Resources, where they work with many immigrants and refugees from east Africa.

As an international student, he saw the challenges these new arrivals often face and seized the opportunity to help, she said. “He saw that people were very much misunderstood, and so he took that upon himself to educate and become engaged in the conversation in his community.”

With plans to pursue his doctoral degree in psychology, Oppong says his community service in St. Cloud reinforced the lessons he first learned playing soccer.

“In this game all the players have a single goal, and that is to score, yet this cannot be achieved with just one player,” he said. “One has to learn to form deep relationships through partnership and collaboration with diverse individuals to achieve a goal.”

“

I think leadership is within everyone, and it’s the relationships and the collaboration

NATALIE KEANE

A College of Saint Benedict philosophy and pre-med graduate, Natalie Keane had been considering a career in medicine until a year as a VISTA volunteer showed her there are other ways she could help make communities healthier. “There’s something about sitting at a table over a cup of coffee or a plate of food that can bring down the barriers between people,” she said.

That was one of the first discoveries Keane, 24, made last year as she worked with her alma mater to launch CSB’s Community Kitchen, a project that shares surplus

we have with others that perpetuate the leadership skills.

Keane’s leadership

”

Tip

The ability to lead Introducing the Initiative Foundation’s Emerging Leaders program.

Helping leaders across generations, cultures and communities is one of the goals of Emerging Leaders, a new community development program being launched by the Initiative Foundation.

Information Sessions

“The goal of Emerging Leaders is really ‘listen, learn and lead,’ ”said Michelle Kiley, Initiative Foundation community and economic development specialist who is spearheading the program. “We all have within us the opportunity and ability to lead. The Initiative Foundation and others are ready to help make that happen.”

Brainerd Time: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Date: Friday, April 17 Place: Prairie Bay, 15115 Edgewood Drive N.

The Initiative Foundation will convene a diverse group of 18- to 35-yearolds and invite them to share their priorities and their needs—from the kind of training and mentoring they believe they’ll need to the type of content they’d like to see delivered in a program setting. Along the way they’ll identify the challenges they see in their paths to leadership, and they’ll assess their skills, strengths and passions.

The Foundation is sponsoring two Emerging Leaders informational sessions:

St. Cloud Time: 4 to 6 p.m.

Date: Thursday, April 23 Place: Lake George Municipal Complex Sun Room, 1101 7th Street S. Refreshments will be served; attendance is not required to participate in the Emerging Leaders program.

“What’s unique about this program is it’s not one-directional,” said Kiley.

“There’s value in encouraging leaders to come together and find out what has been done already, what hasn’t been tried, and discovering new ways to increase the presence of emerging leaders in important community decisions.”

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Orozco’s leadership

NORMA OROZCO: “I learned fast because I had to.”

campus food throughout the community.

The idea for the program was hatched six years ago, when a group of nutrition students began exploring whether there was a way to fill in some of the estimated 100 million meals missed by Minnesotans in food poverty with the college’s cafeteria food that would otherwise go to waste.

Keane launched the program’s first pilot partnership with families involved in Reach Up, Inc., and soon found that giving them a chance to sit down and share a meal together proved even more popular than the original plan to pack up individual meals to take home.

“Sharing a meal is so powerful, because you’re sharing more than just the food,” Keane said about Community Kitchen partnerships that now bring St. Ben’s students and girls at Casa Guadalupe Multicultural Community in Cold Spring together for an afterschool program that combines food and fellowship, and others that connect college tutors with English language learners. “Connecting the campus to the wider community is one of the goals of the program, and food is just a great way to make that happen,” she said.

“Natalie is one of those young leaders who sets the bar high,” said the Initiative Foundation’s Chris Fastner, who supervised Keane’s work as part of the

VISTA program. “She has no fear about getting into conversations with people she doesn’t know and her curiosity is genuine.

She’s really good at connecting the dots and figuring out ways to get lots of people to the table, which are great qualities in a leader.”

With her VISTA year complete, Keane signed on to learn more about sustainably grown food with an internship with the Central Minnesota Sustainability Project’s Market Garden Apprenticeship program.

Now she’s the assistant manager of the Minnesota Street Market, a food and art co-op in St. Joseph. It’s a job that’s helping to feed her growing curiosity about how communities can create more sustainable food systems. “Community Kitchen instilled in me this need to learn more about every aspect of the food system,’’ said Keane. “Now that my eyes are open to the possibility of creating richer communities by coming together around food, I have a huge passion for this work.”

NORMA OROZCO

With a 4-year-old daughter and a fulltime job, Norma Orozco, 26, doesn’t have a lot of extra time in her day. But when she was approached to serve on the parish council of St. Mary of Mount Carmel, becoming the first member of Long Prairie’s growing CONTINUED ON PAGE 48

26 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

“

When someone asks you for help, say yes.

”

Tip

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27 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

“If we don’t have QUALITY CHILDCARE options, parents can’t be productive workers.”

Six weeks after her son, Lukas, was born in 2011, Samantha Thompson was back at her job, driving almost an hour to Hinckley’s Grand Casino to work the graveyard shift doing everything from cooking to operating the register. When she clocked out, she picked up her baby from his dad’s and started the day.

“I wouldn’t get more than a few hours of sleep,” she said.

Thompson needed the work, but couldn’t find good, affordable options for childcare to fit her schedule. That’s a challenge for Minnesota working parents.

Statewide, an estimated one in 10 parents and one in five low-income parents can’t get or keep a job due to a lack of childcare.

Those numbers rise in rural areas, where childcare options are scarce. Parents drive long distances, cobble together a variety of providers and get physically run down.

It’s an issue that has far-reaching implications for Central Minnesota’s economy. The immediate lack of rural childcare providers makes it hard for businesses to recruit and retain young parents. It’s also a missed opportunity for early education that helps develop essential skills for school readiness, and the longterm potential to invest in the future when today’s children join the workforce and compete in a global economy. “We want to grow our economy, but no one thinks about childcare,” said Heidi Hagel Braid, First Children’s Finance regional director for Minnesota and the Dakotas, which provides loans and business-development assistance to quality childcare providers serving lowand moderate-income families. “That has to go hand in hand.”

Why? “If we don’t have quality childcare options, parents can’t be productive workers,” said Tammy Filippi, early childhood associate with the Initiative Foundation.

“When a parent is constantly worried about their child’s care, it becomes impossible to focus on work.”

Statewide efforts to fill these needs have raised $28 million to provide childcare scholarships annually for income-eligible children, but the need is closer to $50 million, said Frank Forsberg, chairman of MinneMinds, a coalition of statewide organizations advocating for investments in early childhood education. That means about one in nine children who need the assistance actually get it.

JENNIE CARLIN (right): “They’re your kids for nine hours a day, five days a week. The kids become your family.”

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HELPING TO FILL THE GAPS

With already thin ranks among rural childcare providers, the loss of one can hit hard. In Ogilvie, population 369, the school district is reaching out to organizations, including the Initiative Foundation, for resources and ideas to establish a new childcare center before one of the community’s two providers retires.

Principal Mitch Peterson says the school could partner with a provider who could use three empty classrooms and also have access to a kitchen and pool. The school already serves as a “home away from home” for students whose parents are on the road early and home late from out-of-town jobs.

Solving the problem is crucial to Ogilvie’s economy. Without childcare options, the town risks parents moving elsewhere and a dwindling school population. On the other hand, excellent childcare options could entice people who work in the Twin Cities to settle there. Options still are being discussed, but the on-site childcare could have spin-off benefits, including giving high school students the chance to volunteer and gain childcare experience.

Sometimes solutions are initiated by employers. In Northwest Minnesota, Thief River Falls-based Digi-Key Corporation, a fastgrowing electronics parts distributor, offered parents $300 a month to offset childcare costs. They also offered $75 per child weekly incentives for providers offering care for Digi-Key’s second shift employees, said Hagel Braid.

In other communities, nonprofits can help fill financing gaps and launch new centers such as Hashiro Child Care Center in the St. Cloud area. An Initiative Foundation loan helped the center get on its feet and open in 2013, catering to the growing refugee and immigrant population and staying open until 9 p.m. to help parents who work evening hours.

In Western Minnesota’s community of Montevideo, population 5,219, it took a collaboration of local leaders and agencies to meet its critical need for infant care a year ago. The school district offered subsidized space and a development authority helped purchase equipment. When the infant care center opened six months later, it was already full with 12 infants and more on a waiting list.

“It was the school district, the city and the county coming together and figuring out how to make it happen,” Hagel Braid said.

“That’s what’s great about small communities. They are creative, innovative and flexible.”

SEEKING SOLUTIONS

With infant care especially difficult to find, many parents, including Samantha Thompson, rely on friends and relatives. That changed this last March, when Lukas’ father started a new job and Thompson switched to a daytime shift at the casino. Her son’s age— he had just turned 18 months— allowed her to enroll him part-time at Pine Technical College’s Children’s Early Learning Center.

Thompson makes $9.20 an hour and is grateful to have found childcare at $33 a day with flexibility to switch to part-time care when needed. Because she enrolled at the college (not a requirement to use the childcare), she also was able to access grant money to nudge down those costs.

“I took a pay cut,” she said, along with a more physically active and strenuous position at the casino. “But I’d rather be able to sleep 30 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

CONTINUED ON PAGE 40

SOLVING PROBLEMS: Ogilvie Principal Mitch Peterson is hoping the school can partner with a childcare provider to use the school’s empty classrooms for daycare.

TIPS TO HELP YOU FIND THE RIGHT CHILDCARE PROVIDER.

1. START EARLY

If you live in a rural area, it’s not too early to start seeking childcare as soon as the pregnancy test is positive.

2.

CHECK RATINGS

3.

DO A SITE VISIT

Parent Aware ratings (parentawareratings.org) are available statewide this year, providing a good tool for seeking and comparing childcare providers. Minnesota Department of Human Services licenses childcare centers statewide, while counties license family-based childcare.

Get to know a provider by visiting and asking questions on everything from meals and naps to learning and safety while also seeing if it feels right. For a list of good questions to ask, check out the National Association for the Education of Young Children, families.naeyc.org/find-quality-child-care.

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By Gene Rebeck | Photography by John Linn

JAIME PREBLE: ”I was extremely lucky when I found this practice.”

32 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

UNDER

NEW OWNERSHIP Businesses hoping to sell should consider newcomers seeking a small-town lifestyle.

In 2013, Dr. Jaime Preble, a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota’s dental school, discovered the practice she had dreamed of finding. A native of Pierz and a lover of outdoor activities, “I knew I wanted to go to Northern Minnesota,” she said.

The practice was Pine River Dental Center, in the town of the same name. Preble described it as “a very nice practice, very nice patients, very nice facility. The owners were very open about what’s coming in dentistry—new technology—and allowing me to advance my career.”

Today, Preble owns a third of the practice. And with one of the owners retired and the other busy with his other practices, she’s in charge and making the most of

the opportunity. Preble has brought in a CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and manufacturing) system that allows patients to get their crowns from start to finish in a single appointment instead of having to wear a temporary crown for two weeks.

Pine River Dental also has invested in a cone-beam CT scanner, which takes 3D images instead of the two dimensions of an X-ray and helps dentists be more accurate when they are doing implant procedures.

These high-tech tools helped Pine River Dental add 300 new patients and several new full-time staff members in 2014. But Preble won’t take all the credit. The practice, she said, “had a very good reputation” when she joined it. She’s building upon a business that already had a sturdy foundation.

Preble is one of a number of new business owners who’ve purchased existing businesses in Central Minnesota. In many cases, these new owners have come from outside the area. They’ve kept jobs in the region, often adding more.

And this means that communities have opportunities of their own. Many towns are home to small businesses that might simply close when the current owner retires, an issue that’s of particular importance when you consider that the first wave of baby boomers are reaching their mid-60s. Businesses that are looking ahead to transitioning to new ownership should consider newcomers who are seeking the lifestyles those towns offer—and the entrepreneurial options.

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY As a young person moving to the region, Preble is by no means alone.

Ben Winchester, a research fellow at the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community Vitality, said contrary to the common belief, younger people do want to live outside of Minnesota’s major metropolitan areas. Indeed, they’re moving there. Rural areas may not be growing as fast as metropolitan centers, but overall they are growing. And while small towns typically lose young people after they graduate from high school, “they still gain people aged 30 to 49,” he said.

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FINDING HELP FOR BUSINESS TRANSITIONS Businesses needing guidance in the crucial task of transition planning can tap these resources: GALLIARD FAMILY BUSINESS ADVISOR INSTITUTE This Alexandria-based consultancy primarily trains family business advisors. The organization’s website includes a list THE GOOD LIFE: Terry and Sherri Petersen moved from the Twin Cities to the Brainerd Lakes Region in 2007.

They purchased Menahga-based Salo Manufacturing a few years later.

What’s attracting them? According to Winchester, it’s the slower pace of life, greater safety and security for their families and lower housing costs. “Generally, these people did not move for a job,” he said.

And they’re often self-employed. In any case, they’re migrating primarily because of the place itself. “These are more than just people moving back to their hometowns,” Winchester added. “Only a third of them have had any previous contact there.”

It’s not only young people who are seeking a new life in Greater Minnesota.

Moving to the region was one of the chief reasons why Terry Petersen and his wife, Sherri, bought Menahga-based Salo Manufacturing in August 2013. Terry Petersen knew the Brainerd Lakes area well, having come up from the Twin Cities metro every fall since he was young to hunt deer.

At the end of 2007, after their last child graduated from high school, the Petersens sold their convenience stores in the Twin Cities and went looking north for a new life and a new business opportunity. After some years, they found Salo, a manufacturer of fiberglass bathtubs and showers that sells

to plumbing wholesalers in five Upper Midwestern states.

It was a big transition: The Petersens didn’t have manufacturing experience.

But their employees did. General manager Edith Korkowski “had been pretty much running it with the previous owners as they were winding down,” Terry Petersen said. Aaron Frame, the plant manager and a five-year veteran of the company, also stayed on, and helped to bring the new owners up to speed. The Petersons also had other kinds of support. Mark Hanson, executive director of the Sebeka-based West Central Economic Development Alliance, put them in touch the Initiative Foundation and other local sources of financing. The company, which now employs 25, may add a couple of new hires this year.

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STAYING PUT Mark Prueher wasn’t new to the industry when he bought a Brainerd welldrilling business in 2013. In fact, he has worked in mining, drilling and related industries for more than three decades, and was working for Canada-based Major CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

NEW OWNERS HAVE COME FROM OUTSIDE THE AREA. IN SO DOING, THEY’VE KEPT JOBS IN THE REGION, OFTEN ADDING MORE.

34 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

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HIRE

Designing

CHANGE

How a volunteer group of architects and urban planners is helping Princeton stay connected to the town’s long-range vision.

By Elizabeth Foy Larsen | Photography by John Linn

CHANGE AGENTS: Wadena Mayor Paul Whitcomb (left) chats with MDT volunteers Christina Wagner, David Patten and Bruce Koprucki at the K-Bob Cafe.

36 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

MINNESOTA DESIGN TEAM (MDT) DRAWINGS: Finished sketches for the community presentation.

Princeton was searching for a way to unify ideas and visualize the city as they continue to transform concepts into projects.

Since it opened for business in 1958, Ossell’s Fine Apparel in Princeton has been a mainstay of this town of almost 4,700 residents situated at the confluence of the Rum River and its west branch.

Selling anything from bras to tuxedos, the store also is the place in town to buy “Tigers” sweatshirts and other spirit wear, which promote Princeton’s schools sports teams. Town pride also is on display at the K-Bob Cafe, the meeting place for the Lions and Rotary clubs, where locals and visitors can feast on homestyle frittatas, patty melts and sweet slices of pecan cream pie. A block away, Princeton Book & Bible attracts visitors from across the region who come to browse the shop’s extensive collection of religious-themed literature and collectibles.

But a walk down Rum River Drive shows that Princeton, like many small towns across Central Minnesota, is struggling to support its downtown. Too many storefronts—including buildings that used to house the Thrifty White Pharmacy and a Ben Franklin—are empty and sometimes unkempt. “People used to shop locally,” said Carol Ossell, who owns Ossell’s with her husband, Charlie. “But even though we’ve done everything possible to market our store, we have more people from out of town interested in our business than the people who live here.”

That’s not to suggest Princeton residents are indifferent to their downtown’s predicament. In fact, the town has commissioned several studies in the last decade to jump start the revitalization of its Main Street. Several volunteer groups have been working to spruce up Rum River Drive and help Princeton capitalize on its riverfront location, which could become a regional destination for recreational activities, including biking and canoeing.

“Princeton is an amazing community, nestled along the Rum River and boosted by a strong sense of community pride,” said Michelle Kiley, community and economic development specialist at the Initiative Foundation. “But the town was searching for a way to unify ideas and visualize the city as they continue to transform concepts into projects.”

Unified Vision What Princeton needed was a fresh set of eyes. To get them, Princeton community leaders turned to the Initiative Foundation, which recommended and helped fund a visit from the Minnesota Design Team (MDT), a group of volunteer architects, landscape architects, urban planners, tourism advisers and other community experts. Sponsored by the Minnesota branch of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), MDT works with towns across the state for three-day weekends where, after extensive input from the community, they analyze a community’s strengths and challenges to determine a unified vision of priorities for improvement. “We support MDT because we want to help rural communities improve their built environments,” said Mary Larkin, communications director of AIA Minnesota. “That takes so many different forms, depending on the community.”

To prepare for the visit, Princeton community members filled out an extensive questionnaire detailing the town’s strengths and its challenges and recruited host families to house team members. They also put together a roster of speakers to give short presentations on different aspects of the town, including the schools, government, arts, recreation and Princeton history.

“The Minnesota Design Team visit provided many community members an avenue to share their thoughts about the community and what they envision it evolving to,” said Richard Baker, Mille Lacs County community development coordinator. “Instead of just a few community leaders, there were many individuals discussing, essentially, several ideas that have been discussed for years. This not only confirmed the importance of these projects, but also provided some new insight into them.”

One of those community members was landscape architect David Patten, who also served on the design team. “I grew up here,” Patten said. “And I thought that as a professional in the field, I owed it to my community to volunteer.”

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We The People An MDT visit is intense and there’s little downtime for any of the volunteers. It starts with a Thursday night dinner, with plenty of time leftover to talk informally with host families about their take on their community. Friday is spent gathering information from speakers and going on walking tours of the downtown and driving tours of the surrounding area. Friday evening is devoted to a community-wide dinner, where attendees are encouraged to voice what they think the town’s priorities should be through a process called “dotmocracy.” Each priority is written on a sheet of paper and the pages are posted throughout the room. Using the dotmocracy approach, each community member is asked to place sticker “dots” next to their favorite initiatives.

Saturday is a workday for the team—a flurry of processing ideas, prioritizing and then making the best come to life with architectural drawings. These ideas are presented in a final community meeting on Saturday night.

It’s a grueling but exhilarating process. MDT agreed with community members that Princeton has many assets, including its location along the Highway 169 and 95 corridors—an easy stop for people who are driving north to their cabins and want to grab a

cup of coffee or a meal. With historic buildings, including the Great Northern Depot and several storefronts along Rum River Drive, the town, 50 miles north of the Twin Cities and 30 miles east of St. Cloud, could be a popular day trip destination.

Most of all, Princeton has the Rum River, which has almost limitless opportunities for recreation, including bike trails, canoeing, fishing and camping. “If you take a look at the recreational trails in Minnesota, there are a lot up north and many in the St. Cloud area and southern Minnesota,” said Patten. “Princeton is right in the center and could become a hub.”

Working Together As for the challenges, MDT agreed with community members that Rum River Drive is not pedestrian friendly and the entry into the town doesn’t give a warm enough welcome to visitors. And, like other towns that grew up using their rivers more as industrial highways than sources of natural pleasure, Princeton had turned its back on the Rum. But beyond these physical obstacles, the town had another challenge. “The organizations in the community weren’t connected CONTINUED TO PAGE 44

THE NEXT GENERATION: Kelly Ossell Guptil’s grandparents founded the store she now manages.

38 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

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Help Wanted, Childcare Needed CONTINUED FROM PAGE 30

at night and spend time with my son. I don’t have to stress so much.”

Even better is seeing how Lukas, who also benefitted from some Head Start visits, is thriving and advancing at age 2 1⁄2 through the early learning center. That’s exactly the goal of new legislation and investments in early childhood education.

To find the Pine Tech childcare, Thompson relied on reviews from other parents and the ratings on the state’s new Parent Aware site run by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Providers voluntarily participate in the system that rates them according to their quality and educational component and helps parents find the best program for what they can afford and the hours they need at both home-based childcares and daycare centers.

“I didn’t have to go out and do a lot of research,” said Thompson. “It was just all right there.”

PROVIDERS NEEDED

Trying to encourage more people to go into the childcare business can be a tough sell since many people view it more like babysitting than educating. Providers don’t always get the respect they deserve, according to the Initiative Foundation’s Tammy Filippi. “But while the financial earnings aren’t high,” she said, “the personal and professional rewards can be priceless.”

THRIVING WITH HEAD START: Samantha Thompson is seeing her son, Lukas, make strides in his learning.

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state grants that help her make improvements to the downstairs apartment where she runs the childcare program. She advises anyone considering a childcare career to know what they’re getting into by talking to other providers and taking advantage of regional training sessions—especially the chance to swap tips on running a quality business.

Newcomers to the business also need to be prepared for long hours and long days. But they should also expect a big emotional payoff. Carlin loves to text parents about their kids’ milestones, like suddenly using three-word phrases or mastering a new motor skill.

“They’re your kids for nine hours a day, five days a week,” she said. “The kids become your family.”

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The state’s new focus on early childhood with more grants and scholarships can change that by helping more families afford childcare and by providing a steadier base of customers.

Childcare provider Jennie Carlin of Askov has a tougher-thanusual juggle to make finances flow because she’s the only one in her area who offers part-time care. She has 24 kids on her roster, but only two who come full-time while others rotate in and out.

Both parents work in the majority of Minnesota’s families— an estimated 76 percent with children under 6 years old, said Hagel Braid. Scheduling opposite shifts or days to reduce childcare costs is one way they make ends meet.

“It’s a major juggling act,” Carlin said of scheduling. She’ll sometimes need her mother-in-law to take care of her own two children or she’ll need to pull in someone to help for the days when she has extra children.

Carlin worked at Pine Tech’s Children’s Early Learning Center while she went to school for her early childhood degree and later was at Head Start. When she and her husband, Dale, had their son, Oliver, in February 2010, she decided to start her own childcare business on their 20-acre farm.

Many families love that they have two horses, a mule, a dog, two rabbits and 18 chickens, along with a garden the kids help with during the summertime. Carlin also has been able to access

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Under New Ownership CONTINUED FROM PAGE 34

LOCAL MOTION: Brainerd-based North Star Drilling was the perfect opportunity for Mark Prueher, a resident of Little Falls.

Drilling when it decided to sell North Star Drilling, a company Major Drilling bought about five years earlier. Major Drilling is a worldwide business, and according to Prueher, it had come to see North Star as too small and too local.

But for Prueher, who was based in Little Falls, that was what made the business attractive.

“I wanted to stay more local, not do as much traveling,” he said. North Star drills residential and irrigation wells, as well as related service work, within a 125-mile radius from the Brainerd Lakes Area. The company employs 10 and expects sales to increase 15 to 20 percent in 2015. To be able to buy a 4,500-square-foot building to house his new business, Prueher turned to the Initiative Foundation and its lender-match loan program.

Prueher saved a business that might have been lost. And though he already knew the operation when he bought it, other new business owners in the region are looking for an entrepreneurial challenge. To Dan Frank, the Initiative Foundation’s senior program manager for community and economic development, this suggests “a real chance for communities to

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create opportunities and link them with people who would like to own a business.”

To do that, communities need to make themselves aware of the business transition possibilities that newcomers and other entrepreneurially minded individuals can offer, Frank said. Local chambers of commerce, economic development entities and others with a stake in a community’s economic resiliency can help current business owners plan for a transition—particularly if there is no family member who’s willing to take over the enterprise.

Just as important, community leaders can market their region to attract potential newcomers like Jaime Preble. One of the first steps in doing this, according to the University of Minnesota’s Winchester, is awareness. Community leaders need to “visit with their newcomers,” he said, and promote potential business opportunities.

And that requires knowing what those opportunities are.

“Often, when people are thinking of retiring or selling a business, it is not very public,” Frank said. Small business owners often fear that if residents find out that “they are thinking they might close or sell, they might lose business.” Local chambers of commerce and other business leaders can educate local owners that revealing their plans

to retire or sell needn’t mean lost revenue, but rather a chance to make a profitable sale, while keeping a valuable business in town.

Once a community has identified a business that needs a new owner, its members should look for ways to get the word out. Preble discovered the opening at Pine River Dental when one of its owners taught a dental class she was taking. The two met, and he told her about the opportunity. She’s glad he did. Preble and her husband, who bought a tree-trimming and tree-removal company, have acquired residential property with acreage and recently welcomed their second child. The move to Pine River, she said, “has exceeded my expectations. I love the patients. We have a wonderful staff. I was extremely lucky when I found this practice.”

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Designing Change CONTINUED FROM PAGE 38

or working together,” said Christina Wagner, an architect who served as MDT’s co-leader for the visit. While there was no shortage of strategic leadership and truly impressive initiatives, each had their own priorities and weren’t always aware of what the other was doing.

Likewise, residents didn’t always know about the wealth of events taking place in town. “The amount of time people have to interact with the community is limited,” said Bruce Koprucki, a contractor and former city and regional planner from Chaska who was the other Princeton MDT co-leader. He noted that many residents have long commutes to work. “There’s not a lot of time to connect in the evenings as a community.”

Princeton now has an online community calendar that lists not only every gymnastic meet, quilting bee and suicide survivors support group, but also the meetings of the various community groups working to improve the town.

As for other recommendations? Progress is being made on those, too. Princeton is in the process of getting state bike trails to run through town and has applied for a grant to make Rum River Drive more pedestrian friendly. The school district and

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the city have moved forward on plans to install an electronic messaging board on South Rum River Drive. “I think some of the recommendations were really well thought out,” said Paul Whitcomb, the town’s mayor.

That long-range vision is heartening to MDT volunteers.

“Feeling and seeing the passion from that group and trying to come up with a resolution to help them go forward made me feel like we helped,” said Wagner. “When I started with MDT, the question was, ‘Is this really helping a small town?’ That’s always on everyone’s mind. It’s a great challenge, a great puzzle.”

The Initiative Foundation will continue to stay involved with the community—including the chamber, the city, the economic development group and other local civic organizations—to assist in coordinating their work going forward. “Princeton will continue to grow and evolve as the Twin Cities Metropolitan area expands northward and the St. Cloud micropolitan area expands eastward,” said Baker. “It’s exciting to see Princeton working towards these shared goals, and it will be even more exciting, in say 10 years, to see what has been accomplished.”

Real Solutions

for Real People The Initiative Foundation has helped fund MDT visits to towns across Central Minnesota.

2014 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

Princeton Randall Howard Lake Wadena Pine City Staples Paynesville

2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 1999 1997

Palmer Township Walker Cold Spring Rockville Rice Nisswa Cass Lake

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philanthropy

Giving Potential How the Initiative Foundation’s endowment is changing Central Minnesota.

By Lawrence Schumacher | Illustration by Chris McAllister

Giving comes naturally to Mil Voelker. The former Saint Cloud State University faculty member and her late husband, Fran, have found ways to give to the university, their alma maters (Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict), the communities where they’ve lived and their family, among other things.

“I’m just finishing up 529s (college savings plans) for the great-grandchildren,” she said. “We’ve got six of them, and two more coming.”

But when it came time to make donations to the Initiative Foundation, with whom Voelker has had a relationship for almost 20 years, she said she wanted to keep things simple. “I don’t want to get involved in deciding where to give the money,” she said. “I like the idea of trusting the organization to do a good job. I know its history and I know they’ll put the money to good use.”

46 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

Endowment power The Voelkers made two charitable gift annuity contributions to the Foundation. Contributions to the endowment allows the Foundation to give unrestricted grants to nonprofits and local government units throughout its 14-county Central Minnesota service area.

Some donors, such as Voelker, don’t want to actively manage a fund and make decisions about allocating its gifts. Their support for the Foundation’s endowment has helped it grow to roughly $47 million and allows it to issue more than $1 million a year in grants from the interest it gains, said Eric Stommes, the Foundation’s vice president for external relations.

“If a donor is looking to support the Foundation monetarily, giving to our endowment is the simplest way to move our priorities forward in Central Minnesota,” he said. “Growing the endowment is important to our mission and would help us to award more grants to worthy organizations that positively impact our communities.”

Careful financial investment strategies help the Foundation earn interest on its endowment (an average of more than 11.5 percent over the past three years), and part of that interest is budgeted for grant cycles that take place four times a year, Stommes said. A grant review team considers applications and recommends grants for approval. The average grant is about $5,000 and helps the Foundation advance its priorities of supporting children and families, workforce development, small business development, community-based planning and local response and recovery efforts in Central Minnesota.

Following the money One grantee—Grand Rapids-based Second Harvest North Central Food Bank’s Kids’ Packs to Go program—has helped students in nine elementary schools in Cass and Crow Wing counties avoid hunger over the weekends. “Schools know some kids come in to class hungry on Monday because their families don’t have enough,” said Susan Estee, the food bank’s executive director.

“Kids go through a lot of stress when there’s no food at home and this provides some relief.”

A $5,000 grant from the Foundation is one of more than a dozen Estee has secured for the program, which costs about $3.50 per pack to assemble and includes 11-14 items such as peanut butter, granola bars, cereal, fruit cups, milk and juice. The program targets schools where more than 50 percent of the students are on the free and reduced lunch program, and teachers identify the students most in need. Students receive one pack every month.

“We’d like to add more distribution at the schools we have, so the kids could get them more frequently,” she said. “We’d like to do it every week, but the food is hard to come by and more expensive because we have to buy it wholesale.”

Helping kids live healthier and learn more is one of the reasons John Babcock, president of St. Martin-based Rotochopper, donated to the Foundation’s endowment (Rotochopper matched his donation). The Foundation’s economic development efforts to grow small businesses in Central Minnesota are another.

“I’ve seen firsthand the creation of economic activity in outstate Minnesota due to the Initiative Foundation’s efforts,” he said.

“Without that activity, young people will move away and rural Minnesota will wither on the vine.”

Planning for the long haul Babcock, who also is a Foundation trustee, said he has encouraged people to consider giving to the endowment as part of their estate planning. Gifts of cash, stocks and securities, bonds, real estate, personal property, annuities, charitable remainder trusts, bequests and estates, retirement and pension plans, insurance policies, charitable lead trusts and other assets are accepted as donations to the endowment.

“We start by asking people what they would want their gift to do and work with them from there to find the best options,” said Stommes.

For Voelker, the idea of purchasing annuities that offered a place for her and her husband to park their IRA assets when they had to start withdrawing from them at 70 ½ years old was appealing.

“We were helping a charitable institution, and at the same time, we were getting back money to supplement our income,” she said.

The Initiative Foundation’s annual general endowment goal is $255,000. On top of achieving this goal, the Foundation looks to raise an additional $100,000 each year. Reaching its goal would add $355,000 to the general endowment in 2015 alone, which will enable more grants back to Central Minnesota.

That could mean more kids having enough food to eat over the weekend in Central Minnesota. The endowment also has given grants to provide seniors in Walker with additional services so they can continue living at home; assisted homeless families of veterans in finding housing; recruited tutors in the St. Cloud area to help Somali students improve their English skills and more.

“This is money that goes directly to the people of Central Minnesota, and continues to provide dividends for Central Minnesota,” Babcock said. “I believe it’s an essential part of what makes the Initiative Foundation successful and helps make Central Minnesota successful.”

“This is money that goes directly to the people of Central Minnesota, and continues to provide dividends for Central Minnesota. I believe it’s an essential part of what makes the Initiative Foundation successful and helps make Central Minnesota successful.”

1ST QUARTER 2015

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Leading by Example CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26

Hispanic community to break the cultural barrier, she knew she had to say yes.

“I feel too young to be a leader, but when people come to me and ask for help, I never say no,” said Orozco, whose family was among the first wave of new immigrants from Mexico to arrive in Todd County more than a decade ago.

Though she spoke no English when she entered school in sixth grade, it took less than a year for her to earn “Student of the Week” recognition from her reading teacher, who was astonished by her progress. “I learned fast because I had to,” Orozco said.

Tim King, the founder of Long Prairie’s bilingual La Voz Libre newspaper, says Orozco has been a quick study from the start, challenging herself by taking college-level physics as a high school student, and becoming the first Hispanic professional in the community, serving the Spanish-speaking community at Advantage 1 Insurance. “She’s a serious young woman with a keen

sense of obligation about her role in the Hispanic community,” said King. “She has impressed people so substantially that she’s been able to break through a lot of barriers.”

Orozco acknowledges that the influx of new immigrants in Todd County has caused growing pains in Long Prairie. “I don’t think the young people have a problem with it, but it’s harder for the older community,” she said. That’s why she encourages other young leaders in her community to follow her lead, and get involved in the larger community by volunteering to help out at church functions, school fundraisers and other community events.

“It’s good to get out in the community, because people get to know who you are, and they find out what you’re good at, and how you can help. I think that’s how you become a leader.”

Learn to LEad The Initiative Foundation’s Emerging Leaders program will be just one way to help new leaders succeed. Here are other resources for emerging leaders in Central Minnesota.

The Anderson Center provides management and leadership development forums for executives across Greater Minnesota (anderson-center.org/mission.htm).

Working in communities where they’re invited, the Blandin Foundation builds the capacity of community leaders to solve problems through the Blandin Community Leadership Program (leadership.blandinfoundation.org/apply).

Many local chambers have programs designed to introduce members to the special needs of area nonprofits and community groups. St. Cloud Area Leadership is a Chamber of Commerce program designed to help current and emerging leaders understand the dynamics of the community and the role leadership has in building healthy communities. Visit stcloudareachamber.com and click on Programs, Leadership Program. In Brainerd, Leadership, the Lakes Area uses a four-month peer-learning model to enhance individual leadership skills. Visit explorebrainerdlakes.com and enter “Leadership” into the search bar.

48 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits sponsors a series of networking lunches and other events aimed at connecting nonprofit and community service leaders with resources and networking support. Visit minnesotanonprofits.org and select Events & Training/Events by Region.

SCSU’s Department of Campus Involvement provides student leaders a chance to discover their leadership skills through StrengthsQuest, a workshopping tool that helps find out what motivates individuals to make a difference. Visit stcloudstate.edu and search for Campus Involvement. Once there, select Involvement & Leadership and then Leadership Resources. On the Leadership Resources page you will find a link for StrengthsQuest or Strengths Finder Self Assessment Program.

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Our community, our home.

ANDERSON BROTHERS Family Fund

With over seventy five years of fostering community growth, we’ve become attached to the communities we’ve helped build. The Anderson Brothers Family Fund, administered in partnership with the Initiative Foundation, helps strengthen the regional economy, works to preserve the environment, and supports the children and families in central Minnesota.

AndersonBrothers.com

Regional Business Specialist

svoigt@regionfive.org 218-894-3233 x2

The mission of the North Central Economic Development Association is to provide industry expertise for community development and lending programs offered or created.

www.regionfive.org

he help you need.

T At your place or ours.

For more information about our communities and agencies in the Brainerd Lakes and Pine River area, call (218) 820-8975 or visit good-sam.com/brainerdlakes.

All faiths or beliefs are welcome. 13-G0510

1ST QUARTER 2015

49

home made

Scamp Trailers Backus, Minn.

By Maria Surma Manka Photography by John Linn

Duane Eveland was remodeling homes in Backus in the late 1960s and early 1970s when he was introduced to a Canadian travel trailer company looking for a local manufacturer for its expansion into the United States. Eveland was interested and, together with his brother Gerald and sister Gladys Coffland, began building trailers for the company’s U.S. market.

The trailers were just 13-feet long, but filled a niche: Their aerodynamic design made them fuel efficient, their hard fiberglass walls made them durable and their size made them easy to be towed and maneuvered by nearly any vehicle—even a small car. And with no poles or levels needed for set-up, the trailers became popular with customers who wanted a fuss-free camper for traveling the country.

Eveland and his siblings eventually created their own enterprise. The size of the trailers reminded them of a scamp—a playful child—and so a brand was born.

Today, Eveland’s son Kent oversees 45 employees who manufacture and sell 13-foot, 16-foot and 19-foot trailers.

With many of the early Scamp trailers from the 1970s and 1980s still on the road, we hitched a ride with him to see what makes Scamp so special.

The team can build eight to 10 trailers per week and sold nearly 400 in 2014—up 6 percent from the year before. “We’re only constrained by our space,” Kent Eveland said. “The demand is there.”

Customers can choose different lighting, cabinets and other fixtures, though requests for Jacuzzis and food truck equipment have to be politely turned down. “We could do the work, but we’re best at travel trailers and that’s what we want to deliver,” said Eveland.

Scamp sells factory-direct and gets orders from all over the country, with about 30-40 percent coming from Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.

50 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

On Friday the 13th, 2006, a fire swept through the Scamp plant and destroyed everything, including inventory, equipment and paperwork. But with gap financing from the Initiative Foundation and support from the city of Backus, Scamp was able to rebuild.

Thanks to the toughness of the trailers, the military was a large customer in the 1980s. In fact, when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida’s Homestead Air Force Base in 1992, all of the trailers on the base were destroyed—except the Scamps.

Efficiency sets Scamp trailers apart: Even when gas prices are high and people choose smaller vehicles, Scamp sales stay strong because the trailers are small enough to be pulled by a car.

There’s a growing interest from customers in Asia, and Scamp has sold trailers as far away as Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

Nearly all of Scamp’s 200 suppliers are from the United States, including fiberglass material that comes from a Twin Cities supplier and wood that is bought locally when possible.

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where’s IQ?

THINK YOU KNOW? Send your best guess to IQ@ifound.org

by April 15, 2015.

Three winners will be chosen, at random, to receive a $25 GiveMN.org gift card to support the charity of their choice.

HINT: At the corner of Cedar Street and Oak Avenue.

Congratulations to everyone who correctly recognized Belgrade’s spectacularly large crow in the previous edition of IQ Magazine. The 18-foot tall crow sits atop a 25-foot tall pedestal. It was built in 1988, funded partially with a grant from the Celebrate Minnesota Committee. Lisa Crayford, Arla Johnson and Joe Prodinsky were the lucky winners of GiveMN.org gift codes.

52 Initiative Foundation Quarterly ifound.org

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