The Journal, Fall 2015

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V O LU M E

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The Power of

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SPECIAL EDITION

ENERGIZING THE KANSAS

ECONOMY

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$10.00

(Print edition: ISSN 2328-4366; Online edition: ISSN 2328-4374) is published quarterly by the Kansas Leadership Center, which receives core funding from the Kansas Health Foundation.

The Kansas Leadership Center equips people with the ability to make lasting change for the common good. KLC focuses on leadership being an activity, not a role or position. Open to anyone seeking to move the needle on tough challenges in the civic arena, KLC envisions more Kansans sharing responsibility for acting together in pursuit of the common good.

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Sarah Caldwell Hancock Mark McCormick Dawn Bormann Novascone Laura Roddy Patsy Terrell Brian Whepley

Dawn Bormann Novascone CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Dawn spent 15 years working at The Kansas City Star and now works as a freelance journalist based in Lenexa. She’s a diehard sports fan of mostly crummy teams and the Kansas City Royals. She is married to Michael and has two children, Isaac and Giada.

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Jeff Tuttle PHOTOJOURNALIST

A Kansas native and Kansas State University journalism graduate, Jeff worked for 20 years as a staff photographer at The Wichita Eagle.

He is currently a freelance photojournalist and is married to Laura Tuttle, an interior designer. They have two children, Erin, a third-grade teacher in Wichita, and Zach, a student at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

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Patsy Terrell KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

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CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Patsy is devoted to stories, however they find their way to her. This has led to a career of asking questions. She has worked in radio, television and print journalism, as well as being a public relations and marketing professional. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, with degrees in journalism and telecommunication.

Contents INSPIRATION FOR THE COMMON GOOD • VOLUME 7 • ISSUE 4 • FALL 2015 PUBLISHED BY KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

2.

Welcome to the Journal BY: PRESIDENT AND CEO ED O’MALLEY

4.

Introduction BY: CHRIS GREEN

6.

Blueprint for a Future BY: BRIAN WHEPLEY

18.

Fiction: Resolution Part 2: A Pivotal Choice BY: ANNE DEWVALL ILLLUSTRATED BY: ERIN DEGROOT

24.

Escaping the Trap BY: DAWN BORMANN NOVASCONE

38.

Taking it to the Next Level BY: PATSY TERRELL

50.

Cultivating Young and Diverse Talent to Drive the Kansas Economy BY: JONATHAN LONG

52.

Homeward Bound BY: PAUL SUELLENTROP

66.

Taking the Long View BY: ANNE DEWVALL

74.

Apologia for Not Wanting Children BY: MELISSA FITE JOHNSON

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Martin and Osa Johnson FEATURED ARTIST LAUREN FITZGERALD

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The Back Page BY: MARK MCCORMICK

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LETTER FROM KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER PRESIDENT & CEO ED O’MALLEY

Actions Speak the Loudest MAKING PROGRESS REQUIRES THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS

Bad logic drives me bonkers.

Hang out in political and civic circles not happy with recent legislative activity and you’ll hear comments like: Legislators and other elected officials aren’t representing their constituents!

Elected officials are casting votes their constituents don’t want!

Such reasoning leads to rants about elected officials not honoring their constituents’ views and therefore trampling the essence of our democracy.

A legislature is representative. The views voters care most about do hold sway. Occasionally there is a rogue legislator voting in willful opposition to what her voters care most about. That rogue legislator tends to lose her next election.

Some of my friends, especially those disagreeing with much of the current activity out of our state Capitol, are most likely reading this and thinking, “Oh, Ed, you are so naïve. If only our politics worked as simply as you suggest. What an idealistic dreamer!” Folks, please control your trigger and hang with me for a few more minutes.

Friends cite poll after poll of Kansans supporting outcomes contrary to recent legislative and gubernatorial action – expanding Medicaid, increasing base school funding, raising taxes on business owners, etc. The critical question isn’t whether constituents support those things; it’s whether they support those things enough to make their voting decisions (i.e., whom to vote for and whether to vote) based on those things.

Raise your hand if you are in favor of reducing world hunger. Now keep it raised if you’ve done anything about it recently. My guess is only a few readers still have a hand held high. For everyone else, your behavior is actually the same as if you didn’t value reducing world hunger. The point is, what we say doesn’t convey what we value.

I was a legislator. I experienced how the electoral process creates a keen sense of what’s most important – the top two or three things – to a majority of voters. The fact that a majority of people favor issue X is all but irrelevant if it’s No. 17 on the list of things they care about. They are electing people based on the top two or three things they care about.

So where’s the leadership lesson in this column?

It’s threefold.

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First, leadership is often about exploring tough, rather than easy, explanations for the current reality. Easy interpretation = those legislators are horrible! Tough interpretation = voters might not care as much about issue X as we thought; those legislators might actually be representing the majority opinion of voters. Your exercise of leadership will be very different based on which interpretation you hold.

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Second, assuming good rather than bad intentions sends us down different paths, and only one tends to be productive for the exercise of leadership. In whatever debate I’m in, I’ve had a lot of success assuming the other side is morally serious and trying to do the best they can for their people.

I usually make little progress when I assume

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people have selfish or even nefarious intentions. The former leads to a break from the status quo and a chance for progress.

The latter leads to more of an us-versus-them mentality, which hasn’t been too effective for a host of issues.

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Third, scapegoating certain individuals as the reason for the problem is a classic example of work avoidance. Leadership focuses attention on the deeper, underlying dynamics of a situation. Scapegoating shuts off our creative thinking and diagnostic skills – skills we need in abundance to mobilize others to tackle daunting challenges.

More progress will be made on the tough, daunting issues if we drop the bad logic and think a bit more critically about how our representative democracy works.

You may think that by citing poll numbers you’ll be able to persuade a few more to see things your way. But really, the only person you may be painting into a corner is you.

Onward!

PRESIDENT & CEO KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

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SPECIAL EDITION

Energizing the Kansas Economy A C R O S S K A N S A S , P R O G R E S S I S B E I N G M A D E B Y W O R K I N G TO G E T H E R .

Republic County

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Kansas City

Greeley County

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Wichita

Chase County

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3.

Southeast Kansas

In this issue of The Journal, you’ll find stories of communities across the state trying to create economic growth by energizing more people to tackle the issue.

Learn more about the kind of leadership necessary to create a climate for economic growth in six Kansas stories.

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INSPIRING SHARED PURPOSE IN WICHITA 2.

RISKING LOSS FOR GAIN IN KANSAS CITY 3.

ENGAGING MORE VOICES IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS 4.

GIVING THE WORK BACK IN REPUBLIC COUNTY 5.

CONNECTING PEOPLE TOGETHER IN GREELEY COUNTY 6.

WORKING ACROSS FACTIONS IN CHASE COUNTY

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IF WE WANT OUR COMMUNITIES TO GROW, WE HAVE TO ADDRESS SHARED PROBLEMS. SO WHY DON’T WE TALK MORE OFTEN ABOUT COLLABORATION TO ENERGIZE THE ECONOMY?

T H E P O W E R OF MOR E:

Letting our Lights Shine Brighter By: CHRIS GREEN

People love to talk about their community. And when they do, they often can’t help but talk about the economy. The two go hand in hand.

unleashed an impressive torrent of statistics about Wichita and its peers.

The intersection of the economy and the community has been on my mind a lot as we’ve put together this edition of The Journal, which focuses on the role that collaboration can play in bolstering the Kansas economy.

The news he shared wasn’t easy to hear. When I was a kid growing up within the region, Wichita was a higher-earning, better-educated, more productive city than the average place in the U.S. Now, Wichita is losing ground. Something needs to change for Wichita to avoid a death spiral.

In it, you’ll find stories of communities across the state working to navigate losses, inspire a shared purpose, engage unusual voices, work across factions and give the work back to others, all elements of the leadership competencies that the Kansas Leadership Center believes are needed to make progress on civic leadership challenges.

Despite sounding the alarm, Chung also provided reasons to be hopeful. Wichita’s fate is far from sealed, and other cities, such as Oklahoma City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, have reached a point of crisis only to find the common ground required to move forward. I hope Wichita will find similar success in the years to come.

I’ve come to believe those leadership behaviors are also crucial for addressing our state’s economic challenges. Why? Because so many of the problems that inhibit our economic prosperity aren’t necessarily about the wrong incentives, policies or tax structures.

They have their roots in the civic discord that surfaces when different sectors and factions can’t work through their differences or align enough to take bold steps together on key issues.

Chung’s presentation is part of a multiyear process being spearheaded by the Wichita Community Foundation to shift the community’s direction. In just three days, Chung’s talks reached nearly 400 people directly and thousands more through media coverage. He got the community talking about a tough reality and what it will take to create a better future.

If a critical mass of people in a community can work through differences and stick to a broad vision for where they live, I am willing to bet you will see that community win in the long run. It’s a good argument for the power of more – more people caring, engaging and taking risks on behalf of their communities.

I hope that, like Wichita, more Kansans will be engaging in similarly tough but important conversations. If we want growth, we can’t leave our economic future to a handful of authorities. We need community wide discussion and action. We must reduce barriers to participation and encourage more people to let their lights shine in the darkness, with others.

The most recent example I’ve seen of the power of more in action comes from Wichita, the place where I currently live and work. This fall, I found myself sitting in the back of a theater and listening to James Chung, a Wichita native who is a Harvard- trained analyst and founder of Reach Advisors, as he

Collaboration, of course, can’t do it alone. We need individuals who are willing to take risks and drive innovation. But a healthy local civic culture nurtures an economic climate where that can happen. It incubates prosperity and creates the foundation upon which we can truly shine.

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Economy ISSUE 1.

INSPIRING SHARED PURPOSE IN WICHITA

B LU EPR I N T FOR A

FUTURE By: BRIAN WHEPLEY

An alliance uniting business and governmental interests is spearheading an effort to help the Wichita region recover from the loss of 20,000 jobs.

Lacking the resources and political support to depend on some traditional incentives, the group is looking to build through regional coordination and cooperation. But clashing values present a hurdle to getting – and keeping – everyone on the same page.

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TH E Y VA NI S H ED D URI NG THE GR E AT RECESSION AND HAVE NOT COME BACK. Twenty thousand jobs lost that left the economic landscape of the Wichita metropolitan area, a region of 650,000 people anchored by the Air Capital, a different place than it had been eight years ago. One of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, the Boeing Co., is gone. Textron Aviation, Learjet, Spirit AeroSystems and their suppliers remain, but it’s unlikely they alone can make the economy soar to its previous altitude.

Today, south-central Kansas finds itself competing with the world – not with McPherson, Hutchinson or Wellington – for business, jobs and growth.

The region’s employment and population growth lag that of other metro areas in the Midwest, and there’s a growing belief that previous approaches won’t work in the future.

The prescription for luring and keeping jobs in Wichita, Sedgwick County and the region has long relied heavily on traditional business incentives.

But these days, those carrots tend to be entangled in debates about “picking winners and losers” and the role of government in economic and community development. Plus, they seem to be losing public support.

And then there’s the fact that when competing with towns such as Sunbelt superstar Austin, Texas, south-central Kansas would lose a bidding war. So what’s a region to do?

liked working with his hands. That led him to the welding program at Wichita Area Technical College, where he’s turned his fascination with joining metal into a skill.

It also led him to take the college’s inaugural robotics course, where he’s learning to program machinery to weld and perform other automated tasks. Add in leadership and other skills that Kean gained in the Army, and he appears to be a well-rounded job candidate in an in-demand field.

“You get to a point where you can do lots of different things that pay the bills, but they aren’t something that you enjoy and that you have a passion about. I thought I might not be as young as some of the guys entering the field, but my diverse background may make me a stronger candidate than some,” Kean says.

How the Wichita region responds to the challenge will matter a lot not just to CEOs and mayors, but also to Joe Kean and people like him, people who want good jobs that allow them to feed their families, buy homes and send their children to college.

Kean’s choice of welding, especially involving robotics, could be especially advantageous, allowing him to work in the advanced-manufacturing sector. It’s just one of the economic clusters that a new regional economic plan is attempting to meld together through coordination and cooperation in the hope of providing greater opportunity for workers like Kean.

A 44-year-old retired Army infantry squad leader who did two tours in Iraq, Kean knew that he

The Blueprint for Regional Economic Growth, with its focus on “cross-cutting strategies” as

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governments spread over 10 counties; educational institutions ranging from high schools to community colleges to vocational schools to private and public four-year colleges, such as Wichita State University and its Innovation Campus; economic development groups; chambers of commerce; and quasi-public entities, such as the Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas.

well as clusters, brings together stakeholders well beyond Wichita that often have seen the big city as a competitor rather than collaborator.

Their goal is to forge movement around the common purpose of growing the region as a whole rather than just local growth.

“This isn’t a local issue – it’s not a Derby issue; it’s not a Wichita issue,” said Charlie Chandler, chairman of Intrust Bank and a co-chairman of the blueprint effort, at a July meeting in Derby while updating progress on advanced manufacturing and seven other clusters identified as having the strength or potential to grow and create good jobs.

But pursuing a common purpose doesn’t come without risks for nearly everyone involved.

The eight clusters the group has identified as growth areas should sound familiar, because some of them have been at the heart of the region’s economy for years. The clusters of advanced manufacturing, aerospace, agriculture, advanced materials, health care, logistics, oil and gas, and data services and IT emphasize the belief that if the region is going to grow out of its doldrums, it must do so largely on its own through innovation in established industries.

South-central Kansas, this line of thinking goes, is far more likely to invent its own products and companies than it is to, say, lure a Ford assembly plant. It’s an attractive place because it has a tradition of designing and building things.

That is the unifying outlook that has emerged from a growing alliance of businesses; municipal

The guiding forces behind the effort must balance more immediate “wins” – meaning more jobs and visible progress – with laying the foundation for making the region one where employers want to do business, a more nebulous goal.

The concept also asks businesses and communities to set aside suspicion and even some competitive instincts for the common good. And it’s not clear that everyone who needs to be at the table will be.

Sedgwick County is part of the team guiding the development of the Blueprint for Regional Economic Growth. But a majority of Sedgwick County commissioners also express skepticism about the effectiveness of some regional economic development efforts and point to limiting government spending, reducing government debt and holding taxes in check as the strategy that will propel the Wichita region forward into the future.

“IF YOU REALLY WANT TO SHUT DOWN ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THIS COMMUNITY, I THINK RAISING THE PROPERTY TAX IS ONE OF THE BEST TOOLS TO ACHIEVE THAT DUBIOUS GOAL.” KARL PETERJOHN

Sedgwick County Commissioner

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“If you really want to shut down economic growth and development in this community, I think raising the property tax is one of the best tools to achieve that dubious goal,” says Commissioner Karl Peterjohn.

The commission’s majority has sent a message regarding its priorities by pulling out of the Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP), an alliance of city and county governments in south-central Kansas, and reducing its allocations to economic development organizations in next year’s budget.

Other contributions – as well as funding for the zoo, community health and arts programs – were also reduced in that budget. Peterjohn joined with Chairman Richard Ranzau and Commissioner Jim Howell to support the changes. They argue the county should focus on core services and become more business friendly by lowering taxes and reducing regulations.

The two remaining county commissioners objected to the changes and say reducing support for economic development is damaging and would be noticed by developers and companies interested in coming to the region.

The county still maintains a significant presence in supporting economic development, in addition to providing funding for WSU and the area technical college, but it has signaled the desire to reduce its footprint in that area.

It’s a philosophy that Wichita voters seem to have rallied behind, having rejected initiatives twice in the past three years that would have allowed for publicly financed incentives for economic development.

But it’s raised questions about the county’s future role in economic development.

The county’s role in promoting economic development is just one of the gray areas facing economic development advocates in the region.

It’s not yet clear just how everything will shake

out, a dynamic that calls for those attempting to exercise leadership on the issue to get used to uncertainty and even conflict.

“I still cut my own grass. I can go home, I can cut my lawn, and there’s a beginning and an end, and I can see the benefit. I purposely don’t have a lawn service so I can have that experience because there are those things that take years to do,” says Jeff Fluhr, head of the new Greater Wichita Partnership, made up of economic development organizations including the Wichita Downtown Development Corp. that he has overseen since 2008.

It’s a level of uncertainty that Fluhr wants people getting aboard to be candid about.

“I’ve tried to encourage people to have flexibility, to understand that we may not have all the answers today, and that’s OK,” he says. “It truly is a living, breathing document.

It’s a blueprint, because it’s going to be shaped and molded.”

‘WE’RE NOT COMPETING ANYMORE’ Wichita State University initiated the blueprint while planning for its emerging Innovation Campus, which is intended to be a businessand research-based economic incubator. With assistance from a variety of partners, it helped spearhead a $235,000 study to provide information about the region’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, data that could help diagnose the situation facing the Wichita area.

The regional cluster approach has become common in economic development in recent years, based on the idea that such sectors build their own momentum as one or several successful companies spin off others. Wichita’s aviation industry is a highly visible example, as are such Wichita entrepreneurial stories as the restaurant groups that grew out of Pizza Hut, self-storage chains and the rent-to-own industry.

Joe Kean, a 44-year-old retired Army infantry squad leader, uses a welder at Wichita Area Technical College.

Kean enrolled in WATC in hopes of turning his fascination with joining metal into a marketable skill.

“I AM TRYING TO GET A WIDE VARIETY OF SKILL SETS TO MAKE MYSELF MORE EMPLOYABLE.” JOE KEAN

Welding student

“IF YOU’RE GOING TO WIN SOMEONE OVER BY GIVING THEM A MILLION DOLLARS CASH, THEY’RE GOING TO GO ELSEWHERE FOR A MILLION DOLLARS CASH WHEN THAT INCENTIVE IS UP.” JEFF LONGWELL Wichita Mayor

Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell says the days of south-central Kansas cities competing with each other to score jobs are over.

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Collaboration isn’t new to the aviation industry. In 1999, plane manufacturers concerned about a shortage of skilled employees and an aging workforce began to sit down to discuss the problem, says Keith Lawing, president and CEO of the Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas.

Six years later, the National Center for Aviation Training opened following investments by local and federal governments, businesses and higher education.

Still, sitting down with local competitors isn’t something that comes naturally to businesses fighting for market share and concerned about exposing trade secrets. The goal, blueprint organizers say, is to find and address common problems that could benefit from a collective approach, such as specialized job training, greater Internet bandwidth and export assistance.

“It was interesting to see the light bulbs come on as people realized that an industry totally unrelated to theirs shares common challenges that they could collaborate on to find solutions, that everyone would benefit without threatening competition,” Chandler said in July.

The key, Chandler says, is being able to gather the right stakeholders, give them the right problem to address and “there are ideas rolling out all over the place.”

“What surprised me in those meetings is, when I’d hear those ‘aha’ moments between different groups. It’s like, ‘Are you kidding me – this conversation has never taken place?’” Chandler says. “Until you get everyone together in a room and start sharing ideas, there isn’t that basis for trust.”

The effort isn’t drawing the line at including businesses and businesspeople. It also is bringing together representatives of different communities.

In April, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell organized a mayors meeting, drawing elected officials from the broader region – McPherson, El Dorado, Hutchinson and Wellington – as well as some of Wichita’s closest neighbors, such as Bel Aire, Goddard and Maize. There, he sought to send a message that the days of south-central Kansas cities competing with one another are over.

“We’re not competing with you. We want to grow with you,” Longwell says he told area officials. “If you’re successful at bringing business in, we’re successful.”

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By cheering each other on, the region’s communities can stick to a clear purpose – growth for the greater good – and avoid being divided and distracted, Chandler says. “The last thing we need to do, while we have Oklahoma City picking our pocket or Austin picking our pocket or Alabama or South Carolina picking our pocket, is to be fighting with each other.”

But it’s tough to avoid having deeply held values come into conflict when you’re dealing with such a complex challenge that involves a wide array of stakeholders. Not everyone is going to see the issue in the same way, or value the same potential solutions.

COMPETING VALUES When Peterjohn thinks about what’s needed to foster economic development, the Sedgwick County commissioner thinks taxes. Specifically property taxes.

“If we could get Sedgwick County out of the property tax business, it would give this county a huge marketing tool, a huge comparative advantage. It would make us much more competitive with a lot of other communities that we naturally compete with,” says Peterjohn, who likes the idea of financing the county budget on sales tax revenue alone.

He thinks Sedgwick County could become a model for that approach to funding government and fostering economic growth, one that the rest of the state and country might have no choice but to follow.

It’s not clear yet what level of public support Peterjohn’s ideas have. But they aptly illustrate the stark differences in the visions being put forth by the county commission’s majority, which sees taxes as the main barrier to growth, and the others in the region emphasizing collaboration.

Competing values lie at the heart of the debate.

Longwell, the Wichita mayor, argues that if the regional approach is to succeed, it will require forming “alliances and collaborations that have never happened in the past.

“And that’s why, quite honestly, it’s a little frustrating because the county doesn’t seem to want to play right now,” he says.

But skeptics of collaboration in the economy see the danger of individuals being stifled through collective action that may not be in their best interests. In their view, the best way to help the economy is to limit the size of government and protect the rights of individuals to pursue their own economic interests.

Yet some supporters of the regional effort also see the need for pragmatism. Chandler says he’s no fan of governmental regulation or taxes, either. But he questions whether there are any good examples of communities that have succeeded after taking major steps such as eliminating property taxes or significantly cutting back spending on quality of life items.

“I’m not sure they’re taking a really broad view of the future of the community,” Chandler says.

Still, there’s recognition that there’s been a discernible shift in what the public will accept as an appropriate role for government in economic development. When Wichita voters rejected a sales tax increase last year, Longwell says they were saying, in effect, “that’s not the way they want to grow jobs.”

“I have told the leadership at the chamber and everyone I can: We’re not using cash incentives anymore,” Longwell says. “If we come out with a million-dollar incentive package, Austin, Texas, will come out with $2 million. Here’s what’s even worse in my opinion: If you’re going to win someone over by giving them a million dollars cash, they’re going to go elsewhere for a million dollars cash when that incentive is up.”

ENGAGING A VARIETY OF VOICES Making progress on a tough adaptive challenge requires the engagement of individuals and groups who have varying levels of authority and interest in the issue at hand.

The chart below details several stakeholders profiled in the story that have been in Wichita’s regional economic discussions. What would be the value of having high-stake, low-authority individuals such as Joe Kean involved in Wichita’s regional economic discussions? What would be the risks?

In what ways might regional officials promote this sort involvement?

MAYOR/ CITY COUNCIL

LARGE COMPANY EXECUTIVES

LOCAL BUSINESS

AUTHORITY

COUNTY COMMISSION MAJORITY

JOE KEAN AND OTHER WORKERS

AREA ELECTED OFFICIALS

TAXPAYERS DURING ELECTIONS

TAXPAYERS

ENGAGEMENT

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Charlie Chandler, chairman of Intrust Bank, serves as the co-chairman of the Blueprint for Regional Economic Growth, which is focused on creating good jobs in Wichita by growing established industries.

But direct cash is only one of the many incentives government and economic development groups can offer companies to stay, grow or come to a community.

Among them are industrial revenue bonds, tax abatements, job training, and street and utility improvements.

The battle over other incentives is likely to continue, as they tend to run headlong into the free-market philosophy espoused by Wichita’s Charles Koch, Koch Industries and their allies, one of which was instrumental in defeating the Wichita sales tax initiative.

‘WAVE OF THE FUTURE’ The role of government in the effort is just one of the issues that Wichita’s regional economic development effort is wrestling with. Organizers say that although government has a role, the effort is intended to be business-led.

“Most of what BREG is trying to do will not involve local government,” says Brad Dillon,

a Hutchinson attorney and Reno County commissioner who serves as co-chairman of the Blueprint for Regional Economic Growth effort. “We want local government to know what’s happening. … But the main impetus behind this is to have the businesses work with each other, so that the growth happens from cooperation rather than from financial assistance from government.”

Yet getting businesses involved and having them do the work is both crucial and challenging.

“You have to put people together who are willing to share ideas, who are willing to wear their community hat, and are willing to sacrifice some of their own time and their own self-interest to get things done,” Chandler says.

At a July meeting where cluster leaders released initial recommendations and plans, most reported success in getting people from local businesses involved. But, as if to illustrate the challenges, the agriculture cluster was still being organized, and the aerospace one was not far enough along to release recommendations.

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“IT WAS INTERESTING TO SEE THE LIGHT BULBS COME ON AS PEOPLE REALIZED THAT AN INDUSTRY TOTALLY UNRELATED TO THEIRS SHARES COMMON CHALLENGES THAT THEY COULD COLLABORATE ON TO FIND SOLUTIONS.” CHARLIE CHANDLER Intrust Bank chairman

“The biggest problem we had was to try to get industry to participate,” says Ron Weddle, a manufacturing consultant and retired Cessna engineer in charge of the advanced manufacturing cluster. He also agreed to co-lead the advancedmaterials cluster after there was difficulty finding someone for the job.

Getting people to the first meeting or two is one thing. The challenge, several participants say, is proving that staying involved is worth their time. With stacks of work on their desks, bosses near and far to answer to, and often experience expending great energy on past plans that went nowhere, those involved must be able to answer – and quickly – the question, “What’s in it for me and my company?”

“I think BREG has to prove its value,” Lawing says, “because these companies are saying, ‘We’ve seen that before. That sounds like a really good idea. But we’re doing something internally right now, and I don’t have the time.’”

Keeping key stakeholders involved and engaged is crucial, because there’s increasing recognition that Wichita is falling behind other regions. If you look at the numbers, Wichita area job and economic growth lags behind the state and national averages – “0.8 percent growth. You can’t sustain your community with that,” Fluhr says.

That creates the pressure to produce results, which can sometimes conflict with the steady hand needed to nurture the success of a longterm effort. “This has to be a long-term approach,” Lawing says. “We are going to have some patience from people, but we, as the internal leadership of BREG, are going to have to be able to show we’re moving the dial, that we’re able to get things done, that there is going to be a difference.”

Making progress will be crucial if the region’s manufacturing economy is going to survive.

Weddle says companies are under intense global pressure to lower costs and raise quality, and the Wichita area will have to make better use of technology and automation to stay competitive.

“We can’t continue to build airplanes and products the way we have for years. That doesn’t say labor goes away, just that the job requirements are going to change.”

Get past the acronyms and economic development speak, and the blueprint being crafted in the Wichita region is really about ensuring great jobs for workers like Kean, the veteran who loves welding. Workers need to have an established set of skills but also be willing to learn more and adapt to a changing working environment.

Kean, for one, is ready for the Wichita area’s emerging future. He not only knows how to weld but also has taken classes in machining and has learned to program equipment to do both. He and his wife like Wichita, and they want to stay in the area after she retires from the Air Force in a couple of years. His oldest child is 17, Kean and his wife are expecting a baby in February.

“I am trying to get a wide variety of skill sets to make myself more employable,” says Kean, who expects to complete his training next year, having earned an associate’s degree. “As we move forward and technology continues to advance, having that skill with the robots and the robotic welding, if that’s the wave of the future, that’s the direction where there might be a nice stream of income.”

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FICTION: A CIVIC LEADERSHIP DILEMMA AT A NONPROFIT

Resolution PART 2:

A Pivotal Choice By: ANNE DEWVALL

Illustrations: ERIN DEGROOT

In Part 1 of the story, published in the Summer 2015 Journal, Felicity, the co-executive director of a nonprofit literacy and career-training program for female inmates called FREAD, learned that her board of directors wanted to dissolve her organization and fold it into the group’s largest corporate donor, the Mueller Co. After a tense discussion with David Bell, her co-executive director and the nonprofit’s director of operations, Felicity decided to go along with the move, which would allow the two of them to earn raises but result in layoffs among the rest of the staff.

The blinds on David’s office door clanked as Felicity turned the handle.

Outside in the low, carpeted cubicles, 20 employees huddled at their desks, round eyes watching the office as Felicity peeped out.

For the previous seven years, Felicity had started each staff meeting in the same way, by gathering everyone into a circle, where each person was equal. Today was the same. When the group assembled, she and David relayed the events of the board meeting.

“The truth is, we have a lot to lose. Some of us will lose our jobs,” she told them, her gaze inadvertently lingering on Todd as she traveled around the circle. “Change is scary. I’m scared, too. I’ve been living and breathing this organization for seven years, and now it feels like I’m killing it. But at least this way we can keep doing some of the same good work that brought all of us here in the first place.”

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A few people nodded. Others, like Todd, remained mum. If David had intended those words as a rallying cry, they failed, Felicity thought.

it was fair to wonder how a corporate program could provide the same level of service or how long it might take to overcome some of the deeper issues at play. While many of FREAD’s students, volunteers and staff members were minority women from humble backgrounds, Mueller’s image was one of white, affluent male privilege.

The ticking of the second hand on the clock grew oppressively loud as people competed with one another to remain tight-lipped, but Felicity willed herself to wait instead of filling the silence with ideas.

“I don’t know what you’re all complaining about,” said Maria, a recent college graduate.

She had chosen to take over FREAD’s office administration instead of a more lucrative position at an accounting firm.

David added: “Partnering with Mueller could give us the kind of stability we’ve always dreamed of. With their resources behind us, we could make an even bigger difference.”

Finally, Emily, one of her project managers, cleared her throat. “So we have to go with Mueller or lose our funding?”

“I’d phrase it a little differently, but essentially,” David said.

“There’s no way I’m working for Mueller,” announced Marissa, the energetic receptionist, drawing agreement from a few others.

“I got into this business to help people,” Emily emphasized. “All Mueller cares about is money.”

“They’ve been helping fund our work since the beginning,” Felicity offered.

Her effort at persuasion failed to move Patrice, the volunteer coordinator.

“No one is going to trust us if we walk in there wearing some corporate logo shirt and talking about shareholders. It took us long enough to trust the likes of you,” said the middle-aged black woman while pointedly staring at Felicity, whose fair skin had been the basis for more than one uncomfortable confrontation when she started working with adult literacy.

Thanks to years of effort, FREAD enjoyed strong relationships with the community it served. But

“A stable job and a good paycheck sound pretty good to me.

And I’ll still get to work with you guys. I’ll stay.”

Paul, the website administrator, quickly agreed.

“Me too,” he said.

Patrice rolled her eyes and some of the others shifted uncomfortably as lines were drawn.

“Sellout,” someone muttered.

Emily shuffled her feet before asking, “How do you decide who gets to stay and who gets … fired?”

“I’ll make it easier,” Patrice answered, “because I quit.”

“Me too,” another couple of voices echoed.

“Fine! Me too. Screw Mueller!” someone yelled. Voices were rising, and the circle had collapsed as Patrice marched toward the door.

Nearly a quarter of the staff had quit in just 30

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seconds, and Felicity was frozen in place, her pulse racing as she frantically tried to figure out what to do next.

“Wait!” Felicity shrieked but no one paid any attention. Emily had grabbed her purse and was halfway across the room. She was losing them.

A shrill whistle cut through the din and brought the group to a stop. David called them back and glared them into order.

“This is uncharted territory,” Felicity offered hesitantly once everyone had regrouped. “It’s OK if you feel angry about this.”

The employees who had resigned stood shoulder to shoulder, stonily silent and expertly avoiding her gaze. She searched the faces of her friends and colleagues, desperate for some sign that she was making the right choice.

own. Why don’t we talk about what that would look like?”

Despite herself, Felicity felt a flutter of hope.

She didn’t want to abandon ship or at least not quickly. The decision to be absorbed by Mueller had been made in desperation.

“What would you have us do?” she prompted.

“Well, for starters, I don’t think you’re giving us or our donors enough credit. We don’t know how they will respond to this news, and I have confidence their support will amaze you. But that’s not all,” Todd paused. “You said Mueller had identified some government contracts. Why couldn’t we pursue the same opportunities?”

“He has a point,” said David, surprising even Felicity by agreeing. He squinted as if doing a quick mental calculation. “We might even have a leg up, given our experience and nonprofit status.”

“Don’t you?”

Patrice clapped.

Felicity’s head snapped up as she heard Todd’s voice join the conversation for the first time.

“Don’t you feel angry about this?” Todd repeated quietly. “Why do we have to join Mueller or close our doors? Because it sounds like after the grand total of about an hour that you and David decided unilaterally that we have two options, and one of them is not even on the table.”

Felicity felt her cheeks flushing as her temper rose. “Do you think I take this lightly?” she retorted. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for all of you!”

“This is not your organization. It’s ours,” he said calmly, looking around the circle for the nods of support that came. His measured tone calmed Felicity enough to listen, and she found herself unconsciously nodding along. “Don’t we deserve to decide what’s best for us together?

This may sound crazy, but I don’t think we have to join Mueller. I think we can make it on our

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“This is more like it!

Talking things out.

Trying to find a way.”

“There are still problems,” Maria interjected.

“What about the board? What happens if they all resign?”

“I’m not sure,” David admitted. “That’s something we need to find out.”

“I bet we can find new board members,” Paul said.

“Maybe better ones,” Patrice muttered before correcting herself. “Different ones, anyway.

Some fresh blood.”

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When they developed their board, they modeled it after the nonprofit boards of other organizations in the area and had much the same representation of white community fixtures. A board of directors that was more representative of their community and clients might be an advantage.

David’s cellphone rang and he stepped out of the circle to answer. He caught Felicity’s eye and covered the microphone with his hand.

“That was fast. It’s someone from Mueller’s legal department calling to coach us through our dissolution. What should I tell him?”

“What about funding?” Paul asked.

“We have enough to continue for a few months at least,” David replied. “It’s still a risk. We might all end up with nothing.”

“But we might end up with something,” Todd replied.

As the conversation began to flow and ideas bounced around the room, Felicity’s excitement grew. She felt tears well in her eyes as she realized how fervently the staff believed in the organization’s mission, and how much they were willing to risk to preserve it.

Felicity faced her employees. On their faces she saw many things. Fear, excitement, hope.

“I have a few comments in mind that are less than professional,” she winked, “but you can tell him we don’t need his advice at the moment.

We’re not going anywhere.”

Discussion Guide 1. Where do you see Felicity exercising leadership in this story? What opportunities did she take advantage of? What opportunities did she miss?

2. What other characters exercised leadership in this story? What KLC leadership ideas did you see reflected in their behaviors?

3. Is this how you wanted the story to end? What would have been your ideal ending?

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ESCAPING THE TRAP By: DAWN BORMANN NOVASCONE

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DESPITE TALK OF COMPROMISE, AN ONGOING BATTLE BETWEEN KANSAS AND MISSOURI TO PULL KANSAS CITY BUSINESSES TO THEIR SIDE OF THE STATE LINE REMAINS HEATED. EVEN THOUGH BOTH SIDES MIGHT BE BETTER OFF WITH A TRUCE IN THE PROTRACTED BORDER WAR, ESCAPING A PHENOMENON CALLED THE ‘PRISONER’S DILEMMA’ IS DIFFICULT. WHAT KIND OF LEADERSHIP WILL IT TAKE TO GET BEYOND THE POWERFUL FORCES THAT DISCOURAGE COLLABORATION?

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THE

Economy ISSUE 2.

RISKING LOSSES FOR GAINS IN KANSAS CITY

Thousands of commuters pass along State Line Road every day without giving it a second thought.

They’re headed to work, church, school, to the grocery store, a Chiefs game or for a night out on the town. Little about the street, which divides Kansas City, Missouri, from its Kansas suburbs, appears noteworthy, except for the abundance of liquor stores and “cheap gas” signs that mark small differences between the states’ taxing structures.

But in the world of economic development, the dividing line is hardly symbolic. It’s become a line in the sand in a business-incentives border war between Kansas and Missouri that’s so intense it’s drawn attention from across the country.

Critics see a futile tug-of-war that shuffles around existing jobs but doesn’t bring many new ones to the region. Economists see a vicious cycle with dubious benefits to overall economic growth but acknowledge it’s a difficult one to break. Meanwhile, politicians and local business officials see the chance to secure good-paying jobs for their constituents and score high-profile victories. After all, the climate is tough for jobs. And if one side doesn’t use incentives, its competitor will.

More than four years after a group of Kansas City business icons called for a truce on the use of tax incentives to lure businesses across the state line, compromise might be on the table.

Kansas’ outgoing commerce secretary suggested over the summer that a deal between Kansas and Missouri to end business incentives for some metro area relocations could be in the works.

But compromise figures to remain difficult.

Mustering the level of collaboration necessary among governments, businesses and communities across two states, 14 counties and dozens of cities to bring the border war to a close represents a massive leadership challenge. The sacrifice of short-term gains for long-term benefits isn’t easy. Those who do so risk seeing their business or community lose out. Local officials face the difficult task of acknowledging those losses with the people whose support they depend on the most. Through leadership, individuals have to be able to successfully elevate the common good of the region above parochial interests.

Strangely enough, though, the situation in Kansas City is actually one of the best national hopes for interstate compromise. Several cities across the country have worked out agreements, but states haven’t achieved the same long-term success. Many agreements are null and void within days and weeks. The temptation is that great.

Regionalists hope to rally the region around the idea that a rising tide can lift all boats in Kansas City. If the parts making up the metro area could join forces and work together to recruit top companies, they could fix regional obstacles that keep companies away.

Bill Hall, president of the Hall Family Foundation and a prominent border war critic, says he has heard Kansas mayors argue that they don’t need Kansas City to shine. He wonders if their residents would agree. Without Kansas City, they wouldn’t have access to world-class museums, the Chiefs, the Royals and places such as the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

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“The truth of Kansas City is that one half of the city isn’t much of a city without the other half.

Missouri without Kansas or Kansas without Missouri isn’t much of a city,” Hall says.

Yet even those who are generally fans of regional cooperation acknowledge there are formidable barriers to working across jurisdictions. It’s tough to work for the common good of the region when existing structures encourage you to put the good of your own community or organization first.

Blake Schreck, president of the Lenexa Chamber of Commerce, has spent decades in economic development and has connections, even friendships, with power brokers on both sides of the state line.

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The scenario that’s used to set up the game typically goes like this: Two members of a criminal gang are arrested.

The police don’t have enough evidence to convict them on the steepest charge, but they both still face the prospect of jail time on a lesser crime.

The police lock the men in two separate rooms and offer each man the same deal: If you both stay silent, each of you is looking at one year in jail. But if you confess to the bigger crime and the other suspect stays silent, you go free and the other guy gets a 10-year jail sentence.

But if you stay silent and he confesses, you get the 10-year sentence. If you both confess, you’re looking at five years in the penitentiary.

“Municipal boundaries are real. Tax dollars don’t just naturally flow, and even if you want to pretend the state line isn’t there, it really is. We have to honor the mayors and county commissioners and elected officials in both states. We can’t just wish that state line away. It’s real,” he says. “No matter what everybody wishes, we still are two different states.”

Cooperating by staying silent seems like the sane choice at first, since both prisoners would each get just one year. But the two prisoners are in separate rooms and can’t communicate.

All they know is that regardless of what the other prisoner does, they end up better off by confessing and betraying their accomplice.

They end up being worse off if they choose to be altruistic rather than self-interested.

THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA

It’s not hard to see how this same dynamic plays out in real life. Let’s say a company approaches Missouri to ask for a lucrative tax incentive, and it’s enough to lure a business into moving. Kansas is then in a seemingly unbearable bind. “If you say we’re not going to match you, what happens?

You lose, right?” says Cynthia Rogers, a professor of economics at the University of Oklahoma.

To fully understand the scope of the challenge, you have to get beyond assigning blame to Kansas or Missouri and its politicians and start exploring tough, systemic interpretations. One of the reasons why ending the border war is a tough pill to swallow is that collaboration is hard to achieve in practice even when it might make sense in theory.

This concept is easily illustrated in the “prisoner’s dilemma,” a game learned by many students in economics class. It shows why two rational parties might not cooperate even when they could benefit from doing so. It’s been a useful tool for helping understand real-life situations ranging from the Cold War to steroid use among baseball players.

The prisoner’s dilemma is amplified in a place like Kansas City where even tiny incentives could tip the scales to one city since most everything else – air quality, water resources, highway access, labor force, construction costs and the like – is largely similar.

“So each side wants to offer a little bit, but then of course it’s just an escalation. It’s a bidding war,” Rogers says. “The story about why you want to do it is perfectly plausible – well, because it will make them move and that’s to our benefit as long as we get more value

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for them moving than we pay them to move. It’s a perfectly plausible story. And it’s a compelling story.”

The public can see a tangible change when someone builds on vacant land or a large company fills a vacant urban space.

Yet rarely do governments go back and study how effective the plan turned out. Did the city experience a net gain?

Rogers says such a determination should cover everything, including what was paid to improve utilities, roads and other infrastructure. And it also should take into account whether a company grew or if it failed.

“It’s not clear that (the use of incentives) improves the budget or the regional economy,” Rogers says.

THE START OF A WAR The origins of the escalating conflict between Kansas and Missouri lies in tax incentives being turned into increasingly more powerful weapons.

Incentives are hardly new, and companies have always jumped state lines. But everything changed in the past decade. Fueled in part by the Great Recession, several states upped the ante by allowing new businesses to pocket cash upfront from their employees’ state withholding taxes. The perk largely replaced a more traditional program that reduced companies’ income taxes. The new approach generated millions for companies eager to seize profits in lean times.

It changed everything. And it put Kansas City in a uniquely awkward position.

Missouri first introduced the Missouri Quality Jobs program, which allowed new businesses to keep 100 percent of their state withholding taxes for a certain number of years. Kansas quickly followed with its PEAK program, allowing new businesses to keep 95 percent of employee state withholding taxes for up to 10 years. Many thought the programs would help businesses grow, pull in firms from outside the region and help locales compete globally.

But closer to home, Kansas City suddenly became a battleground.

Large and small companies alike realized they could move a few miles and save money. It wasn’t a loophole. It was all perfectly legal. Relocation experts stepped up to help companies understand the perks and negotiate additional local sweeteners.

“We can no longer define economic development as engaging in self-destructive bidding wars with our neighbors who, like us, could put these funds to more productive purposes.”

SLY JAMES KANSAS CITY MISSOURI MAYOR

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A pingpong of jobs ensued, crossing one side of State Line Road to the other. Political leaders from both parties wasted no time hailing the grand success of their incentive programs and the boon of jobs.

AMC Entertainment – whose deceased former leader pushed for years for the renaissance that downtown Kansas City is experiencing – abruptly ditched downtown KC for the tony Kansas suburb of Leawood. It burned Kansas City. Then Applebee’s, which had barely settled into sparkling new offices in Lenexa, packed up and headed to Kansas City.

It was the second jump across the state line for the itinerant company, which announced plans in September to move its headquarters to California.

A national watchdog group held public forums and sounded the alarm. The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce began to speak out. Was this, many wondered, how the region should be working as it competed with the likes of Denver, Dallas, Indianapolis and, more importantly, international cities?

In critics’ eyes, the states were largely trading jobs. The jobs weren’t “new.” Some companies – dubbed lease jumpers – signed 10-year leases, allowing them more freedom to move again.

Then something happened that radically changed the debate.

‘AN ECONOMIC DISTORTION’ In 2011, a group of 17 high-profile Kansas City corporate stalwarts – including Hallmark, Sprint, UMB Financial Corp., Burns and McDonnell and Commerce Bank – sent a letter to Govs. Jay Nixon and Sam Brownback urging them to reach a truce and curb incentives that don’t lure new companies and bring new jobs to the region.

“It’s a wasteful use of limited resources. We have a certain amount of money that we can spend on economic development and rather than using it to bring new people we’re using it to shuffle existing businesses. And it’s an economic distortion,” says Hall, of the Hall Family Foundation.

“What we’re doing is allowing certain people in the market to have a competitive advantage.

And it’s also crony capitalism at its highest form.”

Hall could hardly blame the companies. Any good money manager would insist on capturing the goods. Furthermore, Hall suspects many taxpayers don’t truly realize the magnitude of the programs. He also doesn’t think employees know their withholding taxes aren’t going to schools, roads and other public infrastructure.

It’s part of the reason that civic officials in Kansas City decided to keep track. As of May, Hall says that 5,512 jobs had moved from Jackson County, Missouri, to Johnson and Wyandotte counties using the PEAK program. And 3,863 jobs had moved from Johnson and Wyandotte counties to Jackson County. Kansas alone lost $100 million in tax revenue and forgave $150 million.

Kansas is slightly ahead in the race for jobs, Hall says, but at what cost?

“Kansas has gained 1,649 jobs at a cost of $100 million and they won’t receive any revenue for seven to 10 years on the jobs they’ve forgiven. So they have paid about $60,000 a job,” he says. “Those are the numbers.”

The state disagrees, arguing that no state funds are handed out because taxes are forgiven. One of the assumptions underlying that outlook is that, without incentives, many of these jobs wouldn’t have been created in the first place, thus the state has not lost anything. Furthermore, a report published by the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit last year suggested that the state’s six major economic development programs, including PEAK, aren’t giveaways but instead yield substantial returns on investment in terms of business activity and tax revenue.

A sample of 42 projects initiated between 2006 and 2011 found that state incentives returned $29.10 to $128.70 in business activity for every $1 of investment. The study also found a positive impact on state and local tax revenue, generating $1.40 to $27.20 in revenue per $1 of investment.

The division cautioned that return on investment is just one indicator of success and that its findings came with a number of caveats. One of them is the fact that the jobs and capital investment data they used are based on company-reported information that is largely unaudited. But their

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report suggested that the incentives appeared to generate more tax revenue in Kansas than an across-the-board tax cut equal to the incentives.

BIG PROBLEM OR OVERREACTION? Even if the programs are producing net benefits, available assessments still don’t answer some of the deeper philosophical questions surrounding the border war in regard to fairness and competing priorities.

After all, these are trying times for the Kansas budget. The state has been spending more than it has brought in from revenues, and the Legislature raised taxes this year in hopes of correcting the imbalance. The $150 million that Hall estimates the state has forgiven wouldn’t fix the state’s budget woes.

But he says it wouldn’t hurt, either. He wonders why Kansans outside of Johnson and Wyandotte counties aren’t more upset. “If I’m sitting in Wichita or Pratt or Salina, all I’m doing is subsidizing Johnson County. Because it’s state money that is being poured into Johnson and Wyandotte County,” Hall says.

Some see Kansas City as ground zero for tax incentives gone wrong. Good Jobs First, a national policy-resource center based in Washington, D.C., that promotes corporate and government accountability in economic development, has spent considerable time dissecting the border war.

What some call “job retention incentives,” Good Jobs First calls “job blackmail,” “subsidized job piracy” and even “interstate job fraud.”

The organization blasts what it believes is a high-stakes shell game that leaves lasting consequences for state economies.

“Relocations are just nothing. They’re just pocket lint,” he says. “It’s start-ups and expansions that are always nearly all of the job action.

Governors and mayors should completely tune out relocations. It’s a fool’s errand to chase jobs in other places. All the action is in expansions and start-ups, and that’s just the empirical truth.” However, Schreck, the Lenexa Chamber of Commerce president, says the losses aren’t quite as dramatic as the headlines make it seem.

“It has a dramatic appeal like everybody wakes up every morning and tries to see what they can do to get the other state. And of course that’s not the case,” he says. “It’s kind of silly.”

Schreck, for one, doesn’t hold grudges, even when his city lost Applebee’s and FreightQuote – a business with significant growth potential.

The new Applebee’s building didn’t sit empty for long, he says. The Environmental Protection Agency moved its regional office to the site.

When FreightQuote left for Kansas City, it too left premium office space behind that was quickly filled by Grantham University.

A SUSTAINABLE TRUCE Despite the challenges of the prisoner’s dilemma, there have been recent signs that both sides are willing to talk about de-escalating the border war.

Some believe the talks started coming about the same time that a study showed Kansas City wasn’t rebounding from the recession as well as other cities. Critics pointed to the programs, saying they were hurting the city’s ability to grow local companies, build up start-ups and compete better in the international market.

“It is the Mount Everest underlying issue about wasteful spending on economic development,” says Greg LeRoy, executive director at Good Jobs First.

For its part, the Missouri General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a truce in 2014 to prohibit tax incentives for companies jumping the state line. There was a catch: Kansas had to make the same promise before anything kicked in. Missouri officials gave Kansas a two-year deadline.

It’s bad policy, according to LeRoy, because it diverts money from helping companies expand or start up. And that, he says, is undoubtedly where all the job action is to be found.

Kansas is also working to hammer out an agreement with its Border Challenge Committee.

It involves state lawmakers, suburban mayors and economic development officials.

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KEY PLAYERS IN THE BORDER SHUFFLE Who is going where, for what?

AMC:

KCMO

LEAWOOD

One of the first major blows in the border war came in 2011 when AMC Entertainment moved its headquarters from downtown KCMO to a $30 million building in tony Leawood.

AMC founder Stan Durwood was one of the biggest promoters of downtown revitalization and long dreamed of the modern-day Power and Light District. Years after his death, the company moved to the suburbs and was eventually sold to a Chinese company.

APPLEBEE’S: OVERAND PARK

ATLANTA LENEXA

KANSAS CITY KCMO

CALIFORNIA

The most opportunistic? The company moved from Atlanta to Kansas City and then Overland Park before building an impressive building in Lenexa in 2007. The honeymoon didn’t last. Applebee’s split for KCMO in 2011 and was rewarded with about $12.5 million from Missouri and Kansas City tax incentives. Just as the incentives were set to expire, Applebee’s announced in September that it would move again – to California. Some administrative jobs will remain. The company employed about 390 people when it was in Lenexa, but the latest reports indicate employment had withered to about 200.

FREIGHTQUOTE

LENEXA

KCMO

Freightquote improved its bottom line by at least $31.7 million just by moving 1,225 jobs from Lenexa to Kansas City in 2012. Losing the powerful freight broker was a loss, to be sure. But Lenexa flipped the building quickly when Grantham University – a New Orleans transplant displaced by Hurricane Katrina – left Kansas City to fill the Freightquote space.

CBIZ & MAYER HOFFMAN MCCANN

LEAWOOD

KCMO

The firms left their Leawood address in May for the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. At the time, Missouri officials told The Kansas City Star that CBIZ, a firm that helps companies manage financial and business services, could receive as much as $25.4 million in incentives from Missouri Works while Mayer Hoffman McCann, an accounting firm, could receive up to $660,787. CBIZ officials told The Star that the move to the 13-story Plaza building made sense in part because the Plaza is a walkable community with several nearby amenities for employees.

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Schreck, who serves on the group, says that differences remain. But the two sides have made real progress by breaking down the issue into several pieces and focusing first on what they can agree upon.

For starters, lease jumpers shouldn’t be rewarded, he says. Neither side wants to incentivize businesses that move a few miles without creating net new jobs. “They are pretty much indefensible, and I think we agree on both sides of the state line in our committees that that has to be addressed, and we’re going to address that,” he says.

That might be where a good share of the agreement ends. The states appear divided when it comes to a company like the Dairy Farmers of America, which is leaving its Missouri-side home to build a $30 million headquarters in Wyandotte County. Schreck sees that as someone putting skin in the game by building, which also spurs lucrative construction jobs.

“Companies come and go. The buildings stay, and the buildings are on the tax rolls,” he says.

Missouri doesn’t have the same philosophy.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James had this to say in a written statement about the Dairy Farmers departure: “We can no longer define economic development as engaging in self-destructive bidding wars with our neighbors who, like us, could put these funds to more productive purposes.”

Net new jobs, no matter where they land, are good for the entire region, Hall says. If Cerner, a powerhouse in the health-care informationtechnology sector, adds thousands of jobs – as it has – to the region, then it inevitably lifts the entire region because more people move in, buy homes and contribute to the regional economy.

That, in turn, directly benefits the coffers of Kansas and Missouri.

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greatly by complex revenue and taxing structures in more than 100 governing structures within the metro area. He understands why it might frustrate the public that a deal can’t be reached immediately but “working out all those kinds of details is not simple.”

It’s been a long road, Schreck and Langenkamp agree, but at least the two sides are talking and working together like never before.

“I’ve got my fingers crossed that we can come up with something that makes some sense,” Schreck says. “The region is really on a hot streak.”

GETTING PAST ‘TIT FOR TAT’ Hall uses the metaphor of a “nuclear arms race” to describe the border war. “The subsidies just keep getting bigger and bigger. And we don’t get anything new for it.”

Applebee’s might prove to be the ultimate example of a fleeting victory. The company, which moved from Atlanta to Kansas City to Overland Park to Lenexa and then back to Kansas City, dropped yet another bomb in September. After exhausting millions of tax incentives, Applebee’s parent company, DineEquity, announced that it was moving its executive positions to California.

Some administrative functions will remain.

“Obviously this Applebee’s history is sort of exhibit Z about what’s wrong with the war among the states,” says LeRoy of Good Jobs First.

“Let’s use our funds wisely to grow,” Hall says.

“It doesn’t make any difference to us if people grow on the Kansas side or the Missouri side.”

It’s hard to see what winning means in this situation because victory looks very different depending on your vantage point. Is it a vibrant regional Kansas City economy? Does it mean Jackson County plays Big Brother while the suburbs know their place? Does it mean Johnson County is an untouchable economic engine that takes care of its own first and the regional economy second? Getting to a shared goal that all sides can live with is going to require significant work across factions.

In Missouri, Bob Langenkamp, CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Kansas City, Missouri, is one of the counterparts to Schreck.

He says progress on the issue is complicated

Many, including Schreck, think that winning means equalizing the playing field. No truce can be reached until cities on the Kansas side have similar tools, including local incentives

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that would generally give Missouri a favorable edge were it not for the Kansas’ state incentives.

There are so many layers of complex programs, tools and incentives that different cities, counties and states have in their arsenal that it makes creating an even playing field incredibly demanding.

Ideally, Kansas City’s Langenkamp wants to see an agreement that puts all players in a position where they are viewed as supportive of economic growth. Perception is everything in business, especially to outsiders.

Economists have another view of winning, too.

Some think winning happens when you attend first to what’s called public goods: infrastructure, high-achieving public schools and universities, a skilled workforce and amenities that lead to a better quality of life.

Instead of reaching out to a lot of companies, government invests in a public good that should help all companies. Of course, the creation of public goods comes with its own set of challenges, namely getting users to pay for them, the potential for waste and inefficiency, and differences of opinion over what the good should be.

The problem with playing economic development in Kansas and Missouri like it’s the prisoner’s dilemma is that it’s relatively easy to predict what your opponent will do in a single round.

It makes sense to avoid cooperation to maximize the payoff for yourself in a one-off game. But if you play over and over again with no end in sight and retaliation always lingering as a possible reaction, then your strategy has to change.

In the late 1970s, Robert Axelrod, now a political science professor at the University of Michigan, conducted a computer tournament in which various strategies for the prisoner’s dilemma would compete over 200 rounds to see which approach would succeed. As detailed in the public radio program Radiolab, the winner was a strategy called “tit for tat.” The approach was simple: Be nice first. Then mimic the actions of one’s competitor.

If the opponent cooperates, then tit for tat begets cooperation. If the opponent plays hardball, the response is hardball. But graciousness is built into the strategy. The retaliation lasts only one round. If the opponent becomes friendlier, it is rewarded in kind.

Despite the strategy’s success, tit for tat has one Achilles’ heel. A battle with a particularly aggressive opponent will result in an all-out war with no hope of cooperation. One simple adjustment – changing the code so that a more forgiving tit for tat declines to retaliate about 10 percent of the time – lessens the chance of descending into a death spiral.

The lesson is clear. In the short term, getting the edge can win a round. But over the long term, it is cooperation that wins the game.

Ending Kansas City’s battle over tax incentives will require more people in the region to make a similar calculation in real life.

Journal managing editor Chris Green contributed to this story.

Discussion Guide 1. How would you diagnose the situation facing the Kansas City region when it comes to the border war?

What are the key factions?

2. What tough interpretations could you make about what’s going on in this story?

What systemic forces are at play? What values conflicts do you see playing out?

3. What does it mean to work for the common good? Is it enough to work for the common good of your community or organization, or do you have to draw the circle wider?

Blake Schreck, president of the Lenexa Chamber of Commerce, stands on the road dividing the Kansas and Missouri state lines.

Schreck supports the idea of regional collaboration but says that state boundaries can’t simply be wished away.

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“We have to honor the mayors and county commissioners and elected officials in both states. We can’t just wish the state line away.

NO MATTER WHAT EVERYBODY WISHES, WE ARE STILL TWO DIFFERENT STATES.” BLAKE SCHRECK PRESIDENT, LENEXA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

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HOW TO BREAK OUT OF JAIL: Escaping the Prisoner’s Dilemma

By:

CHRIS GREEN

The prisoner’s dilemma, the classic example of game theory described in the story, is an apt metaphor for situations in civic life that seemingly pit people against each other. Compromise is discouraged because if you’re altruistic and the other person isn’t, you end up suffering the most. So both parties wind up pursuing selfish interests over cooperation to avoid the worst possible outcome for themselves.

In real life, though, you have one advantage that the captives in the prisoner’s game don’t: communication.

The prisoners are locked in separate rooms and have no way to speak with each other or to know each other’s intentions. The rules of the game assume that they haven’t worked together in the past, so there’s no loyalty influencing their decisions.

In a civic leadership challenge, you can talk to other parties, get to understand their perspectives and assess their intentions. You can even persuade them to accept, or at the very least better see, the merits of a different position by intervening skillfully.

Anatol Rapoport, a legendary social psychologist and game theorist, crafted an approach decades ago for being persuasive that squares nicely with the leadership principles and competencies of the Kansas Leadership Center. Interestingly enough, Rapoport is also the originator of the tit-for-tat strategy that won the prisoner’s game computer tournament in the 1970s.

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1.

You should attempt to re-express the other person’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that the person says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”

2.

You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

3.

You should mention anything you have learned from the other person.

4.

Only then are you permitted to attempt persuasion.

Source: Adapted from brainpickings.org, https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/

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THE

Economy ISSUE 3.

ENGAGING MORE VOICES IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS

TAKING

IT TO THE

NEXT

LEVEL By: PATSY TERRELL

Since 2011, Project 17 has been plowing common ground across a 17-county region in southeast Kansas. But to accomplish its goal of invigorating the economy, the organization’s network must grow to reach beyond the usual suspects.

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I T A L L S TA RT E D W I T H J U S T 1 5 P E O P L E . Over the past four years, that Project 17

core group has blossomed into a volunteer base of about 1,700 participants thanks to tireless efforts, media exposure, word of mouth and leadership training sessions offered to participants by the Kansas Leadership Center. T H E

GOAL IS ANYTHING

BU T M O D E S T: R E V I TA L I Z E A 1 7- C OU N TY A R E A O F S OU T H E A S T K A N S A S .

B

ut in the mind of Heather Morgan, Project 17’s hardcharging executive director, the growth of the network must be only the beginning.

To accomplish its mission, Project 17 will need to engage more and more people to help create a vibrant regional economy. Increasingly, those individuals won’t be the usual suspects, but unusual voices who might not even fully see right now what they have to contribute to the region’s economic development and quality of life.

In hopes of broadening the group’s reach, Morgan speaks to about 1,000 people each quarter to get the message out about what Project 17 is doing. As she travels the region, she sees an effort that’s increasingly in need of reinforcements as it continues to gain traction.

“Busy people and committed people are doing everything in these communities. We need other people to step up,” Morgan says.

Not only does Project 17 need some new blood, but it also needs help from more people beyond the professional class that has propelled the initiative in its early years. But building bridges across not only county and city boundaries, but also classes is challenging. “We are bringing

people from different cultures together,” Morgan says. “There are some inherent struggles in making sure we all understand each other and are respectful.”

Manual labor is deeply ingrained within the fabric of southeast Kansas, which was once a hub for mining coal, lead, zinc and extracting natural gas.

While the region maintains an impressive industrial base, the decline of the natural resources economy by the middle of the 20th century left multiple generations of families in poverty.

Sometimes the process of bringing people together from different walks of life has been downright uncomfortable. “One of the challenges has been that not every volunteer understands what it’s like to work in a professional environment and not every volunteer understands what it’s like to talk with someone who’s in crisis,” Morgan says.

Even language can present a barrier. “Bringing professional folks together with people who are a little rough around the edges, that is a challenge unto itself,” Morgan says. “We have to make sure the people who aren’t the traditional group don’t get crowded out … but also make sure they understand the cultural norms of the group.”

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E

‘REACHING OUT’

conomic development efforts

are usually born in boardrooms

filled with decision makers armed

with the best of intentions but

not necessarily a big-picture

viewpoint. Project 17 took a different approach, with a series of public meetings where anyone could bring up any issue. Not everyone who attended knew the language of economic development, but they knew the effects of a lack of it.

Themes began to emerge, and it is those items Project 17 has focused on. Its role is to facilitate not define projects. Almost everything the group is working on deals with adaptive change, which never comes easily or fast. It requires people who are immersed in the communities and who understand the issues to make progress.

Morgan often functions as more of a connector than a director. She sees her job as “plowing common ground” and lets communities tell her what they want to focus on. “I’ll just say, ‘I’m not working on something you all don’t have energy to work on. You don’t want to work on this issue, that’s fine. We’ll work on something else,’” she says.

Because she is out in the communities, she often learns about projects that might benefit others. “We’ve tried to connect things that were independently operating, maybe in a silo,” Morgan says. “We’ve tried to leverage and link that … to create greater strengths. Only when something is not happening in that area do we create something.”

She makes it a point to encourage towns to talk to their neighbors, tasking them to ask, “Are you reaching out, or is the edge of town

41

a cliff?” Although the counties share geography and share some problems, they have distinct personalities.

Sometimes people need things that aren’t even on the radar screen. For example, early on it became apparent there was a great need for broadband access. Ten of 17 counties didn’t have it. One large business was paying $1,200 a month for a T1 line – a prohibitive cost for most small businesses. Small businesses couldn’t sell online, crippling some whose products lent themselves to that. It also meant residents couldn’t telecommute, limiting their options.

The Kansas Fiber Network was created as a result of doing some planning around the issue, much of which was facilitated by Project 17.

Pittsburg now has three providers, but it’s not cost effective to run fiber between houses in rural areas. It’s very risky for businesses to make the investment. It has required a shift in thinking for rural companies to see that sometimes the best proposition is to go with the reliable provider, not necessarily the value provider.

Multigenerational poverty is another challenge many communities in the region have in common, whether it’s Pittsburg, the largest city with 20,000 people, or considerably smaller cities.

In fact, deeply entrenched poverty affects all the areas that Project 17 is working on.

Project 17 tackles poverty as an economicdevelopment issue, not a moral one. Morgan says that framing is important because it makes the issue nonpolitical and helps residents see it as something that can be addressed.

“WE ARE BRINGING PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT CULTURES TOGETHER. THERE ARE SOME INHERENT STRUGGLES IN MAKING SURE WE ALL UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER AND ARE RESPECTFUL.” HEATHER MORGAN Executive director, Project 17

Heather Morgan, executive director of Project 17, looks on during a leadership training session in Yates Center.

Morgan sees her job as “plowing common ground” and lets communities tell her what they want to focus on.

Discussion Guide 1. How would you characterize the leadership challenge emerging in this story? What elements appear to be adaptive?

2. Who are the usual voices that get involved in economic development efforts like this?

What unusual voices could be engaged?

3. How effective is your community or organization at engaging unusual voices?

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I

‘A LONG ROW TO HOE’

n hopes of turning the tide on

poverty and connecting people

across class lines, Project 17

is partnering with the Circles

USA program. The nationally

known initiative is designed to lift people out of poverty through connection and commitment. The participants, “leaders” in Circles terminology, team up with volunteers, known as “allies.” The process begins with 12 weeks of classes for the leaders. After that, the allies provide networking, guidance and open ears. Six Circles programs currently operate in the region, an expansion that wouldn’t have happened without Project 17. An economy of scale helped it start multiple programs.

The work can be difficult, for both the leader and ally. “It’s a long row to hoe, but I think it’s the only way to make real changes,” says Tim Fairchild, an ally in Chanute.

In his work as a banker and as the mayor of Chanute, Fairchild says he usually knows what to say, but the Circles program has left him at a loss sometimes. At one point, the leaders interviewed the allies. “It was really a challenge for me,” he said. “I had to leave the room. I was aware of my lack of gratitude.” He said it was the first time he had realized “I’ve never had an unmet need. Not ever. Never.”

Jan Strecker Hedges is the coordinator/coach of Circles in Fort Scott. She says that developing close relationships with people trying to work their way out of poverty can be an eye-opening experience for allies who see the world through their own middle- or high-income lens.

“It’s very easy for me to say, ‘You should change.’ But then I look at my own life, and I realize how hard that is to do,” Hedges says.

“We are quick to judge. If poverty is the only thing you’ve ever known, you have to learn there’s another way. You don’t know what you don’t know.”

The level of poverty that exists in southeast Kansas is an economic issue not only for the poor, but also for businesses. At Project 17’s

first public meetings, employers repeatedly said they had jobs but couldn’t find successful candidates for them. As a result, Project 17 developed an employability program that is being piloted in Ottawa.

All but one of the counties in the region, Miami, exceeds the state’s average poverty rate of about 14 percent. Furthermore, southeast Kansas has some of the state’s highest childhood poverty rates, with more than one in five children living in poverty with the exceptions of Miami County (12.6 percent) and Franklin County (19.5 percent).

A

‘HELPING WORKERS BECOME EMPLOYABLE’

growing body of research

suggests that poverty-related

stress can affect brain

development in children

and inhibit the development

of skills such as resilience and self-discipline. Jim Porter, a former superintendent of schools in Fredonia who now serves on the Kansas State Board of Education, is working on the project to help adults develop these “soft skills.”

“It doesn’t matter how qualified an employee is if they don’t have employability or soft skills – showing up for work, pass the drug test, work with peers, be a critical thinker, be a problem solver – they’re all necessary,” he says.

Porter says people know they can’t keep a job, but they don’t know why. “For those of us that have a work ethic, it seems like it should be obvious. But it is not obvious for a lot of people, and we need to not blame them for that.”

He says a big challenge is getting employers to give a second chance to people who’ve worked for them before and not been successful. Porter believes the necessary skills can be taught.

“I think education is the answer to all these problems,” he says. “You’re going to have to develop these skills in life to be successful no matter what you do.” But it is never easy to make a cultural change, no matter how necessary.

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The interactions among people of different classes build empathy and understanding and bridge disconnection, but they also serve to push everyone outside their comfort zones. The barriers to financial, emotional and social stability for many people tend to be significant enough that there usually aren’t easy answers or quick fixes.

“It’s hard, and it’s awkward,” says Fairchild, the Chanute Circles ally, “but I can’t figure out any other way that’s going to provide an opportunity for people to change other than this small group work.”

The ability to do intense small-group work, as well as other programs with Project 17, requires volunteers, and they often tend to be in short supply. That’s because it takes a commitment to the effort that goes beyond just good intentions.

“When you’re running things with volunteers, sometimes people say, ‘I want to help with poverty in my community,’” Morgan says. “But

“IT’S HARD, AND IT’S AWKWARD, BUT I CAN’T FIGURE OUT ANY OTHER WAY THAT’S GOING TO PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE TO CHANGE OTHER THAN THIS SMALL GROUP WORK.” TIM FAIRCHILD Mayor, Chanute

Tim Fairchild, Chanute mayor and a banker, says bridging class differences through efforts like the Circles program is difficult but necessary to alleviate poverty in southeast Kansas.

45

when it comes to showing up for the meeting on Thursday night at 5:30 or when it comes to sitting down with someone who is interested in becoming a welder and helping them learn what to do, or mentoring someone – it’s one thing to say it’s a great idea, it’s another thing to do it. That’s one of the challenges. We’ve all got to think it’s a good idea. Then we all have to be willing to do the hard work to make it happen.”

HOW TO CONNECT WITH PROJECT 17

Project 17 is engaged in different projects in each of the counties. Residents determine which projects they are interested in pursuing in their communities. To see what is happening in your area and to get involved, contact Heather Morgan at hmorgan@twsproject17.org. Volunteers come from all walks of life. No experience is necessary, just a willingness to be involved and make a difference by donating your time and talent.

34 THE JOURNAL 36

“THAT’S ONE OF THE CHALLENGES. WE’VE ALL GOT TO THINK IT’S A GOOD IDEA.THEN WE ALL HAVE TO BE WILLING TO DO THE HARD WORK TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.” HEATHER MORGAN Executive director, Project 17

Bill Maness, a district representative for U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, talks with Wayne and Peg Smith of Humboldt during a Project 17 leadership workshop in Yates Center.

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35

EXERCISING LEADERSHIP often requires us to bring usual and unusual voices into a conversation. But it can be difficult to do. Here’s what we can learn from the experience of Project 17’s efforts to build a volunteer base to improve the economy and quality of life in its 17-county region.

By:

CHRIS GREEN

1.

GET CLEAR ABOUT THE BARRIERS AND DISCUSS THEM.

Connecting people from different classes can be difficult. Good people can come into a situation with very different backgrounds and experiences.

Barriers aren’t insurmountable, but we need to acknowledge them and discuss those differences and how to work through them.

2.

CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR DIFFERENT GROUPS TO CONNECT AND LEARN FROM ONE ANOTHER.

Programs like Circles aren’t simply about helping those in poverty become self-sufficient. It’s also about helping people in the middle class connect to those in poverty and learn from them. Learning to engage effectively with all kinds of people, not just the ones who are like you, is an important aspect of leadership.

3.

BROADEN YOUR PURPOSE.

What you specifically want may not always be what moves other people. If you want people to rally around a cause, it has to be one they believe in, too.

Project 17 places a higher priority on “plowing common ground” and letting communities focus on what they care about than on accomplishing a specific objective.

4.

LET PEOPLE KNOW THEIR VOICE IS NEEDED AND POWERFUL, THEN PROVE IT TO THEM.

If you want people to step up, as Project 17 does, you may often have to make the ask and explain why it’s crucial they join the conversation. Once they do, you will need to listen and give them a chance to help shape things going forward.

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MOBILIZING AROUND HOPE: From Fab Labs to Video Contests By:

PATSY TERRELL

P

roject 17 looks at things that

might not traditionally considered

part of economic development.

One of those is the Fab Lab

at Independence Community

College, which provides access to advanced manufacturing and digital fabrication tools such as a 3-D printer and a laser engraver.

The machines would be prohibitively expensive for individuals and even some businesses to own.

There are hundreds of MIT-chartered Fab Labs worldwide. Because of Project 17’s involvement, another one will be opening in Chanute.

Independence lab manager Tim Haynes says, “It’s a very exciting opportunity for community development, entrepreneurship and providing access to cutting-edge technology to a part of the country that doesn’t usually see that.”

Businesses are encouraged to use the lab in the hope that inventions will spawn more businesses.

“It’s something that can be a source of community pride,” Haynes says. “It’s something that can be a great source of innovation and inspiration.“

One person using the lab to start a business is Andrew Roberts. He did some training with the Kansas Leadership Center and discovered the Fab Lab as a result. “Fab Lab is a great example of technology changing the way we think about solutions to economic development,” he says.

“Places like the Fab Lab allow the local economy to encourage itself to grow.”

That is really Project 17 in a nutshell – finding ways for local people to address issues they’ve identified. The effort involves working on multiple fronts, including some less obvious ones. For example, Project 17 sponsored a video contest with the idea that the young people who made videos would gain a different sense of the quality of life in the region.

“They are all really tied in to each other,” says Heather Morgan, Project 17’s executive director.

“In order to move the needle and make the progress that we want to see in the region, we know there aren’t any easy fixes. These are not technical problems. They are adaptive problems. Through working on these initiatives together at the same time, we think we can make progress faster. We’re mobilizing not just one community but a region around innovation, economic development and hope.”

OPPOSITE PAGE TOP: Jim Correll, director of the Fab Lab at Independence Community College, works on a “Cyborg Beast” hand manufactured at the lab. The prosthetic was developed by Creighton University professor Jorge Zuniga, artist Ivan Owen and designer Peter Binkley. The Fab Lab at Independence Community College provides access to advanced manufacturing and digital fabrication tools such as a 3-D printer and a laser gravers, machines that would prohibitively expensive for individuals and even some businesses to own. BOTTOM LEFT: Tyler Stoldt, student activities director at Independent Community College, uses an engraver to make plates for doors at the Fab Lab. BOTTOM RIGHT: Pearlene Barker of Independence uses the Fab Lab to make a

temporary plate to mark her sister’s grave.

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GROWING OUR OWN

Jonathan Long serves as the president of Wichita Urban Professionals (ICT-UP), an auxiliary of the Urban League of Kansas.

In Wichita, where I live, leaders are grappling with how to reignite the area’s economy.

Regionalism, entrepreneurship and the recruitment of young talent dominate – if not drive – local discussions. While a focus on these ideas is smart, another even more perceptive solution continues to be overlooked: diversity and inclusion.

Beyond compliance, checkboxes and quotas, consider the following business case for diversity and inclusion as a primary business objective: Companies that compete globally already leverage strategies to capture a diverse clientele, or they structure operations to generate increased productivity with a diverse workforce. Not only are these companies learning how to maneuver in multicultural markets to increase their productivity and bottom line, they’re also benefiting from the innovation that can be spurred by diversity and inclusion. As an example, in 2011 Forbes surveyed 321 global enterprises with at least $500 million in annual revenue. Of those surveyed, 85 percent agreed that diversity is crucial to cultivating an atmosphere of innovation in the

workplace. Innovation – introducing new ideas, workflows, products, services and processes – is a key in today’s competitive marketplace. We have great examples locally in Koch Industries, Spirit AeroSystems and Westar Energy, which all have made dynamic strides in focusing on how diversity and inclusion can help drive their core business values.

Unfortunately, there is still a lot of work to be done in the business community as a whole in terms of diversity and inclusion. For the past two years, I’ve been spearheading Wichita Urban Professionals, which aims to develop a network of rising leaders. We have three key focus areas: community development, professional/personal

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By: JONATHAN LONG

development and economic development. Our efforts have generated enthusiasm and created a buzz in the community, but there have been occasions where the opportunity to elevate diversity and inclusion as core community values still gets missed. It is vital that we avoid these types of misses because the metro markets around us, such as Oklahoma City, tend also to be ones that are making conscious, visible and strategic efforts to recruit, develop and recognize minority business talent.

cultivates the growth and scaling of such firms.

Roughly 8 percent of businesses are minorityowned, even though Hispanics and nonwhites account for 23 percent of the state’s population.

However, according to a Kauffman Foundation report summarizing recent U.S. Census Bureau findings from its survey of business owners, women of color are more likely to own businesses than women overall, and business ownership by women of color is increasing at a higher rate than that of their male counterparts.

Making inclusion a staple in all facets of community growth, especially economic development, could bring with it additional benefits to Wichita and other Kansas communities.

Having a strong handle on demographic shifts can assist from a consumer angle, as well.

The act of exporting also has been tossed around as an innovation that further acts as a key differentiator for companies of any size that are looking to generate staying power in this competitive market.

In July 2014, Jeremy Hill, the director of the Wichita State University Center for Economic Development and Business Research, and several other business leaders produced a 10-county export market assessment report. That report concluded that to improve economic performance, there would need to be more efforts to promote exporting and to support current exporters.

Helping more diverse entrepreneurs export is a strategy worth noting, especially considering, as The Journal has reported previously, that minority firms are more likely to export goods than nonminority-owned companies, even more so if the firm has $1 million or more in sales.

For more firms to adopt exporting as a growth strategy, we need a business environment that

Consider that African Americans are the secondlargest minority market in the country with an estimated buying power reaching $1.1 trillion by the end of 2015. Likewise, the purchasing power of the Hispanic market – the nation’s largest and fastest growing population – has grown 155 percent since 2000. For comparison purposes, non-Hispanic buying power grew just 71 percent in that same time period.

These are only a few examples in a growing narrative of the power play that can be made by economic developers willing to include diversity and inclusion among their strategies. Kansas has a great opportunity to rebuild its economic base by strategically capitalizing on the same demographics that are causing the racial/ethnic shifts in our state.

Changing the economic landscape using diversity and inclusion to impact our entrepreneurial and business ecosystems can be done.

The question is: Are we perceptive enough to see this strategy – and the economic benefits it would provide us – and put it into play?

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“I like the idea of helping farmers and blue-collar workers, the people that drive America.”

LANDON WOLTERS

H OMEWA RD

B OUND By:

PAUL SUELLENTROP

Landon Wolters runs the Belleville Chiropractic Center in Republic County.

A program funded by the state and county for repaying student loans helped draw Wolters to Belleville.

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YOUNG PROFESSIONALS WITH AN AFFINITY FOR RURAL LIFE HAVE BECOME A SECRET WEAPON IN AN EMERGING MOVEMENT TO REINVIGORATE SMALL TOWNS IN PLACES SUCH AS REPUBLIC COUNTY. BUT CREATING AN ATTRACTIVE CLIMATE FOR THOSE IN THEIR 20S, 30S AND 40S TO BE RURAL BY CHOICE REQUIRES THOUGHTFUL LEADERSHIP FROM MULTIPLE GENERATIONS.

THE

Economy ISSUE 4.

GIVING THE WORK BACK IN REPUBLIC COUNTY

54 THE JOURNAL

After they watch them grow up, decorate their lockers, hang the senior banners and hand out hugs, comes the Big Reminder.

“When they graduate, we’re saying ‘Hey, don’t forget about coming back home after college,’” says Vonda Cooper of Belleville.

“‘We need you here. The community needs you.’”

In Republic County, perched on Kansas’ border with Nebraska, the notable thing is that some of those kids listened.

Dan Douglas is one. The owner of two hardware stores, Douglas grew up in Belleville, Republic County’s largest town and county seat, and played tackle for the 1995 Class 3A football champions. He moved his family to his hometown from Overland Park in 2010 and three years later began planning to buy two hardware stores, helped by Republic County’s revolving loan fund.

He’s not motivated to succeed just as a business owner. He also cares deeply about the community he again calls home. “I want to see our community grow,” Douglas says.

“This wasn’t just an investment in our business.

It was an investment in our community.”

And it’s not just Douglas. A number of others have also returned to this farming county, fed by the Republican River and marked by the gentle, rolling topography of the Smoky Hills.

It also tends to be Kansas State University territory, where many businesses boast a Wildcats football pennant or a picture of football coach Bill Snyder.

There’s also Landon Wolters, who grew up a couple of counties away in Portis, who started his chiropractic practice in June on the town square in Belleville with the help of a Rural Opportunity Zone scholarship, an initiative spearheaded by Gov. Sam Brownback and

funded by the state and county that helps pay off Wolters’ student loans to the tune of $3,000 a year.

“I liked the idea of being close to home and being in a small community,” Wolters says. “I like the idea of helping farmers and blue-collar workers, the people that drive America.”

In Courtland, 17 miles west of Belleville, more than 20 people have moved back to the area in recent years after completing their college degrees, giving a boost to the local school district and helping the local economy in a town of just 270-some people. The list of returnees includes Tami Wiezorek, a 1999 graduate of Pike Valley High who moved back to Courtland with her husband, Mitch, and in 2013 purchased a business that became M&T Appliance & Electric.

“There were some kids that can’t wait to leave,” she says. “I couldn’t wait to move back. And my sister said, ‘I’m never coming back,’ and now she’s living here, too.”

Those returning in their 20s, 30s and 40s are often lured back by family and friends, five-block commutes, walks home from school, and a chance to lead and volunteer. Places with good schools and quality health care are attractive, and community leaders say recreation and arts are crucial factors. Programs that help

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pay student loans or buy an existing business provide a helpful starting point.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that young people are moving in droves to rural communities.

Most rural areas continue to experience population declines. Republic County, for instance, is home to nearly 1,000 fewer people today than in 2000. But there is movement, with success often coming in dribs and drabs.

In Republic County USD 109, one of two public school districts in the county, Superintendent Michael Couch expects enrollment to return to the 2007 levels of about 510 students in K-12.

He expects to add classrooms to each grade, and a bond issue is in the discussion stages to provide room.

Across the state, a handful of western Kansas counties, such as Greeley County, which abuts the Colorado state line, have even seen population growth since the 2010 U.S. Census, providing hope for stemming decades-long trends.

The story of rural Kansas fading into disrepair like an old Stuckey’s alongside the interstate doesn’t appear inevitable when there are young people moving back. “It is a beacon to communities who want to rebuild for the future, who want to stabilize their populations, who want to preserve their schools,” says Patty Clark, state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “There isn’t any one template you can plop down in any community. It is a way of doing things.”

‘WHEN THE MAGIC HAPPENS’ That way of doing things doesn’t just come by happenstance, though. It takes leadership from those in authority and the broader population, as well as the young professionals themselves, to give a community its beacons. Communities have to commit to the belief that they can be an attractive place to live for younger people and act on it.

“This wasn’t just an investment in our business.

It was an investment in our community.”

DAN DOUGLAS

Hardware store owner Dan Douglas, one of the young professionals who’s moved to Republic County within the past five years, cares deeply about the success of his community, as well as his business.

44 THE JOURNAL Tami Wiezorek, a 1999 graduate of Pike Valley High School, who moved back to Courtland with her husband, Mitch, enjoys living where she grew up. She and her husband purchased a business that became M&T Appliance & Electric in 2013.

“There were some kids that can’t wait to leave. I couldn’t wait to move back. And my sister said, ‘I’m never coming back,’ and now she’s living here, too.”

TAMI WIEZOREK

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“There is no reason for this college Residents have toto defyhave antiquated small-town stereotypes and be willing to welcome the new to dissolve in ideas that young people bring. Those in authority haveorder to provideto younger addresidents with the chance to shape the direction of the community.

For bachelor’s their part, younger residents have to be willing to speak up and lead without burning programs. ” themselves out in the process.

FLORIS JEAN HAMPTON Nurturing a quality of life that preserves the elements of a small town while giving younger residents a viable alternate to big-city living is crucial. Community members must understand the values and needs of generations other than their own and demonstrate the ability to work across those factions. It’s tough work, but the benefits can be reciprocal.

Marci Penner, executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, visited towns across Kansas to research “The Kansas Guidebook,” published in 2005. Her travels taught her that communities that gave young people influence seemed to prosper.

“It didn’t really matter so much the size of the town, but that dynamic stood out as a factor,” Penner says. “The extremely important factor is that we help the older folks see that involving young people doesn’t mean asking them to come do what you’ve always done in the way you’ve always done it. It really means finding out what the young person needs to be fulfilled in this town and what their ideas are.”

Penner’s experiences led to the PowerUp movement, a group founded in 2010 that acts as a young-professionals organization might in a big city. It was designed to reinforce the idea that people ages 21-39 could energize small-town Kansas and connect them with their peers in similar communities. PowerUps work to counteract the assumption that young people have to move away from rural areas to succeed.

They’ve adopted “Rural by Choice” as their slogan.

The PowerUps started in 2009 with a meeting of five women in Reading, a Lyon County town

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near Emporia. It quickly grew, and Penner now counts PowerUps across the state. Twenty-two people attended one of the most recent meetings.

Even with additional support from their peers around state, young people can find it challenging to feel like they truly belong in their communities.

Change, in some towns, comes slowly. In addition, young people can be overburdened with civic and charitable duties. A millennial used to life in a college town or a city will find a different lifestyle in rural Kansas.

“I just want to tell them to keep pushing forward, keep being themselves,” Penner says. “They might be invited to an event meeting, and there’s no openness to doing an event differently.

Sometimes they run up against business owners who just refuse to take debit cards. Some young people just don’t carry cash or checks.”

The key to success, Penner says, is when different generations in a community can inspire each to work together toward a common purpose.

“When you get a great group together of young people and older people in the same town on the same page and everybody is listening to each other, that’s really when the magic happens.”

PERMISSION TO BE RURAL BY CHOICE Some places, such as Courtland, seem to be finding success by doing just that. Last spring, Penner visited JenRus Freelance, a marketing firm, when graduating seniors from Pike Valley High School, wearing their caps and gowns, stopped by on a tour to thank local businesses for their support.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Luke Mahin, a 2005 graduate of Pike Valley High, was wearing a cap and gown himself. Now he works for JenRus as an account executive, mainly in economic development for Republic County.

He cares about keeping businesses, fending off empty buildings and increasing population and enrollment as a native son.

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When he shows off the Belleville High Banks Speedway or the swimming pool in Courtland or talks about the availability of groceries in Republic County, Mahin does it with the knowledge that those items are important to quality of life. When Mahin scouts for businesses or promotes the area, he packages Belleville, Courtland, Scandia and other towns as Republic County, which helps present a stronger case than the towns could individually.

It helps that collaboration has produced some tangible results. For instance, the county support for the Rural Opportunity Zone program, which offers new residents tax breaks or helps them repay student loans, has drawn higher-wage earners into the county. The average salary in Republic County, he says, is around $21,000.

The average salary of people using the ROZ loans is $30,000.

“Those are exactly the kind of people we want,” he says. “We’re giving people permission to be proud of being rural by choice. Once you give people permission to brag or be proud of themselves, it gets that attitude to change.”

“We’re giving people permission to be proud of being rural by choice.”

LUKE MAHIN

Luke Mahin, a native son of Republic County, works for JenRus Freelance, a marketing firm, and his duties include promoting economic development in the county.

Part of that changing attitude is thinking a step or two ahead of what once was typical and learning how to make strategic investments.

Empty buildings, for instance, are a plague on a small town; once a storefront is vacant it is hard to find a new tenant. Succession plans that match new owners with a person ready for retirement can keep a building vibrant and retain those services for a town. Marketing a town’s need for services and the availability of land and resources can attract new businesses and new families.

It also requires communities to be efficient and invest in themselves. Starting in January, Republic County will fund a full-time economic development position, up from 30 contract hours a week (after starting at 20). Three years ago, Belleville combined Belleville Main Street and the Greater Belleville Chamber of Commerce into one entity, a nod to the responsible use of funds.

But setting aside resources to foster growth isn’t always easy. Programs such as the ROZ loans, in which the county matches state funding,

CONNECTING PEOPLE TOGETHER, ONE PITCH AT A TIME. By:

PAUL SUELLENTROP

CALL IT ‘SOFTBALL DIPLOMACY’ AT WORK IN GREELEY COUNTY.

This western Kansas county is the state’s least populated, with 1,247 people according to the 2010 census. Estimates put the 2014 population at 1,301.

Similar to Republic County, small progress is cause for optimism along the KansasColorado state line.

“Our population was dwindling pretty rapidly (in 2004),” says Christy Hopkins, community development director for Greeley County. Residents “were starting to lose hope.”

Hopkins says the population has grown about 3.3 percent since 2010. Enrollment in the school district has also grown.

The county has focused on quality of life projects, such as using tax credits for the

community-owned Star Theater in Tribune to upgrade the projection system to digital.

Tribune has also rejuvenated its downtown with flowers, awnings and facades. A unified city-county government helped with budgets and efficiency.

“The work we have done has a lot to do with the differences young people have made,” Hopkins says.

Greeley County hired a full-time recreation director 10 years ago and sees the results in increased enrollments in athletic leagues for all ages, yoga classes and dance classes.

“If I’m out playing softball in the field and I see someone at third base when we round the bases, I’m much more likely to talk to them the next time I see them,” Hopkins says.

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“The extremely important factor is that we help the older folks see that involving young people doesn’t mean asking them to come do what you’ve always done in the way you’ve always done it. It really means finding out what the young person needs to be fulfilled in this town and what their ideas are.”

MARCI PENNER

A pair of runners trots alongside the highway leading into Courtland, a town of nearly 300 in Republic County.

Collaboration has produced tangible results through an incentives program that has drawn higher-wage earners to Republic County.

Discussion Guide 1. What leadership work needs to be done in Republic County?

2. What makes giving the work back to others difficult in this situation? How might longtime residents give the work back to younger counterparts who have moved back to Republic County?

3. What makes giving the work back to others difficult in your community or organization?

What could you try to give the work back more effectively?

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weren’t wildly popular in the beginning.

There’s always a risk in trying something new, and having something fail can only add to the discouragement small towns face.

“The ROZ program has been great for us,” says Republic County Commissioner Linda Holl, who was elected in 2001. “We’re finding more people every year. It’s a great incentive for them to come home. I honestly didn’t feel that way when the ROZ program first came out.”

A GROWTH MINDSET For young people living the rural life in places such as Republic County, challenges remain.

Social life is different – spent with family and a few friends instead of the eclectic shops, bars and restaurants in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District or Wichita’s Old Town.

But younger residents can play a key role in creating their own social opportunities. Wolters, the Belleville chiropractor, golfs in the Tuesday men’s league at the Belleville Country Club.

On Thursdays, people play pickup basketball at the gym in Courtland. A group of amateur brewers meets to discuss and sample beers.

“You learn to live with those kind of differences,” says Douglas, the hardware store owner. “This is a more laid-back approach to life. I’m pretty much a homebody.”

Some quality of life issues loom larger, and communities must work vigorously to address them if they want to be attractive places for younger residents.

Affordable housing is the most persistent issue for Mahin and the communities trying to attract new families. The environment for new development can be challenging in rural areas, leaving few quality homes and apartments available to prospective residents. In Belleville, the remodeling of the former middle school into apartments and the building of new townhomes are one attempt to provide shelter.

“It’s true everywhere in rural Kansas,” Clark said. “It is the No. 1 conundrum: finding housing that is both affordable and habitable. If a teacher

moves to town, is there a house for rent or purchase that is both affordable and habitable?”

Broadband Internet access is a must. Community leaders also are on constant alert to provide entertainment opportunities for young adults and children. At Belleville’s community-owned Blair Theater, tickets are $5 and discounted to $3 on Thursday and $2 on Tuesday.

But it’s attitude more than any one amenity that is at the heart of making a small community an attractive place to younger residents. Residents themselves must strongly believe in their town’s capacity to grow and address its challenges if they want others to call it home.

Along with her friends, Cooper, a 38-year employee of Leonard’s Appliance and Coles’ Appliance Center in downtown Belleville, provides some of that enthusiasm. She and her friends decorate lockers at the Republic County High School before games, plays and concerts. They hang senior banners in school colors of red, white and blue on the fence surrounding the football stadium.

Members of the Buffalo Actors Guild get a tote bag on the final night of the school play.

After games, they wait to hug each athlete.Years later, they say, the athletes remember the people who paid attention to them in high school.

“I can tell you there’s nothing smellier than a football boy that comes off the field and gives you a hug,” Cooper says.

“They come off the volleyball court, and, boy, they smell like roses,” says Sandy Cole, co-owner of Coles’ Appliance Center.

Along the way, they make sure the high school graduates know they are welcome to return.

That’s a big change from the story that a lot of rural Kansas towns have been telling young people for years. And challenging that narrative by testing a new one makes a difference.

“For so long, people were discouraging kids.

‘There’s nothing here for you’ kept ringing in people’s ears,” Clark says. “They began to believe it. Now they’re telling the next generation to keep us in mind, remember that you’re always welcome back.”

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LAWS OF ATTRACTION What kind of leadership does it take to make your town a magnet for younger residents? Here’s what we can learn from the success of communities in Republic County.

1.

CHALLENGE THE ESTABLISHED STORY.

For a long time, a lot of people in rural communities have assumed that young people couldn’t succeed unless they moved away. But new clusters of well-educated young professionals are upending that conclusion by returning home for the very small-town amenities they grew up with. By treating conventional wisdom as a story that can be challenged and tested, YPs and local residents in Republic County who believe in their community’s potential create opportunities for growth and for young people to be rural by choice.

2.

IF YOU WANT TO ATTRACT YOUNG PEOPLE, YOU HAVE TO GIVE THE WORK BACK TO THEM.

Marci Penner, executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, has found that small towns that gave young people influence seem to prosper. If you want your community to be an attractive place for younger residents, then you have to let those residents help shape the community in ways that meet their needs.

3.

THE MAGIC HAPPENS WHEN MULTIPLE GENERATIONS WORK ACROSS FACTIONS TO GET ON THE SAME PAGE.

You know you are winning when groups with different viewpoints can listen to one another, understand their differences and still work on common goals, as they have been in Republic County. If you can get past traditional dividing lines – generational conflict, natives and newcomers, town rivalries – you can find the glue that binds you together.

4.

GAINS DON’T COME WITHOUT ASSUMING SOME RISK.

Republic County’s use of the Rural Opportunity Zone program wasn’t all that popular at first. County residents were wary about their tax dollars being put up to help fund student loan repayment. But over time, the risk has paid off as the incentive has helped draw in younger, higher-earning residents.

5.

ATTITUDE MATTERS.

If you want your community to grow, you have to firmly believe in that possibility and hold to that purpose, even in the face of uncertainty and setbacks. Republic County has yet to reverse its declining population, but residents such as Vonda Cooper of Belleville spread enthusiasm about the county’s communities. And it’s hard to change anything unless you have hope.

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TA K I N G THE LONG VIEW By: ANNE DEWVALL

Agriculture remains the backbone of the Chase County economy. But with the beautiful Flint Hills drawing visitors, tourism is providing a needed economic shot in the arm. In a place where change often comes at a measured pace, residents are trying to work across factions to create the right blend between the county’s traditional ranching culture and its newfound identity as a tourist destination.

Mary Wilson of Wichita plays with her friend Allison Cody’s son, Michael, at the Symphony of the Flint Hills in Chase County earlier this year.

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Economy ISSUE 6.

WORKING ACROSS FACTIONS IN CHASE COUNTY

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A crisp new awning brightens the antique storefront of the Salty Cow Mercantile, a Western lifestyle retailer situated in Cottonwood Falls’ brick-lined downtown.

A young couple has taken over the historic space, which once housed the venerable Jim Bell & Sons, and put a modern twist on things.

Across the street, the former Emma Chase Café sports new signage as well, heralding a much-anticipated restaurant, Keller Feed & Wine Co. It’s just a one-block area in the county seat of Chase County, a scenic Flint Hills county of 2,700 people. But it’s an apt vantage point to see the sprouting of a tourism industry amid what’s long been a practical, mud-on-your-boots ranching landscape.

If you ask many residents of Chase County, things are beginning to change here – for the better. It’s coming in bits and pieces.

They’ve pulled together to develop several new businesses, and tourism is beginning to feel like a more natural fit.

“Agriculture will always be the backbone of our economy but tourism has a bright future in Chase County,” says Cottonwood Falls Mayor Boyce Baumgardner, citing a spate of new lodgings, galleries, retail stores and restaurants.

“The economic impact of these investments has been a welcome shot in the arm.”

Only a few years ago, many of the historic buildings lining Cottonwood Falls’ downtown were vacant. Visitors came to appreciate the laid-back lifestyle and the natural beauty of the Flint Hills but had difficulty finding other things to do. Iconic destinations, such as the historic Cottonwood Falls Courthouse, were as much a monument to the past as a current attraction.

But the county still faces plenty of challenges in rallying around a more unified vision for its future, economic and otherwise. An overwhelming vote against a school bond issue this year and the recent struggles of two high-profile local businesses in Strong City suggest that progress will continue to come at an ebb-and-flow pace.

Like many small communities, Chase County faces the challenges of sustaining local schools, adding jobs, developing affordable housing and dealing with an aging – and declining – population.

Finding ways to thrive without sacrificing cherished values is a daunting task, and the small-business boomlet in the Flint Hills raises questions about Chase County’s identity.

For those residents exercising leadership to try to move their county and its economy forward, the ability to work across factions and start where people are is crucial. This isn’t a place where upsetting the apple cart gets you very far. By taking a measured pace to pursuing change, Chase County is working to stitch the “old” and “new” Chase County together into the same quilt.

OPPOSITE PAGE TOP TO BOTTOM: Cowboys perform at the Symphony in the Flint Hills in Chase County; Dr. Brad Thedinger of Kansas City and wife Roys chat at the River Suite event over the Cottonwood River in June; The route for the 2015 Bike Across Kansas event went through Chase County along Kansas Highway 177.

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A NEW IDENTITY? For generations, Chase County was ranching land. It’s a place where human residents are in the minority; cattle outnumber people. But people from outside the county are starting to pay more attention. “There is a newfound interest in the Flint Hills for tourists,” says Lynn Smith, executive director of Pioneer Bluffs in Matfield Green.

Smith is one of many transplants drawn to the area’s peaceful beauty. “There is a wonderful, eclectic mix of new residents and those who have been here for generations,” all united by an appreciation for the beauty of the land, says Smith.

The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, established in 1996 as the nation’s only national park dedicated to the tallgrass prairie, helped catalyze Chase County’s identity as a retreat in the Flint Hills and marked an important step toward forging a shared county identity that transcends old community boundaries.

This countywide identity helped fuel support for the Chase County Chamber of Commerce to embark on a strategic branding campaign two years ago, but in many ways, the chamber’s members were stepping into uncharted territory.

But even as Chase County is writing a new chapter, it’s still worth noting the long history behind bringing visitors to the Flint Hills. Getting a park established in the region took decades of work and debate. The value of keeping local control over the land came into conflict with the value of preserving and opening it to the public. Where advocates saw tourism opportunities and the chance to protect a vanishing ecosystem, many local ranchers feared losing chunks of land to the federal government and having their livelihoods and ways of life threatened as a result.

A compromise led to a public-private partnership that opened up a historic ranch and trails to the public but kept the land in private hands (currently the nonprofit Nature Conservancy) and open to its traditional uses for ranching.

Some 20 years later, a burgeoning art scene, a crop of new businesses and abundant natural beauty are drawing visitors from around the world. The chamber, including then-director Suzan Barnes, owner of the Grand Central Hotel in Cottonwood Falls, decided it needed to take an active role in economic development and get the word out about all the county had to offer.

Over a series of meetings with Guts Branding in Kansas City and Emporia-based IM Design, the group came to a realization. There was no longer any denying that the historic ranching community had become a tourist destination.

They found that, “people come here for rest and relaxation,” Barnes says.

Kay Lauer, Chase County Chamber of Commerce president and a former business owner, says progress has been possible because the chamber volunteers have embraced vulnerability, a risky move considering the planned work will be contingent on ongoing support. “We’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants on this; we hope we can get funding (to continue),” she admits.

The idea that tourism is here to stay is gaining momentum. Lauer thinks the outside perspective definitely helped get buy-in. This shift in perspective helped residents and businesses see themselves in a new light – the way those outside the county saw them.

Jennifer Laird, a Flint Hills convert who hails from Phoenix, has been hired to fill the chamber’s new position of economic development and tourism director to keep the momentum going.

During the six years Laird has lived in Chase County, she has seen tourist events such as the popular Symphony in the Flint Hills evolve and wants to help local businesses make the most of this traffic. “People share a vision,” Laird says. “No one wants to see our community shrivel up and blow away in the wind.” The chamber is betting that tourism is the way to help Chase County thrive.

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“People share a vision; no one wants to see our community shrivel up and blow away in the wind.”

JENNIFER LAIRD

Although not every storefront is filled in the three primary towns of Cottonwood Falls, Matfield Green and Strong City, visitors no longer have to search for activities. As Chase County has transformed its identity as a destination, tourists have flocked to events such as the early summer symphony, the Dirty Kanza bicycle race, River Suite and others. Some of these events grew out of a desire to capitalize on interest in the county. Others, like the longstanding Friday night musicians’ gatherings in Cottonwood Falls, are a community tradition.

TODAY’S CHASE COUNTY Chase County’s heritage celebrates fiercely independent spirits, but a series of smaller collaborative projects has built trust that residents can work together to get things done.

Baumgardner, who served on the Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors during the rebranding process, is credited with getting longtime rivals Cottonwood Falls and Strong City to work together on civic projects such as a water treatment plant and a trash service.

“There are several other examples of our interdependence on each other: law enforcement, fire protection and the soon-to-be-completed public wholesale water district,” Baumgardner explains, emphasizing that shared amenities, such as the Cottonwood Falls swimming pool, benefit the entire county.

A big part of what is working between the cities, says Lauer, is vulnerability. “People are putting themselves on the line, saying, ‘Let’s try this.’”

The changes to the county’s identity extend beyond branding it as a destination. Several longstanding businesses have changed hands and struck out in new directions. Some new businesses have arrived. In a county with only 2,700 people, such growth is significant.

Some entrepreneurs have found a way to blend the old and new. When Sam Lilley and her husband, Josh, opened the Salty Cow in December 2015, they did so in a space that had housed one of Cottonwood Falls’ most revered businesses, Jim Bell & Sons, a Western-wear lifestyle retailer. They made a lot of changes: The old stuffed buffalo and coin-operated horse are gone, and they added tack and ropes, animal health products, and an expanded selection of affordable Western wear for men and women.

People drive from Manhattan, Ellsworth, Wichita, Kansas City, and even farther to visit the Salty Cow, says Josh Lilley. Josh is a farrier, and it’s important to the Lilleys to create a welcoming atmosphere for the locals while remaining a draw for tourists. “We want ranchers to feel they can walk in with their muddy boots on,” he says.

Across the street, another longstanding business has undergone a transformation. The former Emma Chase Café was host to the popular Friday night jam sessions that brought musicians from all around to play and chat in the street.

After 16 years in Cottonwood Falls, the owner, Sue Smith, decided to close. In the café’s place, Janice Keller-Williams, a Cottonwood Falls native, and her husband, Bryan Williams decided to open Keller Feed & Wine. After months of renovations, the restaurant opened in late spring

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2015, specializing in creative interpretations of diner food using local ingredients.

Williams’ passion is a garden he is tending to provide the restaurant’s produce. One day, he hopes to be able to provide local produce to other area restaurants, food pantries and even the school.

It may be a different twist on an old concept, but Cottonwood Falls has a diner again, although it’s only open on weekends, partly to cater to the tourist trade. Even the Friday night jam sessions have continued, but now they are organized by a third party. The main complaint Williams hears from residents isn’t about the changes. It’s that the restaurant isn’t open enough.

AN ANAMOLY? Not all businesses have been successful at bridging the old and new. When Mike and Holly Pereillo purchased Strong City Grocery almost two years ago, they knew the business was running at a loss, but they thought that because a grocery store is an essential business in a small community that they could make it profitable with careful management. The couple was dismayed to discover many locals shopped outside the community.

Mike wonders if some of the lack of support stemmed from the fact that they are not from Chase County. The couple is originally from Oregon and lives in Florence, just beyond the county line.

The Pereillos are disappointed that most of their best customers were the tourists who came for the weekend. They are concerned that residents don’t perceive supporting local businesses, especially something as basic as a grocery store, as a community imperative.

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“I think it’s fantastic (Chase County) wants to grow their county, but they need to decide if they should focus strictly on tourism or grow the foundation,” Holly says. “Tourism is temporary.

We need to be open seven days a week.”

One of Chase County’s most talked-about businesses is the Strong City restaurant Ad Astra, which was co-owned by Amanda Hague and Gwen Shirkey. The culinary hotspot has drawn crowds from Emporia, Wichita and Kansas City since it opened.

Ad Astra was designed as a weekend-only business and carefully sited near major highways, drawing approximately 70 percent of its mostly repeat customers from out of town. The success of the Grand Central Hotel encouraged Hague.

The restaurant drew praise for its inventive, locally sourced cuisine, and its success has been an anomaly in the county, according to Hague, who credits growing tourism for the difference between Ad Astra and other area businesses.

“We have seen 20 percent growth every year we’ve been open, and this year we are on track for 40 percent growth. But there are businesses in the county that are struggling to stay open.”

Like many others, Hague and her husband returned to Chase County in part to raise their children there, feeling a connection to the place where Hague’s family has lived and worked on the same ranch since 1856.

Both businesses made announcements late this summer that they would be closing, for diametrically opposed reasons. The Pereillos said their grocery could not stay afloat for much longer. Ad Astra’s shocking announcement, made on the business’s Facebook page, indicated the owners couldn’t handle the growth.

“I believe it will happen somewhere in the state.

I just think the idea is too good to die on the vine. I still hope or wish oradream it couldthebe in Then came second announcement following month that Ad Astra would reopen Dodge City.” under mostly new ownership (Shirkey would remain involved) by Thanksgiving.

DR. MERRILL CONANT,

Dodge City Community College OPPOSITE PAGE TOP TO BOTTOM: Tourism is providing a welcome economic boost in Chase County through such events as ofAcross Trustees the River Suite in Cottonwood Falls, which features dinner and music; John Taylor of St. Louis takes a break fromBoard his Bike Kansas ride in Chase County to visit the school house on the Tallgrass National Prairie Preserve; Singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett performs at the Symphony in the Flint Hills in June.

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The turns of events do prompt intriguing questions: Does a business have to be tourist-oriented to survive in today’s Chase County? If that’s the case, how will that affect residents’ quality of life? Is the Strong City Grocery an anomaly, or are there deeper issues about how Chase County residents do – and don’t – shop locally?

THE RIGHT BLEND Although most residents and business owners talk about the welcoming spirit of Chase County, some of those who can’t boast a lineage in the area privately express feelings that even after five, 10, 20 years of living in Chase County, it still will be many more years before they can truly be considered a member of the community.

Chase County residents have been experimenting with building trust and allowing for vulnerability, but a strong independent streak can clash with the necessary compromises that cooperation demands at times.

The idea of government involvement or regulation strikes fear into many hearts. Some, like Barnes, think if Chase County had more guidelines, such as zoning rules, it would encourage business growth. But in this county, “people don’t want anyone telling them what to do with their land or their business.”

That fear may help explain a recent school bond vote that was shot down, leaving the county in dire need of updated school facilities but demonstrating there’s little appetite to pay for a solution. The tax increase contained in the bond proposal would have raised property taxes,

but many local business owners expressed fears that the lack of local patronage made higher taxes unaffordable.

Although the county is making tentative steps toward a different future, finding a way for tradition and tourism to work in harmony is a work in progress. But it’s an important one, since Chase County residents increasingly have a foot in both camps.

“The ag economy is strong but volatile,” says Gwen Hoy, owner of Flying W Ranch. “Our biggest opportunity is the preservation of the ranching culture and place-appreciative tourism.”

Lynn Smith feels the “new” Chase County is already blending the best of both worlds. “Artists, scholars, musicians and cowboys can be found throughout the county, and often one person will fill more than one of those roles,” says Smith.

“There is a positive, synergistic energy.”

Charlie Pilgrim and his wife bought the Pilgrim Ranch Retreat near Cottonwood Falls in 1989.

He has embraced the ranching tradition and loves sharing it with visitors. The tourist trade may be his bread and butter, but his fears (drought, storms and government regulations) and dreams (a strong agricultural economy) are tied to the land he loves.

“It’s the Flint Hills that make Chase County what it is,” says Bryan Williams.

But it will be up to the people who live and work there who will determine how Chase County will protect and profit from the legacy of the beautiful land where they live.

Discussion Guide 1. What factions do you see represented in this story about tourism in Chase County?

How would you characterize their values, loyalties, and potential gains and losses?

2. What would it look like to “start where they are” in this situation?

3. What is the pace of change in your community or organization? To what extent do you discuss important, difficult issues? What would it look like to start where others are?

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WORKING ACROSS FACTIONS IN CHASE COUNTY Some families have lived here for generations. Others, often captivated by the beauty of the Flint Hills, have moved to the county recently to live or start a business. It’s only natural for someone with deep ranching roots to have a different perspective from a tourist-oriented business owner. But it’s also possible to connect with those who see the world differently.

HERE ARE SOME WAYS TO DO IT.

1.

EMBRACE VULNERABILITY.

You can’t engage with others and protect yourself at the same time. By letting your guard down, you show that you believe that progress is worth a risk.

2.

IMAGINE HOW THE OTHER SIDE SEES THINGS.

It took outside eyes to help residents see Chase County’s tourism potential. If you can let go of your own views temporarily, you can end up seeing a situation in a new light.

3.

GET CLEAR ABOUT VALUE DIFFERENCES.

Fierce independence is a deeply held value in Chase County that sometimes clashes with the desire to cooperate. If you can understand how your views represent a widely held value – and that the other side has widely held values of its own – you can depersonalize the conflict.

4.

TEST THE LIMITS OF YOUR VALUES.

Understand how your values may be limiting you. If you value liberty, explore the possibility that you can cooperate without losing your freedom. If you value progress, consider whether progress might look different from what you initially imagined. Strong values, like strong structures, can tolerate being bent without breaking apart. It’s inflexible things that shatter.

5.

FOCUS ON A COMMON PURPOSE.

Sure you see things differently, but you may have a shared goal. In Chase County, the desire to improve the economy gives longtime residents and newcomers a shared objective to zero in on.

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FEATURED POET

Apologia for Not Wanting Children By: MELISSA FITE JOHNSON

I come home from work, collapse my bags on the table, find you standing over a boiling pot.

You give a low whistle as Jarrod Dyson steals third on the radio, then purse your lips for a kiss.

The dog gallops in, a few beats later than he used to. We wince as he scatterpaws over hardwood.

He shuffles, not limps, away. You exhale.

I place my wedding ring in the dish where it clinks against yours, fill the sink. Outside, the chickens dance the mashed potato, dig their clawed feet in dirt. I twist the dishwand inside a coffee mug.

When Alex Gordon hits a home run, we rush into the living room to watch the replay on the muted TV. Nothing is missing.

No baby cries from a blanket spread on the floor as if for a picnic of bottled breast milk and dry Cheerios.

No chubby arms reach for me.

No hands open and close like lips desperate for words.

But nothing is missing. You have my full attention. I have yours. (first published in Seattle Review)

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Melissa Fite Johnson, a high school English teacher, received her master’s degree in English literature from Pittsburg State University. Her poetry has appeared in several publications, including I-70 Review, The Little Balkans Review, The New Verse News, velvet-tail, Inscape magazine, Cave Region Review, The Invisible Bear, HomeWords: A Project of the Kansas Poet Laureate, Kansas Time + Place, Broadsided Press: 2014 Haiku Year in Review, “Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems” and “To the Stars through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices.” In 2015, Little Balkans Press published her first book of poetry, “While the Kettle’s On,” which recently won the Nelson Poetry Book Award. Melissa and her husband, Marc, live in Pittsburg with their dog and several chickens. You can learn more about her at melissafitejohnson.com.

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FEATURED ARTIST

Martin and Osa Johnson By: LAUREN FITZGERALD

I don’t set out to make a statement with my artwork. There are a lot of artists out there who want to tackle and call attention to some serious issues with their art, and I’m just not one of them. To put it simply, I make what I like and what I like is, more often than not, rooted in popular culture. Usually, I tend to create a series of works surrounding a certain theme. My first solo show, for example, was a series of 14 portraits depicting famous musicians. It’s really difficult for me to make just one stand-alone piece.

My medium of choice is cut paper. What I mean by cut paper is I use several layers of paper, each one cut by hand with an X-Acto knife one layer at a time, to create an image.

Much like a painter who builds up layers of paint, I build up layers of paper. Although to me, paper is much more challenging because it is such a fickle and persnickety medium.

Paper will stretch, buckle, fade or curl up, leaving me on more than one occasion very frustrated. Even though I work relatively small, one piece can take weeks to complete.

I usually paint on or otherwise alter the surface of the paper before I start carving out the layers. I enjoy creating texture and different tones and seeing how that can impact the end result of a work. I depict a wide range of subjects but I most often return to portraits. I find faces with their ever-changing features and expressions fascinating.

What influences my artwork the most is popular culture. The Pop Art movement of the late 1950s and ’60s, especially the artwork of Andy Warhol, has really had a major impact on my personal style. Other artists who have influenced my work include Chuck Close, Georgia O’Keeffe and Saul Bass.

Lauren Fitzgerald lives and works in Wichita, where she was born and raised. Her series of portraits featuring 15 Kansas leaders from history, including adventurers and documentary filmmakers Martin and Osa Johnson (pictured), was installed at the Kansas Leadership Center & Kansas Health Foundation Conference Center in October 2013.

Fitzgerald works predominantly in the medium of cut paper but has recently expanded into mixed media with small sculptural works. She graduated with honors from Friends University with a bachelor’s degree in art. Her time at present is consumed with private commissions as well as with a series of small sculptures for an upcoming solo show, slated to open next year.

WWW.LAURENFITZGERALDART.COM

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80 THE JOURNAL THE BACK PAGE

Constructing a ‘Caring Economy’ By: MARK MCCORMICK

About five years ago, I shared with members of a college graduating class my hope that they’d help dismantle the current predatory economy and usher in a “caring economy,” a title I’d lifted from Joshua Cooper Ramo’s book “The Age of the Unthinkable.”

“Conformity to old ideas is lethal; it is rebellion that is going to change the planet,” Ramo wrote.

This economy – a kind of misery and prosperity index – offers us much to rage against, and people from vastly different walks of life are doing just that.

Mark Holden, a Koch Industries lawyer, told a Wichita Pachyderm Club crowd recently that our justice system discriminates against the poor and may eventually bankrupt us.

I agree. As a board member of the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, I believe the discriminatory criminal justice system means the death penalty system has a faulty pipeline.

Lawyer and criminal justice reform advocate Bryan Stevenson has said that we know this yet remain unthinkably tolerant. In his bestseller, “Just Mercy,” he relates a story from a mentor who told him, “Capital punishment means ‘them without the capital get the punishment.’”

Atlantic magazine national correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates has said racism is shaped less by hate and more by “broad sympathy

for some, broader skepticism for others.” That sympathy and skepticism applies to the wealthy and to the poor, too.

Coates, writing recently about mass incarceration, said our skepticism about the poor prohibits us from creating optimal solutions.

Prisons burst with nonviolent drug offenders because “one doesn’t create safety nets for a race of (perceived) predators,” Coates wrote. “One builds a cage.”

Pope Francis’ decision to dine with the poor rather than lunch with Capitol Hill lawmakers on his autumn visit to North America reminded me of articles I read in middle school by journalist Loretta Schwartz-Nobel.

Schwartz-Nobel’s articles about people starving amid the wealth of Washington, D.C., inspired my journalism career. But as a journalist, I found that we were sometimes asked to frame moral calamities as pocketbook issues to get readers to care.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that we’d become a “thing oriented” society where profits were more important than people. He called budgets “moral documents” that revealed our real priorities.

Despite the bleak present, Ramo’s caring economy continues to develop.

He argues that with great challenges come greater opportunities to reshape entrenched narratives.

To inspire people. To mobilize them to do difficult work.

Mark Holden, Bryan Stevenson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Pope Francis and their brethren, as well as people like you who read The Journal, call us to this new caring economy.

And in a caring economy, it’s the idea of not acting that’s unthinkable.

When we wrote about gang violence in the 1990s, for example, we reported how a single bullet cost us $800,000 – for police work, prosecution, imprisonment and medical care for the shooting victim, who’d suffered a severed spine.

Somewhere down in the lead story we mentioned that maybe we should care that people are dying in that storm of violence.

Mark E. McCormick is the executive director of The Kansas African American Museum in Wichita.

“Alone we can do so little; Together we can do so much.”

HELEN KELLER

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