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For this month’s update, I would like to take a moment and share a few thoughts. Before I begin, I would like to welcome our newest Target Board members:
- Ken Dragiewicz - President & COO of Alpena Power Company,
- Doug Kreis - System Vice President Service Lines MyMichigan Health
- Jesse Osmer - Alpena County Commissioner
These three individuals replaced Andrew Kowalski, Travis Weide and Gary Graham. We thank them for their service to Target and look forward to the leadership of these three new members.
This marks the beginning of my fourth year in this role. I have learned a few lessons along the way which admittedly have been good for me.
Lesson #1 – Nothing is easy. Most of the issues and development projects I am involved with are all nuanced and have their own specific challenges that need to be addressed to get them from idea to viable concept, to construction, and to a ribbon cutting.
Lesson #2 - Creativity is a must. Most of the solutions that stand in the way require some creative thought processes. I know this sounds cliché, but it is very true. Out of the box thinking is a must.
Lesson #3 – To be effective, it takes a team of individuals with open minds and a sincere desire to help make the community better. Egos and closed minds are a liability in this line of work. To be successful we need people to compromise and meet somewhere in the middle most of the time.
Lesson #4 – Patience is a virtue. In my professional life prior to this role, it was far easier to get things done since I had many great resources around me that had the “let’s get it done” attitude once the decision was made. In this realm people want to make things happen but there is a need to hear from the stakeholders, constituents, and units of government which adds considerably to the timeline.
Lesson #5 – Despite best efforts, intentions, and good karma, sometimes things just don’t work out and it is time to move on to plan B. Being adaptive is critical.
Sorry for stating the obvious above but now that I have been in the role for a reasonable period of time, I wanted to share my own experience so far. For me this is one of the best parts of the job, it is forever changing as each project is unique and often a challenge.
One last thing I wanted to point out, while I appreciate the keen interest from our community in the economic development landscape locally, I work hard not to over commit and am careful with my word choices when giving public updates or being interviewed in the news. To that end, I recently saw an editorial in the Alpena News that mentioned Aldi’s was coming to town and that there was a mixed use project in the works for the APC site. To set the record straight, these are projects under consideration and not a certainty. They are being evaluated presently, which is encouraging but a long way from reality. My goal, of course, is to do what I can to help the developer bring them to life.
Until next month, be well!
Mike
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