Young Leaders Transcript
Participants:
Jacqueline Acho
Partner, McKinsey & Company
Jose Gonzales
Guidance Counselor, St. Ignatius High School
Sadhu Johnston
Executive Director, Cleveland Green Building Coalition
Tracey Kirksey
Executive Director, Glenville Development Corporation
Lillian Kuri
Executive Director, Cleveland Public Art
Randy McShepard
Director of Community Affairs, RPM, Inc.
Jeasung Jay Yoo
Chief Mobility Officer, KOYONOMR. FROLIK: Welcome everybody. Thanks for coming and let's have a good conversation. I'm sure we will.
Let's start talking a little about perceptions of Cleveland, particularly among your peer group and stuff. Maybe start with Jackie and Sadhu. Both of you -- others of you had some family connections to Cleveland. You grew up here. You knew something about it. When you were going to move here, because you came with your husband, you because you were going to Oberlin, what did you -- what was your image of Cleveland before you got here and how did it compare with what you found when you actually got here?
MS. ACHO: Well, I moved here from Chicago and so I was enjoying living in a bigger, more vibrant city, and when I came to Cleveland, I actually didn't have that many preconceptions of Cleveland, to be honest. My husband's family is from here, so I knew that he enjoyed growing up here and that it was a great place to grow up. When I actually moved here, it was not so much, let me say, sort of my -- what I saw but more what I felt gave me an impression of Cleveland. I just felt a much lower energy level and I couldn't really put my finger on it because my husband's argument to me which was true and has held true is that our lives didn't actually change that much when we moved here.
So everything that we did in Chicago, we do in Cleveland. There's just one of everything as opposed to twenty or fifty or a hundred of everything.
MS. KIRSKEY: What was the energy level? I mean, was it good or bad?
MS. ACHO: It was very bad. It was very disturbing to me and I work downtown and just kind of looking out the window and walking down the street, there were fewer people, there were fewer lights, there was just a much lower energy level, and I think a lower energy level also in kind of the people in the briskness of their step and kind of their self perception.
I think that a lot of the folks in Cleveland kind of, you know, have a lower self perception of their city than they should and that actually reflects back to people who are coming here new.
MR. FROLIK: Sadhu, what were your impressions? Before you came here, when you knew you were coming to Oberlin and when you got here, how did it compare with what maybe you were told to expect.
MR. JOHNSTON: I came from Boulder, Colorado around the edge of the Rocky Mountains and so I was mountain biking and skiing all the time. I came to look at Oberlin, flew in and saw the Ford plant which is right there and the smoke stacks and was a little taken aback, as well, and I initially didn't want to come here and went to a different school for two years and then took some time off, traveled and decided to come after that.
So three years later, take two, I came back and at that point had a much better appreciation for cities and for what's called the Russ Belt and some of the challenges and the opportunities created from those challenges. So coming back the second time, I had a better understanding of the opportunity and went to Oberlin and then decided after graduating that I wanted to stay and told my friends back in Colorado and on the West Coast that I was staying in Cleveland and they said, what are you doing in Iowa and why would you want to be there?
Lesson number one is it's Ohio, but, really, and so I did get teased a bit of why would I want to be out there when I could be out skiing and mountain biking in Colorado. And every one of my friends that I've gotten to visit has loved it and that's been the thing for me is when they come and stay with me in Ohio City, I take them up to the West Side Market and people love Cleveland when they get here. It's a preconceived notion sometimes of what it's really about.
MS. ACHO: What about Oberlin got you here? Why did you decide to come here?
MR. JOHNSTON: It was actually environmental studies program. There was a building that was being built and that was along the lines of my interest and I read some of the material of a professor there, David Orr, and that's specifically why I came.
MS. ACHO: The reason I ask is because it was job opportunities that brought us here, too, so my husband had a job opportunity in a field he wanted to get into, my firm had an office here and without that, we would never have come here, even with the family connection.
MS. KIRKSEY: It's typically one of those things. It's family, it's a job or it's education. It's one of those three.
MR. FROLIK: The rest of you who grew up here, so you had some ties, when you talk to people in other cities or colleagues and stuff and you mention you're from Cleveland, maybe you're at a conference or something, what's your sense of how other people perceive us and how do you respond when you hear those responses.
Randy and maybe go around.
MR. McSHEPARD: Well, I've had that conversation with several people from across the country and people seem to think that Cleveland is a very sleepy kind of a town, not a whole lot to do, not a whole lot going on and I personally don't think that's accurate. I think it is a very vibrant community. I always like to talk about the people of Cleveland. I think more than anything that has stood out in my lifetime, just great people, very open, very willing to help, very philanthropic community and a lot of the other things you can kind of figure out. But if you live around the right people, I think it makes all the right difference.
MR. FROLIK: Lillian.
MS. KURI: Well, I think my background in urban planning and urban design, I have, I guess, a unique set of colleagues that are now spread around the world that actually like to look to Cleveland because there are some wonderful planning projects going on and have gone on here, and so the rich history and I think the world of opportunity that is before us is actually a desirable thing for a lot of my colleagues that are in other cities trying to make better cities and better places to live.
So I think a lot of people, actually, in my field look at Cleveland right now as a lot of potential, and for me, one of the reasons why I decided to come back was I felt there was a potential here and, also, if you have a willingness to get things done, people aren't really going to turn you away here. It's probably different in a larger city where there is a lot more going on. There are a lot of opportunities and you do have the power to make them happen if you're going to work hard and you're going to try to get things done. That's an important thing about Cleveland.
MR. FROLIK: Jose, when you talk to friends in other cities and stuff and you say that you're from Cleveland or they know you're from Cleveland, what's the feedback you get?
MR. GONZALES: I went to school in Indiana, so a lot of the feedback was close to Chicago and, I mean, we're known as the mistake on the lake, so, I mean, that's the first thing that comes out of everyone's mouth. Those handed-down perceptions of the years when those things were happening, the stereotypes were out there, it's hard to overcome that. But I think they think that we're so small, nothing comes here, nothing, you know, pretty much with a name. You talk about corporations, you talk about concert names, things of that nature where it's really one of those places that -- you know, it's like Pittsburgh. You know, what's in Pittsburgh type of response and so that, to me, is hard, but I think, Sadhu, when you said something about your appreciation for the city, I think that part kind of hit me because I tell them, fresh out of college, this is the type of place that you can come to and not be intimidated by the highways and byways. You're not going to be intimidated by the downtown. You are going to be able to get in and if you're fresh to the city, you're able to make that adjustment if you don't have those connections, if you're not a native of Cleveland. And to me, that appreciation, I think, is what you have to assess, and now I have that appreciation at this age moreso than I did when I was younger.
MR. FROLIK: Tracey.
MS. KIRKSEY: You get a mixed response from or I hear a mixed response from people. It depends on the city that they come from. I've had friends from L.A. Visit and absolutely loved Cleveland. They moved the Midwest values; they loved the sense of family; they loved the variety of things to do, the festivals. I hear a lot of friends just think it's fascinating, Greek festivals, Italian festivals, what have you.
And then there are folks from Chicago or New York that do speak to the sense of a lack of energy here in Cleveland, the lack of vibrancy in downtown and a nightlife is something that you hear quite a bit from especially younger folk, so it's a mix. I do find it amusing when people do visit, they love it. Just as Sadhu said, they love it. It's just getting them here.
MR. FROLIK: Jay.
MR. YOO: I guess from my friends and family, among them, it really depends on how old they are and also if they are Asian-American or ethnically, I think there's a difference of opinion. So for young people, I think it's -- I'm not sure Cleveland is for me for many of the reasons that were brought up already, the lack of energy, innovation opportunity, the social capital that can prevent people from plugging in right away.
But if you talk to people that are starting to raise a family, they're at a place where they know they want to be in a career, Cleveland is a great option for them, so it depends on who you're talking to. And one friend who is from New York, she's in her mid 30s and she came to Cleveland for business. She was working -- she was a VP for Merrill Lynch or something and she said, man, I thought Cleveland was a white Harlem, and I'm like, where did you get that idea.
She came here and she said, it's great, it's fabulous. She was literally pleasantly surprised by what's available.
MS. KIRKSEY: People get here and they love it.
MS. ACHO: Jay, I think you make a great point about how it depends on the age, because I see a lot of people, and I don't know when you all, those of you who returned to Cleveland, when you did, but I see a lot of people who come back to Cleveland in their early 30s when they are getting ready to settle down.
MS. KIRKSEY: That's exactly what I did.
MS. ACHO: And that's what my husband did, too, with me.
MR. McSHEPARD: Is the night life really that bad in Cleveland?
MR. YOO: There isn't one.
MS. KURI: There is something particularly interesting about what you said and that is that I don't think -- I think Cleveland needs to be able to diversify who it attracts and if what you say is true about a range of age groups that now comes and says, okay, this is the time for me to move to Cleveland, I think that the part that you did say that it's missing is the group of young, energetic, risk-taking innovators that are going to go elsewhere and take these big risks and that may be the category that we need to work the hardest on to be able to lead in business and in other ways.
And so I think that's the heart at which we all need to work to figure out how do we make it attractive for that group of people, creative people, entrepreneurs.
MR. YOO: Along the same lines, what are we doing already that's attractive. Like Sadhu, you're working on some very, very cool green initiatives and it's an entrepreneur start-up. You know, it's an innovation in Cleveland and those kind of tinkerings that are happening aren't well displayed and there's not a good focal point for young people to say, wow, there's very cool stuff already happening.
But, yeah, it's along the same lines of what's happening and what more can we do.
MR. FROLIK: We did a story about a couple months back now, Sandy Livingston, looking at where graduates ended up from Ohio colleges and universities, both private and public, and there was a real focus on Oberlin as one of the institutions in the country that brings people very success bound or success oriented people in and how few of them, actually, Sadhu almost being the exception, who do seem to stay here and stuff, for whatever reason.
What's your sense of how can we do a better job, because there are a lot of colleges and universities in this area, almost two dozen or so in the immediate area, are there things that could be done that would make -- either develop the connections while they're here, while they're in college that would be more likely to keep people like that here, or do we have to wait until they're in their 30s and more ready to settle down before Cleveland can pull them back?
MR. JOHNSTON: Well, actually, I would say there are a number of other people from Oberlin that I know that are in positions of leadership in the city which is very encouraging to me. So if you look at Chris Carmody, who runs the Film Commission, is a great example and was very active in the White administration in the early years. There are numerous folks from Oberlin that may not even have been from here originally that have stuck around.
So that, I guess, is the first thing, people see opportunity in Cleveland when they get here. I think one organization I'm on the board of is called ODI and they're creating a fellowship. It's a two-year fellowship for folks who graduate from area-wide universities. You go to the ODI fellowship with a project, a program, write up your proposal and they will effectively give you a stipend and five you an office to work out of for you to do your local project.
So we'll look at two or three the first year and gear it up over the years so we've got ten or fifteen people working out of one office working on exciting projects in the area. These would be specifically oriented towards sustainability, saving money on energy efficiency or creating business partnerships to minimize waste, things like that that would be really active ways to empower folks with ideas and entrepreneurial attitudes to stick around and actually do their work.
MS. KIRKSEY: Is it kind of an incubator situation?
MR. JOHNSTON: Kind of; yeah. But it would be really empowering folks with their own projects and they would come to you. And so that's one example, and again, this was started by three Oberlin graduates who graduated two years ago. They started an organization and said how are we going to deal with this Quiet Crisis issue. Well, here's one specific thing that we, as three recent graduates, none of them are from here, have done. I think more initiatives like that could be quite exciting.
MR. FROLIK: What about, in general, one of the subtexts certainly of this whole Quiet Crisis has been how do you attract or retain people like yourselves, young people who are smart or ambitious who are doers? If you think about it, what are the kinds of things that -- and everybody talks about there are various sort of physical amenities people talk about, the amenity strategy, people talk about job growth, people talk about changing culture.
In your minds, what are the things that would do more that would keep you more likely to be here or people like you more likely to come here and stay and make this a better place?
MS. KIRKSEY: One of the things I find attractive as I travel to different places around the country and other places is diversity, and while Cleveland has dozens and dozens of ethnic groups here, you just don't get that kind of international feeling that you would, say, in Toronto or Chicago where you could walk down a street and hear ten different languages around you and it's okay.
It's still kind of odd if you're out at a shopping mall and you hear another language and it shouldn't be. My family alone, we have Arabs, we have Haitian, we have German and it's like the UN at our table, but when I take my family out, we're still looked at kind of a little odd and I think we have a lot more work to do as fas as embracing our differences and our diversity. You know, it can be beautiful.
MR. McSHEPARD: I'm going to add to that civic engagement. I think that young people, especially aspiring leaders need to know that they can make a contribution to the community, that there's a role for them to play, that their expertise, their knowledge, their skillset is very much needed to make the city and the region better, and if they can be placed in positions of responsibility and authority and allowed to lead, I think that energizes a young person. That's what kept me here.
I think about moving to a city like Chicago and it would probably take a lifetime to make the contacts that I've made here in Cleveland, so I think just getting them involved makes a big difference.
MS. ACHO: I think leadership opportunities, Randy, is exactly how I would answer this question, too. Not only civic leadership opportunities, in fact, not primarily civic leadership opportunities, but first professional opportunities. So I go back to job growth, making sure that we are attracting, retaining, growing companies here and organizations here that can and also starting new companies and organizations here and providing the right venture opportunity so that we could have a vibrant economy that would then support the opportunities that would bring folks like us and even younger folks and keep folks like us here.
MR. YOO: Boy, it's interesting. I think there are three key aspects that are very important for young people in considering where they want to live and this is what helped to create the group Motivations which I helped to start, and it's a lifestyle, the economy and the community.
And in each area, there are, you know, if you look at what we value in those three areas in Cleveland and what other cities may value, I'll give you two distinctions or two ways of looking at it. This is out of the book The Art of Innovation. Some of the barriers, I think, that communities can have are hierarchial, bureaucracy, people being anonymous, not sticking their neck out really going for it, clean, you know, very clean environments as opposed to messy like New York where there's lots of diversity and crazy stuff going on and then where there's a lot of experts, experts at the table talking about what's needed. Those kinds of barriers are actually very well documented as to preventing innovation and open, creative energetic streams of excitement and vibrancy.
And if you look at the bridges and the opposite of what those kind of barriers are, merit based values, autonomy, being familiar with folks and letting them make mistakes and it's okay if you've failed, in fact, we want you to fail more, having tinkerers, people who are playing around. And so there are distinctions, and if you look at Cleveland and what we value and what young people are valuing, I think there is a big difference.
MS. ACHO: That's a great point about risk aversion because I do think that that's a big difference between this city and some other cities. Obviously, the economy has made things much more difficult in the last couple of years, but I think that there is -- you can't fail and say, well, good try, here you go, try again. It doesn't happen that often here. Yeah.
MR. FROLIK: A lot of people, the conversations at this table and other interviews people have talked about over the last couple years on this project have talked about the culture of risk aversion. How do you guys who are involved in various activities in the corporate world, non-profits and stuff, how does that play itself out on a day-to-day basis? Do you agree that we have a risk aversive culture? If so, how do you see it? How does it play itself out on what you're trying to do?
Lillian.
MS. KURI: Well, it definitely affects everything that I personally do, but I've sort of looked at it this way, in that I think you have to be willing to just take on bigger things and know that people or that you're going to personally be willing to sort of take those on and not be afraid of them and to look at it as, also, anything that we do that's going to bring change has got to be outside of the box and because it's outside of the box, there is a tremendous amount of risk involved in it.
But it is really the only real way we're going to have change and that culture of actually encouraging risk is the thing that we need. It is a culture where I think we were talking about this earlier, but when you're in other places, especially like Seattle in terms of the arts community in Seattle, specifically, if you're not taking risks, you might as well leave town as to opposed in Cleveland where if you're taking risks, you may want to leave town. So I think you kind of have to change that attitude because that's what attracts people. That's what creates wonderful places to live.
MS. KIRKSEY: We see it in our work, community development, daily on many levels. You know, once upon a time, it was difficult to believe that anyone would buy a house in the City of Cleveland, they were nuts, particularly if you made a huge, not huge investment but anything more than $150,000 was just unheard of and now it's pretty routine and common.
Now we're seeing it on the retail end where national retailers still don't believe that black folks will buy Starbucks or will shop at Bath and Body on Superior Avenue. I don't know where they think African Americans or other minorities are buying these things. They would love to buy them close to home, but we're not seeing that. We still have not made a dent on convincing some of the big boys that they can do things differently, that there is income in inner city neighborhoods or minority neighborhoods, and we need to do some work there.
I'm a believer that Ikea could save Downtown Cleveland. I called them and working at a non-profit, you believe that we can do anything or anything is possible. There is no such thing as no. And, frankly, people a lot of times don't believe you can do it but we believe you can. I called Ikea. I e-mailed Ikea. I wrote them letters. You need to be downtown. That's going to just generate this whole stream of other development and they have this cookie cutter formula, we need to be this tall, this much parking, this much visibility and all of that and we need to, as Lillian said, think outside the box and look at things differently if we're going to grow.
MR. GONZALES: I think one of the barriers that I've seen -- one of the things that has attracted me to stay, and I have to be honest, I am thinking about leaving, is that I found mentorship and in finding that, I have been able to, you know, seek and get great advice, also, but I've noticed that this risk aversion sometimes, with the generational gap there, I've noticed that even in doing that, seeking of advice and that mentor, that at times it's almost that generational gap that cause, because I think the generation of leadership that I'm relying on traditionally didn't establish those relationships with people from different backgrounds that are at this table and it was more of that we are taking care of our community and so they built up the leadership and built up the community on their own.
And in our day and age, I think now we're -- the younger leaders are coming in and realizing that, hey, that's fine and we would like to do that, as well, but we've grown up with all these individuals and know that they have become part of our influence and strengthen us and the network that is created amongst us is going to be a huge resource informing them that we need to use that to gain, I think, a cohesion in the community as well is a hard thing to balance sometimes.
MR. YOO: I almost don't want to mention his name anymore because people are going, oh, no Richard Florida, no more, please. He writes about, he talks about social capital in communities, mentioned Cleveland in one article saying that communities that have very, very high levels of social capital actually impede innovation, and if you look at communities like San Francisco or Seattle, there are many loose ties, and so what I mean by social capital is you have this very tightly knit group that has tremendous obligation to one another and those people very closely stick together and they see and they might say, oh, gosh, I heard about this great idea, but, you know, that person that is bringing up that idea five years ago maybe wasn't doing the right things. I'm not sure that they can handle it now, and that idea gets stifled.
But you look at these looser knit communities that rely on or I should say these loosely tied communities and they rely on everyone else to bring their ideas to the table and because there's no real heavy obligation, there's a much freer helping and sharing. Hey man, I don't know you, what's your name, let's do it, it sounds great, and there's a much different approach to it.
MS. ACHO: I think there's a much more collaborative leadership style which is required for this next renaissance of Cleveland which is very different than the renaissance of Cleveland that took place in the '80s of which people are, rightly so, very proud and I think back then the sort of top down, CEO driven change could happen and now a much more collaborative style involving a broader set of leaders, a more diverse set of leaders is required and it's hard to make that come together, but it is, in many ways that I see it, is coming together.
MR. McSHEPARD: When you say, "diverse," I'm glad you brought that point up, we're not only talking about racially diverse, we're talking about non-profits working with for profits, working with the public sector, we're talking about different age levels and ranges, different neighborhoods. It will require everyone stepping up and playing a part.
MR. FROLIK: How do you go about convincing people who have been successful, at least to some degree, with their businesses, with there institutions, that you need to do things differently for a new year? I think Jose works at St. Ignatius and he's developing your new job as director of diversity there. It would be very easy, I would think, for the leadership to say, well, we've been here since 1886, we've got a hall full of trophies, we've sent a lot of kids on to success in life. We know what we're doing. Why should we do anything differently?
And, you know, you can apply it to the Art Museum, any of the big institutions in town. How do you go about changing an established institution saying, yeah, we've done a lot great things but we can do things that are even greater if we do something different?
MR. GONZALES: I think I'm going to answer this using some other resources right now. I think it's very important and I was going to go back to another issue, that when coming to a community, you need to know what is out there for you. Coming into Cleveland, the average, fresh out of college, you know, Latino male or female would not know there is a centralized population and that could be a deciding factor for them. It also could be a warming factor for them. It could be a resource for them to direct them in various avenues to become that much more acclimated to the city itself.
And I think when you have players that are out there, resources that you can say, hey, this person is into the real estate or here is our realtor, here is the connection for that, here is the network for that, it helps those individuals make that adjustment. I think when you're looking at an establishment that's been there for hundreds of years, having the players within that institution that you can bring on board to kind of support your philosophy and those things that you're trying to implement and the changes that you're trying -- the leadership that you're trying to build is crucial.
If you go in as the sole provider of that information, you're banging your head up against the wall. I think finding those allies within and then building and then using the resources together I think is huge.
MS. KURI: I wanted to just --it's a different institution that I'm kind of hoping to have an impact on. But a big one that I think goes to one of the things that really attracts people to a place and that's the physical attributes. I may be involved in some of the physical aspects of cities, but, you know, it's a big institution. It's Departments of Transportation of which I've been up against and that's an enormous kind of -- has a history, they obviously have a lot of reasons for why they're developing things the way they are, but if you think about the reason why you live in the neighborhood you live or you choose to live there within the City of Cleveland, it's because you like the fact that you can go out of your front door and walk down the street. It's a comfortable environment. It's a beautiful environment.
And so I also think that there are these incredible streams of money that come through Departments of Transportation that affect the physical environment that have a huge impact on Cleveland and that will, in this new renaissance, be one of the single largest things that change this community, and so I think we have to come together and recognize that rebuilding a city is very different than building outside in the suburbs and find new ways, show small examples, look at working with those big bureaucracies to say, we've got to do it a little bit different because rebuilding a street with guidelines or how you build in the suburbs don't work in the City of Cleveland and they are going to have a huge impact and they are going to be the things that make it wonderful.
Trees, sidewalks, not just roads. All those things that get done within road reconstruction. So for me, I have that one particular battle, but I think it really is important because the physical attributes play a very large role in why we live in the communities we live in. It's an important thing that we all need to work together on.
MR. GONZALES: That's a good point. I was in Milwaukee and that was the first thing that I made a comment to the person who was a native of Milwaukee and realized that they have a mini version sort of shore line comparable to Chicago and I was hoping that Cleveland would use that kind of model to develop because I think that physical is huge and it will attract a group of people and also does things beyond that for our families, as well, not only attracting young but those of us that are here.
MS. KURI: I think also a younger generation of people wants choice and choice is not just of the community you live in, choice of mode of transportation, I want to get on my bike, I want to walk, I want to do things differently that maybe a different generation of people aren't as interested in.
But I think for our core group, we want these different choices, to use public transit and to use it in a way that's meaningful and you want the choice that you don't have to get in your car on the weekend and walk around and do all these things and that's an important part of a healthy lifestyle that I think is what's important to young people.
MS. ACHO: You know what I'm so encouraged by about Cleveland is that it's a -- I'm originally from Detroit and I moved here from Chicago and I lived in Boston in the city for about four years, so I've got different city comparisons and Cleveland seems to me, I mean, it has made a lot of progress in the last twenty years, I understand. I didn't see it before five years ago, but it's a small enough town and it still is the center of gravity of this area of Northeast Ohio whereas Detroit, for example, is not. Everybody fled west and so it's kind of hard to pull it all back, and it's so much bigger, so the challenge of rebuilding is so much bigger.
And Cleveland has already made a lot of progress and it seems kind of small enough with enough really wonderful, unique pockets. I live on the East Side of Cleveland. It's a very urban suburb which you just can't find within a two-hour commute from Chicago. So I think that there are some wonderful kind of smaller town but still vibrant city aspects to be built on in Cleveland.
MR. JOHNSTON: That's what shocks me when we talk about institutions, Jackie, that's one of the things, and Lillian, also, that I don't see us utilizing or building off of. We do have these incredible neighborhoods and you hear people say, oh, the neighborhoods and we prioritize the neighborhoods, but when friends come to visit from New York, they look at our kitchen and say, I pay a thousand bucks a month for an apartment that's the size of this kitchen.
The quality of life here is so high in many ways, again, but you don't really see that when you just come to visit sometimes. You see streets with no curb cuts and you can't walk a baby carriage down the street. I mean, you see a little bit of a harsher, abrasive approach to the street, so I think the streets are the glue that hold us, but the institutions are essential. I mean the large ones like the Department of Transportation, but the quality of life elements, I think, are some of the biggest pieces that we have. You look how we're marketing ourselves out there, whether it's the Growth Association or the different entities that market Cleveland.
I think we can do a lot more with a lot less money by getting some innovative things out there, getting some well-placed articles in national magazines that we know folks read. And we had a piece in Metropolis Magazine that talked about, you know, from rust to green, can Cleveland become the country's Eco capital. We got calls and faxes from all over the country, people saying -- we didn't realize Cleveland was doing that.
And these are the people we need to be attracting, and that article didn't cost us $4 million of branding. It was free. So I think there are innovative things we as a community could do to let other people know of this quality of life. I mean, have some pictures of my house in a national magazine saying you can own this for $65,000 a year. Seriously, it's a beautiful old Victorian. People don't realize that.
MR. YOO: What I'm hearing is that -- and the original question, I think, Joe, was can you change people, and I firmly believe we can't. They can change on their own and we shouldn't rely -- I mean, this is great. You're doing this on your own. You're breaking barriers. You're breaking the rules, and I think we have to rely on, from a mentorship standpoint, Jose, you mentioned we need some mentorship from above, but I think we can rely on our peers as mentors to continue of innovate, break down the barriers, and if people want to change and want to come listen, it's open to them to do so. But there has to be a different way that we do things in the city and this is a good sign of a strong beginning in that area.
MR. FROLIK: A number of you have started organizations or have been on the ground floor of organizations. Do you find this a pretty fluid community, a pretty open community if you want to try to do something?
MR. YOO: No. It's very difficult for people to get traction and to get by. I was told when I was trying to start Motivations, your father is a dry cleaner. You should go talk to David Acres because he has done this before, you know, David, his father was with Key Bank and this and that. That's the Cleveland way and how we get things done and we have to respect that and work in that fashion in some ways.
But if I wasn't Jay Yoo and I was some other person, you know, I tend not to be too concerned about those things, it happens I went to high school with his daughter. He didn't know that. So anyway, that can really turn someone off and they can say, my dad is a dry cleaner, that's no reflection on who I am. And all he was saying was it's not a reflection on me, but you have a hard time convincing people in the community because they listen for that strong social network.
MR. JOHNSTON: We all use dry cleaners.
MR. GONZALES: That's interesting because I was going to say yes as you emphatically said no because when we started the Young Latino Network and I think one of our members actually met with your group because we had heard that group was already up and running, so we wanted to learn from other groups.
We -- maybe someone hasn't voiced to us yet what the -- the concern that's been voiced, but we had no problem. We got together similarly just like this and just said, hey, let's put this group together and found the opposite, huge response of oh, my.
Like I said, that older generation of leaders came in and whatever you guys need, this is great. We desperately need this, please. We need to build our community and you guys are the ones if you can organize yourselves, and they actually came in very supportive. And I think the hardest thing that we've been able
to -- the thing we haven't been able to grasp is centralizing because we're so scattered, so dispersed within the city, east and west, north and south and then you include a little bit of Lorain, as well.It's hard gathering and putting forth that centralized effort, but the start-up part of it was very -- I mean, we met and from day one, no one questioned anyone's, you know, I think, initiatives or background and just said, you know what, it's needed and we all had the same concepts of the need and so we went forth and the elders were there to support us.
MS. KIRKSEY: I think we're ready and we see kind of a new energy in the neighborhoods. People are ready for it and are not content to sit back and wait for daddy to come in and save the day. I was speaking to a young man today who has a very successful hemodialysis business and he was saying that business has grown five, six times over in the last couple years. There is so much opportunity here if you reach out and grab it and I think people are realizing that.
MS. ACHO: Tracey, I'm glad to hear about the business opportunity because I've been wondering throughout this last bit of conversation whether there's a difference between social entrepreneurship in which there is a long, well supported history in Cleveland and business entrepreneurship, most specifically access to capital and access to mentors who started companies, and I'm wondering, Jay, if that's because you're a business entrepreneur as well as a social entrepreneur, if that - - you're sort of speaking from both sides and maybe that's why your response was more negative than Jose's.
MR. YOO: Yeah. I didn't mean to be negative. It all has to do with how you start and who you rely on. If you rely on your peers, it's easy to mobilize and move. If you go to look for money, it can be a little different. There's no Bill Gates in town that's 34 that has money to readily provide to these innovative ideas.
MS. ACHO: Is he really only 34?
MR. YOO: I don't know. From a business standpoint, you know, it's interesting, I'll provide a more positive outlook. I got tremendous help from friends and I didn't go to the people who have money, per se. I went to people who did start-ups in Seattle that said, geeze, we want to see something happen in this town, and I made a mental note of everyone who said, they wanted to see something and said, hey, I've got something and they were more than happy to help out.
Gil Van Bokkelen he spoke at the First Connection Series, and he said we need more people mentoring entrepreneurs, so I tested him and said, hey, I'm an entrepreneur, you're a mentor. He said, why don't you come to my office and I'll spend as much time as we need and all I ask is that you do the same for someone else and he was good on his word. And I was like, wow, this is great.
So it all depends on from the standpoint of who you ask for help, and now we've gotten past the start-up milestones and now we're asking for money. And now we're starting to see the -- they're like, Jay, why? You went from manufacturing to technology to fashion. That's not right. And they're looking for an expert in something and now it's becoming a little more challenging.
MR. GONZALES: I think now that you're positive, I'm going to go negative. And it's every so clear with that example that the entrepreneurship and the mentoring within the business sector or development of such things in the Latino community I have not seen as much and I think West 25th is now starting to blossom in some forms and is starting to become more, but I don't see it somewhere where if I were a young entrepreneur coming in to Cleveland, that I would know, hey, this is where I need to go to get this mentorship or that advice or that capital that will give me an even start or give me someone around me that will bring that mentoring relationship.
And I think now, the Latino community is that -- there's not a centralized place to go for that or at least I haven't and maybe it's because I'm in education that I don't know about those things, but I think that would attract whereas when you go to those larger cities, you do have that. You know where that central -- you can find those places and those people to find that capital and that start-up.
MS. ACHO: You know what is exciting about Jay's example, Jose, is I think the Connection Series is relatively new; right?
MR. YOO: Yeah. Shoot from the hip, just kind of out of nowhere.
MS. ACHO: Who sponsors it?
MR. YOO: I don't know.
MS. ACHO: Nortech maybe?
MR. FROLIK: Craig Kingford.
MR. YOO: Greg James. I don't know if they're getting sponsorship money but I know it was started --.
MR. FROLIK: Probably within the last year or so.
MS. ACHO: I think there have been efforts over the last two years to do more of the mentoring, more of the focused help with business development that seemed to be taking hold at least at an individual level which means it doesn't have to take that long to get started.
MS. KURI: Can I tackle just from a development side the same question which is I think and it goes to this idea of risk aversion. I think we have particularly one of the most incredible opportunities right now to do some pretty big development projects in Cleveland and I think people need to see examples. We want to be like this project in Chicago and for some reason, people need these tangible examples.
And I think one of the most incredible assets that downtown Cleveland and downtown neighborhoods and the neighborhoods within the City of Cleveland have is that they are so real. They are so real and they are so particular to Cleveland, and as we go to do all this development, I think we have to say, let's maybe say that a little bit less and not rely so much on having to see that this project could be like Baltimore's waterfront and this project could be like this in Boston and this in Chicago and say, wow, look at this real physical asset, all of these incredible assets.
And if we do that right now, we can have a Cleveland that stands on its own within the region and it can be very particular to Cleveland. And so I think we have to be careful right now as we do some big projects and make sure we maintain them.
MS. KIRKSEY: And I think as culture to lakefront advisory, one of the things I think our development team and what we've tried to stress at the community meetings is we don't want to mirror Chicago and we don't want to mirror other cities. Cleveland is unique. We have very unique and fascinating attributes that we can be known for as our signature to Cleveland. So as we plan the interbelt and the lakefront and all of that, we wanted to be distinctly Cleveland and I think that's important.
MR. YOO: And I'm going to also mention that it's not only the physical attributes but contextually the culture of Cleveland. I think there needs to be some sensitivity and attention also played to that, because if you look back in the '80s, the physical structure is what got us here. Contextually things shift and it didn't open up opportunities for people to really innovate and do some very significant things here. They failed to scale.
Companies started here with five employees and they said, man, I got to go to a hundred, I'm out of here. So how do we have the same kind of sensitivity to the culture as we do the physical attributes?
MR. JOHNSTON: I think part of that issue is we want them to want to stay here when they go from the 5 to the 50. What do we do to create the quality of life that's going to make them want to stay instead of wanting to go to the next place. The companies are going to go where the employees and the executives want to be, so how do we create the projects, the urban streets, everything in the city that is making them want to be here.
And I think, part of what I think we're missing is a real vision. Where are we going as a city, and I think that's, to me, we've got an incredible job that the administration and the neighborhoods are doing on the lakefront planning and interbelt, all these different things, but who are we? Are we designing ourselves to attract tourists? Are we designing ourselves to keep building up industry or are we designing ourselves for us, for the people that are here, and that, of course, is going to attract other people.
That's one thing, as someone that's kind of new to town, I feel like we don't have a vision that gels us together that we can all say, hey, Jay, let's your business and my non-profit, let's find ways to build toward that.
MR. McSHEPARD: One piece of the puzzle is you talked about what it will take to keep companies here. I think developing a work force for the City and for the region is very important. I'm chairing the City's Work Force Investment Board and I know that many, many companies struggle with that very issue. If they are growing and they know they need to triple the size of their staff, can they readily find the caliber of individual that they may need to grow their business.
So in addition to the infrastructural changes and improvements, we really ought to be focussed on ensuring that this city and this region has a viable work force because I think all of the things that we're talking about can continue to grow and flourish if you have the work force that ultimately spends the dollars to support the other projects and activities.
MS. ACHO: I agree with you completely Randy. And I think work force is one aspect of making it easy to do business in Northeast Ohio and there are other aspects associated with that including the access to capital including being able to build and grow when you need to, not having fights with the city over trying to put up another call center or whatever it is you're trying to do. Work force development is a very important aspect of that, and I think that there are others.
So in addition to -- Sadhu, you had said that the CEOs and the executives want to stay here if they want to live here. They also need to have it easy to do business here because my guess would be Gil VanBokkelen, who you mentioned earlier, Jay, would probably like to stay here and keep his family here and who knows whether Athersys will stay or go, but it's going to come down to whether or not it's easy for him to do his business here and grow his business here.
MR. YOO: You look at what happened to the research institute at Case, the new -- the Willard.
MR. FROLIK: At UH.
MR. YOO: At UH. I'm sorry. There were a lot of pains in that process and Hunt didn't leave -- he left because of the culture I think.
MS. ACHO: Professional culture.
MR. YOO: And what I hear from people who move to Cleveland from other cities that are more of the, quote, unquote, creative class, I hear two words come up often, oppressive and political. It goes back to what is it that we value as a vision, what ties us together. Is it hierarchy and bureaucracy or is it something more merit based, autonomous and free thinking. We have to really be aware of that.
And from a business standpoint, all of these things are important, so I really -- you know, when you said that, that's the first thing I had on my notes is who are we, what do we value, and moving forward, who is going to determine that, and I don't think that that's anyone's job per se. It's not the Mayor's job. It's not the Growth Association's job, but I would just like to see somebody beat everyone else to the punch and say, this is who we are, this is what ties us together, now let's move on.
MS. ACHO: Who are we culturally and physically. So if God's not going to come down and say this is who you are, how do we get that?
MR. YOO: I'll give a firm example here so that the Golden Gate National Recreation area, that's Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, they had a terrible problem with volunteerism. They were losing money. They were losing funding from the federal government and so the CEO of the Gap -- I forget his name -- but he was the chairman. There was another advertising guru who sat on the board and they said, well, the name is too long. We've got to rebrain this thing. It takes a national act of congress to change the name of the park. See what they did? They changed the name.
It became a profit center. They raised $26 million and they had -- they recruited 15,000 volunteers in two years. So, you know --.MS. ACHO: So we need a new name?
MR. YOO: No. There's a lot of undercurrents now with Cleveland, with a lot of things happening and someone is going to -- I'm not sure how it's going to come together, and I don't think it's a linear process. That's what got us here. It's going to be a more circular process that's going to move us forward.
MS. ACHO: I think to Lillian's point, too, it's not going to be we're trying to beat Chicago, we're trying to beat New York, we're trying to beat Pittsburgh. It's going to be something different. Maybe it's like the Munich of the Midwest, a kind of smaller town that's very livable. It's not, you know --.
MR. McSHEPARD: But we can change the culture.
MS. KURI: There was one thing on your list and you brought it up again and it was bureaucracy as a barrier or there was a different word you used actually in the beginning.
MR. YOO: Hierarchy?
MS. KURI: No. It was political, but bureaucracy, it is actually a tangible barrier that I think that people can take steps towards, barriers towards how people develop thier buildings, barriers towards how you grow your business, and it has to do with bureaucracy that holds you back because it's so taxing to do it that you get tired.
I'm going to give you this really small example. I still can't get over it, but it's tiny. We built these bike racks. They were designed by Cleveland Institute of Art students. Super cool, fun project, and then we paid to have them built. They were simply colorful, artistic, and we wanted to put two in front of the Starbucks in the Warehouse District, so we started sort of, okay, let's just put it up. Well, no. Actually, you need to pass an ordinance with City Council to go through this very time-consuming kind of process, but you know that this is an administration that wants people to bike, that's encouraging bike racks.
And so you say, no wonder you look around and coffee shops don't have bike racks out there because are you going to go through that if you're a business owner and you want to encourage people to come? So there's small things and there's examples like that that are actually small barriers that if we can start down the list and take care of them and pass one mass ordinance so everyone can put out a bike rack when they want to.
I mean, I think that there are examples like that that are simple and will change the culture and get people biking and make it easier to put your business downtown and they're encouraging. So if I want to put a sidewalk cafe outside or I want to put signage outside that's cool and it's giant and it's colorful and it's aggressive, that there's a culture that's going to let me do it. And it's really small steps in sort of the bureaucratic process that will make it so that by the time you get done with your bike rack out there, you could care less about whether any bikes are on there.
MR. GONZALES: I can totally relate to that. I think this past year we were trying to -- the organization I'm on the board of, Esponanza, Incorporated, actually extended their hand out to Ignatius for some help and Ignatius said, yes, you can host an event here, so it would have brought the culture, the cultural event, the holiday event right after Thanksgiving and we wanted to have the banner that would attract, of course -- I mean, part of it is that people don't know what's going on, but to have a banner posted which I thought Ignatius should have control over that. Pretty much it's our campus, whatever.
No. The steps of going to this council person and this city person, I was like, forget it. We'll just put out flyers everywhere. It will take too long and go through those things and bring that. I'm not saying that that had a complete effect on the turnout, but I can see the frustration in doing such things that can also help bring that much more advertisement and publicity to the events that would give people a good sense of what's going on in our community.
MR. McSHEPARD: I don't think that will ever change.
MS. ACHO: It could change a little bit.
MR. McSHEPARD: I think the spirit of Cleveland in my estimation throughout my whole career has been about fighting, fighting for what you know is right, fighting for what you know is going to move the city forward, and that's just been my experience. I think all of us can probably tell stories about challenges that we have faced, but for the most part, we have persevered, we have accomplished goals because we didn't give up.
And I think you think back to the early '80s, it was all about Cleveland picking itself up, dusting itself off and moving forward and it seems like in some respects, that never went away. We're still picking ourselves up and pushing and fighting and I think the change that we can make as the next generation of leaders to really move the city forward will require you not giving up, Lillian, continuing to push and wherever we can fix those kinds of problems, I think we challenge and we push back.
And I know City Hall is trying to be a more user friendly customer friendly City Hall, and it's going to require us taking those stories back and getting them to make the kind of changes they need to make.
MS. ACHO: Keeping the fighting spirit is important, Randy, but I do hope it does change so that Lillian can fight even bigger fights than the bike rack, and there is a group that has just started with the Growth Association, Cleveland Tomorrow and also surrounding communities in Akron and Lorain called Team Northeast Ohio which is aimed at helping to improve business attraction, retention and development and focused on a lot of the very issues we talked about in terms of making it easier to do business within the city, making it easier to put up your bike rack and kind of go through those back office processes that have to happen within City Council, work force development, all those kinds of things, attracting companies that would be willing to move here and hopefully that group will get going even faster than it is because I think it's critical and I hope it's not as hard in another two years.
MR. YOO: Well, Jackie, it's well established that ideas that start at the top do not lead to innovation. The people that are innovating are at this table. We are the innovators. Autonomy among the people that are innovating is where the power needs to be. If we rely on -- you know Cleveland has this funny thing -- it's not just what our barriers that are external, we have internal barriers as people, we put ourselves in powerless positions and leave it up to someone else to change .
MS. ACHO: Jay, I actually worked with Team Northeast Ohio as it started so I wasn't totally powerless in that.
MR. YOO: I understand, but typically in Cleveland, I think there's this way of doing things that is top down.
MS. ACHO: I agree.
MR. YOO: And that top down approach right now in more innovative communities like San Francisco, you know I could go on, Austin, it is well documented that, that it's stifling. We just have to be careful, that all. You know, how do we -- well, I have my own opinions and I will reserve them. I hope it works.
MS. ACHO: This is not the place to do that.
MR. YOO: That's right.
MR. McSHEPARD: How can we support each other though? How can we support each other?
MS. KURI: I've actually been thinking about ways within our own, kind of what we do everyday, how we can all really make this kind of small partnerships that are quick and powerful and do really exciting things that are big. And, I think that those things are more interesting to me so that I can pick up the phone and call Sadhu and say, you know, I want to do this project with you, and we go and we do it. And I can pick up the phone and -- those things really are for me, how I've been able to kind of get things done. It really has been.
There hasn't been a structure that has said, you know, here is the next step and you got to go ask this person and then you got to go this. Even to do -- even to try to do big projects like the Detroit/Superior Bridge, 2.8 million dollar project and it was simply by saying, this makes sense, we're going to figure out how to do it, we're going to partner with the right people and we are going to get it done. And, you kind of do that behind the scenes and just keep getting it done and there's a lot of that going on. I do think it's powerful.
I do get nervous about these kind of top down things. And it may be a very good organization because I know nothing about it, but there is a lot of that going on that ends up becoming another layer of bureaucracy or something that you don't really understand how that's going to help you or what that's going to do for you. And so, I don't know -- I don't know.
MR. JOHNSTON: Or they won't even return your call if they don't know who you are. I've tried to partner with those entities, we got three, four, 500 people coming out to an event and they won't put their name on it because they don't want to partner. I mean, I get -- we get that kind of response still from existing institutions.
Jackie, I think you were talking about institutions, that's one of the challenges that we've seen. Start a nonprofit, I think got an incredible reception here, that's one of the pieces that I'd say, Randy, you were hitting on earlier, what can we do to help each other. People were so receptive helping to start an organization. I think we've gotten a name nationally in the last three or four years. In a way it's been despite the existing institutions, it's not been because of them. It's because there's a ground swell of support and interest in that to me is what's exciting about being in Cleveland, in a way, the fighting spirit. You've got to do it under any context.
Friends of mine from around the country that are in places like Portland and San Francisco, there are not the exciting opportunities that there are here, because the brain drain has created a little bit of a lack of things happening. Well, that means that those of us that are here have an incredible opportunity to really make change.
MR. YOO: We've got our own spirit behind it and our own definition of what's required. They might change, they might not, but we're moving forward and we're going to do it in a different manner.
MR. JOHNSTON: We're taking the region with us.
MR. YOO: We're taking the region with us.
MS. KIRKSEY: One of the pluses that we have here in Cleveland too, is the community development corporation. Every neighborhood is represented by a CDC and those are potential partners. If there is a corporation that's in a neighborhood, and there are many that are in neighborhoods that never look outside there doors. If you have employment needs, or down the road you're going to be, I don't know, building plastic widgets or whatever, then begin training that workforce and partnership with that CDC now. Create that workforce that you need, help the CDCs with the identifying the housing needs or what have you. Just looking at partnerships, that's so key here. I would love to be doing something with your arts organization or Ignatius and their sports or whatever. Look for likely and unlikely partnerships. There's opportunity everywhere.
MR. JOHNSTON: You can build some green buildings.
MS. KIRKSEY: Yeah, exactly.
MR. GONZALES: I think I'm going to go the other way with Jay. I think, at least from the educational -- I speak from the educational perspective, I think it's important to have that top person lead if that leadership, you know, is saying go out, here it is the person who is going to come up with those creative ideas, this is what's going to be important for us in this area, i.e. Diversity for a lack of a better word. This is going to be the person who's going to come up with a creative idea. We are going to do this as a school. We are going to do this because we value this. The city needs this, the students need this as they go beyond the city and come back and as part of their education. Once that is done, it sends a message to all of us down below that, okay, this is something that's going to be happening all over, not just this one guy in this one little office on the basement of this building. It does become prevalent throughout the fiber of the school.
If leadership is done that way, then I would go to the opposite, I would say top heavy, that it's okay. But if it is done the way you meant, then I definitely see your perspective.
MR. YOO: I know we're going to get along great, Jose. And what I hear -- I agree that it's all based on leadership. The best way I heard it explained, when -- about '98 when things really started taking off, companies really started looking at how they were top down managing and how that was not necessarily effective, now dot.coms blew up and everything, but there is still a way of doing things, it's much different, much more innovative that was kept. The way I heard it explained was, this guy, CEO of a large financial company said, I came from the military, I was totally convinced it was top down command and control. The pyramid was like this, or the triangle was like this.
Today, that triangle is upside down. I'm asking, what can I do for you to do your job better, to get things done for the customer. Now, I can tell you, I worked for a very conservative Cleveland company for eight years. It was more about how can I please the person above me than it was about how can I make it happen with the customer and drive new opportunity. And as it turns out I, you know, creative is sometimes subversive. I'm set on not doing this the bureaucratic way. I'm gathering people around and we're going to go figure out what the customer needs. We did some things that are quite different that if we relied on the top people, we would all just be trying to figure out how to make them happy.
So your point is very relevant, if the triangle is flipped upside down, it's an incredible environment. A leadership like that is something I hope to be some day.
MS. ACHO: I think you need both. I think you need the ground swell and you can't wait for the top to do something. But those, the leaders in a lot of the institutions that have been at the helm of Cleveland for a while, they see the facts, right. They read Joe's article on the Quiet Crisis two years ago. I mean, our income per capita, our job growth, you know, needs improving. And I think that you need both.
MS. KURI: I think the thing that needs to be thought of differently is the model to do that, that maybe the models aren't changing, the kind of, the way we're going to set up, and Sadhu's example at the very beginning was so wonderful, what was the name of your, OPI --
MR. JOHNSTON: ODI.
MS. KURI: ODI. Because if there are just ten more of those, ther's 30 pretty creative people trying three pretty creative new business right here that have the support, that are going to tell their story all over the place. And so what if it, you know, I think that things kind of have to happen like that. It's sort of maybe not, I don't think we need to have some kind of, you know, strategy that's like going to tell us how to move forward.
MR. JOHNSTON: What if we had set aside a pool of money, not that much, maybe a few million dollars, maybe more, and we did competitions across the country in the Progressive, again go back, Progressive Magazine. Business competition, risk takers wanted and they submit their business plan and what they want to do. They get a hundred thousand dollars for moving there, new business to Cleveland, Ohio, and they get support from some of the things we've talked about. We do maybe a hundred over two years.So we got 50 new entrepreneurs moving to Cleveland with their new business and we're providing support to help them take off. If they are successful, maybe they pay back that initial hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is.
What can we as a community do, in fact, your question, how do we support each other? What can we as a community do to start attracting some of these people. I'd love to see us create a sales tax, Joe we were talking about this, create a sales tax, set aside 500 million dollars and start really actively attracting entrepreneurs and encouraging existing entrepreneurs and encouraging our existing businesses move to new areas of the market.
The green building industry, the building industry is a multi-billion dollars industry. The green building section, that is the fastest growing piece. Well, I want the Stanek windows in Cleveland to be making the windows that everybody in the country wants. I want our manufacturers doing that, but we need the support to help them do that.
MS. KURI: And then as resources, we're all around the table, you help them find a place to locate in your neighborhood and you're a mentor, and Sadhu's got them with the biggest green building factory with a kind of innovative place to do business, and I'm helping with sort of how do they impact the community in terms of the visual environment, and then everybody is working together. We end up becoming kind of some really large support network so they are getting all these incredible resources. And they just won a small pot of money, and Cleveland sets an example of not just setting up a program, but then all of us are sort of helping that organization just foster in this community.
MS. ACHO: That's collaborative leadership, which is why, I mean, in my view, you do need everybody to get involved and it's not kind of a pyramid upside down, but it's collaborative leadership.
MR. McSHEPARD: And you don't have to ask for permission to do that.
MR. FROLIK: Some of you talk about having a vision. What is the vision? How does that fit in with this idea of collaborative, is maybe the vision more how you do things as opposed to the six or seven goals of what you're going to get do at the I end of the day.
MS. KURI: Maybe the vision is the culture. I mean maybe the vision is simply the, change the culture risk aversion. By allowing, even if it's 30 new people to take some risks, and encourage them to take big risks, and allow them to do that, and give them the help, and so that actually, just by simply changing that culture, you then, that begins to trickle down and affect all the things that we think make a great place to live. So I think that culture of risk aversion affects everything we all do and everything we do is so different.
So by creating something aggressive, some tax or some program, some pot of money, and something that is really aggressive might simply be the spark that changes that culture and makes a huge impact in Cleveland.
MS. ACHO: In Cleveland where you can make a difference. Although I have to say something about taxes. No new taxes in Ohio, we are so taxed in Ohio. Let's gets the money some other way.
MS. KIRKSEY: NASA has a great program, the Garrett-Morgan initiative where in Glenville we brought them into an incubator space, they had about 20 different business, I think, in this building and discovered one guy had developed a business card that held all of your health information, your medical information. Another guy was building MRI machinery. Another woman had come up with some type of bracelet that could -- Alzheimer's patients maybe wore or children at daycares, so that you could track where they are by this sensor.
But there's entrepreneurs in our neighborhoods that don't have the opportunity or don't have the support that they need to spark a new generation of businesses. So we can look right in our own neighborhoods.
MS. ACHO: I think marketing their efforts and their successes could be very powerful. I think Cleveland does have a bit of Eeyore syndrome, like Winnie the Pooh, why bother.
MR. GONZALES: Going back to that example, I'm huge at any level with students in terms of institute leadership development. I think one of the things I'm running into is not having like you said, the example for someone to come in and spark it, to give students that exposure to such things. Taking students to leadership seminars or conferences, for me is that way of doing that without having me look over them all the time saying, this is what you need to be doing.
And I think when I was working in Indiana, we had Chicago in our back pocket for such things and for such events. I think Cleveland would need that to spark that also at all levels, not only at high school but at the collegiate level as well. And then once they attract, if we could move Oberlin into the city we would be okay. But attracting that type of spark to the universities that are close, I think it's crucial, because when you see things -- our students -- we have our, what do you call, our sit-ins or anything like that and not having seen protest or images of that, they don't know how active they can become in a community. I think when you are in those larger cities you see that so regularly that it becomes so regular. I can do that, I can walk out tomorrow and do that. That's active leadership because they are able to so that and then go out and act on it.
MR. FROLIK: I want to ask -- something that Tracey said right off the bat about talking about diversity as a strength. We talked about that as a strength in Cleveland. And yet there also seems to be the sense that we don't interact enough, we don't have enough appreciation for the various cultures that are here.
Like you said, you walk with your UN family, you look like an oddity or feel as people view you as an oddity. How do we -- how do we go about, change that attitude so that people realize that the fact that people from around the table, around this area, come from all over the place, that really is a strength?
Tracy's example of Toronto is so great because you go up there and there really does seem to be, somehow, again, within the civic fabric, there's a real appreciation for that in the sense that that's what makes them a cool city.
MR. GONZALES: I think that the one thing that comes to mind for me is the Riverfest that BP Oil used to sponsor. And I'm going to pump BP because I used to work for them. I used to work along the river and just realized that as a student, undergrad, that the number of people that came to our city for that Riverfest was huge.
It made me very proud to be part of Cleveland because people were on their boats from all over just to come to our quote, unquote, mistake on the lake. You know, the river that burned so many years ago. So that to me, just to show those people that were laughing at us, we still have pride and people were coming to our city. I think something like that needs to be, I think, again, we need to revive something of that nature to bring back that, because I think it also gave us that pride along with bringing all the different communities together in a local area that we shared that weekend. I think other cities have that. I think that would definitely begin the process, I don't think that's the sole answer to it all. I think there's many facets that could come into play.
MR. YOO: It all comes back to culture and what we value. Not, maybe, it's one thing to say, do you value diversity, because that could be a very -- companies would say, of course we do because that's the diversity right thing to say. But what really do we value in this community and how open are we to other types of things that would also allow for an appreciation of diversity?
Again, diversity is just not color, it's not ethnicity. It is thought. It is how we do things. It goes back to a vision and a feeling that we have about who we are as a community.
MR. McSHEPARD: I would like to see us do something in schools, Cleveland is, as a city, segregated and there is many pockets where it's ninety plus percent black or white. And wouldn't it be great if we could get kids from urban, and suburban, and parochial and what have you, all working on projects together? Maybe all of those groups go to the Science Center on the same day for interactive programming versus Cleveland Schools has it this day and this school has it that day.
It's important that kids growing up in the city are exposed to that diversity. It's a little easier for adults to go out and meet people from different background. We work with varying races and cultures. But if we could do more to expose children, I think it would go a long way.
MS. ACHO: I think it's also going to happen as this generation of folks who are -- who is more diverse, start kind of rising up and taking more leadership positions within the city.
MR. McSHEPARD: Right.
MS. ACHO: So, keep might fighting Randy.
MR. McSHEPARD: Also, promoting the neighborhoods, when I worked for the Bicentennial Commission back in 1996, we had a program called Caravan where every weekend of the summer, we went to a different city neighborhood and we invited all of Greater Cleveland to join us at that particular neighborhood festival. And if they did so, they could get a stamp on a passport, we called it, and they could win a new car.
There were people, you know, so many African Americans that were going to westside neighborhoods for the first time in their lives and vice versa. They all just raved about how wonderful the neighborhood was, how much they learned about the community and how they met different people. Along the lines of what you said, Jose, forcing the issue, getting people to come together.
MS. ACHO: What a great idea.
MR. FROLIK: I think Chicago has done very well in it's marketing. They combine it in a book that's circulated throughout the metropolitan area, I think through the newspapers which is a great way to get things out. This is all the festivals, at the start of the summer, just before Memorial Day. It hits home. If you want to go to, you pick the neighborhood, pick the ethnic group, this is where it's going to be on this weekend, this of from the arts and stuff so that you can really, you can plan your own passport as well as a way just to encourage suburbanites to come into the city and stuff and people to get around and realize what all is there.
MR. GONZALES: That's a good point because I'm an avid golfer, hacker is what I like to call myself, and we get that spring listing of all the golf courses in March, April. I think having something like that is a resource of the different festivals that are going on.
And then, also, we go back to the vision, I think, Cleveland, if we're looking at the arts and the appreciation, I look at the Tremont area and how much they're doing. When I invite people to Cleveland, I try to find out when that little festival is and then I take people to Coventry and the various areas of that nature because I think that's a criticism, too, that we don't have the art appreciation or the city doesn't have the feel of it. You don't get that impression, the city values it.I was very happy to see the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame put up the guitars. That was huge. I said, why can't we just keep going on that momentum and use that and build that to bring moreof that sort of uniqueness to Cleveland. I think having that -- a festival guide or some sort of resource of that nature would definitely help bring, and again, spark some sort of thought process in that area.
MR. YOO: I will also mention as far as diversity is related, we tend to only think of Cleveland and we tend to only think of Northeast Ohio. When you look at the bay area, what attracts a lot of young people, it's massive from Napa to Palo Alto, I mean, you're talking here to Pittsburgh. When people look at that area, it's just massive, there is so much available, there's so much variety and so many different ways people can plug in.
If we expanded our marketing approach to include Pittsburgh and you didn't show anything, you didn't say anything about the two cities, you just showed all the diverse resources, people. You know, people really marketed that heavily across the United States, I think you would open some peoples eyes to the proximity and how messy it is in between. There's just a lot, in a very good way, a lot of mixture.
MS. KIRKSEY: I don't know how much of that marketing we do. I'm not on that end of it. Just this week alone I got a package with information for a weekend in Pittsburg, the art museum, dinner, wine, you know from two of the museums. Are we doing that same type of marketing for the wonderful resources we have.
MR. GONZALES: That's a good point. Someone just said to me, do you guys have this going on in Cleveland. We have designed a weekend, because there are young couples that want it and I'm like boy do I need that now because my girlfriend lives in New Jersey. So having that kind of resource, again, attracts, and marketing-wise does tremendous.
It reaches a different, I think, segment of target that you're looking for, as well. Especially for young, fresh out of college.
MR. JOHNSTON: I participate in a group called Metropolis Cleveland, which they're doing a competition, design your ideal Cleveland weekend