Post by Tom Collins
I've taken the weekend to begin digesting our 2008 Eyes on the Future event. With over 1500 people signed up and a large percentage of them actually showing up, many of those who spoke remarked on what an encouraging sign that is about our region's future, despite the obvious and enormous challenges.
We heard powerful messages from state leaders Gov. Patterson and Dennis Mullen, to local leaders Maggie Brooks and Bob Duffy, to an array of business leaders, Dick Kaplan, Lauren Dixon, Robert Offley, Gerald Ostrov, Michael Reed, SBC's Tom Ioele and GRE's Mark Peterson, to Drs. Donald Bain and John Martin representing our local colleges and universities, along with numerous attendees who stepped up to the microphones to contribute questions and ideas.
Yet, here's the message I can't get out of my head:
"Make me come home!"
At least that's what I took away from the speech by Jennifer Jones, HF-L, student member of the EOTF Planning Committee. What she actually said was (from my notes), "... everything I want or need can be right here ... and I want to come back after college."
Jennifer and a dozens of her contemporaries attended EOTF on Friday. They are our future.
The challenge for the hundreds of business, government, education, and community leaders who also attended is to deliver what Jennifer and those young people need: a region with the kind of economic, social, and cultural life that calls to them to come home.
How? Well, Dick Kaplan made an observation that I think holds the key. He said lots of prior groups had been created to address these issues. He said they usually make it through three meetings: one to complain about regulation and taxes; a second to identify our "assets"; and a third to talk about how to capitalize on our assets. He added, "There's no fourth meeting. That happens every time."
EOTF has made it through two events, a year apart. Do we really want to wait two more years to see if there's a fourth?
Here's my suggestion, let's get the EOTF Planning Committee back together now. Not to start planning the next event, but to form sub-committees and recruit some of those people who expressed a willingness — no, an eager desire — to take action on some of the ideas presented.
Several of the attendees who spoke asked the panel for homework assignments! Let's keep the momentum going and have our third, fourth, fifth, and so on, meetings ... soon.
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