Leadership training, pooling resources, and "buying" economic development are the ingredients for success in Delta County, tourism and business leaders told Mackinac County citizens Thursday, February 11. Their emphasis was on leadership training.

Ten years ago, when community leaders set out to define and plan for the economic future of Delta County, said Vickie Micheau, they knew their first step would have to be to prepare volunteer and political leaders to be able to take charge.

"The communities that are growing," she said, "are the communities that have an active and engaged leadership program."

Educating and motivating new leaders by acquainting them with community issues, resources, and ideas for successful change, she said, paved the way for building strong programs that are helping existing and new businesses, all through public and private cooperation.

Ms. Micheau, the executive director of the Delta County Chamber of Commerce, helped to spearhead the economic development of Delta County, and she brought with her to the St. Ignace meeting Christina Henderson, the director of the Delta County Economic Development Alliance, Steve Masters, the director of the Bays De Noc Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Sheila Hughes, the manager of the county's Builders Exchange and secretary of the Economics Club, who shared their philosophy and organizational structure.

They were invited by the St. Ignace Chamber of Commerce, which has been looking at what other communities are doing to promote tourism and economic development. Cheryl Schlehuber, president of the Chamber of Commerce, who introduced the visitors, said Delta County is one of several regions in the Upper Peninsula and lower Michigan that have developed programs that are working in their communities. Also a member of the Mackinac County Planning Commission, Mrs. Schlehuber said the county board of commissioners, too, is looking for ideas it can incorporate into a county-wide economic development program.

About 60 people from across the county attended the meeting at the Village Inn.

Ms. Micheau said the Delta Force leadership program in her county is now in its seventh year and has been graduating about 20 to 24 students a year, who serve the county in many capacities, from elected office to volunteer boards. Students include business owners, retirees moving to the area, and young people who want to get involved.

The program was founded by the Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Alliance, Bay College, Michigan Works!, the Escanaba Daily Press, and New Page Corporation.

The curriculum includes simulating real life experiences. An education exercise in allocating money for school budgets culminates with school administrators showing how it is really done, working around state mandates for expenditures and programs and dealing with everyday budget problems. A similar exercise will have a mock county commission make budget decisions as though the students were elected officials.

The leadership program, she said, lets people understand what another person in the group is thinking, helps them engage each other, and helps to build consensus within communities.

"They learn how to satisfy the needs of one group, satisfy their own needs, so that they can come together and ultimately have some positive outcomes," she told the group.

Convention and Visitors Bureau

With leadership training underway, the group reorganized the community's defunct convention and visitors bureau, which had fallen apart because of infighting over how best to promote the county.

The CVB started buying economic development, said its director, Steve Masters, by partnering with the Chamber of Commerce and other groups to go after big events and bring them to Delta County. The Logging Congress, big fishing festivals, a Harley-Davidson rally, and other events bring dollars to members, which, in turn, contribute to the economic benefit of the region. Nothing is too big to go after, he told the group.

The hotels and motels bring in between $120,000 and $147,000 with a 2% tourism tax on rooms, and the CVB spends between 60% and 70% of that to "buy economic development," he reported. The big events, in turn, he said, are bringing in an additional $20,000 to $30,000 in room tax money.

Planning, investing, and working together with the Chamber of Commerce, he said, has extended the CVB's resources, and the two groups, once bitter enemies, now look for opportunities where they can share costs, such as producing the visitors guide.

'Never co-mingle your money," he said, "especially with two boards involved. We're two separate organizations," but the CVB does share an office building owned by the Chamber, now called the Commerce Center. "Being in the same building made sense for communications," he noted, and it has helped cement a good working relationship between the two groups.

Partnering outside the area also has helped, Mr. Masters said.

Delta County has one of the lowest overnight stay rates in the state, he noted, at 1.2 days, so they traded ads with the Mackinac Island Visitors Guide with a promotion, "Stop and Stay Along the Way," attracting travelers from Illinois and Minnesota and beyond traveling through the Upper Peninsula.

Also housed at the Commerce Center are other groups involved with economic development in the county.

Economic Development Alliance

Formed in 1992, the EDA is funded primarily by the county, the cities of Escanaba and Gladstone, the community foundation, hospital, colleges, and banks and other financial institutions with a stake in economic development.

Director Christina Henderson said her job is to know the needs of existing and new businesses, the resources available to allow them to grow, and to help put it all together.

"If I know what's going on, how a business is going, what opportunities there are for growth, then I can go back and do what I can to help that business grow," she said.

"I just try to connect the businesses and educate them and help them navigate the process, get them access to money when they need it, get projects done."

She said the EDA has a close relationship with Michigan Works!, which also works with businesses in a number of employment and start-up areas.

There are many people and organizations with some sort of involvement in economic development, Ms. Henderson said.

"I'm the person who knows all those people, the one focal point to connect with everybody."

Econ Club

Sheila Hughes also works at the Commerce Center, working with the Bay Area Economic Club, which hosts four programs a year that address major issues, such as health care and taxation, and the Builders Exchange, which acts as a clearinghouse for construction projects and a resource center for contractors.

Both have their own boards and both are independent from the other organizations, although they operate under the tax license of the Chamber of Commerce.

Fairgrounds

When Michigan cut its funding for the U.P. State Fair, the groups took it over.

"For us, it would be as if they were to take Mackinac Island away from you guys," Mr. Masters said to the St. Ignace group.

The state transferred the fairgrounds to the county and required all 15 U.P. counties to be represented on the fair board. Commissioner Calvin McPhee represents Mackinac County.

Doing "simple things any person who owns a business would do," Mr. Masters said, the group cut the operating budget in half, from around $2 million the state had invested in the fair to $910,000. Among the cuts were closing the office in the winter, reducing the number of mercury vapor lights from 50 to six in the winter, turning off the lit signs after midnight, and pulling out most of the 17 telephone lines at the fairgrounds.

Commerce Center

Lessons learned in the past decade, the group said, are that building on each others' strengths, sharing resources, combining efforts, and believing anything is possible have benefited the county. And when working with other groups, Ms. Micheau said, getting credit for what you do is not a priority.

"With everybody that we've talked about, whether it’s Michigan Works!, or the EDA, or the CVB, we all kind of check our egos at the door," she said. "If we are truly serious about economic development in Delta County, there's no room for ego."

One advantage of its successes at promoting itself better has been a designation by one organization as one of the top retirement communities in the Midwest. Everything from medical care, climate, activities, low crime, and low cost housing contribute to such designations, Ms. Micheau said, and those qualities are also attractive to other age groups, as well. Some have enrolled in the leadership training program.

In Delta County, she said, retired residents are looked upon as assets, with skills and backgrounds that provide leadership for organizations and mentoring for younger members of the community.

"I think we can recognize them as an asset and an opportunity we can tap into," she said. “They're retired, but they're not sitting around in rocking chairs smoking a pipe. They are out there in the community, serving on boards, investing in young people."