Interview with Don Ness, Mayor of Duluth

Ness: Yep. And there are good projects, and sometimes it is important to get the national organizations or that outside expertise. But you have to know what that market is and be willing to bring it to a head on how much these folks are going to get because there will still be a point where you can push back and reduce their top costs and the money that they’re going to get and yet they’ll still do the project. Creating that healthy tension as a government looking to contract for services, government has to be willing and able to step up and advocate for the taxpayers and negotiate to get the best deal possible.

Yordy: Right. So, moving to the issue of keeping college graduates in town, in Colorado Springs, our campuses churn out a lot of graduates that don’t necessarily stay in the city. I noticed that the FuseDuluth program seemed like a very efficient tool for networking upcoming professionals. I noted that it was organized through the Chamber of Commerce. How difficult was it to organize this, and was it a joint venture between multiple groups?

Ness: Fuse came out of an initiative that I started back in 2000. It was more of a grassroots, non-profit organization all run by young people in their 20s and 30s. We got together and worked on projects and had social events. Within a year, Fuse went from a membership of ten to a membership of over 500. This really tapped into a sense that young professionals in Duluth have a role to play and that we could help shape the future of Duluth.

About five years in, we were an entirely volunteer-run organization, as happens when you’re dealing with folks in their 20s and early 30s. Then, folks were getting married, having kids, their job responsibilities became greater. It became difficult to sustain that going forward. The Chamber stepped in and said, “We’ll take this on. We’ll bring this into our organization.” It became more of a plug and play for young professionals who wanted to be involved.

We spent a tremendous amount of energy trying to sustain the organization, and the Chamber did a nice job with it. It’s not as vibrant and vital of an organization as it was at first, but its difficult to sustain that sort of energy in the long term as well. There are some challenges because the Chamber is representing business interests, and before with the non-profit approach, we were able to bring in young people that may not have been comfortable going to a Chamber event but who wanted to be involved in an organization like this. But, it is a good group and it’s a good way for young people who are entering the work force to gain a sense of building connections. They can go to Fuse events and learn about the community and do some networking at a level that’s comfortable.

Yordy: Right. Now, does your TwinPortsConnex program supplement that as far as providing mentoring and career sites for young people?

Ness: Yeah, it’s different from FuseDuluth, but there are always connections between all these different organizations, and that’s the real key. We have many agencies doing similar things, and the key is to make sure nobody gets to the point where they feel that they have the corner on that particular market or start getting their elbows up and start bad mouthing another initiative because it may be coming close to what they’re doing.

So, TwinPortsConnex is an initiative that’s supported by our community foundation. The idea there is to really focus in on folks when they’re juniors and seniors in college through that transition to getting that first professional job, so 22-26 or sometimes further on, depending on how long it takes to get that first professional job. And they’re really about connecting those dots. You know, finding the employers who are willing to take on interns or finding employers who know that they’re going to have skill gaps in the future because of retirements or because of growth, and then to develop this network of young people who are interested in those fields and just making those connections.

And, as you sometimes see in Colorado Springs, campus can be its own little island. And students who go there, most of their activities are on campus. They might leave occasionally to go to a bar or whatever, but there’s no real connection with the community. And so TwinPortsConnex is trying to say, “Hey, you have an opportunity as a junior or senior in college. We have this great community, we have this great economy. You need to experience it, and we want to open your eyes to what the city of Duluth can offer in terms of a long-term career here, and getting an internship or encouraging these young people to volunteer or getting a mentor is a great way to ground them in this community.