Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

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Hello again everybody.

I'm Ray Gildow co-host of Lakeland Currents.

A lot of cities the size of Brainerd and Bemidji have economic development folks, organizations that spend time on trying to get new businesses and industries in the area and BLAEDC is one of those organizations in the Brainard area and Tyler Glynn is the executive director of BLAEDC and we're going to talk a little bit about what BLAEDC is, what they do and welcome to Lakeland Currents.

Good to see you.

Thank you Ray, I appreciate you having me.

Could you just tell us a little bit about your background before we get into what BLAEDC is?

Absolutely.

So, I'm originally from southern Minnesota, small town Grand Meadow, grew up there, you know born and raised there, graduated from high school there and then went on to to college went to Hamline University and played football and baseball there and got a degree in Economics and then, you know, started working in the private sector after that and then spent about the last, spent about 12 years working for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, you know, as a southern Minnesota kid a lot of jobs obviously at that organization for people.

Enjoyed my time there but it was, I was traveling quite a bit and so it was something my wife and I sat down and said, you know, we're looking for really quality of life and my wife's family's been up in this area for a very long time and, you know, I always said when we'd come north it just it felt right, it felt better I, you know, my blood pressure would drop as you'd hit the trees right?

Or the lakes.

Or the lakes, and so it felt, it felt right and so we moved up here permanently in 2015 and I began working with Sheila Haverkamp who was the former executive director of BLAEDC.

She'd been the only executive director since the organization formed in 1987.

So, I started working with her on a project and one of the things I'll talk about later as we get through some of the things that we do and then in 2020 Sheila decided to retire and at that time then I threw my hat into the ring to become the next executive director, the second executive director of BLAEDC and fortunately our board decided that was the direction to go and so I've been leading the the organization since January of 2020.

I've got a wife who is a dental hygienist here in town and three girls, one of them lives in Rochester and the other two, I have a senior at Brainerd High School and a freshman at Brainerd High School.

So, we're busy parents right now running around to sporting events and all the other stuff that goes with having high school kids.

I didn't realize that Sheila had been the director that long because I had her on the program a couple times but that goes back quite a little ways.

It really does and she was, you know, obviously the things that she was involved in and being able to watch and help this community and this region actually grow the way it has since 1987 has been incredible.

It really has and you know as an organization, you know, where the BLAEDC comes from we are the Brainerd Lakes Area Economic Development Corporation and we have boundary limits by Crow Wing County, so we really only work and provide services to the communities and to the county itself inside of Crow Wing County.

Are those self, are those boundaries something you decided or did somebody else decide?

It was determined I think when they started the organization and how, you know, how we receive funding, we're a 501c3 so we're a nonprofit organization and so we receive funding from the communities, individual communities as well as the county for, you know, to cover our operations and the costs of running our organization come from.

About 65% of our funding comes from those communities and the county itself and then we have about another 20% that is from our membership base.

So, organizations, businesses that believe in the mission and the things that we're doing to help, you know, grow this area, they support us financially and then we have now we'll bring in a third program.

So, we have some programming that we bring on that brings in some additional revenue to help us cover the cost of running an organization of our size.

And I know you have a governing board and how do members get on that board and what is the board member responsible for?

So, great question.

We have a, I have a nine-person board and we have our board members are, we try and look at first and foremost those organizations that support us and to help us achieve our mission and do the work that we do and we look at the leaders of these organizations to join us and to help us guide and move what we do forward.

They have the ability to serve three three-year terms.

So, they can serve a full nine years if they stay through the duration.

They can serve nine years on our board.

Again nine board members is the max and we always have nine board members and I just get tremendous support from the board of directors.

We have representation from all of the sectors it feels like, and we try to do that and we try to be representative of this county and make sure that we have representation on our board, not only from the businesses that support us but from the areas, you know, to make sure that we're on the north end of the county with Cross Lake and we go to the east into the Cayuna range area and certainly support from those folks in Brainerd and Baxter.

So, they guide us in, they guide me in how we move our mission forward and the programs that we decide to bring forward with the impetus of that is to help get to and solve some of the problems that we're having here locally, whether it be gap financing, we have a program that provides some some funding for businesses as they're trying to grow and expand.

We also have an individual Mike Bjerkness in our office that does what we call corporate level recruiting.

So, he hires management positions and up for member businesses of our organization and so our board guides us on how we keep moving some of those missions forward but, you know, just the general oversight of what we do.

And as we have as board members transition out, we look to, I look to my existing my sitting board now and take suggestions and take names.

I also get requests from other businesses that, you know, are looking maybe to have their staff join a board and join a professional board and they reach out and, you know , we just try to be very conscientious of the industries that we're supporting, that are supporting us and that are sitting on our board and also geographically where they're coming from.

So, that's really an important factor and what we decide when board members decide to come on and take the opportunity to help us serve.

What is the size of your staff?

So, I have four counting myself there are four staff members.

Mike Bjerkness, who is our Workforce Director, so he manages his program, the BLAEDC recruitment program, so Mike manages and runs that.

I have Allison Medic who is my Special Initiatives Director.

Allison does a lot of what I do but she also gets really involved in some of the other programming things that we do and involved in what our next program will be as we roll that out.

She's intricately involved in that and then Haley Majerus and Haley handles most of our marketing so, you know, the world of social media and you know the way things are marketed today, Ray that's not my lane, I stay out of that as much as I can.

So, Haley is young and understands that platform and understands how, you know, we need to be getting out there and marketing ourselves a little bit different than we used to.

About two years ago we went through a full rebranding of the organization, you know, new colors, new logos and it really just something that the board said we really just need to freshen this up and we need to be a bit more modern with what we're doing and how we're presenting ourselves and then with that we brought Haley on to really help us push our marketing efforts forward and really utilize the brand that we decided to go with and we've been very happy with what we have but yeah that's the full size of our staff and if we have other projects we can bring on contract employees but four of us full-time.

So, if I'm a new organization coming to town maybe I don't have as much money as I need to get this off the ground, who would I contact in your organization to start working with?

That would either be myself or Allison.

Mostly with new business startups as they're looking at our communities and what they can if they're looking for property or if they're looking for financing or things like this, they would come to me and I would start to guide them through that process and you know just, I obviously should mention and will mention, you know, all of our services are at no cost to the individual.

So, if you're coming in and you're, you want to start a new business and you sit down with me, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do my job to put the pieces together for you and hopefully be able to answer as many questions as we can and then also guide you to, you know, a lot of the services that are available here locally.

You know when you talk about the North Central Small Business Development Center which is housed at Central Lakes College, we have a, we're a satellite office for the North Central SBDC which is run now by Katie Hepner and they do a fantastic job of offering business mentoring.

My former neighbor.

Your former neighbor, nice but and they offer, you know, free consulting and have wonderful consultants throughout this region to help with everything from business planning to financial planning to really the, you know, sitting down and discussing with someone is your idea really a good one or is there something out there that matches this and really trying to to help them understand the market and really what it's going to take to get your business off the ground.

So, we do a lot of that, probably, you know, we've I would say we've probably done 250 to maybe 350 hours of that type of consulting just so far in 2024.

Wow!

There was a interesting research article published in the Brainerd Dispatch a few weeks ago about the potential growth in the area.

Did you happen to catch that article?

I was just amazed at the projections, not only for the Brainerd area but for the region, you know, Crow Wing County, Cass County not so much maybe to the West as it is up this corridor where all the lakes are.

Have you done a lot of work with University of Minnesota like Ben Winchester?

Have you done any work with Ben?

We do quite a bit of work with the University of Minnesota then with their extension office and in fact I'm in the middle of a project with them right now and we're trying to validate a system that we have that we're bringing online and a service that we're bringing online.

So, we're trying to do some things to understand if this system is as accurate as we think it is and so working with the University of Minnesota, they have access to some other tools that we don't have access to but when you talk about, you know, projections on growth and what that looks like for our region, we've been facing it for a handful of years now.

You know I think we had about from 2023, the full year of 2023, I believe we had you know two and a half to three and a half percent growth just in Crow Wing County.

Cass County saw similar growth to that but obviously based on populations of the two counties, our growth people wise was larger than what Cass's was but when we look at the proximity of where we sit today and how easy it is to get to the metropolitan areas and the larger areas that we have that surround us, you know, two hours to Duluth, two hours to Fargo, Minneapolis, you know, same type of thing or the Twin Cities and obviously with our airport here as well, you know, we have the ability to move people in and out of here pretty quickly but what we're seeing is, we're seeing a nice growth.

We're seeing, I think more people moving into their cabins or their cabins now as their permanent homes.

You know some of the things, you know, folks probably just trying to get out of the daily grind of working in a larger city, but the other thing is is that we have some of the best internet and fiber there is in the state right here locally, you know, and the ability for people to continue to do their jobs and work from home is a much much easier thing to do today than maybe it was five, six or seven years ago and that is also I think leading to some of our growth here and companies and their flexibility and allowing folks to work remotely has been really a key component in watching our growth up here is that it's easier to be here and be where you're happy and be where your blood pressure is dropping.

When you look at the projected growth what are some of the obstacles that you're going to be bumping into?

Definitely, the one of the biggest ones and it's a hot button and we're talking about this on a, I mean honestly Ray on a daily basis now is the impact of housing you know and we have a lot of organizations around here that are really trying to focus their attention on how do we impact this and how do we fix that, you know, the common phrase that we hear is we don't have enough affordable housing in this region and you know at the end of 2019 the Crow Wing County HRA commissioned a housing study and that housing study told us that before 2030, we were going to be needing roughly 4,000 new homes.

And it's not just homes, it's apartments, it's, you know, all of that.

4,000 and when you look at that and say are we really going to see that kind of growth over the next, you know, at that time over the next 10 years?

We're seeing it.

It's happening and so that report covered the entire county and it was really spot on and they knew you really as they sometimes projections are just, that they're projections and we don't know that that's going to be accurate but the barriers now that we face, you know, the cost of construction, you know, we are seeing interest rates that are coming down a little bit now so that's going to help I think alleviate some of the concerns but when you're looking at, you know, today now a single family home is probably averaging about $325,000 to $350,000 and that's a single family home and we, it's a struggle, you know, if people are making, you know, people need to make a living wage, you know, a wage that's going to be able to justify the cost of that and that's where some of these, you know, other things like, you know, do we build townhouses, now, do we look at how many more apartment complexes, you know, apartment buildings can come in but we need large developers to come in and be willing to, you know, put their foot in the ground here and say yeah we're going to build this and it can cash flow for them as well.

Still at the end of the day it's the business model that has to make sense whether it's for you and I as individual homeowners or if it's for a developer coming in here saying this is what we need and the barriers that also, you know, along with construction costs is we start to see the infrastructure needs, you know, as we look at where can we get water and sewer in some of our communities and especially in some of our smaller communities throughout the county as you look at, you know, Crosby is its growth pattern over there and they're a little bit landlocked and if they want to bring in and there's new areas that they can move to they maybe have to annex something into the city.

But does the infrastructure go there and so when you look at the price of a lot to build a single family home on and that lot let's just say today it's $25,000, well if you don't have water and sewer to it now we're adding wells and we're adding other things to that lot so the price just keeps going up, the affordability then becomes much more of an issue when it comes to that.

So, as we look at infrastructure in some of our communities, you know, as Brainerd and Baxter continue to do what they do and Baxter continues to build out, you know, with that growth comes infrastructure and then assessments and things like this happen.

So, it's we look to the State the hopefully the State can continues to invest in some programs that will allow for communities like ours to get some infrastructure assistance help our cities to help them continue to grow in a fashion that's affordable and again I think no matter who we're going to talk to affordability is always going to be one of the key components in how we grow.

I just looked at a study yesterday about climate change and how it's impacting the United States and we're living in counties with low impact.

It's not like Florida or Atlanta or those areas where they're having huge impact from weather and it's getting bigger and one of the scientists said the hurricanes are getting bigger and they're getting slower and they're going to eventually work their way to Wisconsin, if you can believe that.

I thought that was pretty staggering statement to make but you know the ones that hit North Carolina weren't even projected to go into the areas that they did, so you can imagine what that's doing to housing now in those areas when their housing is getting wiped out, absolutely wiped out.

Right.

And I've always thought Brainerd is a little more landlocked than Baxter.

Baxter has a fair amount of property.

Is that still true pretty much?

It is and you know there where you look at Baxter and saying you where they can grow and they can grow south, you know, there's a lot of and as you, if you follow some of the things that they talk about at the city level and talking about how they're zoning calling that 371 corridor, you know, the gateway to the Lakes Area, they can grow that direction and I think they have a bit more ability to do that.

You know, Brainerd itself is you know, you start to spread out.

There's land available as you get out towards the airport as you go east on 210.

You know there's some land that was just sold by the Mills family that is on old 371 as you're going out of town.

So, there's some opportunities out there and they have infrastructure out there, you know, there's infrastructure certainly there.

So, there's some potential to grow out in that region as far as the city of Brainerd is concerned and Baxter they have opportunities to continue to grow and you know again it's all of this comes with a cost because you still have to continue to build that out and once you build that out then it's okay, now we need to find developers.

We need to find builders, folks that are willing to, you know, again put a shovel in the ground and hopefully impact what we think is going to continue to be a problem is, you know, we talk about this is, you know, growth in this area is wonderful and we want more businesses to come here and we want more individuals and families to come and experience what we what we're experiencing on a daily basis now, but the hard part is is that if a new business is coming here, you know, bringing, attracting new employees and where are these employees going to live?

So, we have to continue to support the businesses as they come and grow in our area and hopefully help them get the employees that they need but then the other side of that is, is we need to make sure that there's affordable housing opportunities for them and then the other thing is child care and we could probably spend the entire conversation you and I talking about child care and the impact that that has on our communities as well.

Do you work with like organizations in Bemidji, Little Falls similar to BLAEDC?

Yes.

Cooperative planning together?

We, in fact we have quarterly meetings with, it's our Regional Economic Development professionals through Region 5.

So, throughout Region 5 we bring in the folks from Staples.

We bring in the folks from Little Falls.

Our group here Cass County's Economic Development Director Mike Paulus, so we all meet on a quarterly basis and you know and talk about the things that are going on in our regions and you know and can we help each other?

I've run a couple of programs in conjunction with Carol Mortonson down in Morrison County and you know bringing our lenders together and then bringing in some of our, you know, some of our other lenders that do non-traditional lending like the Initiative Foundation Region Five, groups like that.

So, we do partner with each other on a pretty regular basis and then I'm also involved in a statewide organization through the Association of Minnesota Counties and that group was really instrumental in how we moved a lot of things forward during COVID and post COVID.

So, you know, our county was extremely aggressive with the use of their funds as they received their federal dollars in helping our businesses with economic assistance grants and then as some of the additional money they received as we got into.

So, Crow Winging County just they got out in the forefront of how they were going to utilize their funding that they were receiving and so with being involved in these other, with other economic development professionals throughout the state, I was able to tell these folks hey here's where we are at or you know as we looked at how we were going to grant dollars out what the applications looked like and then in fact also then when we started Crow Wing County here started their Housing Trust Fund, I had economic development professionals from all of these other counties saying there's money out there and we'd like to start a Housing Trust Fund as well and so it really gives us the ability to navigate through, you know, even different organizations like the Housing and Redevelopment Authority and getting those to the folks throughout the state that can help their economic development people impact their communities and what's happening in there.

So, we've been very fortunate to be involved in these groups.

We have a state organization as well and our state organization we meet a couple times a year but it really is nice to sit down with folks that are dealing with the same things that we're dealing with and different scales.

Last year I had the University of Minnesota staff on and they were talking about the number of people that leave Brainerd to go to work and the number of people that come from somewhere else to Brainerd.

It almost offsets itself.

I'm not going to use the statistics because I don't remember them but I couldn't believe the amount of people that leave and I guess I can believe it when I'm coming in from the West it's bumper to bumper traffic in the morning and in the evening it's bumper to bumper traffic the other way.

So, that's got to affect how you plan things too doesn't?

It really does and especially as we talk, you know, even as housing comes up again but our statistics show us that the average commute in this county is 21 miles.

So, 21 miles whether you're from the outside coming in or from the inside going out 21 miles is the average commute distance in this region.

And when we start to think about that and you know and put that into context 21 miles if you're on 494 or 94 in the metropolitan area is probably taking you an hour and a half.

21 miles here, unless you're, you know, stopping for a deer, you're probably getting there in 20 to 25 minutes so, it's the ability for us to have folks that live on the outskirts and especially as we, you know, bring larger businesses in here like our hospital systems, you know, a physician, you know, might live in Baxter that works in Crosby.

A physician might or their staff might live closer to Fort Ripley and come into the Brainerd hospitals and so it's definitely something that we track and we pay attention to where that is because as we're recruiting people especially as Mike's recruiting people telling them that, you know, the commute up here is it's not the metropolitan commute and it's actually if you think about it I mean you probably enjoy your drive coming in because it's beautiful.

Oh yeah.

And but now everything's turning so.

We're out of time.

Okay.

And you did a great job and I know that BLAEDC is a great organization.

How do people get a hold of you?

Thank you and I really appreciate you having me on Ray.

This is fun.

I'm glad I get the opportunity to sit down with you and do this.

But you can reach us through our website which is www.growbrainerdlakes.org or you know we're located here on 224 West Washington.

We're in the same building as the Brainerd Lakes Chamber of Commerce.

So, come in and hop on our website.

You can find out a lot from our website or just pop in.

We're open every single day of the week.

Tyler again thanks for jumping on with us.

It's very good information and it's a great organization.

I really appreciate you having me Ray, enjoyed my time.

You've been watching Lakeland Currents.

I'm Ray Gildow.

So long until next week.