F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
A Gaddis Premier Wealth Advisors Podcast.
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F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
Tony Kaai | Episode 15 | Economic Evolution and Leadership in Southeast Oklahoma
Tony Kaai from the Denison Development Alliance takes us on a journey from his agronomy roots in Oklahoma to his pivotal role in economic development. With captivating stories from his early life in small towns to his academic experiences at Oklahoma State University, Tony shares how his transition from field crops to economic empowerment projects was both unexpected and transformative. Through his work, particularly in rural development projects in Southeast Oklahoma, Tony underscores the power of visionary leadership in uplifting communities.
Explore the competitive dynamics of economic development in Denison, Texas, where attracting new industries involves a multitude of stakeholders, from chambers of commerce to utility companies. Hear how modern marketing strategies, including AI and social media, are leveraged to entice businesses, especially in the tech sector. Discover the potential impact of major projects like Preston Harbor, which promises an influx of new homes and infrastructure, and learn about the shifts in real estate interest post-COVID, with significant developments reshaping the Texoma area.
Tony also highlights the role of community and volunteer leadership in driving sustainable growth. We discuss the importance of identifying and nurturing emerging leaders within the community to ensure continued success. Through strategic collaboration and transparency, Denison's unique structure, including a private non-profit foundation, provides flexibility in economic initiatives. Tony's insights into maintaining political capital and fostering strong community ties offer valuable lessons for anyone interested in enhancing their own community's economic landscape.
You're doing a podcast, so I'm assuming your experience has been good with us. Here's Teresa. If I ask you how you, we can edit that out. So how's your experience been with Gattis Premier? Well, actually we got something we need to talk about. Like, well, it's good. Okay, cut it down. My name is Derek Hines and I am a partner here at Gattis Premier Wealth Advisors. And Tony I should have asked you how to pronounce your last name before I introduced you, but here we have Tony with us, and Tony is with Denison Development Alliance and he's been there for 23 years.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, it's pronounced Kai Kai. Well, that's a Hawaiian name. Okay, born in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1:Born in Ada? Yeah, born in Ada, but how'd you get Hawaiian name? My mother?
Speaker 2:went to the West Coast and my dad was in the Navy and they met there. And here I come, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hawaiian name. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, you don't resemble like Hawaiian native.
Speaker 2:He was Hawaiian, he was a tall, he was 50 hawaiian and so I'm quarter, but my mother was a fairly tall woman. Yeah, so I guess I got that. It's been good, it's been fun. A lot of people like I've worked at different places and they get information on me, tony kai, and they're like oh, it's probably a small Asian guy.
Speaker 1:I'm not, that's funny, so you? So? You were born in Ada, yes, sir, and you grew up in Vanoss. I graduated from Vanoss, okay.
Speaker 2:How'd you get from Ada to there? Well, I was born in Ada, but I grew up in Stonewall. Oh, okay. And then, when I was a sophomore, I moved over to Vanoss and I graduated from Vanoss. Okay, it was fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, small, small town. So that's all over where we're. I mean, we have an office in Ada, oh yeah, so we're all over. Ada's great, ada's great, yeah. Well, what took you? I know, you know we had a little conversation before this, but you went to OSU, yes, sir, graduated with a degree in agronomy, that's right. And now you're in economic development, correct? That seems like a little bit of a jump.
Speaker 2:That's a big jump. Agronomy is the study of field crops and soil and I got connected with the state office of the USDA in Stillwater. Yes, they hired me as a summer trainee. So I spent three summers training different field offices around the state and then when I graduated I had a job. They sent me to Medill, worked there for a year. Then I went to Oklahoma City and was working there at the state office and everything was great there for a year. Then I went to oklahoma city and was working there at the state office and everything was great.
Speaker 2:And then my hometown congressman, wes watkin, okay, created a program called red art development authority. So I left the government and went or that branch of government, went to work for the congressman and we were headquartered in malester and he was trying to, he was mimicking programs in the country that support rural communities. Yeah, the 21 counties in Southeast Oklahoma were the highest unemployment, lowest, highest poverty in the state of Oklahoma, and that was his district. And he was, he is and he was a phenomenal representative for the state of Oklahoma. And that was his district, he is and he was a phenomenal representative for the state of Oklahoma, yeah, so I jumped ship and went to work for him and there were four of us.
Speaker 2:I did natural resource development, which was we built a small catfish farming operation in Holdenville and then we were out in the field helping farmers transition from whatever they're doing into growing catfish yeah, and we provided a market because we built the plant in Holdenville to take that fish. Yeah, so we did that. And then we did a vegetable processing project in the Toka and had a marketplace there. And then we had another gentleman that worked for us that was out in the field working with farmers to start doing vegetables yeah, so commercial, commercially farming, yes.
Speaker 1:So what kind of vegetables?
Speaker 2:um, there was okra was the fun one, because, yeah, that would be hard to commercially farm. Well it's. It's not that hard, it grows quick, it's easy to grow, but you have to harvest it at three inches, yes, and we told all the farmers that you have to hand, you have to hand harvest too, right.
Speaker 1:You can't run a machine over it, right? So you can't be bringing in.
Speaker 2:Well, it took a long thing. Well, it didn't work. I'll just put it that way. They couldn't stay that focused, focused on cutting it at three inches. Yeah, yes, but that was fun. And then Wes funded a multimillion-dollar research center over in Lane, oklahoma, for the support of the technical aspects of growing vegetables in southeast Oklahoma. So he had a lot of vision, he did a lot of work and I learned a lot. But on that staff he also had a gentleman that was an economic developer. So I just kind of caught on to what it was all about, but I really didn't have any training in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think that's fascinating. So my wife and I live on a little farm. Yeah, I grew up on a on a farm just right outside of Stillwater, outside of Perkins, no other side, perry, oh yeah, uh, some of my best buddies from Perry.
Speaker 2:Oh, really, wrestlers. Yeah, who's that? Uh, mark Kirk. Okay, wade Brorson, this is. I graduated in 79.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, yeah, I definitely know the Brorsons. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're big farmers up there. They are Super, super good people.
Speaker 1:Yep, so we. So their farm is a little further north of Perry. Ours is in between Perry and Stillwater, yeah, kind of out by Lake Montmartre. We were more cow-calf, you know, you know my uh, my grandparents, uh, one of my sets of grandparents, they did a little, a little wheat farming, but right on, you know, mostly, mostly cow calf type stuff and yeah that's fun.
Speaker 2:I we had. We ran about 70 head kind of a hobby farm. Yep enough for the boys to have something to do. Yes, yes, that's cool after school.
Speaker 1:That's pretty close to what we were doing. We did showed some cattle and yes, yes, before school, after school that's pretty close to what we were doing we showed some cattle. Sure did you? Got to feed them twice a day. All of that, yes, it was good. Yeah, I have a lot of good stories about trying to break calves to lead. That was always a wild time. You hook them to a tractor, exactly. It took us a couple years to figure that one out.
Speaker 2:I had one that was brutal. Yeah, you couldn't, I did hook him to a tractor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, he finally kind of got broke. Yeah, with a little bar on the back of the tractor. You time to and just take it Slow, take it slow. So you missed a little vegetable farming. So my brother-in-law actually has a farm just right outside of on 70. Oh, so commercially farming vegetables is is a challenge, it is.
Speaker 2:It is. I mean, I'm an agronomist and that's not a horticulturist, yeah, and so I was involved in that to some degree, but we had a guy that really knew what he was doing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm sure my brother-in-law's name is Evan Roland. I'm sure he's read any sort of research that was produced about farming in this area and he's doing a lot of cool stuff.
Speaker 2:And we had a lot of good farmland on the Red River. Yes, oklahoma side it was very suited for that, but it's a whole different management than cow-calf.
Speaker 1:Exactly Wheat farm. Yeah, it's every day.
Speaker 2:Alfalfa or anything. Yeah, you got to be on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so that took you to Muskogee.
Speaker 2:Well, when Congressman Watkins ran for governor and he was beaten in the closest governor race in history to that point, so you know he left Congress to do that and so we kind of broke up. Broke up and I had a connection and so I ended up going Cushing, oklahoma Okay, and became the president slash economic developer for Cushing.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And the day I walked into the chamber Cushing was the first time in my life I'd ever walked into a chamber office Farm. You know we're not going to the chamber, yeah, but it was a great fit for me and stayed there three years and then I went to Muskogee Was there about nine years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In Cushing were you part of the chamber?
Speaker 2:I was the chamber president, okay Slash economic development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know the way Denison is built. I'm sure is it separate in Denison. Yeah, it's separate.
Speaker 2:I did a survey when I was in Muskogee because they wanted me to take over the chamber at the same time. So we did a pretty extensive survey and it looked like it. If I recall it correctly, it's about 50-50 split Communities had the chamber still doing economic development, or cities splitting them off and being a separate entity. Yeah, A chamber in Denison did economic development until Denison passed a sales tax a half cent sales tax dedicated economic development in 96. And when that happened it became basically a city entity. Yeah, and so split off. And I was actually in the chamber office in Denison when I first moved down there and I'm just next door now because we just needed more privacy and in our own space. Yeah, so it's been. I mean chambers and great good partners yeah, yeah, how do you, I'm curious?
Speaker 1:so you started in Cushing and then you moved to Denison, so did you? From Muskogee, so Muskogee to Cushing. I went to Cushing, cushing, muskogee and then Dennett, okay, and in Muskogee you were with Red Arc Development.
Speaker 2:No, I was in Callister.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, that's why I was getting confused. So, callister Cushing, muskogee and what'd you do in Muskogee? Straight up, economic, straight, economic development. Okay, and was that? Was it split from the chamber or was it combined? It was split, split. So how do you? I'm curious sort of where I'm going with this. I kind of thought about this before our conversation. You know, how do you manage just so with economic development? I'm sure you know there's a lot of oh, what's a good word for this? Different contingencies, different people that you partnership with. Like, how do you manage all that in economic development?
Speaker 2:Well, you have to be a people person, you have to really love people and you've got to connect and network and build your credibility that you know what you're doing and then just keep pitching. And I was telling somebody the other day to do a deal. Oh, you know, 20,000 square foot metal fab company on five acres of land. To get that deal done you're going to involve probably 40 to 50 people. Wow, you know county commissioners somewhat, the chamber definitely, the city public works department, college, you know we have junior college, workforce development, all the players, utilities yeah, you got to have them all. Yeah, but the only thing people on the streets see is oh, there's a new industry. That just happened Exactly, Saw it in the paper.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, they said, buy some land and put up a building and start a business. And it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no business of any significance these days comes into community without going through economic development or a chamber. They just don't come in and go oh, I just bought 10 acres. I'm gonna bill this bill Because they know there's incentives and there's support that they need from the overall structure and that's just what's evolved into it. It wasn't that way forever. I got in the business in 88 and a lot of cities didn't have full-time economic developers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They had the chamber, and the chamber staff kind of took it over. But as the profession became really specialized then they started splitting off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how important is that to the health of the city? It's everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you're not going to have growth if you don't have a real active economic development program. It's very competitive. I mean there's 15,000 locations in the United States that a company could possibly go to. Typically they'll narrow down their search to a region of the country. Or sometimes they'll get real specific and they want to be in Oklahoma for whatever reason. Or they want to be in Texas to a region of the country. Or sometimes they'll get real specific and they want to be in Oklahoma for whatever reason, or they want to be in Texas.
Speaker 1:Is that based off like existing infrastructure?
Speaker 2:It's based off of. A lot of times it's the natural resources. You have Cardinal Glass that we worked with Cardinal Glass between us and Sherman and Durant, and they're in this region because of the sand, specialized sand Coleman. Yeah, yep, so, anyway, great, great company that ended up in Durant, yeah, so yeah, it's very competitive and we'll work 50, 60, 100 projects and you might get one. That's how competitive I'm in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, I mean that sounds about right. I mean from my experience in business and industry, I mean, if you're getting 10% consistently, you're doing okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you, just. You know I might work a deal for a year or two years and then they decide, you know we're not going to do the deal. I've worked several of those. We're going to move or we're going to relocate and go through the process and then, you know, a new CEO comes on board. Like you know we're not going to, we're just going to stay where we are. Yeah, you just close the file. Work on the next. Yeah, just the life of economic development.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, how is so? I had a question, but it kind of slipped my mind there for a second. So you work, so you just do you approach people, or do you wait for people to approach you?
Speaker 2:We approach people through different marketing methods. You can do direct mail. We do call trips to California. It's a pretty hot target. You can advertise in magazines Now. There's a lot of AI stuff going on now and we're transitioning into capturing that, which has been interesting in the last six months. I mean, they've got programs now that could call you, have a conversation with you and then once you say yeah, I'd like to have more information, they say, well, you need to call Tony Kai. They can make the voice, the dialect, whatever you want. Wow, just give them a list of names and they call and start going. We didn't do that. We're doing another, another program, that's we're targeting technology companies because of TI and global wafers, yep. So you can take Instagram and anybody that's on Instagram that has the word semiconductor somewhere in their profile. They'll go pick all those out, send an email to connect. So that's what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure you can pick like you can probably dial down into the size of the company, number of employees. Square footage needs all that. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, that's incredible. So how's it been? I mean, you've been in Denison for 23 years, so you've seen incredible growth.
Speaker 2:We have, and really the biggest jump has been just before COVID and then right after COVID. From a population standpoint, yeah, 2020, we were about 24,000. And now we're estimating based on water meter hookups and other programs that kind of give us some measurement. We're probably we're saying we're around 29,000.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's a big jump. Well, and then what's projected growth?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, we have a big project, preston Harbor, Yep 3,100 acres, and they're going to do somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 homes of different sizes and styles, and is that to account for the TI project?
Speaker 1:No, no.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm sure that helped that project. We'd actually been working with that developer for 24 years and the property was all set up and titled, if you will, all zoning and all that was done, but that took a long time, a lot of work with the Corps and federal government.
Speaker 2:But we got that done in 2015, and it's just been on the market since then. But really, again, I haven't seen any interest until right after COVID. Within about a 45-day period, we had four companies that came to my office and said, hey, we're looking. You know, it's a great area of the country, we're looking to do something. What do you have? And I said, well, I got 50 acres here, 200 acres over here, and they're not laughing. They say and I got 3,100 acres out here on the lake. And they said that's who I want to talk to for in about a 60-day period. And then you know, previous 20 years, no interest. And so, anyway, craig International out of.
Speaker 2:McKinney is the one that finally took the deal down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 2:So they're supposed to have houses on the ground the first quarter of 27. Okay, and how many houses are projected? Well, anywhere between seven and 10,000. Oh my goodness. And there'll be single family, there'll be age restricted, there'll be casitas, there'll be mansions.
Speaker 1:It'll be a total mixture of yeah, what does age restricted mean, if you're?
Speaker 2:65 and over or 55 and over yeah, typically no kids. Yeah, you know, it's an adult neighborhood. That makes sense. Right, I'm in that category. Yeah, I've got three kids. I'm in that category.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got three kids and I guarantee you don't want to be my neighbor. You may want to be my neighbor, but they're loud. I mean, I got things to do. You're kidding. There's going to be fireworks going off, not on 4th of July.
Speaker 2:That's great Good for you.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you. Yes, going off not on 4th of july, that's, that's great good for you. Yes, thank you. Yes, we. So we have three kids 10, 10, 8 and 6 daughter, boy, boy. And you know, after we had our third one, you know we have, we have a lot of friends that have multiple children, four plus, and they say, after you have three, it doesn't really matter anymore, you have as many as you want. And then I don't believe them, I'm not, I'm not willing to test that theory my nephew has five.
Speaker 2:I don't. I don't know how you're doing that's a lot of kids.
Speaker 1:Somehow you get adjusted to it and you make it work. Yeah, yeah, you do you. You just accept, you set, you accept a level of chaos that you otherwise wouldn't have to right. It's kind of goal you go from you know man-to-man defense to playing zone and you just kind of figure it out. Oh, they're all a blessing, they are.
Speaker 2:They really are. They'll take care of you someday, that's the plan?
Speaker 1:I hope so, yeah, yeah, well, that's an incredible project. I mean 7,000 to 10,000 homes, I well that. That that's an incredible project. I mean seven to ten thousand homes, I'm sure margaritaville's supposed to be on the on there too.
Speaker 2:No, in a large, yeah, high-end, marina.
Speaker 1:Public access yeah, really, the three components yeah, it's going to be interesting how like, how much like texoma changes in the next 10 to 20 years.
Speaker 2:Well, that that will change it. Yes, and there's other projects around. I know that there's stuff going up here by Roosevelt Bridge. Yep, that project.
Speaker 1:Yep and Roosevelt Bridge will be. You know, I saw that New and updated, not updated.
Speaker 2:I think there's gonna build a whole new bridge, but I've tied up there and fished for sand bass a long time ago, yep.
Speaker 1:Yep, so you like to fish yeah?
Speaker 2:That's probably. That's my number one hobby. Number one hobby Just bass fishing. Yep, my wife goes, we go.
Speaker 1:Sand bass or what's your favorite bass, just black bass, okay.
Speaker 2:If we run across a striper, we'll fish for them, but I don't go after them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to show you some pictures. We have a little farm pond, yeah, and I've got my eight-year-old boy. He loves to fish. He'll probably fish the rest of his life. Yep, yeah, we catch a lot of fish. Lately we've been trapping beaver, oh yeah. So that's quite the adventure. They can be a problem they are. They're very much nooses. Good luck with that. Thanks, I don't know if that'll be podcast friendly material, but so we talked about, like, the growth, you know, the growth in Denison, yeah, I think, the TI project that's. Is that Sherman? Yeah, sherman, but obviously you guys are going to experience a lot of growth just by proximity yeah yeah and the whole region.
Speaker 2:I mean it's it's going to affect durant. Yeah, it's going to have a big impact on everyone because that's just the start. Typically, you know a semiconductor plant and now we got two, one that makes wafers and the other is going to make the chips, but that's the core, and then you'll have suppliers come in over time. Yeah, so that's what we're targeting, and some of them could end up in Durant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what are like the cascading impacts of? You said that's like the core, but like what if that's the first domino that gets knocked over? What are the subsequent ones?
Speaker 2:All the suppliers and I'm just learning about the process, but there's especially gases, there's all kinds of product that I would have never thought you know was part of a semiconductor plant, because it's very intriguing once you dig into it, which I never dug into it until then, yeah, and I didn't have a reason to yeah, but yeah, it's big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do you see, you know, as an economy develops? I mean, what are the sort of the milestone moments for different communities? Does that make sense, you mean?
Speaker 2:when they're successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you know population growth is one. Your sales tax growth, your property tax income all those economic factors are signs of good news from your community. Yeah, and that's how we measure property tax, sales tax. I mean, that's what funds your city. Yes, and you know the number of people that are moving there. If you're trying to recruit some kind of industry, any kind of industry, they want to know that people are moving there. People aren't moving away and there are some real communities that, unfortunately, people are leaving. People aren't moving away and there are some real communities that, unfortunately, people are leaving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no opportunity, but there's this huge influx in Sherman and in Denison and you know that's the developers come in first. They understand the system, how it works. They were actually out there before the TI and global wafers was announced, were actually out there before the TI and Global Wafers was announced. But there are ways for those developers who are very sharp to hear about it Because, like TI, was getting quotes from different vendors for some of their work before they ever announced the plant. And you know, dallas is big but it's pretty small when it comes to keeping secrets. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm big but it's pretty small when it comes to keeping secrets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm sure they use the same vendors Well they're just good brokers and good developers.
Speaker 2:They've got contacts, yep, and they hear yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they start buying up land. Exactly which?
Speaker 2:raises the land value? Oh, it's, you know, home values and, sherman Denison, I don't know if it's happened in Durant, but you know, five years ago you could build a home for $85 to $95 a square foot. Now it's $220. Yeah, now that's a combination of things, not just the growth, but supply and demand is part of it. But inflation and you know, the interest rates were so low people were just going crazy. Yes, houses, and that interest rate definitely slowed that down. Yeah, but just I know, between Sherman Denison, just on our normal development, the city planning department, developers that have taken down property and got it entitled, another 10,000 homes. The insurance probably doubled or tripled that. Yeah, wow, so it's totally changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean going from, like you said, 80 to 90 a square foot to 220, I mean that's substantial, Right, you know how do you? You know, as as a community grows like that, what are some of the challenges that it faces? Infrastructure?
Speaker 2:water and sewer. Okay, uh, denison's 152 years old, so we have some water sewer lines that are over 100 years old. But you have a capacity at your water plant, your sewer plant, and you're just, you know, have nominal growth, a little growth over the years, year over year. Everything's pretty smooth, nothing, nothing to get crazy about. And then within two or three years you're like we're maxed out on water and sewer. Now, we're not, but obviously you can tell that in two or three years it could be, yeah, and that would be a big problem, and you can't raise the money if you will and add to your water and sewer capabilities in two or three years. You've got to be way out front of it, that's right, which we were and we are. We're building a huge pump station over by the dam on Texoma. Okay, it'll do 50 million gallons of water. We're currently. I think our capacity right now is about 12 million gallons a day and we're using about seven of that. So we have that five or six million, but do you have a drought?
Speaker 1:like last summer. That's not. I mean five or six million gallons of water daily.
Speaker 2:That can go pretty fast. It can you have a drought, which we had last summer for two months, and it it bumped right up to that yeah, so you pull your water straight out of Texoma, right, okay?
Speaker 2:we've got water rights out of Texoma that'll last us for a long, long time. Yeah, that's a. They're suffering south of us. I mean, there's gonna be towns that aren't gonna have any water, yeah, and there's Salina, fastest growing city in the United States. Yeah, just right down the road, and they're going to have to have a lot of water. Yeah, and where do they get their water? They try to. Well, I don't know where Salina is going to get theirs, but you know we just built a lake and opened it a couple of years ago Bodark, over by Bonham. Okay, yep, for a group of communities down around McKinney, mm-hmm. And then I was just reading a story this morning about another lake not too far from there, southeast of Paris. Yeah, that 60,000-acre lake that they're trying to get through. Of course, the locals, if you got land over there, you don't want it. So they got to go through all that. But it would be simply for water supply from North Dallas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man yeah.
Speaker 2:We're great, we're in great position.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what's the life of I mean, what's the life of the lakes like Texoma, like? How do you even think about that?
Speaker 2:No, I grew up on Tex Homa and it has silted in. I went to on the north side of Tex Homa because I lived in Ada, so that was a close point. But Cumberland Cove was a little marina. That whole part of the lake now is all silted in. Huge part of the lake got will all silted in. Huge part of the lake Got willow trees and it's that deep. Yeah, you barely get through there to get up into the Ouachita and you can still do that. But back in the day it was just wide open. Yeah, fully silted in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean everything. It's going to silt in at some point. It's got a long way to go. Yeah, ago, yeah, it's a big, big hole. It's a big hole.
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, I don't know how deep tex only is, but it's, it's a huge lake. It um, you know the main river, the red river channel. It's probably around 80, but once you kind of get out of the channel it jumps up to 50 and then, yeah, then it's 30s. It's not like a ozark lakes where they're 300 feet deep yeah, I mean Broken Bow's 300 feet deep at the dam, my goodness, it's a unique. But not these flatland lakes like Texoma. Yeah, I would call them relatively shallow.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, 300 feet, that's deep, that's deep, yeah Well. So I know you've been working with us here at Gash Premier for how long? Oh, 16, 17 years. Okay Well, do you have any complaints or anything? You really want to just get off your chest.
Speaker 2:I have no complaints. It's a simple, easy, okay.
Speaker 1:That's a great. That's a good answer. So we're just going to cut the podcast, no complaint.
Speaker 2:We love our advisor Teresa. Yes, she's part of the family, she is wonderful and so she handles it and we get together maybe once a year and go over stuff. She's got it absolutely knocked out, no problems whatsoever. It's always just. It's a very good relationship. Yeah, we're very happy to have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's good to hear. I know we haven't. We haven't talked about that before we got on this podcast. So it's a very good relationship. Yeah, we're very happy to have it. Yeah, well, that's good to hear. I know we haven't talked about that before we got on this podcast. It's okay, but I did do that. Everybody know that if the answer was negative, we could cut it and try again. It's all positive.
Speaker 2:Good, she just went off on my board. She served on the city council for six years and then she came onto the Denison Development Alliance board and she still had a couple of years to go on that, but then she ran again for city council and was elected. Yeah, pretty much a landslide. So, yeah, that's awesome. The whole key to any community is the volunteer leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do you specifically? Do you specifically target leaders like that?
Speaker 2:Yes, you have to be on the lookout all the time. You see people. You know there's all kinds of things you get involved with, like United Way, and you know the chamber. You see emerging leaders and you've got to go get them. It's not like people are all running around like man. I really want to be on the city council. There's really no fun in that. You've got to be a special person to come with no agenda and just do it because you love the city and you can contribute to the process. Yeah, and actually I've almost been there 25 years. June will be my 25th. I'm there because of the volunteer leadership. The mayors and the city councils and the board members that I've had are the reason why communities like Denison are successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they hire good people, they take care of the people that you know, the professional people, but they set all the policy. And back to what I was saying when you get ready to do a deal, it involves tax abatements and everything to make the deal happen. You need to be able to know that your city council or your college board and all those people are involved in the tax abatement anyway. That when I talk to you and say I'm going to ask for a 50% tax abatement for 10 years, that I'm 90% sure that that's going to be accepted. Yeah, and I've never had one of those voted down in the 25, 24 years I've been there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because people that I deal with they want to know they're dealing with a decision maker and then I've got to deliver. Yeah, I can make offers, but it's still got to be approved.
Speaker 1:Yeah man, I think that's just so wise. So how have you gone about just identifying who those leaders are in those volunteer positions? Just by networking?
Speaker 2:If there's something going on, I'm usually there. Something you know. Volunteer groups, like I said, united Way said United Way and all those. We got multiple boards with several foundations in Denison and just being out and about listening to people talking to people like who's that guy, who's that lady, what's she do? Networking within the leadership that's already in place, because most of them grew up in Denison, so they know people. So it's just been within the leadership that's already in place, because most of them grew up in Denison. Yeah, so they know people. So it's just been the leadership, has been everything. Yeah, the volunteer leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's so key. Yeah, it's leadership is. Leadership is key.
Speaker 2:That's that's, yeah, most. I've been there, probably not a record for economic developers, but typically it's a five to six year gig and, uh, yeah, then you got to move on. Why is that? Well, it's called political capital. You know, group people hire you and you work and work, and work. But, as you, you can't do anything without somebody getting sideways or upset. Yes, like, oh, we didn't want that deal, or we didn't want to do it that way, yep. And so over time in some communities you'll lose this volunteer or this city council person, support and you'll lose another one. And then at some point in your career you go. You know what I've done, what I can do here. I'm going to have to go somewhere else.
Speaker 1:Start all over, yeah, so I mean, how have you maintained that, though it's?
Speaker 2:just the quality of the people that live in Denison that have stepped up over the years to lead, yeah. And then you know my job is to establish my credibility and it's not just me. I have staff yeah, and I've had great staff members and you build a program, you understand what it takes to be successful and then you train your volunteers and you keep them involved. You keep them. A lot of stuff is confidential, but of course the stuff that's not. You keep everybody connected and involved, like they're part of it. Yeah, how do you train your volunteers? Well, for example, we have new city council persons that are elected. We send them a nice letter. We've got some documents and flyers and brochures about what economic development is, yeah. And then we have our program of work or what we do, and we invite them to come to the office and we have a probably an hour and a half or two hours going over what we do every day and what we have done and what we're going to do, and just make that connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and city council's all. I mean, that's all elected. Yes, but yeah, and if you identify someone that you think would be a good person for city council, I'm sure you have a conversation. I was going to use the word solicit, but that's probably wrong.
Speaker 2:Like encourage them, you encourage them because a lot of the people that served on the council never thought they they had no interest in serving on the council.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know they're a good person and you know that they love the city and they would do anything and it's like you know. I just want to let you know that we got a council position that's coming open, and it's not just me, there's other leaders in the community, sure, but you've got to encourage people to take it on. Yeah, it is not that rewarding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and do you have like a? Is there like a group of leaders in Denison that encourage, identify leaders, encourage Well yeah, yeah, you got the chamber board.
Speaker 2:They're all leaders. You got my board. You got the city council board, so that network is, you know, 2025,. I actually have a different board. Um, we have a a private non-profit foundation denison development foundation. That board I've got 27 people, okay, so that's a good network. Not too many economic developers have a second board like that. So I got the private board, which is the DDA, and it's funded by a half cent sales tax, and then this foundation is funded by real estate that we've bought or leased and sold. We make our own money, so it's not as restricted as the as the sales tax money, so we can. We can buy, build own loan, whatever we need to do to to go with the public money to make a deal happen, and I've got an opportunity to have, you know, 20, 25 more people involved in the process. So it's it's. It's a really unique thing to have and glad we have it, yeah yeah, I just find that fascinating.
Speaker 1:You know even just the way municipalities work, because you I mean we all need to be aligned in our interests, you know, for the health of our community. Yes, and trying to get that alignment sometimes is difficult.
Speaker 2:It typically happens in rural communities and denizens are rural community and it happened. This is what happened 35, 40 years ago. Before I came there. A couple of people got on the council. They had a city manager this is what I'm told by guys that are still there and it was just total disarray, and I call that. You know, when a city makes a change, it's when they go through what I call a near-death experience, and that was a case of that. No one wanted to be on the council. You couldn't convince them to be on the council because you had two radical people that were just goofy. I'm saying, yeah, and so then things start falling off and then finally some leadership in the community goes over and says, hey, you're going to run for council, and you're going to run for council and we're going to get you on the council and you're going to turn this thing around. Yeah, quality people. Yeah, from that day on, at least in Denison, that group of people that love Denison just always are looking to make sure somebody runs. Yeah and yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm curious who those people are. Well, they're Not names, but more just positionally Like. Are they businessmen and women? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Educators, yeah, I mean it's people that have served typically and, you know, over the years there's. You know they term out at six years, but they still love the city and so they're on the lookout. They know what it takes.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, my wheels are turning. I don't know if the good turn or a bad turn, uh, but yeah, I'm just it, just I love, I love all the stuff you're sharing. Um, you don't even even trying to take it in and think about, like how you know, what are things we can do, you know, to just better our community right to, to get, to get that alignment of leadership, um, to really better our community right To get that alignment of leadership to really move the community forward in a positive direction.
Speaker 2:You have to have great volunteers, and that usually translates into hiring great staff, yeah, and to keeping those staff members there and being smart about what you need to do as a community. Yeah, first thing I did was get about 150 people together in 2001, and we did a one-day planning session, did a SWOT analysis if you're familiar with that, I am yeah, pretty simple process to do that, but it's very effective and we came up with 20 priorities at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how'd you do a SWAT with 150 people? It's easy, it's easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you take 10 people in a group and you say write down five things that you would like to see in Denison. Everybody does that. After that's over, you take that group of 10 people. So those are your opportunities, right? Well, you have to do one for each section Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, yep. So you do that first. So you've got five, everybody's got five, you got 50, then you basically put them on the table and then you, there's a lot of duplicates, and so you narrow it down to the top five. Yeah, each table would do that on every segment. That's drinking. And then, when it's all said and done, again, it's simple and it's it's it's networking and it's uh, it's an amazing simple process. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we came up with about 20 priorities, which back then was very easy we want our new high school, we want to redevelop Main Street, need more industrial property, we need to fill up our industrial buildings, we needed a new hospital Did I already say that? And then some smaller stuff. But we didn't have any hotels. Had one or two, but all the hotels were in Sherman. So any kind of tourists during events that we had we didn't capture that. So about two years ago we went and, primarily, I have an annual economic development summit. It's a half-day deal and we have 250 people come to that, and so we go over different aspects of what we do and have the city go over some of their projects and keep the public informed, but we've basically all of those items we accomplished, which is pretty amazing. And then about two years ago, we did the same thing and came up with a new list. Number one on the list was infrastructure Ability to fund and build and prepare our infrastructure. Yeah, because of the growth that we were actually seeing then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love it. So the Economic Development Summit is that through Denison Development Foundation?
Speaker 2:No, the DDA.
Speaker 1:DDA.
Speaker 1:So you have DDF and DDA, right, yeah, yeah, my wife and I, after we graduated from OSU, we went to work in the oil and gas industry. Right, yeah, yeah, we, uh, my wife and I, you know, after, after we graduated from OSU, we went to work in the oil and gas industry. There you go and I, uh I, a couple of years in one job, transitioned to another job and I ended up doing like it was called stakeholder engagement, which was public relations. But a lot of my, a lot of my job was with economic development alliances in the towns that we operated in, and I just, I don't know why I never thought about this, but we always would go to their annual summits and we would have either like a little table or something obviously working for a big oil and gas company. We were promoting what we do and how we benefit the economy and people's lives, but I think it's very important it works, yeah, so have you seen a lot of like leadership change throughout your tenure in Denison, or have the leaders kind of stayed the same?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're asking me have I seen a philosophy in the leadership? No, so I'm also seeing a lot of leadership change. They you know mayors can six years yes, I mean all these council and I've been there a long time so they term out Yep, and then in Teresa's case, she came back Yep, and there's been a couple of those. But most people get six years of it and they're like, hey, I've done my job.
Speaker 1:Well, the crux of my question is, you know, so you took 150 people through SWOT analysis and you sort of determined, ok, these are the things that people want to see in Denison, and then you actually did it, which I think is fantastic, right?
Speaker 2:But it takes. The key is it takes a long time, exactly, and you have to let the volunteers know that. You know like, oh, we're going to do all this stuff, okay, well, be prepared, it could take 20 years to get there, yes, and you have to manage your expectations, because economic development is slow, yes, slow, methodical, yeah exactly, and I think so.
Speaker 1:that was sort of the genesis of my question is it takes a long time. It takes a long time. And so who I mean? Have you been the consistent driver behind that? Was there a community around you that was consistently moving the plan that you had built forward? Amongst because I know all the volunteer leaders are changing.
Speaker 2:No, I guess our office not just me, I've got really had great staff people, but our office is the consistent keeper of the plan. Yeah, that's awesome. And and not all the things are on the plan where, directly with that, we were directly responsible for. But like the hospital, I mean we didn't play a big role in the hospital project but a group of volunteers did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that's fascinating. You know, I've been in Durant eight years now. We moved back right before my son was born, and so that that's kind of the that's the milestone. I just had to think about how old my son is and how long I've been in Durant. Um, so just the whole idea of and my so I took a leadership class in Durant. Well, leadership Durant, right Put on by the chamber, and out of that came, you know, a friend of mine and I. We started a nonprofit called Durant Trails and Open Space and we've tried to partner with the city on several things and we actually just successfully got a bridge built across Chukwa, partnering with the city on an ODOT grant, and so the idea of how organizations can partner with municipalities to move the community forward. And I know there's been a lot of planning in Durant's history, but even you know I'm a little out of touch with where things are now. How do you plan and then successfully execute a plan over the course of 20 or 30 years? It's a monumental thing.
Speaker 2:Yes it is, but again, you got to write it down. Yeah, amazing, just write it down. Yes, it may seem super far-fetched, but write it down, yeah, and then keep bringing it up year after year. Hey, we got this done, but we don't have this yet. But we're working on it and just keep it up, and people keep connected.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's incredible. Well, tony, I really have enjoyed our conversation. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you coming on. You're so welcome you coming on, you're so welcome. Yep Again, if you. Uh, if you like this, please like and subscribe, and thanks for joining our podcast.
