Let’s get building!

“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The journey begins here and it begins today. What is that journey? Well, after 12 great years of helping improve the lives and living conditions for people in the Coulee Region, I am launching my own effort to help those who do the work.

What? Why? Are the two questions I’ve received most frequently. The answer is easy… three people: Heather, Carter, and Lingon (listed in no particular order except perhaps age). After 12 years in the trenches of affordable housing, and six years before that in government work, my wife and I have decided it’s time for me to become a stay-at-home dad.

However, after more than a decade helping people I can’t just walk away completely. So after many conversations with friends and colleagues in the business, I’ve decided to launch Building Mighty Communities. BMC will be my effort to take the work that my team and I have done over the years, and help others find their own success.

What is that work? Well, with a bit of tooting my own horn, here are just some of the things we’ve done over the last 12 years:

• Increase small business starts from two to three a year to 15-20 a year.
• Establish Wisconsin’s first, and only, rural Community Land Trust, with more than 20 homes under permanent affordability stewardship.
• Increase housing rehabilitation projects from 6-10 a year to 80-100 a year.
• Increase economic development funding for Couleecap from $19,000 a year to more than $100,000 a year.
• Increase housing rehabilitation funding from $200,000 a year to more than $1,000,000 a year.
• Earn the WISCAP Governor’s Award for Outstanding Community Action Program (Coulee.CO business development)
• Earn the “Best in State” award for Public-Private Partnerships from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and the Downtown Main Street Program (Coulee CO.STARTERS).
• Launch the Coulee Region’s first, and only, co-working space.
• Develop more than $10,000,000 of affordable housing.

Now this didn’t happen in a vacuum. I will always be grateful for a wonderful team of people at Couleecap that helped make it all happen. However, I believe it’s time to take the skills that helped me move the needle at Couleecap and broaden my horizons to help other communities, organizations, and non-profits.

This new venture is Building Mighty Communities, a for-profit consulting firm based in beautiful La Crosse, Wisconsin. Feel free to look around the website and see what we can do for you. Check out our Facebook page and bookmark this blog for more information on ideas, projects, and issues that deserve attention.

Thank you to everyone who has helped get things to this point. Thank you to my wife for her support and ideas. And thank you to my son Carter for being awesome and my daughter, Lingon, for being the adorable and precocious one-year old that she is!

So… how about it? Let’s get building!