Creating the millennial-friendly community

One Thursday in June 2008, my daughter Sam came home from taking her last high school final around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. By 2 PM, we were headed down the highway for the Chicago suburbs with whatever belongings we could fit in the back of a ten-year-old Honda Accord. Four days later, she started a college summer session. She didn’t even bother to go to her high school graduation.

In the ten years since, she’s been back to our home in Keene, New Hampshire three times. It’s not that we don’t get along – we see her all the time in Chicago or at extended family events in Florida and Ohio. It’s just that there isn’t much for her to do in her hometown since her closest high school friends have similarly moved on, mostly to urban cities like Boston, New York, Washington, Denver and Memphis. They keep in touch through Facebook and texts and get together at weddings like Burlington, Vermont and Cape Cod. None of the comes back to Keene.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Sam and her friends were part of a demographic trend - today, more than 60% of college-bound New Hampshire high school students leave the state. We lead the nation in the out-migration of its best and brightest. Along with Vermont and Maine, we’re among the fastest greying states in the country. And, if I think about it, it’s no different than what I and my closest friends did when we got out of high school in Rust Belt, Ohio back in the 1970’s. We all go the heck out of Dodge to seek our fortunes elsewhere.

If all of this didn’t have implications for the future of business, it would perhaps be an interesting anecdote. But in today’s battle for talent, the out-migration of young people from rural, small town and industrial America is becoming a serious issue for businesses, especially for large businesses, when it comes to recruiting, and more importantly retaining, the next generation of workers. In Keene, C&S Wholesale Grocers is working hard to develop relationships with local universities through internships and other initiatives to build a pipeline of talent. C&S is not only Keene’s largest employer, its also the largest supply chain organization in the food distribution industry (You can read more about this initiative on SCMR.com).

But, as Mark Fryberger, C&S’s vice president of finance, noted during our interviews, “Getting new employees at C&S is great, but it only works if we can see a marked increase in retention. Part of why people stay in jobs isn’t just the company, it’s the region. If the job is okay but they don’t like the community, they’re going to go elsewhere.” He adds, “If we want C&S to win, we need Keene to win too.”

That might be a new role for supply chain executives like Fryberger, where business’s role was often relegated to funding cultural events or joining the Chamber of Commerce or Rotary. Indeed, C&S is a staunch supporter of community events, and Fryberger is member of the local chamber’s programs committee – we can check those boxes. But Fryberger and C&S are also looking for ways to engage the young people who work with them. He also notes that a group of young professionals at C&S formed an internal networking group called Bragnet that is fostering an environment where employees from disparate parts of the company can get to know one another. That’s a first step, but it’s also internally focused, he says, adding “We have to create events outside of work where our employees can meet other like-minded people. No one wants to say that the only people they know in town are the people they work with and a lot of people are uncomfortable meeting everyone at a bar.” To that end, C&S has been looking for ways to work with organizations like the Keene Young Professionals Network or to have chamber events at Keene State where the business community can engage with more young people.   

Still there’s only so much business can do, and it’s a different kind of issue for community organizations that are more accustomed to raising money for the United Way, says George Hansel. He is not only a young executive, he’s also one of the owners of Filtrine, a manufacturer of water filtration systems, and a city councilor. “The U.S. Census Bureau says that more than half of people move for a cultural reason, whether that’s a better house or a better school; a quarter move for a job and a quarter move for family,” Hansel says. “Intangibles about the community are so important if we’re going to attract people. That’s something that we as business owners, and local government, need to pay attention to.”

It’s also something that a small but growing group of young professionals in the community have come to realize. “By and large, the local opportunities in terms of culture, socialization and recreation cater towards families or older folks, particularly those with a little money to spend,” says Nikki Sauber, 28, who is an impact coordinator at the local United Way and part of the Keene Young Professionals Network. “It’s hard for young people in Keene to get to things in say Boston or New York because there’s no public transportation, and it can be challenging just to own a car. We hear all about the silver tsunami coming at the workforce, but a lot of the focus in the community is on things for older people.” She adds that it’s not uncommon for employees at the city’s three biggest employers – C&S, Keene State College and the local hospital and medical center – tell the Keene Young Professionals Network that they rarely socialize outside of the people they meet at work. Often, they say that on their way out of town.

Is there something the community can do to make Keene – or other, small rural cities – more attractive to young people? There are several initiatives underway. A few years ago, the Keene Sentinel, the local newspaper, launched a Trendsetters Award that highlights young business professionals making a difference. Through its Business Journal publication, the paper regularly runs features on young entrepreneurs and startups.

The aforementioned Keene Young Professionals Network was founded about twelve years old, initially to be a junior chamber of commerce, but is evolving into what the current president, Mike Giacomo, describes as “a one stop shop for young professionals beyond just work. If you want a seminar on how to buy your first home, we’ll not only try to set up the seminar, we’ll put you in touch with other young professionals who do that for a living. If you like hiking, we’ll put you in touch with other people who like hiking. We want to provide things to do on any given weekend night, or even week night.” Indeed, Giacomo, a chemical engineer, is a boomerang kid. Like my daughter, he went away to college and then went to work for Exxon Mobile in St. Louis before coming back to Keene when a position opened up at a local manufacturer. While Giacomo has close family ties in the area, getting involved in the Keene Young Professionals Network in its infancy gave him a focus outside of work and family.

Danya Landis and Rebecca Hamilton are two millennial artists and entrepreneurs who are also focused on building a business, careers and community in Keene. In 2013, they founded Machina Arts, a “mission-driven company” that provides turnkey event management centered on the arts for corporate clients and promotes local artists, musicians and performers through Friday night events at the Hive. “We’re building community around the arts,” Landis says. “We believe that’s the heart and soul of a city, and gives young people in the area something to do that isn’t about going to a bar.”

The jury is still out on whether efforts like these are enough for small cities like Keene and rural states like New Hampshire to compete. But they’re a start and, as a friend of mine said when we discussed this topic, they feel necessary. It’s certainly personal to me as someone who co-owned with my wife a retail business in town for more than 30 years. As Mark Fryeberger noted above, for business to win, Keene has to win. That was echoed by Mike Giacomo. “The State of New Hampshire conducted a survey and found that 21% of young professionals don’t have a single friend they can call up and see in 15 minutes and another 20% said they only have one friend they can see in 15 minutes,” he says. “What’s going to drive people out of the region is isolation. The region needs better ways of connecting people. If you have connectivity, you have a community; if you have community, you’ll have the next generation that wants to stay and work here.”