Episode 25 | LIVE from the SEDC Annual Conference in Williamsburg | Chris Masingill & Ivy Stanley

Hello SCDC members and welcome to the 2023 annual SCDC conference held here in beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia. Hi, I'm Ray Methven with Insightful and the truth is while Matt Matthew weren't looking, I hijacked the podcast again. So you have the next few days with me and with a lineup of guests I'm really excited about. We'll have conversations with community leaders, state leaders, really good vendors we love. So stay tuned and join us. Good questions coming up. Folks, I'm very excited about our next guest. We are joined now by Chris Massingill of the St. Tammany Corporation. Chris is the CEO and Chief Economic Development Advisor for the St. Tammany Corporation. Chris, thank you so much for stopping and spending a few minutes with us. Thank you Ray, very much. Appreciate you doing this. Oh, this has been a great stay for us. I love being here in Williamsburg. What has been your takeaway for an SCDC conference in Williamsburg? This has really been a substantial conference for SCDC. One, it's been one of the most well attended conferences in a long time. It's certainly been one of the biggest in terms of sponsorships. It's been one of the most profitable conferences that SCDC's had in a long time. And it's a good way to reintroduce SCDC in a time of a leadership transition and the new board that's come on just because of time and transition and new directors, new alternates, new leadership as it relates to the executive committee. And everybody has really been forward facing. We have a lot of respect for the historical positioning of SCDC. It is a legacy economic development organization that has a long, proud history of bringing practitioners together to learn from each other, to share thoughts and ideas and camaraderie and relationship building. And it really positions itself to be that platform for young people coming into the profession, particularly if you're in the South. And the South represents a major economy on its own. And we recognize that the job creation that's happening in the country, the population shift in the country is happening in the American new South. And SCDC is well positioned to help would be a catalyst as an organization that represents economic development practitioners across the 17 states. Absolutely. Chris, tell us about, you have an interesting story. Tell us about the St. Tammany Corporation and the path that led you there. Yeah, it's really kind of cool. I'm back in the trenches of local economic development. I'm going now into over two decades of being involved in business, government, politics, economic development. It's all kind of culminated in turn opportunity to get back into full-time economic development at the grassroots level. I got recruited down to the North Shore, which the North Shore represents multiple parishes on the North side of Lake Pontitrain, close to New Orleans. And my parish is St. Tammany Parish. And we're one of the third or fourth fastest growing parishes in the entire state. We are a classic suburban area next to a major metropolitan area that really has become an economic powerhouse on its own. What started out a few decades ago as the bedroom community in New Orleans is now positioning itself as a major driver in Louisiana's economy. And quite frankly, in GDP, we've got a 13.9 billion dollar GDP in this one parish on the North Shore, a southeast Louisiana. And it's a great place to live an amazing quality alive. It's a strong education system. But what we're also finding now is that this has been an incredible environment for good business traditional economic development. Companies recognize the strategic geographical positioning because we're on the I-12 corridor connected to an incredible major port with a port of New Orleans. And we are positioned with the right kind of talent and workforce and infrastructure where we're seeing a lot of unique opportunities in advanced manufacturing and logistics, a lot of work around scientific and technical. We see a lot of corporate headquarters in our footprint. And so it's got a very diverse economy. It's a resilient economy and it's positioned itself to be a major economic catalyst for not only the state, but the Gulf South region. Right, right. Now, I'd like to ask a question because with those success stories and with the success you're having in St. Tammany, that brings challenges along with how are you addressing the challenges and taking those challenges on head-on. Well, that's a great question, Roy. I've been in St. Tammany now. July was five years. I got recruited down there because they wanted the leadership, the political leadership, the business community. They wanted to do a reboot of economic development. We had multiple organizations doing economic development from the local government, parish government to a foundation and industrial development board and others who kind of worked around the edges in it and the business community recognized what was happening with the economic transition on the North Shore. And they realized, as I look, we've got to build a different type of economic development organization. We've got to have a different strategic focus and we need to really build a full-scale, independent, fully supported economic development organization that can bring to bear all of those services and economic development. Ray, you know as well as I do, economic development is a constant evolving profession. Economic development practitioners are asked, constantly being asked to do more, to know more. It's more than just dealing with one specific industry or about one specific announcement, talking about the number of jobs. We're now talking about everything from public policy and neighborhood revitalization. We're talking about workforce. We're talking about housing. We're talking about energy policy. We're looking to the future to make sure that our landscape is getting positioned to address the impacts of automation and AI and not to mention your local elected officials who have really created a trust with economic development practitioners because how we can approach these issues. I always say that we're in the solution business and we can come to the table, be an independent broker and a convener, bring all of the right people around the table as stakeholders to help solve problems and challenges and that's in addition to our day job, which is trying to help create the right kind of landscape for capital investment and job creation. But the practitioners being asked to do more and more. Now for us, in fact, our economic development organization although we're housed in base in St. Tammany Parish, we believe in collaboration and we believe in partnerships and regional approaches to things. And we're running a lot of collaboration out of our organization because we have built the professional staff. We've got the bench, we've got the technical understanding and expertise and the sophistication to run multi-parish strategic initiatives and programs outside of helping to recruit business into our area. Very, very interesting. We are talking with Chris Massingill of the St. Tammany Corporation. Chris, as a thought leader within the SEC, I'd really be curious and to share with our SEC podcast listeners, what's on the horizon in the next 12, 24, 36 months? What should we have our eyes focused on? Well, one of the things I'd love about our keynote speaker yesterday with Lieutenant Redman in one, he was just an incredible inspiration for economic development practitioners because I think his story of how he came back from a devastating injury, serving this country and willing to give the ultimate sacrifice and now putting forth how he thinks leadership ought to be approached and the takeaways and how we can apply that in various environments. And what was so striking to me that I think is spot on to your question and we've got to embrace change. We've got to lead from the front and not from the back. We've got to embrace change and we have to constantly be willing to step out of our comfort zone, don't accept status quo and make sure that we're preparing our community, our organization, our stakeholders and elected officials of what is coming and every community, every area, it's gonna look a little differently but we're all facing this constant tug of war between, hey, what's the cap X, what's the jobs? Well, economic development has evolved significantly and it's much more than that. What is this success of your education system? What is the educational attainment in your community not this through K through 12 and higher ed? Do you have the right kind of landscape for business? What do people, how do they view economic development in your community? In my community, our economic development program is gonna look a lot different than in other communities because we have been a bedroom community for so long and that connection to quality of life, attributes, nature, outdoors, recreation, tourism, those kinds of things that are at the heart of what our people in my community really treasure so the kind of economic development we're doing, we're trying to actually protect that and grow that and strengthen that. So I'm never gonna have a big OEM plant in my backyard and that's okay but what I'm trying to do is make sure that we are an area where this is a place where we can be the destination and choice for not only business but for talent and families and we're doing that collectively both from a regional perspective and a state perspective and I think to the challenge that you posed in that question, we have to be willing to recognize what's coming around the corner, we have to embrace that and then we have to make sure that we're putting four strategies that we can be ahead of the game. Two words, Chris, that you have said that really stick with me. One, collaboration. Yes, sir. Two, change. Yes. And the rule except both. Yes, sir. Very good. Very good. We are talking with Chris Massingill of the St. Tammany Corporation. Chris, I have a handful of questions for you. So in this up, they're good and they're easy. All right, Paul Chris, what is your favorite holiday? Oh my gosh, I love all of them but I am a super fan of Thanksgiving. Okay. One, I am driven by my faith. It helps center me with what I do for a living. It's important, it helps keep me grounded. And I am thankful. I'm thankful for the opportunity that I have in St. Tammany Parish. I'm thankful for my family and I'm thankful for the community that has welcomed me to do that. I'm thankful for my team. I have an incredible group of professionals who work every day to make our community, our organization and me as the CEO successful. And I'm appreciative to that. And I'm certainly appreciative of our board and their investment in me and our team and what we're trying to accomplish because our mission is our purpose. And I think that circles back to Thanksgiving. Of course, I love Christmas too. Obviously, Christmas is very important for a lot of reasons, particularly if you're a person of faith. Second question, what is your favorite dessert? Oh my gosh, I am not much of a sweet tooth. However, I do love a coconut cream pie and I will, I do like a cream relay. And so if I get an opportunity to take advantage of those two, I'll take it. That sounds good to me. Now, I normally wouldn't ask this but I can't let a Southern Louisiana fella go by without asking, what is your favorite Cajun or Creole dish? Oh my goodness. Well, listen, I'm a huge redfish fan. Okay. And anytime I can eat redfish, I'm a big fish and I love to go after the reds and speck of drought. And particularly where we are in Southeast Louisiana. Sure. We've got some incredible opportunities to be our doors and to really soak it up. There's a reason they say Louisiana has a sportsman's paradise. And that's certainly true. But, you know, it's hard to beat red beans in rice. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan of that. And of course, jumble eyes, always a favorite. Yep, yep, I get it. Now, what is your favorite karaoke song? Oh my goodness. Oh, Ray, you may have stepped me on that. I've, there's so many that come to my mind. One, I am not the star karaoke performer, but there are several songs that I certainly like. And I think probably it'd have to be a Garc Brooks song, right? Okay. I think it'd have to be Garc Brooks. If you were in Pato Brian's for the piano bar, what would you find yourself singing to? I don't know, you know, I probably, I'd have to probably think through, maybe when a man loves a woman. There we go. There we go. That's a good one. My question's a little bit of a twist. Yes, sir. Chris Massinggill, what is the worst haircut you have ever had? Oh my gosh. Well, I tell you, as you can tell, I'm losing my hair. So my bald spot is getting bigger and bigger every day. So I probably won't have to worry about that much longer. But I, I did. I am embarrassed to tell you I, at one time, I did have the mullet. Nice. I did, I did. And in fact, quite frankly, it was blonde. Please don't tell. You can cut that out. Party in the back. Party in the back. With Chris Massinggill in the front. Yes. I even did a little break dancing, if you can believe it. See, a kid who grew up in the country did some break dancing. We're going to get the karaoke out of here yet. Folks, we are talking with Chris Massinggill Chris. Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. It's just so good. Happy to hear your perspective. Thank you to the St. Dominic Corporation, SEDC, thank you for being here. Chris Massinggill, have a good rest of the conference. Thank you. I'm proud to be a part of SEDC. Absolutely. Thank you, Ray. And we're joined now by Ivy Stanley. She is the COO of the next move group. Ivy, thank you for taking a few minutes to join us. Well, I appreciate the opportunity, Ray. How are you enjoying your stay here at SEDC Williamsburg? I think this is probably been one of the most fun times that I've had since being an SEDC member. This year is my fifth year, fifth anniversary. Oh, cool. And I've been in economic development for 12 years almost. OK. Really just overall great time. I'm looking forward to next year as well. Good, absolutely. Let's start by telling us a little, tell us please a little bit about next move group. OK, so we are an economic development consulting firm. And we work with EDOs and Chambers of Commerce, cities and counties, private nonprofits, private companies, all over the country. We've even done some work in Canada. So we've had, I think, almost every state. We've worked in almost every state. Yeah, so a lot of really expansive experience in a lot of different areas. We focus heavily on executive search for economic development organizations, cities, counties, and, I guess, municipalities and governments. And Chambers of Commerce didn't already say that one, probably. Well, we're saying twice. It is we're saying twice. Yeah, so we do quite a bit of executive search at very, like, several levels. Like we do large communities. We even do small communities. So really our bread and butter is a smaller, small-to-bid-sized communities. But we also have worked in large communities. OK. We are talking with Ivy Stanley of the next move group. And Ivy, you talk about your executive search. That's really a day-to-day focus for you, personally, isn't it? It is. Right now I'm pretty heavily involved with working with our clients and working with our candidates. It's probably one of the most enjoyable things I've done in my whole career, just because I've gotten to know and gotten to meet so many different people. I mean, and even here at SCDC, there are so many folks that I've been able to meet that I've worked with over the phone or via email or, you know, on Zoom. And everyone's just walking up to me and be like, I'm so glad to finally meet you. Oh, that's cool. And put it like a face and like a voice to the name. Yeah. And that's been really probably my favorite thing about being at SCDC this year, because I've gotten to meet so many of the folks I've gotten to work with over the last year, 18 months. And tell me just a little bit about your background. What got you to next move group? Because if I'm not mistaken, you're a Kentucky. Yes, so I am a born and bred, born and raised, Kentucky. I'm from about an hour south of Louisville and from the little community of Pajunville, which if you're a history buff, you may know that it is the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. So about 3,500 people, maybe I started an economic development right out of grad school where I went to Western Check University for undergrad and grad school. So I started in community and economic development in 2012. And from there, it just grew from, I worked in the little town of Greensburg, Kentucky. It's like maybe 2,800 people, give or take. So very small. And then from there, I went back to Bowling Green and worked at the Chamber in Bowling Green for almost three years. And in 2015, I was recruited to go, no, 2018. Sorry, was recruited to go work in Appalachia, which sucks in at one East Kentucky, which is a non-county regional nonprofit, EDO. So we worked with non-counties in the cities and the counties and all of the delightful people of Eastern Kentucky. For, I was there for almost four years and Chuck, I believe, was there for nine, almost. Really? Yes, so we had the opportunity. We both actually left and joined next move group in April of last year. Okay. So Chad and Alex were just interested in expanding their staff and what Chuck and I bring to the table professionally. So we've been able to incorporate a lot of really great things, especially with Chuck's expertise in site selection. So we've really grown that side of the business in addition to the executive search side. Cool. Now, here's something that I would find interesting and I think would be really a nice share with our SCDC podcast listeners. Whether the listener is on the client side, the community client side, or if they're on the applicant side, what are some key takeaways that you would say from an executive search point of view, from your point of view, what makes a really good search applicant or client? Well, so a search applicant, I would say, a really good one is just someone that is willing to do the whole process. I've had several folks in the past that have been invited to interview in person and had the last minute have declined. And so that's kind of a rock and a hard spot there. And typically when that happens, we usually don't work with them again. Interesting. So it's hard when you lose that trust. Kind of hard to get that back. But I mean, folks that interview often and have those good interview skills and know how to show their personality in a mix of their professionalism, those are the ones that really stand out. Interesting. Nobody, like, it's really hard to imagine someone selling your community if they're a robot. Right. And you've got to have a little bit of personality mixed in with your ability to sell a community in the value proposition that you bring to the table. Now, from a client community point of view, what makes a great client community for you? We work with our clients a lot of times to discover what they need next. Like we do surveys and we work with board members and stakeholders to develop their top focus areas and stuff like that. If they don't have a recent strategic plan. Okay. And whenever a community actually, like, participates in that process and we have several folks that provide good feedback, that really helps us steer the right, like steer the ship in the right direction to find the next leader for their organization. Okay. And those, like, I think that's probably number one is working with us in a capacity to where we are the experts. Okay. And you're contracting with us to do this service and folks that are genuinely interested in what's best for their community, I think are the ones that listen the best because we always try to do things to the best and biggest and brightest for every community we work with. Whether it's like 2,000 people or 200,000 people. Right. So the level of service you would get from a big, like, for a big community, we bring to the table for a small community. And that's really important, really important. It is. Especially for our SCDC community because there is a really wonderful mix of small town, medium town, with our large metros. Exactly. There are so many great communities all across the American South that are just leading an economic development and want to do better. And are focused on the next 5, 10, 15, and 20 years looking forward and down the road is probably one of the best things a client could do. Right. Interesting. Okay, we are talking to Ivy Stanley with the next move group. Ivy is the COO. Ivy, I'd like to close it out with some questions. Let's play favorites. Oh, okay. Okay. First question. Ivy, what is your favorite holiday? It's a close one between Fourth of July and Halloween. Really? Yes. That's cool. What is your favorite dessert? Anything chocolate, almost anything chocolate. Across the spectrum. Across the spectrum. Cool. What is your favorite movie? Oh, goodness. I really love the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. Okay. Yeah, the book is great too, but I really love the movie. And that's the first one we've heard is the first Fried Green Tomatoes I've had. So that's great. They're also delicious to eat. Oh, no, the best. They're delicacy in the summertime. We're getting close to Fried Green Tomatoes season. Yes, we are. Yep. That's my favorite time of year. Maybe that's my favorite holiday. Okay, final question. I'm going to take a little bit of a turn. Ivy, what is the worst haircut you ever had? Lord. When my mom gave me when I was in college, I was hacking hair off for months afterwards. Question, because I've had several people tell me that when they were eight, their mom cut their hair, how did you let your mom get near your hair in college? So I had just not had someone, like I have long, super long curly hair. So I don't trust most people to come near me with scissors. Okay. And I had just gotten to the point where I was desperate. And I needed a haircut so bad. And I was just, I just caved. And I just said, Mama, let's just do this. Let's just, just do it. I went all in. And I was like, she has cut my dad's hair for years. I want to mention that he's pretty much bald. But you know, she's done a great job with his hair. So I can't she do mine. So it did. I shaved it up pretty well, like over time, but it was a little crazy. Time heals. Time heals all wins. Yeah, yeah. We have been talking with Ivy Stanley, the next move group, Ivy. Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. We appreciate it. Love that you're here in Williamsburg with us in SCDC. I hope you have a great rest of the day. And thank you for talking. Thank you so much, Ray. I'm really having a good time. You're welcome.