Enterprising in Maupin

(This article appears in the 7/25/10 edition of The Dalles Chronicle)

South county city grows economy from the roots

By Bill Mintiens
for The Chronicle

Maupin’s economy is based almost entirely on its one major asset – the Deschutes River. Important access points for whitewater rafters, kayakers, anglers, and bird watchers abound along the river.

But it wasn’t always a recreation-based economy. Until the mid-1980’s Maupin enjoyed a wood products industry base and was known as a “mill town” like many other Oregon rural communities.

“We’re a recreation town that can’t get away from the fact that we were a mill town,” said Rob Miles, owner of the Imperial River Company, a lodge and recreation provider located right on the Deschutes River.

“The mill closed in the mid-80s and Maupin would be dead now if the river wasn’t here; it’s our greatest resource. We’re a young recreation town struggling to settle into becoming a recreation-based economy. Our problems revolve around jobs and affordable housing.”

Although log home construction has provided jobs in recent years, the recession put a damper on the construction industry, leaving seasonal tourism jobs as residents’ only options. Some residents commute the 39 miles to The Dalles for work but, again, the recession has made jobs harder to find.

Lynn Harris, a longtime resident of Wapinitia, 15 miles west of Maupin, understood the challenge well.

“I had been working for Oregon Log Homes as a bookkeeper and, when the economy slowed down, I thought to myself — now what? I knew there were no jobs in south county. I figured it was time to get creative and follow my passions.”

The current recession (and much-publicized jobless recovery) has forced many rural Oregonians to consider other ways of making a living — namely starting their own businesses or working for themselves — right in their own communities.

But how does someone who’s always worked for others start their own business? Who do they turn to for advice, mentoring, and direction?

Typical economic development models in rural communities do not address the passions and desires of individuals who want to start a business. They concentrate instead on luring companies away from other locales, generally to achieve lower overall operation costs. Or they try to help existing companies perform better.

Nonprofits like Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO), based in Bend, have had successes attracting new businesses to the region. The recent acquisition of the Facebook data center to Prineville is a prime example. Up to 35 new jobs will be created as a result of EDCO’s hard work. Unfortunately for Prineville, the net loss of jobs is much higher due to Les Schwab’s corporate headquarters move to Bend.

And let’s not forget Google’s data center in The Dalles. As widely reported, many cities campaign for and would love to have a Google facility (with about 200 jobs) in their community.

“The typical economic development model says we should attract businesses that already exist in other areas. But that’s a zero-sum game,” Miles said. “One community loses and another one wins.”

Typically referred to as “chasing smokestacks,” Maupin has done its share of trying to attract businesses offering living wage jobs but to date has seen little success.

Denny Ross, Maupin’s charismatic mayor since 2003, remembers one conversation with a fellow graduate of Maupin High School who was talking about several companies that would perhaps like to locate in Maupin.

“He asked me what kind of incentives the city could offer to make a sweeter deal,” Ross said. “I told him to tell his company friends that, in Maupin, you can go fishing at 6 a.m., go to work at 10, work until 6 p.m., and fish until dark. Maupin is the deal. The people we want here want to live in Maupin before they get here.”

Many community colleges around the state offer “So you want to start a business” classes for aspiring business owners. Such classes are generally well-attended in urban areas but rural residents find it difficult to attend classes that can be many miles away. And then there’s the issue of cost, both travel and education costs, not your first priority in a rural community when you are trying to pay basic living expenses in a down economy.

Mary Merrill, director of the Small Business Development Center at Columbia Gorge Community College, has even experienced challenges offering classroom instruction right in rural communities so that students wouldn’t have to travel over 40 miles to The Dalles or Hood River.

“We offered a class right in Maupin and I believe we only had three prospective students. It clearly wasn’t attractive to the community,” said Merrill.

So the dilemma remains: How does a small rural community like Maupin help residents with new business ideas develop those passions into viable businesses that fuel community economic development?

In Maupin’s case, turn the clock back to before Ross became mayor. He visited Joseph, Ore., in 2000 on another matter and happened to read a newspaper article about Dr. Ernesto Sirolli’s “enterprise facilitation” method of stimulating economic development in rural communities. (www.sirolli.com)

Knowing that Maupin was struggling economically, Ross called The Sirolli Institute and inquired about the enterprise facilitation process.

“I was just amazed at the simplicity of the concept,” Ross said. “The Sirolli folks told me that, for them, ‘economy’ was simply communities of people doing beautifully what they have a passion for doing. The better they are at it, the better the economy.”

“We hadn’t been considering a ‘bottom up’ approach to economic development,” he added.
“Like many other communities we thought we had to use a ‘top down’ approach, try to attract businesses with jobs to relocate to Maupin. This really changed my outlook on economic development.”

Ross then read Dr. Sirolli’s book “Ripples from the Zambezi — Passion, Entrepreneurship and the Rebirth of the Local Economy.” Based on his work with a small rural community in Western Australia, Sirolli developed a community economic development approach based on harnessing the passion, determination, intelligence and resourcefulness of the local people.

Sirolli’s principles involve a committed volunteer local resource board, who hires an enterprise facilitator who is then trained by The Sirolli Institute. The facilitator does not initiate projects or promote good ideas. He or she responds to the interests and passions of self-motivated people.

No one has equal passion for production, marketing and financial management, the “three legs of the business stool,” so Sirolli’s method has people concentrating on what they do best. And the secret of success for any business, according to Sirolli, is to find people who love to do what you hate. The enterprise facilitator and the resource board, with networking, help people form teams to move their business ideas forward.

By 2005 Ross was convinced that enterprise facilitation using the Sirolli method was the key to Maupin’s economic development success. That same year Ross was invited to a Sirolli Institute “observation session” in Baker City, a chance to see first-hand how enterprise facilitation had succeeded in that community.

Ross asked Rob Miles, owner of The Imperial River Company, to attend the session in Baker.
“I went over to Baker not really knowing anything about enterprise facilitation or Dr. Sirolli,” Miles said. “I came back with a whole new perspective on my own business (guest lodge and river recreation) and perspective on new businesses in Maupin.”

“You have to realize what your passions are in order to be successful,” Miles added. “Marketing was the piece of the ‘trilogy’ (product, finance, and marketing) that I was least passionate about and capable of doing successfully. I’m good with our product and finance but marketing — I don’t like it and I don’t want to do it. When I came back from the session in Baker I hired a marketing director and it’s been the smartest thing I’ve done. Across the board, in this down economy, our entire business has been flat, which is incredible.

As 2006 rolled around Ross’ enthusiasm for the Sirolli method of enterprise facilitation was getting contagious. With the assistance of the Wy’East Resource Conservation & Development Council, a volunteer resource board comprised of between six and 10 professional and civic members was assembled.

Their first task, following the Sirolli method, was to hire an enterprise facilitator who would be the first point of contact for passionate people with business ideas.

Enter Greg Hohensee, the board’s clear choice to fill this role.

At 16, Hohensee became an apprentice in a cabinet shop in his hometown of East Aurora, N.Y. While honing his skills as a cabinetmaker, Hohensee graduated college with a degree in biology. Wondering what to do with that degree, he realized shortly thereafter that being a cabinetmaker was what he loved, not biology. So Hohensee operated his own cabinet shop for a number of years — and realized that getting involved with the community was helping his business. But his “Aha” moment came when he also recognized that helping people develop their passions was really his passion.

“There was no question that Greg was the right guy for the position of enterprise facilitator;” Ross said. “He experienced both success and failure with his business.”

“My role [as enterprise facilitator] was pretty simple. When a client called me with an idea, that maybe everyone in their family thought was crazy, I sat down with them and let them describe it to me. I’d simply say ‘OK, what do you love to do, what’s your passion?’ My sole goal was to find a way to make that passion, that business, happen for them,” said Hohensee.

The program proved successful fairly quickly. In the two years (February 2008 to March 2010) that Hohensee held the position he worked with 114 clients spread over a service area that included six counties in Central and North Central Oregon. Nine new businesses were started, one in Madras, one in Moro, one in Wamic, two in Sisters, one in The Dalles, one in Prineville, and two in Maupin.

Maupin, due to Denny Ross’ initial enthusiasm, became a hotbed for new enterprise ideas. Eighteen new microenterprise projects were started during the initial two-year period.

“Word spreads pretty quickly,” Ross said. “When your town has a year-round population of around 500, everyone knows everyone here.”

Neighborhood Grocery

The Maupin Market, presently being built at the site of the former Graves’ Market downtown, is the dream of Randy and Allison Bechtol. The Bechtols enjoyed a vacation home in Maupin and often thought it would be great to both live and start a business there. And then, about three years ago, Randy was laid off from his job, providing the “push” they needed to really start thinking about opening a business in Maupin.

“We initially thought about a pizza parlor in Maupin but neither of us had backgrounds in food service, didn’t really know where to begin,” said Randy.

They learned about Hohensee in the mayor’s monthly newsletter.

“We sat with Greg and told him about our dreams, ran the proverbial ‘numbers on a napkin’ and realized that a pizza parlor would be very tough to ‘pencil-out’ in Maupin. So we began to consider, with Greg’s help, a food market that could be built just north of downtown,” Randy said.

Why a food market? Hohensee’s resource board members knew that the Graves Market, a staple in downtown Maupin since the 1920s, might be closing, leaving no local market for residents to purchase groceries. The nearest market would be 39 miles away in The Dalles.

Randy Bechtol realizes the advantages of the enterprise facilitation process.

“Allison and I have extensive backgrounds in operations, finance, and marketing but we had never run our own business,” he said. “Greg made us think about all aspects of the business from talking with accountants, to hooking us up with a local organic farm (Seed to Table) for produce, to the design of the deli counter,” said Randy.

Randy and Allison also received help with one of the most difficult parts of starting a business: writing the business plan.

“And because of Greg’s and Mary’s participation, the bank felt there was an extra measure of credibility present as well,” Randy added.

Pizza and Rafting

By day, Matt Fox is a fisheries biologist working on the Deschutes River studying the Pacific Lamprey. By night, he owns the Deschutes Pizza Company located in downtown Maupin.

Early in 2008, having researched Bureau of Land Management data on the number of river users coming through Maupin, Fox believed there might be an opportunity for a pizza restaurant downtown.

Earlier in his life, he had worked for a number of restaurants and felt confident he understood the business. But he had never owned his own restaurant. He turned to restaurant friends in Bend for help.

“These folks are owners and general managers so they gave me good information on what to consider when starting a restaurant,” Fox said.

By February 2009, moving along with his plans for a restaurant, Fox got an e-mail from Bob Krein, owner of the Sage Canyon River Company in Maupin. Very well-connected throughout the community, Krein knew Fox was planning a restaurant. He also heard about the enterprise facilitation process and felt Fox might benefit from participating.

Fox began meeting with Greg Hohensee shortly after that.

“I was skeptical, actually a little bull-headed at first because I had my Bend mentors who had their own version of the ‘trinity of management’ (product, finance, and marketing),” Fox said. “But as I continued to meet with Greg I found that the ability to talk with someone, confidentially, about my plans was the most helpful part of the enterprise facilitation process.”

Leasing space in a building downtown, Fox opened his restaurant June 5, 2009. The restaurant shares space with the Sage Canyon River Company.

“Raft lunches on river trips, through Sage, make up a large part of our revenue stream,” Fox said.

An accomplished entrepreneur, Fox is already planning other businesses, extensions of the Deschutes Pizza Company, and plans to use the enterprise facilitation process again.

When is a Failure a Success?

Back to Lynn Harris, the Wapinitia resident who had been working as a bookkeeper for Oregon Log Homes in Maupin. Losing her position when the housing market collapsed, Lynn wondered “Now what? I knew there were no jobs in south county, I figured it was time to get creative and follow my passions.”

Lynn’s passion (which her five sisters share as well) is bicycle touring. Late in 2008, she and her sisters started brainstorming creation of a bed and breakfast centered on cycling. Wapinitia, about 15 miles west of Maupin, has an old grange hall the sisters felt might work as a hostel.
Problem was, Harris had no idea where to begin.

“I didn’t have a clue about how to go forward with the idea,” Harris said.

Rob Miles heard about Harris’ idea and immediately put her in touch with Hohensee. The five sisters met with Hohensee and Merill many times over the course of two months.

“Greg never told me what to do, he drew me through thinking about the idea, we must have talked about 10 times in those two months. It became pretty clear to us what we needed to do,” said Harris.

The sisters realized their business plan would not work.

“They realized that they really weren’t that interested in housing and feeding people, they just wanted to be involved with and support cycling,” Miles said. “That’s the beauty of enterprise facilitation — it fleshes-out entrepreneurial ideas through the filter of experienced local professionals.”

Harris and her sisters, as a result of the enterprise facilitation process, saved themselves a lot of work, money, and frustration.

Enterprise facilitation succeeded in helping them avoid a costly mistake. It also redirected their cycling passion through existing community resources. Rob Miles’ Imperial River Company had the location, the lodging, a restaurant and river access that met the needs of cycle tourists.

“We started planning cycling-rafting-touring events in January 2009 for the summer season with Imperial,” Harris said. “Rob’s marketing director helped tremendously with all the marketing aspects of attracting bicycle tourists. Unfortunately we didn’t get a lot of response that summer because the economy got so bad.”

An Uncertain Future

More rural communities have embraced enterprise facilitation. Wallowa County Business Facilitation in Joseph and Baker City’s Enterprise Growth Initiative (BEGIN) are but two of the many programs successfully operating now in Oregon.

Unfortunately Wy’East Resource Conservation & Development enterprise facilitation program has stalled recently.

Funding is the biggest challenge. Initial funding was provided by USDA’s Rural Development program, Oregon Economic and Community Development, the City of Maupin, the Meyer Memorial Trust, Sherman County, and private donations. This funding primarily covered the expenses associated with the original enterprise facilitator, Greg Hohensee, who left the position in March 2010 to pursue other entrepreneurial challenges.

Dr. Ernesto Sirolli understands the overall challenges involved.

“Enterprise facilitation is still considered a maverick type of economic development by government,” Siroli said; “it’s still done mostly top-down with a ‘if you build it they will come’ mentality. Enterprise facilitation is just the opposite; it comes from the bottom up.”

Another challenge is the sheer size of the territory. With a service area that covered six counties — Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Jefferson, Deschutes, and Crook — Hohensee’s client interactions had to be spread out.

“The enterprise facilitator covered a huge territory, it really spread him very thin, I believe he had 104 clients at one point which was way too many for one facilitator to handle,” said Maupin Mayor Denny Ross.

And then there’s controversy surrounding the on-site, one-on-one mentoring used by the Sirolli method versus traditional classroom instruction espoused by a potential funding partner.

“The one-on-one worked for us here on our farm; we probably would not have used enterprise facilitation if we had to go somewhere to a classroom,” said Bob Larsell, co-owner of the Seed to Table Farm.

“This is rural Oregon; a lot of business gets done in pubs and at people’s places of business,” Miles added. “There are a lot of people who have great ideas, a lot of passion, but will never make it to a classroom.”

Information about Wy’East’s enterprise facilitation project is available atwww.centraloregonmicroenterprise.com. Dr. Ernesto Sirolli’s enterprise facilitation principles can also be accessed at www.sirolli.com.