S5:E8 - The Opportunity for Returners with Jessica Meyers

You are listening to the Growing Small Towns Show, a podcast dedicated to supporting you, the person who really cares about the future of your small town. We believe when people get better, everything gets better, and our episodes offer the ideas and actions that prioritize people and small communities. Thank you for listening. We're so glad you're here. Our guest on today's episode is Jessica Myers of Porchlight. Porchlight Services is a really cool company that supports rural communities in a couple of ways. She helps with placement of job seekers into rural communities, rural jobs, and then she also helps communities be more ready to onboard and recruit talent. So Jessica is one of these people that— so, okay, We just, we meet these people, right? That they come along and you just think, like, where have you been all my life? That was legitimately how I felt when I first got connected over Zoom with Jessica. And it's also really fun because two different people in my life suggested that I get to know her in the same week. Like, I got emails like two days apart from two different people that aren't connected to each other that were both like, you need to meet Jessica. So this is Jessica, and we have a really great conversation. We talk a lot about rural communities. We talk a lot about her journey because she's a boomerang. You know, she's, she's a person that she's a returner. She came back to her community after being gone. She actually did the big city. So that's really cool. And then you'll just hear how she dovetailed this passion for rural places into the work she's doing today. And hopefully you'll hear some great tips for all of you that are thinking about how do we get people to want to come back. So please enjoy this conversation with Jessica Myers. Jessica, welcome to— well, first, welcome to Oakes, North Dakota.

Thank you for having me.

You are sitting in the Growing Small Town Show podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota.

We are human to human.

Can you believe that? That's— it's so fun. I love— I truly love being human to human.

Same.

Yeah, you had a nice day to get on the interstate and make a drive my way, or maybe you didn't take the interstate.

I took the interstate for a little bit, but I like to take back roads.

I thought that might be the case with you. Well, welcome. Seriously, welcome to Oakes. Welcome to the show. So excited to have you here. Me too. So I think it might make sense to start kind of maybe with your back, like your background, and not necessarily professionally yet, but talk about, let's talk about your love for small towns and kind of where that started. Yeah. And then we'll just go from there. Does that sound good?

It's great. Okay. So, um, I, whenever I'm asked this question, the first thing that I always say is I'm a farm kid. I grew up on our dairy farm, um, And it was, when I was in it, there was, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, there were many times that it was like, "Oh my God, I can hardly wait to get off this farm." I was going to say, you didn't love it the whole time because you're a kid and kids, I mean— No, I wanted to paint my fingernails and chase boys and do everything that teenage girls want to do, right?

Of course, yeah.

But I'm a fifth generation farmer, my family, showed up onto our farm. My grandfather used to tell a story that when the family showed up, they were driving a Model T and pulling a covered wagon because they didn't know what kind of mode of transportation they needed on the farm. And so we still own the farm and really learned— there's a joke that says, "I didn't get intergenerational wealth, I got a work ethic." You really do get a work ethic especially on a dairy because you're milking every 12 hours. So it's, it's tough business.

Yeah, for sure. So a couple things. I am also a fifth generation, which is so fun. We, we did dairy cattle for a hot minute. Um, to my parents, my poor father, was probably more than a hot minute. Um, I, I wrote a little bit in my book about the dairy, the dairy, like the milk barn specifically. I just I hated it. But like, honestly, my dad hated it. My mom hated it. It was just, it was a flash, you know, it was a— sure, it's a— they— we diversified. Yeah, that's what we did, right? It was in the '80s.

Yes.

Um, but really now we're, we're grain, we're small grain farmers. So is it, is it still a working dairy operation on your farm?

It is not.

Okay. Yeah.

Um, we, we survived the milk crash in the '80s. Uh, the milk crash in the '80s systematically changed farming.

An incredible time for our families.

Yeah, it was. I mean, it was— now that I'm an adult looking back, I can absolutely see— I mean, my parents got divorced in the middle of it.

Oh, I'm sorry. It was just such an insane time.

But people— like, I explain this to younger generations, and I even try to explain it to my own children who are in their late teens and 20s, and they don't understand that these farm notes were at 17% interest rates.

Right.

And farmers— and this is where, like, I feel— I already feel my hair starting to stand up. Like, people don't understand that farming is really dependent on the weather. And you have your entire, like, future based on if things will grow and praying that you don't have a tornado or you get enough rain but not too much rain or It's an incredibly fickle—

Yeah. —business.

And so we survived the milk crash. My dad sold the cows in the late '90s. Okay. So my cousin actually rents the land from us. It's now— there are cattle that are on there, which is really cool. And it's also— our production land is row crops, so corn, soybeans. Yeah, that kind of stuff. But if you look at where specifically in South Dakota, the dairies are no longer in the central part of the state. They're on the side. They're on the east side, up and down I-29. So the— it just wouldn't— it would— it will never go back to a dairy. But the dairy is still there. And the funny side effect—

when you say the dairy is still there, like the actual physical— yep, the physical building. Everything is still there.

Wow. But the funny thing is, is that now when you hear on the news about like raw milk and like, oh my gosh, raw milk is so— you have to be so careful with that. I was like, oh, I just grew up in that. We had that like 1980s orange Tupperware pitcher that everybody talks about. That was our milk jug. And we would just go out to the bulk tank and drink straight milk from the cows we milked 3 hours before. And so I grew up on whole unpasteurized milk where you had to shake it before you poured it on your cereal, or else you were just going to pour straight cream onto your cereal. Wild. Yeah.

I mean, that's wild. Yeah. Okay. But we're incredibly healthy people. Yeah. Well, of course. I mean, you, you—

when you grow up on a farm, I think you're immune to everything at that point.

I agree. Yeah. Except now I'm getting over a head cold, so I really can't— really should not say that. I'm a city slicker now because I'm in a small town, but I'm not on the farm, right? Right, me too. And you aren't either. No, no. So let's move past when you graduated from, how big was your town growing up?

So we, so my parents divorced during the milk crash. They, one went east, the other one went west. So I went east, graduated from a town of 10,000. So that was like a metropolis. That was like a big town. Yeah, because people like actually moved in and out. Right. Which was wild. Yeah. Because I, when I go back to my farm town, I look back at, you know, your baby book and you look at all that stuff. That preschool class list was my graduating class. Like nobody moved in or out. That was your class. So when I moved to the town of 10,000, that's when I was like, oh my gosh, somebody just moved in for a year. Like this was wild. Unheard of to my brain. Right. And so graduated from a town of 10,000, and then I actually married my high school sweetheart. So we— he was a year older than me. He, he went up to school. I, of course, had to chase him there, even though he wouldn't— he probably doesn't want me saying that, but I absolutely chased him. And then we did what so many Midwestern kids do. We got our world-class education in South Dakota, and we hightailed it out of town. We were like, But you went way out. Yeah, we went way, way and big.

Yeah. Do you want to tell us just a little bit about like where you went, what you did?

Yeah.

So, and then maybe also what brought you back?

Yeah, right. The boomerang. I'll tell you the boomerang. Yeah. So as soon as we graduated, my husband, he's a school counselor, and we, we wanted to just get out of here. And so we went to New York City. So we moved from—

it's like the biggest of the place, you know?

Yeah. Go big or go home. Yeah.

I love it. I just love it.

So it was hilarious. I mean, it was really— we were just so— I look back at our early 20s and just go, oh my gosh, we— I'm so glad we did it when we did it. I mean, because we essentially had a 2-year honeymoon. We had no family around us except for one cousin. It's my mom's cousin who is now my absolute favorite relative. She was in New York when we were in New York. But we learned how to be married on our own without having any any interruptions from anyone else. So if we fought, we had to figure it out, which was great. Um, but my husband went to grad school, I worked in Rockefeller Plaza and had a— every Midwestern always cracks up whenever I say this— my commute was 11 miles and it took 2 buses, a boat, and a train, and it took 2 hours one way to go 11 miles. Yeah. So we were, we were there for 2 years. When, when my husband graduated with his master's, we were ready to go. Like, that was a lot. It was just tired.

It was enough time. It was enough time.

There's our experience, and I don't know if this is true or not, but this was our perspective. There's really not a middle class. And we knew that we wanted to be parents. And we actually left when I was 7 months pregnant with our oldest daughter. And so we knew that pulling a stroller up and down the steps to get onto a subway was not going to be our future, especially my farm kid brain is going, why is everyone on top of each other when there are spaces? And so, yeah, so we moved to Chicago after that. So we, we lived in Chicago for about 8 years. We had our 3 daughters in Chicago. We left Chicago because by the time we had our third kid, we were in a two-bedroom, third-story walk-up apartment and we were putting our baby to sleep in a pack and play every night in the kitchen because that was the last room with a door. And at that point we were like, okay, it's time to put down roots. We— it's time to come home. And then we moved back and we— when we got our 1,800-square-foot ranch house, we were like, This is so luxurious to be able to just walk from the driveway to the kitchen. Like, that was the simple thing that we were like, oh my gosh, this is the best. Yeah. So yeah. And now doing what I do now, we are such a stereotype because it is working with the scientific term of what we are is we're called returners. When you look at any kind of migratory research, we're the returners. Yeah. And returners come back in their 30s. They're married, they have kids, they have a combined household income of over $100,000 a year. Yeah. And they want to put down roots. And so we live that returner story. Did we know that when we were doing it? Oh my gosh, not at all. But. Right. That's— I mean, and then we came back and now we've raised our— we've raised our kids. In South Dakota. They've gotten to— they've had opportunities that a lot of city kids don't have. Like, they had their own clunker high school car to drive. They get to drive themselves to high school where they would never have had that in New York or in Chicago. Right. They have part-time jobs— would never happen in big cities. You know, it's, it's all of these wonderful opportunities that they've had in the Midwest because we've chosen to live small.

Well, and what that is, is that's a continuation of that intergenerational wealth of work ethic. Oh, do they ever have it, right? And I think it's cool too, like, I— this is something I've talked a lot about, you know, it, it's, it seems like the big thing here is safety, you know, for our kids. And of course that's it, but what it— to me that translates a bit more even to skill. Because like my kids, so we're in a town of 1,800, right? They you know, from probably about 9, I would say it was— I think 9 was actually the year where we were like, you can bike from our house to the pool on your own with a buddy. Like, right, you need to always be buddied up with somebody, or your brother or your sister or whatever. Um, but so that means they're, they're actually taking care of their transportation from point A to point B, and I'm not right there. So as they encounter things, whatever they might encounter, they're figuring things out, right? So there's just that agency, that freedom to make some choices, did sometimes they make some not so great choices and then we'd be like, hey, you know, and the great thing is in my town someone would be like, so I hate to tell you this, but I saw your kids and this is what they were doing. It was like they weren't heathens. They never did anything too terrible. But you know, honestly, a couple times our kids didn't look both ways before crossing the highway. Every time that happened to them, somebody in one of the cars saw them and called me. Yeah. And then we could have that conversation. But there's an actual learning comes with that, right? And they get it earlier.

The— I— when you're explaining that story, it reminds me of the pickup from elementary school. And, um, in Chicago, our oldest daughter was going to a magnet school. So it was a prep school, it was a selective enrollment, it was a very good school. In kindergarten, they were learning Mandarin because everybody was already bilingual English to Spanish. Wow. And so when you would pick up your kid from school, you had to walk into the auditorium. The children were sitting in their class in a row, and there were folding tables in the front. It was kind of the checkout lane, and there was a piece of paper with your child's name. There was also a lady there, she was a teacher's aide, she was the drill sergeant. So if these kids were out of line, a look and those kids knew that they were in trouble. But on the other side, she didn't let a kid go unless she knew who you were and you made direct eye contact with her. That pickup lane was controlled. So that is what, as a mom and when you're a first-time parent, that is your experience in a pickup after school. You just know that. Well, we moved back to South Dakota. Um, my oldest daughter was in the second grade when we moved First day of school of second grade, I'm learning what school pickup looks like. So I'm standing on the playground and the school doors bust open and just a flood of children. It is a mass of children. And I have my 4-year-old and my 1-year-old, you know, my 4-year-old is attached to my thigh and my 1-year-old is on my hip. And I'm going, I'm gonna lose my child because these kids were just running to the playground. And what do you do, just start yelling her name? No, I just, I I actually just kind of froze, and I was like, uh, uh, uh, and she just ran over to me. She goes, "Hi, Mom!" And I was like, "Okay, this is how it's done." Yeah, and it was just— it was such a bright, like, learning moment for me to go, I have really controlled these children. Like, I need to let them be kids and run a little wild.

Yep, yep.

Which was 20 feet from the front door to me.

Yeah, I get it, but it's, it's a special thing. Yeah, it's a special thing. And ever, you know, I, it's, it's interesting. My oldest son has said like, I don't know if I'm gonna wanna raise my kids in a town as small as ours. That's great. And I said, I said, well, yeah, I'm like, I, I said, I can understand that, but what, you know, tell me why, what's, what's in your brain? And he goes, I just don't like that. I feel like everybody knows my business all the time. And I said, man, you know, I can really understand. I can appreciate that. I said, mm-hmm. I said, as a mom, what's kind of neat is like, I just feel like everybody's looking out for you. Right. You know, I said, I get for you it feels like you're under a microscope. Oh yeah. You know, because you kind of are. Yeah. But it— so it's just, it's, it's such an interesting thing. So it makes sense. And I love that you shared demographics too, because technically I fall into that as well. I was, uh, 28 when we moved back, starting our family. Um, same deal. I was gone for about 10 years. Yes. Came back.

I think it's really I think it's crucial that people move away. Oh, me too. I think it is.

I mean, it's good for people. It's really good. It's good for—

it's what they bring back. Everybody. Yep. It's good for what they bring back because— and, and for some people that just doesn't make sense. They may not have the ability to or the desire to, right? And that's okay too, right? However, it's getting— I think every 18-year-old needs to go away, whether it is to a 4-year traditional college a technical school, or the military is a great way to do this too, or just to go away to work. You need to go get beat up a little bit. You need to go work for a mean boss. You need to be held accountable. You gotta figure your life out. You've got to be really poor for a while. Yeah. And then once you've had enough of that, then you're going to look at your hometown again and go, okay, maybe it was kind of great. And then you can come home and then you have all of this world experience and you can come back to your community and say, hey, but what about this? And what about that? And you've just got this different perspective and it's, it's good for the community, it's good for your family, it's good for you. It's, it's wonderful. Right.

So how, how did this kind of whole experience for you, how did that inform what you're doing today with Porchlight?

Well, so when we came back, we— so in South Dakota, there's two large communities. There's Sioux Falls on the east side, there's Rapid City on the west side, and there's really no formal way to get to the middle. And my hometown is in the middle. Um, now I don't know if who we were when we moved back now 15 years ago, I don't know if we would have gone back to our, back to our hometowns, like full stop. I mean, we were coming from Chicago, which is a city of— city and suburbs is about 8 million people. A city of 200,000 is microscopic. And I still— so it's a little bit of perspective. That's certainly— you just have to look at it that way. Yeah. But there's a lot of people, and this is the biggest misconception when it comes to rural, the misconceptions, there's two of them, that there's no work to be done. And nobody wants to move back. And it couldn't be farther from the truth. Totally agree. And so there's not a pipeline and there's no pathway to show the people that are in Chicago, in New York, in L.A., people that have moved away, they've tasted the, you know, that urban experience. They've danced on rooftops and had martinis and mini dresses, and they're ready to get back home and raise a family. There's no pathway to get back home. And so through my company, we— my company is called Porchlight. We're called Porchlight on purpose because when somebody's gone, you leave that light on for them. And so you leave that light on until somebody comes home. And that's really what we are, is we've created this pathway to not only show that you can come home through the community side of our work, of our business, but there's also work to be done there too. And I always say this very flippantly, but the internet exists. And now, I mean, it's this newfangled thing, but this newfangled thing, yep, it's been around for about 25 years. And, um, there's so many remote and hybrid jobs that you can now experience and work anywhere in the world. And, um, in our rural areas, this is not a secret, that they are aging at such a faster clip than any other large community, that if we're, we're at the tip of some big changes that are happening in rural, we have about 15 years to really figure out some big things before we have some catastrophic loss, gutting of population without a doubt. Residents. Yep. So it's called a silver tsunami that is currently happening. And that is where this housing crunch is coming in, is that it's It's not— we don't have workforce housing issues. We have transitional and senior housing issues. And so if we can really allow the folks that have lived in these communities forever, and they could have been the pillars of the community and have invested their entire lives and raised kids and grandkids now in these rural communities, they can still age in place. But the place is the town. And that maybe your mom, who's in her upper 70s and is still totally okay on her own, this is the time to start looking at what does a single-story ADA accessible home look like that she could potentially move into now while she's still with it, right? Get her into something like that, free up the you know, the 4-bedroom, 2-bath house with a double garage on a corner lot, um, open that up for a new family that wants to come home and move Mom into something like that where she can still age in her community. It's just in a different residence, right? Right.

Okay, so let's talk about workforce. Yeah. Um, what's your approach to it? Like, how are you helping Talk to me a little bit about your process and how you work with either communities and/or employers or both.

I'm assuming it's both, right? So, um, we'll talk workforce first. Okay. So, um, my career has always been sales and recruiting, and so, um, recruiting— I actually very like— this was just, I think, the universe lining things up, um, I had started— I was recruited in to be the director of recruitment of a healthcare firm right at the beginning of COVID and I had launched a travel nurse division for this company. And so then, you know, this once in a hundred year global pandemic shows up and the entire spotlight of the world shows up on travel nursing. And so this this division was moving. We did about $1 million in revenue in 5 months. We were placing travelers all over the place because, I mean, and we all saw that during COVID the nurses were going crazy. Well, there's also travel therapists, like physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech. They're all going into hospitals. So, um, it was, it was through that experience of placing these travelers all over where I was placing them were in rural hospitals. And I saw how much the hospital was paying us. I saw how much we were paying the nurses, and I saw how much the company was making. I saw— so I was seeing how the sausage was being made, right? And it was— this was actually before COVID I had placed a travel PT into my hometown's regional hospital, and that crystallized absolutely everything to me because it wasn't just this traveler, you know, I use quotes like this traveler who was going into this random town. This was Katie working next to my cousins who are taking care of my uncles. And then I went— and then my small town brain turned on and I went, oh my gosh, is she gonna like my bakery? Because those donuts there, I still dream about the caramel rolls at my bakery in my hometown. Like, they're so good. And so then I was like— I started to feel like a travel agent for my hometown. And that is where I started going, oh my gosh, I hope it's great. And then it kind of felt like that feeling when, um, somebody calls you and says, hey, we're in town, we'd like to stop by in about 10 minutes. And then all of a sudden, like, you look at your house with different eyes and you're like, this place is a mess, I gotta clean up. Yeah, like, that's what it felt like. And so, um, through placing Katie into my, um, home hospital, starting this travel division, that was really my wake-up call on the money piece. At the same time, I had run for political office. And I had really focused on like, what would be really good for my state. And I, I've watched the population of my hometown shrink by 50% over the last 30 years. And it doesn't make sense to me, like why it's shrinking. It's the county seat, it has a regional hospital, it has an incredible school district, where they are— sports is the heartbeat of that school, where they are kicking out Division I athletes across, you know, sports, sports, basketball, football, track, you name it. They're killing it. And so there's no reason why this school— or there's no reason why this community should be shrinking. And so that kind of activated that economic piece. So when it comes it was all of these things that kind of cultivated into really going after workforce and saying, why do we need to have travelers when we can just hire them directly into these hospitals? Why should the trades in these communities— because anybody that lives in a small town knows finding a plumber, finding an electrician, they are scarce.

If you have them, you're lucky and they're busy. That's right. And they're too busy. Correct.

Yeah. And so with— so the way that we work when it comes to workforce, we're only hiring direct hires. So, um, so what that means is we will find your candidates and you hire them on, like, and then you just pay us on the— you know, you pay us after a month. You get to work with them for a month because, you know, yep. If it's you, everybody always says, I don't need a month, I need a week. And I'm like, cool, you want to pay me in 7 days? And they're like, no. And I'm like, okay, I'll give you a month. So we, we took that recruiting experience from the healthcare world and we now use it across industry. And so we have had— I mean, I could spend the rest of the time talking about the incredible companies that we've worked with in multiple states across industries. They've been as small as baristas at coffee shops and like coffee shop managers, all the way up to state contracts, healthcare, renewable energy, the cannabis industry, um, lots of warehouse, the trades, you name it, we're in it. But the— it's the same theme in every industry. That's what's been so cool is that it is the— it's overcoming the idea that people don't want to work anymore, which is not true. Um, so many times the conversations that I have, and you and I actually just talked about this before we started recording, um, that it is— it's not— it's the workforce culture where, uh, when you talk to these small town business owners, they're charging— they, they have to charge their people that they're providing the service to a fair wage because they're going to see this person in the grocery store or they're going to show up and sit next to them in the pew at church on Sunday, right? So they cannot overcharge for their services, which then in turn means that they can't pay urban prices for their employees' labor, right? Yep. However, they're still getting paid incredible because the cost of living is so much more affordable in a rural community, right? So it's, it's really interesting to go through and explain, like, go through and see what these employers have to say. And so many of them I'll ask, like, I have to have some formal things because we have our rural job board. So we need a job description, we need— I— we are firm believers in pay transparency. So there must be a pay range. On a job, because nobody looking for work wants to work out of the goodness of their heart. We're all working because we have bills to pay and we probably want to live indoors and eat. And so everybody wants to know how much the pay is, general ideas of what you're going to do. So, um, most of them don't have job descriptions, and it's not because they're being lazy or anything like that. It's just, it's that small town culture, right? Which is, well, yeah, I'm, I'm the electrician. We do electrical work. Like, I don't need to describe what I do. Yeah, like, I'm the electrician. So it's really formalizing some of that stuff. And what has been remarkable to see when it comes to hiring people is that we get to hear the stories on why these people are applying to our jobs. And I have the, I have the perfect story to this. So we, a couple months ago, we had a job where it was a third generation HVAC company. They, um, the third generation took it over and it's a woman, so she took the, the business over from her dad and that took her out because she was the HVAC tech, but now she's owner. Yep. So she's not needs to fill her seat. And she goes, I had 100 people apply, I was so overwhelmed, I didn't know even know where to start, can you help? And I was like, you bet, let's get into it, right? So I— so the first thing I asked is, who is your avatar? Like, who is that ideal candidate? What do they look like? So we go through, we get it, um, and my recruiter who works, who works for us, um, she said, okay, I think I've got a guy. And I'm like, okay, great. I— and the job is in South Dakota and this guy's from Nebraska. And I'm like, okay, he's moving, correct? Because he's— it's 5 hours away from where the job is. And she goes, yes, he's moving here because his girlfriend is from here. And they— if he gets a job up here, they're gonna move in together and then he's gonna propose. So now we're in it.

It's a domino. Yes. And that's so fun because a lot of Right? Like our school will recruit a young teacher and the immediate thing that everybody in town's like, we need to find that young man a wife or find that young woman a husband. Right? Like we gotta lock 'em down. Yes. So that's perfect. I love that. I love that. And I think like, you know, it's crazy cuz to me this stuff seems so, it seems so obvious to me, but it's because I, I actually did the work, right? Yes. I did local economic development. I talked to people. I know people wanna move back to communities like ours. So it's, it's crazy that we're still actually having that conversation, or like, that, that's something we still have to overcome. But, you know, as— so what does that look like for you? I mean, how are you— where are you showing up to try to advocate for it?

Yeah, you know, so when it comes to all this workforce stuff, so, um, so when you are starting to hire these people, it's the biggest thing that I talk about in rural communities is your largest employer many times is either the school or the hospital. If you have some kind of a larger manufacturing or something nearby, you might be right. A lot of rural communities are turning into bedroom communities because people are driving now upwards of 60 to 90 minutes to a larger community to work. The biggest thing that I talk about is that workforce and economic development are not two different silos. They work perfectly together. So if you are a small community and you have a regional hospital and you are looking to hire a new director of nursing, or you're hiring a physician to come in, you know, it is getting harder and harder to recruit physicians into rural communities. If you can get a physician that is going to move into your community, You need to make sure the whole family is coming along and that the whole family feels like they can plant in the community. Right. That is the biggest thing because what happens so many times is that the physician will take the job in a rural community and get an apartment. Yeah. And then wife and children or husband and children are going to stay in a larger city the physician goes out for a couple days, you know, works their shifts and then commutes back in. Yeah. And that is not continuity of care. That is not, you know, really planting into the community and understanding how people work. And then if the family's not happy, they're there for a year and you're out. And that is so expensive for the employer to continuously earnestly try to recruit new, hot, middle and high skilled workers into these areas. So you've got to bring in economic development. We work on the community side a lot, especially with populations, communities with populations of 5,000 and fewer. I know in South Dakota, it's 95% of our communities fall within that category. North Dakota, it's 97% of your communities fall in that population. But nationally, it's 75% of our communities.

Isn't that wild? That's a wild statistic. It's bananas.

And when you—

and I don't think the average person would believe that. No. You know what I mean? Or if you would never guess that high, for one, and then would honestly be like, really?

Yeah, 75% is a lot. And if you, if you pair that with the aging population, like we talked about, you add in You know, all of these weird quirks to industries, what could be potential the largest employer right now might offshore to somewhere else. Like, it's not economic development in rural communities is not an either or anymore. It is a yes and. So the biggest thing that I do education around in rural communities right now Is remote work.

The Growing Small Towns show is recorded locally at the Growing Small Towns podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota. It's produced by Pheasant Canteen Studio in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with marketing support from Cassidy Johnston in Canyon City, Colorado. Our intro music was created and produced composed exclusively for Growing Small Towns by James Bergman, singer and songwriter from Fargo, North Dakota. Local and small, it's what we support and it's who we love. Get your community a shout-out on the podcast. Call 701-203-3337. And share your small town success that you just don't feel is being celebrated quite enough and let us shout you out. You can also share your biggest people challenge and we'll dedicate an episode to offering ideas to help. Hell, you can basically tell us anything and we'll do what we can to answer. We can't wait to hear from you. Today's small town shout out is to Jamie Shanks in Glendive, Montana. Uh, we actually stole this, uh, small town shout out. We happened to be on the webinar with Becky McCray and Deb Brown of SaveYour.Town where they shared their 10 years of rural research, and in the chat Jamie shared this amazing idea, and it happened to come out of a Reimagining Rural series, which I was fortunate enough to speak at out of Montana. And so it was really fun to see something that came directly from a session that I'd been a part of. So Jamie shared that they recently formed a group that really focuses on action versus meetings, and they call themselves the Vigiplantis. She said, "It's based on vigilantes, but we're planting new ideas, beautification, actual trees and plants." She said, "Sometimes we do stuff at 2:00 AM to surprise people in the morning," making the act of making their community more beautiful, visible, and fun. So huge shout out to Jamie in Glendive, Montana, for a very stealable, very borrowable idea of forming your very own fidget planties club. Way to go, Jamie, and way to go, Glendive.

Like, I am shocked at how much pushback I get on remote work. What's the pushback?

What do you hear? What do people say to you?

Yeah, so a lot of— I've heard this from, I think, the craziest industry that I got pushback on remote work with was actually a broadband company, which I know it was, it was bonkers because they said, well, if all of these remote workers live in our community, how are we going to have housing for the people that are going to work on the in-town jobs? And it doesn't— to me, I just looked at it. I was like, what are you talking about? Like, there's room for everybody. And the— you have to look at it from a tax base. So a lot of these remote jobs are six-figure jobs, right? These— and these are not little six-figure jobs. These are like $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 a year jobs. Well, we know in economic development that a salary planted in that community rolls over 7 times because you're buying your local groceries, you're shopping at the local stores, going to the movies. You know, all of those things. And so you want those high salaries in your community because that's paying for everything.

Well, and you also didn't have to generate it, correct? Like, it's, it's— so I, I've heard— I don't remember how long ago or even where I heard this, but this idea of it like cleans up your bathtub. Like, if you have an economic bathtub, right, it's, you know, when the local employers create the wages, then the wages come back, right? That's all internally created. That's great, we want that too, but this is like injections of fresh cash. Yeah, that then can get circulated, and it just, it cleans, it cleans up that local economy. I don't understand how that's lost on people. And I think it's really strange, I've never heard that, this idea that like, like the real locals versus what, like the faux locals, like the remote? I mean, what does that even mean? And like, what do you think, we're creating like, you know, housing developments just for the remote people? Like, that's a really straight— like, yeah, what do you— what was the motivation behind that, do you think? I— housing is a challenge, okay? So I mean, I'll acknowledge that, that there's a lot of— there's a housing crunch in a lot of communities. But I've never— I've never personally heard that, like, this idea that we don't want this group to take it away from this group.

Well, I think what, um, I, I, I can go on the bridge with this individual. I don't agree with it, but I think what they were envisioning is that their community was going to be the remote hub and that people from all across the country were going to move to this town of 2,000 people that are all remote workers and are going to work and live in these houses. And the cafe would close and the school would close because everybody—

oh, I see, I see, I see. Okay, well, that— I mean, I, I get that as a fear. I don't I think it's an— it's not a founded fear. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but I think too, like, the other thing I've heard— what I've heard is people say, well, these remote jobs are like poaching our local workforce, you know, saying like, if I, if I've got a really great person that, let's say, works my front desk and they're just like my right hand and I can't do my work without them, and then suddenly they get a carrot dangled in front of them for a remote job you know, that we're, we're now, we're now not just competing with our other local employers, we're competing with all of these other people. And in my brain, I'm like, you absolutely are. Well, but that doesn't, you know, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still be thinking about, like you said, tax-based growth. Yes. And what that can do for our community. Also, again, they— if just because they're working somewhere, somewhere else, if they're shopping locally and they're sending their kids to your school, that's money into your school district. You know, it's the way that they're showing up in the community. They're, you know, they're giving their own value, their contributions, their skills, their talents, right? Maybe a new club gets formed because of one of these people. So I just, I'll never be that short-sighted about it just because I, I think people, every single human that chooses our community, whether they're choosing a local, a local job or a remote job, if they're choosing our community to live in, that's a huge win.

Well, I look at it, I look at it in a different way. Um, the recruiter in me always says happy people don't leave. Yeah. And so if, if you are worried that someone's going to leave, I would maybe check your, check your job. Are you compensating this person correctly? And I'm not saying that it's not a race to the top because I understand I am a small business. And so as a small business, there's a there's a lid to how much you can pay someone. I totally understand that. However, there's so many things that are free or next to nothing that will make your employees feel so valued. I mean, there are countless studies that show that people stay continuously underpaid because they are so loyal to their employer and they couldn't imagine leaving them.

That is the core of my whole premise and work, right? Like, and the thing that's really hard about it, and I think what's so great about your work, the way it's positioned the way you work with communities, it can be really hard for the local person to say that. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Right? Like, it's, it's almost— it's next to impossible. Um, but it doesn't— that doesn't mean it's not something to look at. And again, you're not saying— and I always— my joke is like, do people really not want to work, or do you suck to work for? Yeah, I, I say that, and I don't— I would never actually say like, do you suck to work for? But I think we all should be looking at Yes, you know, what are we really like to work for? And it's not just wages, it's not just shift, like the shifts that they work, it's not even just whether they can be hybrid or not, because that's like a whole big thing, right? It's like everybody feels now like, well, if I can't offer remote, this is what everybody wants.

Well, some jobs can't be and some jobs aren't, and some people are really bad at remote work. Oh, and then extroverts, amen, fail at remote work. Absolutely. But it's— this is, this is the perfect example of why community research is really important too. I have an unhealthy love of a housing study, and a housing study for a community is the key to an economic developer's success because it captures— a good housing study captures all of the key demographics that you need to know as an economic developer. So if you look at your age demographic, I always use my hometown as this perfect example. I love reading other communities' housing studies. It's probably more— that tells probably more about how boring I am than anything. But when it—

when I pay you to read housing studies, for sure. Oh my goodness, great. Well, listen up, friends. Like, anybody listening to this, like, if you're not into housing studies, you found somebody.

I am into— I find them compelling. Because it tells the story of your community. So in my hometown, you can watch— it's, it's a line chart, and they have their population from 0-18 increase, increase, increase. From, um, 18 to 44, it dips. Sure. Low. Yeah. And so it's like their two front teeth are missing. And so when you are missing 20 years of individuals. I mean, they— there are still people living there. My cousins are there. And, um, when, when you are graduating class, 100% of your graduating class leaves. Who is re— like, who is having the babies? It's those genera— it's those 20 years are the family-creating years. However, that is your key working years. That also means the people that have stayed, they now have 8 jobs. So they are working their full-time job, they are coaching a million different sports, they are running the clubs, they maybe need a part-time job to cover their bills, they might have a— they might be running childcare at the same time, you know. So they're wearing 600 hats, they're tired. Right. And then if that graduating class is gone, and let's say they are in some of those big cities, well, now your older population— so my hometown's population ticks up right around 50. People start coming back because they want— they've now made their money, they're looking to retire, they want to come home, but they're now traveling to go see their grandkids. Right. And there's going to be a point where their kids, you know, it's that tipping point in a family when mom and dad no longer become the mentors. They're now relying on their children to start taking care of them. Right. Now, maybe Grandma and Grandpa need to move, move closer to those kids. And so as an economic developer, you should look at that and go, Why are we missing these— this 20-year gap? What can we do to entice these things, these individuals to come back? Maybe it's your graduating class, maybe it's new people within that age demographic, but that is where you pour those resources in and you show them, hey, we've grown and evolved. And that's where that yes and comes in, right? Is that yes, you may have a really cool, um, I mean, I'm from an ag community, so there's lots of farms around there, but there's also so much growth opportunity for some really cool, um, tech places to make a hub there, or other businesses to come in. Their Main Street is ripe for innovation, and even the boutiques in town, they are capitalizing on having a storefront and also a website, also doing, um, Instagram Lives and TikToks, and having people come in from that community, from the surrounding communities, to really enjoy shopping on a traditional Main Street. So there is a way to get it going. You just have to look at every different space as how can we make this cool for generations to come. Yeah, what's the possibilities, right?

What's out there? What could, what could we do? I— so speaking of that, let's talk just briefly about this youngest generation, Gen Z. Oh yeah. And what you're— what you feel like you're seeing in your work, because you're here, you walked our Main Street. We've got a great Main Street. It's adorable in this community. Um, I actually— I was just— so I told you I was at the Capitol on Monday, and before I went, I actually compiled some of our business statistics for Oaks. So we took— we took out the non-local— non-locally owned businesses, and then none of the government agencies, nonprofits, churches, off of our Chamber list. So we have 142 businesses in our chamber. Good for you. 33% of them are owned by people 35 and under. Great. A third of them. That's, that's, that's an incredible number. And then just over 50% are owned by women. Either women are straight up the only owner or they're in ownership with like a spouse. Great. Um, but those kinds of things are really, I mean, it's really fascinating to look at. We have really seen an uptick in young 20-somethings coming back. Yes, it's so— oh my gosh, it's so much fun. So in your— like, with that, what are you seeing?

So I, I always say I am a mom of 3 Gen Z babies, and they are fantastic and deeply annoying at the same time, only because my— with my mom brain on, I just want them to listen to me. Um, however, generally speaking, from Gen Z they have absolutely flipped the script on what work and life look like. So we have always talked about a work-life balance. That is out the window for them. It is now a life-work balance, right? So what that means is, is that they are looking at the world as, I want to live here, you know, draw an X on a map. It may be their small town, it may be adjacent, you know, maybe an hour away from their hometown, whatever it is, um, and then they will find work.

Yeah.

Whereas for generations— like, my parents are boomers— that story was get a job at 20 and you die in your chair and you'll get a gold watch, and then, you know, you move on with your life when you're 65. And that just doesn't exist anymore.

Well, it didn't for our generation either, right?

No, no, no.

Texas, we are the— we are the ones that were like, uh, whoa, that the skepticism started to kind of sink in just because we watched it.

We watched it kind of crumble. We watched everything fall apart. And, um, and I don't know if it's necessarily good or bad that it's fallen apart. Like, truly, I don't. Yeah, well, same. Because things— as things, um, the old ways fall away, it opens up opportunities for innovation. Totally. And you see it especially on Main Streets. Like, you see like those old buildings from like the late 1800s, early 1900s, and it's in like chiseled in the rock, it says First National Bank, but really it's a coffee shop. Like, I love that, that's so cool. So Gen Z, they are really looking at a life-work balance, and they have— they are iPad kids, you know, they've grown up with some screen 6 inches away from their face since birth. Yeah. And so it is the most powerful tool known to man, has lived in their hands. They— many of them are walking around with $1,000 iPhones in their hands, and we GPS track them within 2 feet of their lives. And so that is just a lot. That's what they've experienced. They will real-time fact-check you. They know how to search information so much quicker than you. They can innovate so much faster, and they are not waiting their turn. And for older generations that have had to wait their turn, it is deeply frustrating. Yes. That these 20-somethings are coming, coming in and saying, well, I own this place now, right? Yeah. And it's not out of disrespect, right? It's as they've never had a structure that has worked for them. And so they, they had to innovate.

They literally have been building the plane as they're flying it since day one all along. Yep. And so, yeah, I love that. I love, I love this conversation so much because the other thing that I think is really important for, for just the average person to, to understand about, about Gen Z, like in terms of the trend, like what direction they're trending in, they actually are very socially conscious. Yes. Yes. And it's because the fact that they've had a screen in front of them, they've always been tuned in to, like, a bigger world, again, from as early as they were seeing things.

Oh, for sure.

Right? I mean, it's a really fascinating thing. And I think that is something to actually leverage and capitalize on. Not exploit, right? Totally. But leverage that. Because, oh my God, like, if you want to make an impact in something, move to a small town for sure, right? I mean, my goodness, it's amazing what you can— what you can do, what you can be a part of.

When I, I, I specifically remember a time where we would have computer time when the kids were little, and we would time them for 30 minutes and, you know, doing all those little kid things. And there was a day where the internet went out, and so then you have to play with like old school games, like, right, actual things in front of you that you have to touch. And I remember at this time, my, my middle daughter was 12, and she goes, Mom, do you want to play chess? And I was like, who taught you chess? And she goes, oh, the internet. And she absolutely knows how to play chess because she was playing it on the computer.

Yeah, that's amazing.

And so now that, you know, all of my kids drive, they all have jobs as they're going to school, um, They thrift all of their clothes. The environment is the number one thing that they think about is their impact on ecology and recycling and making sure that all of the old stuff is being used again. It's not in the same way. Yeah, but it's being used and it's that kind of innovation. Now, when I was a kid, I had to go thrift because we were poor. And so in my head I'm like, I don't want to thrift, right? I can buy my clothes, but with my kids, they're like, oh my God, I'm not going to the mall. I wanna, I wanna get recycled clothes.

It's, it's just so interesting. And I think like the bit, the biggest thing here, um, that I think is so important is we can talk about trends, right? We can talk about kind of obviously generations, um, like I have this one big beautiful chart that I love to go through with people, like with employers especially. But at the end of the day, Individuals are individuals, right? And the most important thing is to ask them and talk about these things. I think when we were talking earlier over lunch, you made the comment that I think the most important thing that all of us can adopt in this time when there's so much uncertainty and there's, you know, 4-ish generations in the workplace, it's just a true lens of curiosity.

It's curiosity and And I would also add respect. Agreed. And, and I think that is the bad rap that Gen Z gets, is that with these older generations— I mean, Boomers are almost, almost completely out of the workforce. Um, there are still some people that are, you know, still working for various different reasons. Um, I think sometimes not waiting your turn is looked at disrespect. And it's absolutely not. And when you are an employer— and, and I, I heard this today from somebody who said, well, people just don't want to work anymore. It, it could not be farther from the truth. They are— they are— if you look at it from, let's take a 25-year-old, you're a new professional, you have a college degree, you've probably got about $70,000 out of the gate in your brain. So now you've got a house in your head that you've got this payment already. Now you need to pay it back. Mm-hmm. You've got your own rent. You might want a life. And so you've got a lot of bills. They can't work for $15 an hour anymore. Right. Like, we have to be paying people a wage proportionate to their skill. There will be people that work $15 an hour. It will not be you at $25. And so if you know your wage is, you know, X— let's take that, the receptionist that we were talking about before, like she's gonna go and be a remote worker now. She might, and that's great. And that is a testament to you as an employer that you skilled her to a level that she now feels confident that she can level up in her job, right? And now your job is open for someone that you can start over and train that person again.

I know that that's a hard pill to swallow.

It is like you just described.

It's so hard, but it is so important. It's so important to remember that big picture. It's not just— I know how hard it is, like losing a great employee. It's so hard, right? But if that employee goes on, stays in your community, and is better— like, better compensated and has it and unlocks a different level of fulfillment, that's a happier, more holistically well person. Yes. In your community. That's, that's good for our community. And so I get that it's, it's a, it's a still difficult for you in the moment, right? But really, I think that's the other thing too, is we're talking about kind of a universal level of care about people. Right. It's, it's not just a job. It's a human. And if, and if this move unlocks all of those benefits for that person, of course we want them to. Yes.

To thrive. And I think the employers that understand this, and they may not even know that they understand this, maybe they do, are employers that employ high school students because they know they have these employees on a clock. Right. They're not going to be there forever, right? And many times it's their first job, and so they are teaching some of those basic skills. And so they know— oh, I just, I actually just talked to a woman, she runs a gymnastics company, and she had 95% of her employees are under the age of 18. So imagine their scheduling. Well, she's got it figured out like a clock. She gave it to the teens and said, figure out your schedule. What is the process? They figured it out. What life skills did those kids learn? Is they learned how to schedule for a company. She, the employer, trusted them enough to do that. Yeah. But then she's got them skilled to the point where they're 18. Now they're going off to college or going, you know, to their whatever education they choose. They now have huge life skills. They know how to show up, they know how to— they know how to present themselves in the workplace, and they can pour in some of these things and then move on. And I hope that other employers understand, yeah, you might be a big fish in a little pond and you might be a great job, but they don't owe you anything, right? Like, this is still a job, and if you took their salaries away, they would have to find employment somewhere We— I have employees. I love my employees. I couldn't imagine them breaking up with me, and I have no intentions of firing them. I always say my job is to make them happy so they stay with me forever, right? Um, but you know, if they go, I'm gonna give them a great reference, and I'm going to say, okay, you're taking my person, I'm very irritated by this, but let me tell you the incredible human you're getting, right? And that can happen in a small town too.

I know it's hard. It is hard, really hard, especially I would say too, if it goes from like local employer to even local employer. You bet. You know, not even just like local employer to a remote employer, but totally. Yeah, it's, it's— but these are good, these are such just— I think they're generally just good reminders because this, this is one— it's one giant ecosystem that we're talking about, your community, right? And talking about multiple facets of it. Oh yeah, they all play together.

And in a small town, if, if you do have an employee that jumps from your place of business to someone else, you're still going to see them in town. You're gonna— your kids are probably still going to be on the same T-ball team. You're going to go to the same barbecues. Like, it's, it's not— I mean, unless you've done something really weird, it's not really against you. It's just they're, they're doing their best to provide for their families, and you will find a replacement. And, and I will also say this because I I kind of check my clients that I work with when it comes to recruiting. I make sure that they understand in their head their job description does not mean the next person will meet 100% of these, you know, ideal qualifications, right? And that you cannot hire— if you had somebody with you for 25 years and now this person is retired You cannot look at that person's chapter 25. You got to go back to what was chapter 1 because that's what you're hiring with your next person. And that right there is the hardest piece, is when somebody leaves, they're like, well, I just need another Susie. Sure, but you need chapter 1 Susie. What was she like when she first started? Right. And that is what I always tell people. That it's— there's going to be training and it's a different person and it's going to be okay, but they're going to have a new flavor and it is going to fundamentally change your business for the better. Right, right.

This was such a fun conversation.

I just— I could talk about— I mean, I do talk about this all day. It's just— it's fantastic.

So in the show notes, for sure, we'll like link to all of the stuff that you want to promote and want to share with with our audience. Is there any kind of final thoughts you want to give? I would say especially let's think about, um, let's think about our local employers. What would, what are you, what would you want them to know in small communities, local employers? What would you want them to know about just the future of all of this? Because there's so much uncertainty. We were just talking about that.

I think small town employers are the ones that get hit up all of the time to sponsor softball teams and buy Girl Scout cookies and, you know, donations for this, donations for that. It is so— it— I want every small town employer to understand, and every person that lives in a small town, to do everything you humanly can to shop and frequent their establishments, whether it's a product or a service. Pour your money into those rural businesses because they are the ones that are pouring back into your community. And if you like having a local grocery store, grocery store, yep, their prices are going to be more. They don't have the wholesale prices of Walmart. Nobody does. Yeah, but they're the ones that are going to give $500 to the after-prom party. Yeah, that's just what they're gonna do. And if you want to continue to get your milk and butter at 8 o'clock at night on a Sunday, you should probably be shopping there. Same with the boutique, same with the convenience stores, same with everything. It because the local economies in rural communities are literally the heartbeat of the American economy. And that if we really truly understood what it takes to own a small business and to own a small business in a rural community, it is not for the faint of heart. No, it's not. And if we can continue to support them, and that just means showing up and and spending some money that, I mean, I, I just, I say that behind a microphone every time I possibly can, is just to support those local businesses. Buying a car might be a little bit more expensive, your milk will be a little bit more expensive, but it's going to keep the lights on.

Yeah, I think that is, that's such a beautiful way to wrap our conversation because the other thing I want to say too, I just want to remind people that like today in the day of like social media, websites, all those things. You can really love on them in all of those ways too. Yes, right? Obviously spend your money there for sure, but give— I mean, even just once a week, go out and think about the places that you love the most in your community and just give them some extra love.

But even a 5-star Google review, it makes it—

it makes a huge difference.

It is like— this is a really geeky business thing because we ask for 5-star our Google reviews all the time because it bumps you up in your SEO on Google. I mean, it is— everything is tilted so to the big boys. I mean, if you look at the Walmarts of the world, they, they have everything going for them, including tax breaks. Like, the way that our tax laws are written is to be against a small business. Now, in the federal definition of a small business, this is what's bonkers. The definition of a small business is, um, an establishment that has under 500 employees and has less than $42 million in revenue per year.

There's just like nothing small about either of those numbers.

I know. And so, but that is also telling you the tax law is written against a business of 500. And so Yes, it's easier to drive to the big town, go to Walmart, have it, you know, pull your car up, have them throw $400 in. You're going to save some bucks. I understand it. Money is tight right now. I truly do understand that. But if we don't support the local co-ops and the local grocery stores that literally cannot do anything more than they can right now, —right? We're not going to have— we are going to have food deserts that are worse than they are right now.

Yeah, that's a scary thing. That scares me. So let's like—

but why do I end every conversation like with fearmongering? Because we can't—

it's not fair. Yeah, I was just gonna say, we're not ending on that. We're ending on the fact that there's like something every single one of us can do. Yes, right? So this doesn't— this isn't waiting for anybody else. Else. It's literally looking around, looking at what's available in your community, and just doing your best to shop local.

Yes, first, right? Like their page on Instagram. Yeah, exactly. When they post something, like, maybe share it, put it in your stories. Yeah, a Google review. Yep. And then when you've got some cash, go in and shop. Yep. And, and it doesn't have to be, you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars. But if you want to— like, if your kid wants a cute shirt to go to homecoming or something like that, do what you can. Yeah. Yep. If we all do a little, it's so much easier.

Yeah. And it makes a really big difference.

A huge difference.

Thanks so much for driving all the way here. Thanks so much for spending this time with me, Jessica. Thank you for inviting me.

You're such a delight. Hey, right back at you.

Come back and see me again.

Promise. You name it. And I'm here.

Yours. Okay. We hope you loved this episode of the Growing Small Towns show. We encourage you to leave us messages at 701-203-3337 and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at growingsmalltowns.org. In the meantime, keep doing what you can with what you have right where you are. Your community needs you.

Because we are growing small towns. We are growing small towns. We're right here living our best lives. Yes, life's as crazy as it sounds, but we are growing small towns, growing small towns. We are growing small towns. We are growing small towns.