Q1: How long have you been with Downtown Fort Wayne? What do you think has been your biggest accomplishment in your role as President/CEO? Your biggest challenge?
I joined Downtown Fort Wayne in November of 2019 with the idea that I’d learn the organization for 90 days and then set out to make changes. Of course, 90 days later we were in the midst of the pandemic and everything was shutting down. So, instead of planning we went into emergency management. This was both our biggest challenge and accomplishment. How do we help keep Downtown in business during the pandemic? All of our events were cancelled — Lunch on the Square, BuskerFest, Fright Night, Holly Trolley, etc. We even had to help arrange a “stealth” lighting of holiday lights like Santa and the Wreath so that crowds wouldn’t gather. When so many people were working from home, our biggest challenge became making sure that we partnered with stores and restaurants to help them stay open. We were able to team up with Waiter on the Way to use the budget from our cancelled events to underwrite free delivery from Downtown restaurants. This eventually grew to add the City of Fort Wayne to the partnership to expand that free delivery to every restaurant in the city. I’m really proud of our team for this accomplishment that helped keep our restaurants going during the beginning of the pandemic. We were able to partner with the City to acquire federal funds to purchase outdoor furniture and patio heaters for restaurants and public spaces. The pandemic forced us to change our organizational culture to emphasize taking risks and trying new approaches, because quite literally everything that we were doing was shut down.
Q2: Downtown Fort Wayne’s mission statement is “Advancing Downtown Fort Wayne as the vibrant, urban core of northeast Indiana.” How do you feel the last five years of growth downtown have supported that statement?
I’ve worked in Fort Wayne long enough to appreciate the change in Downtown over the last 15 or 20 years. It’s both a completely true and over-used trope to say that all of the growth momentum Downtown has been because we as a city, county and region came together to collaborate on making Fort Wayne competitive on the national stage. If you look at only the last five years, we’ve seen Downtown flip from something that used to shut down after the business day and week, to something that becomes more active on weekends and after hours. This doesn’t mean that our business climate is struggling. There have been a ton of new companies that have moved to or are moving downtown: ASH Brokerage, SIRVA, UTEC, Swiss Re and many more. People also have been moving Downtown to live. The development of living options from condos at the Anthony Wayne Building to apartments at The Landing, The Riverfront at Promenade and Skyline Tower has kept the momentum going. This residential growth has helped Downtown Fort Wayne be competitive where other central business districts across the country have struggled. Looking ahead, there are plans and developments that are moving toward completion that will keep Downtown competitive. Our job has been to work with this new development to make Downtown something we can all be proud of. All of this use means more litter that we pick up, more public art through our Art This Way program, more people attending events and a greater desire to keep the good news flowing through traditional and social media.
Q3: The holidays are here! What is your favorite part about this season?
Before I started at Downtown Fort Wayne, we took our daughters to HolidayFest featuring the Night of Lights every year to see all the lights turn on. That event has huge sentimental value, as well as being a flagship event for Downtown Fort Wayne. I’ve also played in the Fort Wayne Philharmonic for more than 30 years, so playing the Nutcracker with the Fort Wayne Ballet is another favorite. Things like tradition and family are hallmarks of the season. Going back time after time to these events not only exists in the present, but also in years of family memories.
Q4: Are there any exciting initiatives planned for 2024 that you are looking forward to? What does the new year have in store for Downtown Fort Wayne?
In 2024 we’re looking at ways to broaden participation in our events by trying a few new things. Our Art Crawl event this past September showed how much of a desire was there for both alley activation and late-night events. We’ll experiment with a couple of new events in that vein. We’re also working on strengthening our retail sector in Downtown Fort Wayne, so you’ll see some new efforts in that area. We’ll be rolling out a unified Downtown gift card as well as some additional resources for business and property owners. Art This Way will have some new public art projects as well.
Q5: What did you do before you began your career with Downtown Fort Wayne?
I started here in Fort Wayne as a classical musician (French Horn) with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, which is something that I still do. After getting married and having two daughters, I went back to school at Ball State University to get a master’s degree in historic preservation. That lead to me becoming a two-job guy, working for ARCH in historic preservation and with the Philharmonic. After 10 years and rising to executive director at ARCH, I moved over to the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership (NEI) to administer the Regional Development Authority (RDA) and run the Regional Cities Initiative, the $42 million regional grant for quality of place capital projects in northeast Indiana. Moving to Downtown Fort Wayne allowed me to be back in the lead role for the organization as well as concentrate on the tactical details of quality of place.
