Leadership RI students woo out-of-state businesses to Rhode Island

The idea grew from a discussion at a coffee shop at Pawtucket’s Hope Artiste Village. A group of Leadership Rhode Island students realized that business owners may just move their companies to the state if introduced to successful businesspeople already here.
The students – professionals representing a mix of industries – created a program that came to be known as TryRI.com to lure potential businesses, identify the owners’ concerns and then shuttle them around the state in hopes of soothing their fears.
The students describe the new endeavor as part class work, part economic development and part simple hospitality. But it is also represents a move to nudge the 29-year-old organization into undertaking more structured projects and corralling the program’s roughly 1,500 alumni into a unified force that can fight Rhode Island’s persistent pessimism.
“People tend to think it’s a political problem, it’s the politicians that have to deal with it,” said Tim Bigelow, a Leadership Rhode Island alumnus who graduated last week. “We have 1,500 alumni from this program. What an untapped potential.”
For years, many viewed Leadership Rhode Island as primarily a networking tool complemented with a heavy dose of educating students on acute issues as described by the people at the helm. Leadership Rhode Island Executive Director Mike Ritz, who came on board a year ago, and students say that remains a piece of the 10-month program. But Ritz, a former fundraiser and military interrogator, is driving students to take those connections and education beyond the program’s sessions.
Ritz, a 2007 graduate, has fought to encourage students to think of Leadership Rhode Island as more than just their class. He wants to eliminate the tradition of calling each class “the best class ever,” hoping to break down perceived competition among alumni. He is considering abolishing class names. He wants students to involve alumni during their capstone projects. As a result, he has put teams of students cutting across classes in charge of the curriculum.
“It’s got to be about all these people,” Ritz said. “This is not the Mike Ritz show.”
In November 2009, Ritz became the first non-native Rhode Islander and first man to helm the program that started as an outgrowth of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. Ritz said his appointment has left some uneasy about putting the organization’s daily operations in the hands of someone born in Indiana and raised around the country. (He now lives in Providence, around the corner from Leadership Rhode Island’s offices). So Ritz is surrounding himself with Leadership Rhode Island alumni and taking pains to involve them. A 60-member programming committee of alumni, broken into subgroups for each session, is developing Leadership Rhode Island’s schedule for next year. He meets often with alumni over lunch or dinner.
But Ritz’s newness to Rhode Island also provides him a fresh perspective in a state where the population appears to have resigned itself to cynicism. Ritz said Rhode Island offers plenty of positive attractions, from its strong community culture to its rich arts and its sandy beaches.
He themed the 2010 program “Positively Rhode Island” in an effort to encourage students to think positively and focus on solutions, not just griping. Next year the theme is “Rhode Island: the Center of the Universe,” a premise designed to challenge students to take on global problems.
It’s a challenge alumni say they can tackle if classes build stronger bonds and the projects continue to become more advanced and utilitarian. Put that many bright, energetic and influential people in one room and things are bound to happen, said Stephanie Federico, a 2010 alumna. As a group of citizens, they could likely sway legislation at the Statehouse, bail out a struggling nonprofit or undertake a specific project to fill a critical need.
“What couldn’t they do?” Federico said.
Whatever they do, Ritz wants them to attack the problem with a broad view. He pushes students to see the connections between issues. Addressing one issue often requires stepping back and tackling another. Reducing prison populations may require improving educational opportunities. Growing the economy necessitates having housing stock workers can afford.
“Leadership RI is not sowing the seeds to be reaped immediately but to be repeated over time,” said Junior Jabbie, a 2010 graduate and marketing manager at Banneker Industries in North Smithfield. And sometimes it means changing perceptions. As chief of staff for the Providence School Department, Federico spends much of her time handling relations between the administration and teachers union. At a Leadership Rhode Island session, she watched the key players in the battle over restructuring Central Falls High School present their cases. The reform, centered on firing all the teachers, had turned into a national controversy with the union firmly pitted against the administration. Things were ugly.
It was not a situation Federico wanted the Providence School Department to emulate as it prepared its own reform proposals. She returned to her office and found herself more aware of an us-versus-them mentality that often overshadowed the administration and union relationship.
She spoke up, encouraging a compromise on a reform plan that appears headed to approval.
That perception shift helped move Providence forward, she said. Similarly, her attempts and those of her classmates to change the perception of Rhode Island for business owners outside Rhode Island could strengthen the state.
The Leadership Rhode Island program that percolated in the Pawtucket coffee shop attracted one business owner.
Based on feedback from Hollis Moore, the business owner who responded to TryRI.com, the group’s efforts appear to be working. In a response that surprised even Ritz, Moore said after the recent tour he considered Rhode Island a business-friendly state.
With the help of Leadership R.I. students, Moore met with a relocation specialist to discuss buying a residence here, talked with executives at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island about health insurance and dined at local restaurants for a taste of Rhody culture. And while he paid his own way to reach Rhode Island from Philadelphia, the students put him up at a guest residence at Butler Hospital, where Bigelow is director of human resources.
Moore, who runs an online retailer, is now considering moving here and hiring two part-time employees. And Leadership Rhode Island decided last week to establish TryRI.com as a permanent endeavor, relying on its alumni to actively recruit and meet with business owners with one simple motto.
“Once you get here you’ll realize it’s great,” Bigelow said. •