Mayor McDonald’s lessons learned from a weekend in Texas

You can learn a lot in 48 hours. 

That's the belief of Mayor Al McDonald, who just returned from a whirlwind visit to Waco, Texas, with seven Invest North Bay Development Corporation Board members.  

McDonald made the trip, which he estimated cost approximately $7,000 to $8,000, alongside George Burton, Paul Goulet, Tim Hutchison, Kevin Hutchison, Jason Corbett, Erin Richmond and Vicky Paine-Mantha. The group arrived in Dallas on Thursday morning and returned home on Saturday.

But the team says it made the most of its short time there by managing to meet the Baylor University team in charge of the Focus Firm growth strategy project, the dean of the school, the mayor of Waco, the town’s chamber of commerce and some key economic development people. 

Phase one of the Baylor project, which pooled the survey data from over 4,500 local survey responses, identified the development of strategic priorities, as well as the need for enhanced communication, retention and promotion in North Bay. 

After identifying those specific fields, the Baylor team officially launched phase two last week and have broken into four groups for more specificity, something McDonald called “a million-dollar gift” to the community by the students and faculty. 

“They have so much knowledge about our city, you would swear that they live here,” said McDonald. 

But beyond meeting the 19 graduate students and various faculty members from the Baylor Focus Firm team, it was the school’s city that gave them some impressive insight. 

“I found it to be one of the best business trips I’ve ever attended, not only to collect the knowledge and understand what they’re facing, but to see some of the strategies that they’re putting forward that we could use for Invest North Bay and our community,” McDonald said after a quiet council meeting on Monday night. 

McDonald said that Waco, a city of roughly 125,000 people that sits in the Texan heartland between Dallas and Austin, has long battled many of the same issues that North Bay now faces, as identified in the first phase of the Baylor project.

“They want to grow their city the same as us and they face youth out-migration, so a lot of their young people and university students are going to the bigger centres, just like any smaller city in Canada,” McDonald said in drawing parallels between the Texas town and North Bay. 

“The one thing that they’ve been able to champion very well is a sense of community pride,” he added. “Twenty years ago, nobody would admit that they were from Waco, but now they’re proud to say they’re from Waco, so they’re making some significant gains.”

Overall though, the biggest lesson that McDonald walked away from the weekend with, was what he called their community’s incredible willingness to partner together to grow their city, and the strategies that those partnerships are starting to put in place.

As an example, he said a key component in combating the out-migration has been the city’s close partnership with local colleges and universities, including Baylor, Texas State Technical College and McLennan Community College.

“Their number one issue locally, according to the Mayor, was youth out-migration as well,” McDonald explained. “They’ve developed a whole strategy around that, so we’re going to piggy-back on some of their strategy because they have some wonderful ideas and initiatives.

“Their goal is to keep as many of the graduates from their colleges and universities in their city,” he added. “They also said the biggest problem they have with attracting business and industry to Waco is the shortage of skilled trades and skilled labour, so it’s the same as us.” 

Prosper Waco, an organization that aims to encourage collective impact strategies among leaders in the local and county government, businesses, non-profits, healthcare, education, social services, foundations, and churches, was also open to sharing its ideas and strategies with the North Bay contingent. 

The five Prosper Waco employees, all of whom are Baylor alumni, are financed directly by the city’s partnership with local businesses. McDonald said he walked away with an admiration for the group’s focus and their emphasis on data-driven results and real analytics. 

“They were looking at everything from community pride to economic development to education to poverty, so they’re going to give us their strategies as well,” said McDonald. 

The Baylor crew, who picked up the group’s meals and travel expenses in Texas as well, are expected to wrap up the second instalment of their study in April and travel to North Bay to present their progress. 

“You can tell that I’m optimistic and inspired by what I heard and saw,” said McDonald, “just by the sheer horsepower behind the Baylor project.”