As a Lansing native, I vividly recall this city’s Downtown as it once was, when both children and adults actually dressed up to shop in its stores, dine in its restaurants or go to one of its movie theaters.
By the time I was a teenager in 1969, construction on both the Lansing and Meridian Malls was underway, as it was on the I-496 interchange that, when completed, would offer a way for travelers to easily bypass Downtown Lansing.
Back then, the only time I ventured Downtown was to pick up my mother at the end of her night shift at the post office (it was the bargain we struck so I could use the car). I did land a job downtown at Knapp’s Department Store one summer between semesters in college. I still love that building’s facade.
I say all this as someone who remembers Lansing as it once was, how it changed over the years, and who’s been excited to witness its slow but steady rebirth.
For me, and I suspect for so many others, it’s not just about new development in the works, but a new energy that’s palpable and driven by people who have the vision, optimism and desire to help the area move forward.
And they’re ready, willing and able to help others find professional success here.
Any entrepreneur can tell you that starting a business requires a huge leap of faith. In retrospect, we can’t think of a place that would have been better for us to start a business in 1993 than in the Capital region.
This region has abundant resources available for any budding entrepreneur, starting with the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce. The plentiful networking opportunities it offers alone are well worth the price of membership. The area also has a wealth of service clubs, like Rotary, Kiwanis and Jaycees, that also offer a way to get together with other business professionals on a regular basis to network and to do good things for the broader community.
New entrepreneurs have even more potential pathways to success with the emergence in recent years of such organizations as Leap, Inc.and Prima Civitas, whose raison d’etre is to help guide the Capital region to greater economic prosperity.
Our firm has benefited immensely from our present and past association with professional organizations like the Central Michigan Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and the Mid-Michigan Creative Alliance. Organizations like these have afforded us the opportunity to get together with our peers, attend workshops and hear guest speakers on subjects relevant to our profession.
Participation in these organizations has enabled us to meet and work with so many talented and remarkably creative people—graphic designers, illustrators, writers, photographers, printers, Web developers and others—who’ve chosen to work right here, in the Capital region. Their creative talent has been instrumental to our success as a firm and its ability to deliver exceptional results for our clients.
When openings arise in firms like ours, we’ve had the good fortune to find gifted newcomers in the fields of public relations,advertising, marketing, Web development, graphic design and the like, thanks to stellar programs offered by Michigan State University (MSU), Lansing Community College (LCC) and other fine Michigan institutions of higher learning.
Some folks may think that real creative talent can be found only in big cities like Detroit, Chicago and New York.
It exists there, to be sure, but it would be a mistake to overlook all the creative talent that can be found right here in our own backyard.