Welcome Aboard Young Leaders

On any given day, Jessi Wortley Adler, 29, Bethany West, 27, and Kelly Stewart, 25, spend their time doing the same things most young professionals do: going to work, taking a few extra classes, working out, meeting friends for happy hour.

But several times a month these busy women drop their other activities and head into a meeting, usually with people that are closer to their parents’ age.

They're on community boards of directors. And to hear them tell it, they benefit from their involvement just as much as the lucky organizations that are snapping them up.

Jessi Wortley Adler

If you’re like most twenty-somethings in the Capital region, it's a safe bet that you don’t spend much time listening to or watching public access radio and television. Which means you might not even know that WKAR, a local public broadcast television channel, is produced on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU). 

But Adler is intimately connected to WKAR. In July 2009, Adler was appointed to serve a three-year term on WKAR’s Community Advisory Board.

“I am a member of that younger generation that they're looking for,” says Adler, who works as the communications director for State Senator Ron Jelinek.

Adler describes her interest in serving on WKAR’s board as something that fits with her philosophy of getting involved in the community.

“I have gotten email newsletters from WKAR for quite a while now and last spring I noticed an announcement that they were looking for new board members,” Adler says. Adler also serves on boards for Grand River Connection and the Honors Program Advisory Board at Ferris State University.

Adler recognizes her strengths as a younger board member and uses them to WKAR’s advantage.

“WKAR has several programs that are really geared towards a younger audience,” she says. “There is definitely a different generational perspective on how people get their information. When I joined the board, WKAR was on Facebook and Twitter but they weren’t really doing anything with it. I’ve started to use those social media outlets that are so popular now and even on my personal Twitter I now promote WKAR activities—it’s as easy as posting it, just to let people know ‘Hey, this is out there.’ ”

Bethany West

Close to Downtown Lansing, on the banks of the Grand River, sits the aptly named Riverwalk Theatre.

Although Lansing has a booming population of young professionals involved in the arts, West says that she is, by far, the youngest person on the Riverwalk’s board of directors.

“I got involved through a past co-worker of mine who is very involved in the theatre community,” says West. “He was retiring from the board and I took his spot.”

West, who is also a member of Grand River Connection’s board of directors, easily draws connections between the young professional community and the theatre community.

“As an unspoken responsibility as a Riverwalk board member, I have taken it upon myself to try to promote the theatre to the young professionals in this area,” she says. “Given that I’m the youngest board member, I make an effort to promote my influence in the professional organizations and try to encourage a younger audience to attend the plays at Riverwalk.”

“One of the most enjoyable parts of being a part of the board is that it’s so different from my daily life. I’m an accountant, and my life revolves around business, stock markets and analyzing numbers,” she says. "I enjoy hearing from a completely different part of the world with the arts, and I think it makes me a more well-rounded individual. I enjoy hearing ideas and opinions that differ from my own and I have learned quite a bit in the past year as a board member.”

Kelly Stewart

Stewart, who spends most of her time at Cooley Law School in Downtown Lansing, is a board member of the Downtown Wellness Center of the YMCA. As a longtime YMCA member and a board member since the summer of 2009, Stewart says a more active role with the YMCA was inevitable.

“As a Cooley student I am a member of a population that is huge in the Downtown area,” Stewart says. “If you look around during the day, there are state employees and Cooley students. At the Y, we recognize that's our core population and we really want to make their experience as positive as possible.”

As such, Stewart has begun to brainstorm new and improved ways to bring in new members.

“We want to get involved with the Cooley orientations and be able to say to the students, ‘Here’s a great place you can go to meet people, work out and become a part of the community,’" she says.

"Also, with all of the improvements to the Downtown Wellness Center, I would love to showcase those to the community. I’d like to see maybe a wine and cheese mixer for new or prospective members in one of the body sculpting rooms—then we can go hop on one of the ellipticals.”

Old Town Leadership

Membership on the Old Town Commercial Association board of directors is a reward reserved for community members who work hard within the organization. “We have been able to use board membership as an incentive for people who are the most involved in the community,” says Brittney Hoszkiw, the group's executive director. “It has really created a sense of pride and ownership in the community that other organizations are trying to replicate.”

Hoszkiw does not recruit board members based on age or level of experience, but sees the board as a natural extension of the Old Town community. “Many of the business owners in Old Town are of a younger demographic and by default many of our board members are young as well.”

“We are so fortunate that so many talented people have decided to come to Old Town,” she says. “We have people serving on our board who are leaders in their industries — they are young, progressive, passionate and I am so happy to have that kind of experience coming to our board of directors.”

In a city with a growing class of young professionals, it’s easy to see why these younger people are eager to get involved with community boards of directors. They live, work and play in the Capital region. They want to see the area grow and they want to promote causes that are important to them.

And they know that one of the best ways to accomplish all this is to get involved where the decisions are being made. 

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Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.

Jessi Wortley Adler at WKAR, Bethany West in the Riverwalk Theatre, and Kelly Stewart at the YMCA's Downtown Wellness Center.

All Photographs © Dave Trumpie