SIEDC leader tells community leaders to stay positive
By Kevin Risner, krisner@advertiser-tribune.comRich Focht sees the positives in Tiffin and Seneca County. He told members of the Seneca County Community Council about his positive outlook Tuesday.
"We all have these filters that we see our environment through," Focht said. "Those filters are our experiences."
When all you see are the negatives, Focht said, you work to consciously change the filters you have in your mind.
Focht is president and chief executive officer of Seneca Industrial and Economic Development Corp. He has been in the position 19 years. SIEDC is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year as an economic development corporation, Focht said.
Focht shared an lesson about expectations he found in a book titled "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," written by Malcom Gladwell. Focht said a high number of accidents were happening in Saskatchewan, Alaska. Pilots would let their fuel get too low and had to land their small planes on highways. Drivers in cars would run into the planes. When asked whether they had seen the planes, drivers would say they were not expecting to see planes sitting on the road.
The expectations of the drivers formed the filters through which they saw the roads. Because they did not expect to see small planes on the roads, they were less able to avoid running into them.
"We all have filters to view things," Focht said. "It's our point of view."
Focht recounted the comments he read in a local letter to the editor about two years ago. A woman wrote about her perception the county was dying economically, with fewer jobs and less economic activity. Focht said positive things have been happening in Seneca County with job creation and economic activity, but the woman was seeing the county through a filter that did not allow her to see the positives.
"When you look at our community, it's up to each one of us, because each one of us is going to impact what happens in the community. The more that we're productive, the more that we work to improve ourselves, and the more of us who are willing to do that, the end result is that things will begin to improve."
Focht said Seneca County is positioned well because of the educational entities in the county. He said education is a key to current and future economic development.
"Wealth today is not created by bricks and mortar, but by what we know," Focht said.
Focht said the U.S. is leading the world in computer software development. Information technology is a major industry today. For economic development to occur locally, the task is to find the people who have the ideas to create the next wave of industry and bring them to Seneca County or keep them in Seneca County.
Focht said the community was working to create a business incubator for technology industries that can be created in and around Tiffin.
The next meeting of the Community Council is to be at noon Nov. 3 in the American Red Cross office in Tiffin Mall. Mary Huffman, director of St. Vincent de Paul, is to speak about partnerships in the community to advance community solutions that address homelessness.
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JamesCarp
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10-07-09 11:21 AM
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One of the greatest problems Seneca County has is the lack of opportunities for women to work or social support for women. America is a nation whose Speaker of the House is a woman, where the last Supreme Court justice appointed is a woman, and the three of the Secretary of States serving with the past three Presidents of both major parties were women. Males also suffer from this situation, especially younger persons. One small way to change this situation would be for Seneca County to offer four scholarships for county relate jobs, such as law enforcement, offered two to women, two to men, until such time as the county employs men and women in more equal numbers.
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