Kent 360 - Kent, Ohio

Kent State’s 11th President, Dr. Lester Lefton

As a member of the Presidential Search Committee for Kent State University I speak from personal observation when I say that I think Kent State has made a terrific choice to carry the torch that Dr. Cartwright got to burn so bright for many years.

In the interview session with Dr. Lefton I found myself wishing we had more time to talk as I was captivated by his passion for delivering on the promise of higher education at Kent State.  I’ve never hired a university president before but Dr. Lefton seems to have it all.  He is a successful academic and thoughtful administrator.  He listens well, speaks well and has a contagious enthusiasm.  But despite all those accomplishments and his credentials, I walked away with the sense that this is a person worth following – he is a leader.

I’m sure that with his announcement everyone will be pouring over his resume, his speeches and writings trying to gain insight into his experience and expertise.  I looked at those too but after sitting and talking with him it was obvious that he is much more than a vitae checklist.  I was more impressed by who he was as a person.  He appears to have that unique skill of seamlessly sliding between the big picture and the small details across a wide range of topics.  He gets academia, he gets students, he gets alumni, community and business.  That’s great news for the university and for Kent.  Read Dr. Lefton’s Remarks

We all have high expectations for what’s possible and I can’t wait to get started.  I was honored to have been asked by the Trustees to serve on the Committee but I’m even more excited about what I hope we’ll be able to accomplish together for Kent and Kent State in the years to come.

Downtown Parking

Downtowns and parking issues always seem to go hand in hand.  It’s not just Kent, it’s everywhere I’ve ever worked or even traveled to for that matter.  What makes downtowns feel like a breath of fresh air for consumers is the charm and unique setting created by decades old buildings, streets and alleys that were not designed to maximize the parking experience.  Instead of big box retail and malls with acres of asphalt parking spread out in front of the buildings, downtowns give you an entirely different, and more personalized, shopping experience.

The price of that unique experience also tends to lead to a bit more of a hunt for parking.  Malls didn’t lay miles of pavement around a building for the fun of it; they knew that Americans love their cars and consumers valued convenience above all else.  In contrast, downtowns were spaces designed to create a vibrant, dynamic and aesthetically pleasing shopping experience first; parking was secondary.

The challenge today is consumers seem to expect both the personalized shopping experience of downtowns with the convenience of mall style parking.  This is the tension of most downtown retailers.  Customers want their cake and be able to eat it too.  The days of a downtown parker walking a block after parking seem to be gone.  People want ready made spaces right in front of where they want to go because that’s what they get in strip malls.

Retrofitting mall style parking into historic downtowns like Kent is tough.  It takes finding enough land to build a parking garage on, which in downtowns comes at a premium and usually requires negotiating with many different owners who don’t usually want to sell.  And it’s expensive, averaging around $10,000 per parking space.  Plus it has to not look like some giant concrete structure just landed in the middle of downtown with no connectivity with the look and feel of downtown.  All of these things add up to a real challenge in Kent’s downtown.

I understand that at different times Kent has looked at possible downtown parking structures.  Even today, the city is talking with the developer for the proposed Downtown Village project about parking garage issues.  So I do expect more parking to be available in the next couple of years.

In the meantime, we do what we can with what we’ve got.  I was not in Kent when the decision was originally made to put parking on the bridge downtown but despite the initial resistance to the concept, the neutral observer in me says it seems to be working.  I’ve started recording the number of cars parked on the bridge every time I go downtown and so far I’m averaging 3-4, and that covers weekends, daytime and nighttime.  To me the best measure of whether parking works is whether people use it and in this case people are.

I have asked the city engineer to look at the safety barrels and see if he could come up with something that is more consistent with the look and feel of an historic downtown but still protects the public.  The rendering below is what I asked him to see if he could make happen.  I can’t make any promises given our finances but at least we’re trying to see if we can do better.

Rochester to Toronto Ferry

Rochester like so many of the great lakes cities has seen it’s economy change.  Rochester enjoys a slightly more upscale business climate than say Buffalo but it has seen it’s largest employers (Kodak and Xerox) downsize.  Facing the prospects of continued decline Rochester listened to what many of the experts were saying which was to find ways to create a “super-region” and link Rochester to the economic powerhouse of Toronto which was just across Lake Ontario.

Tapping into Federal Transportation dollars Rochester and Toronto partnered to create a high speed ferry.  The hope was to entice people to visit Rochester as well as Toronto which already enjoys world class destination status that Rochester wanted a piece of.  In a way, Rochester hoped to ride on Toronto’s coat-tails and market Rochester in the same breath as Toronto.

Cool idea in concept but it fell apart in every other way.  From ridership, costs, performance, schedule, etc., etc., etc.  Anything that could go wrong did.  Instead of being a bold success story it turned out to be a bold failure and an easy target for critics.  In January of 2006 the Mayor of Rochester pulled the plug on the Ferry to “stop the bleeding.”

The Ferry didn’t work but I admire Rochester’s leadeship for getting in the game.  The made a bet the company risk and lost the roll of the dice.  But I’m sure they learned a lot along the way and they’ll be able to use that to get it right next time.

Ferry facts
Official name: Spirit of Ontario 1.
Nickname: The Cat.
Operator: Bay Ferries, which operates similar ferries elsewhere along the eastern Canadian border.
The engines: Instead of operating with a propeller, the ferry uses a jet water propulsion system that sucks in water and shoots it out to move. The system can fill an Olympic-size pool in about 30 seconds, pumping 20,000 gallons per second at full thrust.
The ship features four diesel engines made by MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH. Austal Ships, the Australian shipbuilder, and MTU say the Spirit of Ontario was, at the time of its building, the “world’s most powerful diesel-powered high-speed catamaran.”
Two MTU 20-cylinder engines are in each hull of the ferry. Each engine has a maximum horsepower of about 11,000, with a total horsepower of about 44,000 at a rated speed of 1,150 rpm, according to the company. Each engine has the equivalent power of 90 PT Cruisers, MTU says.
Passengers: The ferry is able to carry 774 passengers and 238 cars (or up to 10 trucks and fewer cars).
Dimensions: 284 feet long, 78 feet wide and nearly as tall as a five-story building.
Top speed: 47.2 knots or 55 mph.
Travel time: The trip across Lake Ontario takes about two hours and 15 minutes.
Amenities: A restaurant, bars, business class, video games, children’s play area, wireless Internet, duty-free shop and two movie theaters.

Excellence Matters

In my May 5th posting I talked about my training at the University of Virginia Leadership Development Program and the Senior Executive Institute.  These programs teach “principled-centered” leadership (much like Steven Covey) where great leaders embrace, emulate and leverage those values that make great organizations possible. The program describes the types of values that are evident in great organizations but it is careful to not suggest that one size fits all.  Instead, it challenges each leader to understand their value systems in the context of the culture of the organization and work to build a foundation of values that enables the organization to elevate from good to great.

With that in mind, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about my values in the context of the culture of the City of Kent organization.  One of the key beliefs that I am trying to inject in the veins of the city organization is excellence in everything we do.  Here’s what I believe about excellence.

Excellence
Excellence starts with a belief that there isn’t a right way, only a better way – and finding it takes people that push the limits on what’s possible and always try to deliver more than they promise.

For those people excellence is not just a work-thing, it’s a way of life.  It’s is a statement of who they are, what they represent and how they want to be remembered.  It’s a matter of pride.

The truth is excellence isn’t a miracle moment or random dumb luck; it’s get up every day at 5:00 a.m. and sweat the details luck.  It’s going the extra mile, refusing to settle for second rate, and getting it done right the first time.  No one asks them to do it.  No one has to.

At the end of the day excellence is knowing you gave everything you had because what you do matters.  You make a difference.

It is this excellence factor that makes a city a special place.  To everyone that visits or calls a city home, excellence is all those little things that it does better than anyone else.  It’s the city’s edge.

Excellence is a culture and a way of doing business.  It’s what good government is all about.
When Good Enough, Never Is.
For example, when it comes to taking care of the public water system there are no shortcuts.  The work has to be right 100% of the time, period.  Achieving that standard means doing whatever it takes – often in miserable conditions –  because excellence is the only option.