Personal
End of an Era
With the retirement of Marshall County Commissioner, Kevin Overmyer, 2024 is the end of an era. Kevin, like is father, Glenn, served multiple terms as Marshall County Commissioner. In total, Marshall County went 46 out of the last 52 years with an Overmyer at the helm. I know there has been some ugliness over the last couple of years, but the positive impact of Kevin and his family has had on the county is undeniable.
A few years ago, a friend decided to run against Kevin. I was asked to support him in his bid to replace Kevin. My friend told me he thought Kevin’s time was up and that he could do a better job. I had to explain to him that, 1) He might be able to do as good a job… eventually…, but 2) As long as Kevin was willing to serve, his knowledge and connections were invaluable. This was a difficult position for me to take as I generally agree with the idea of term limits, the transfer of power, and the value of new blood. The problem is as long as that’s not a universal concept, the value of connections to politician at the State level are undeniable for a small rural county like ours. His respect in the larger State arena was shown when he was elected President of the Indiana Association of County Commissioners (IACC) Northwest District.
The above was demonstrated to me during my time serving on the board of MCEDC. A new project in Bourbon drew attention and support from the State. State officials attended the meeting and speeches were made. As was generally the case, Kevin was not one who wanted the spotlight, but it was turned on him by the State officials in their speeches and in the casual conversation at the reception that followed. Stories were told of Kevin’s trips to Indianapolis for meetings as well as kitchen table meetings with these officials in Kevin’s home. Kevin understood the power of these connections and that power was subtly demonstrated that day.
Kevin also understood the value of keeping Marshall County on the map. He made a false start at an economic development entity several years before MCEDC came to be. It failed due to some of the petty bickering that often occurs between municipalities, i.e. what I have referred to in the past as the lasting legacy of old basketball rivalries. Rather than dropping the initiative, he let the idea cool and simmer. Then, learning from his mistakes in the first attempt, he resurrected it in a new form, addressing the stumbling blocks of the previous attempt. This is what became MCEDC (Marshall County Economic Development Corporation), without which our county wouldn’t have made strides to create shell buildings that brought in new businesses, wouldn’t have created the partnership that brought Regional Cities dollars to Marshall County and kept us in that partnership, participating in READI and READI 2.0. When I was Chairman of MCEDC, I recognized the struggle with the municipal rivalries and with Kevin’s (and Roger Umbaugh‘s) help MCEDC created what became the quarterly County Development for the Future meetings. Those meeting broke down barriers, which helped Culver achieve Stellar Community status. That lead to Kevin co-chairing Marshall County’s Stellar aspirations and eventually achieving Stellar Region status.
Kevin also understood the need to work together and move things forward. Bureaucracies are born to grow and create barriers. Even at the County level, this is the case. Kevin had a keen eye for when the red tape was necessary and when it was just an impediment. He was someone you could call to make the right connections, make determinations between what was just policy and what was law, and help make things happen. He was adept at doing this, not only with those under his direct jurisdiction, but down stream in municipalities and upstream at the State. Kevin had a keen nose for BS and who was trying to do the right thing and who was trying to just skirt the rules.
I understand Kevin’s desire to retire and leave the stress behind. He has served Marshall County well, though that isn’t always recognized and no one is perfect. All and all, I feel he’s left a positive legacy. Which is the best any politician can do.
So, I want to end this wishing Jesse Bohannon the best and with the hope that he also can create a positive legacy in his time in office serving as commissioner. It won’t be easy and some of the rancor from the campaign will make this less than a smooth transition. As with my friend I mentioned earlier, I know those relationships can built again, but there is no shortcut for the time that requires. Kevin had a bit of a shortcut through his family name and Glenn’s years of service. Jesse will need to build that all on his own. Good luck Jesse! I hope people remember your time in office fondly 20 years from now too!
Ugh! Time Change Again…
Indiana used to be as smart as Arizona, but Mitch Daniels dumbed us down. Or as those of us in Marshall County remember, put us on Heim Time…
IYKYK
For those of you unfamiliar with internet acronyms, IYKYK = If You Know, You Know. It’s generally used as a hashtag for an image with a second meaning, inside joke, or something else often hidden in plain sight. Despite having known Gary Neidig, ITAMCO and many of the Neidig family for decades, I was surprised by some of the things I learned about Gary and Robin at the MUAC (Marian University/Ancilla College) Changing Lives Scholarship Dinner at Swan Lake Resort last Thursday. I was there representing MCCF (Marshall County Community Foundation). I felt like I was out of the loop on the picture to the right. I wasn’t privy to the #iykyk meme, despite knowing Gary and Robin forever!
I’d always know the Neidigs as very family oriented. They are extremely dedicated to their family, their company and their Church. My father and I worked with Gary and his father and uncle for years doing work at the ITAMCO plant (then known as Indiana Tool and Manufacturing) and their Church, the Grace Baptist Church in Plymouth. My father and Gary’s Uncle Don did millions of dollars of work with only handshake contracts. We doubled the size of the Plymouth plant and built their world class office space. We helped them renovate and modernize the Grace Baptist Church, built the Christian School adjacent to the Church and later added the gymnasium to the school. We even did an addition to Gary and Robin’s house!
I knew that Gary had been drawn into some of the regional planning meetings through MCEDC in recent years. I served with him on the Marshall County Crossroads Committee and knew he remained involved and now chaired the next reiteration of Crossroads, One Marshall County. I served with him on the Plymouth Comprehensive Plan Committee as we updated the plan for a new decade. But at the dinner last week, I learned that there was much more he was doing behind the scenes in other areas. I was not surprised that Gary would be doing good things… He always has… I was surprised at how much there was in which I didn’t know he was involved. Much the same with Robin. I knew she was involved in the Church and school, but not the other things that came out during the award presentation.
It was a reminder to me that there are unseen layers to people all around us. Who among us hasn’t seen an award going to someone we thought was less deserving than others we knew. Maybe we shouldn’t be too hasty thinking we know everything. Gary & Robin were deserving of this award just for the things I knew they did, and then I learned there was so much more. There are no doubt others in our community involved to greater depths than many of us realize. Maybe some of those other recipients we heard about and questioned had impacts of which we weren’t aware. Maybe we weren’t in their circle of #IYKYK…
Positive Collaboration
I was pleased to be one of the Marshall County Community Foundation (MCCF) board members to attend a regional meeting of MCCF with the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County (CFSJC) and the Community Foundation of Elkhart County (CFEC). The basis of this was to foster regional collaboration on a Lilly grant that would help create more housing in our respective counties. It was great to see the groups come together and work towards a common goal. MACOG was also there, having stepped up to consider offering their services towards a Land Bank or similar vehicle to help move this forward.
I have been involved with several of these types of collaborative efforts in the past. As a Culver Chamber of Commerce (CCC) board member, I helped John Thompson and Eric Freeman create the Culver Second Century Committee. The Second Century Committee used CCC support to pull various non-profits and governmental bodies together to work towards common goals. It was successful for a brief time, creating collaboration among the various entities and was responsible for the 1998 Community Charrette and the new Comprehensive Plan that was born of the Charrette.
I was a founding member of the Marshall County Economic Development Corp. (MCEDC), which brought representatives from the county and each of the municipalities together to foster a collaborative effort towards economic growth. While chairman of MCEDC, I worked with Roger Umbaugh and Kevin Overmyer to start the County Development for the Future (CDFF) meetings. The CDFF meetings were started to bring the communities of Marshall County together to discuss challenges, successes and ways they could collaborate to learn from each other and make things better. One of the successes of CDFF was the community collaboration that brought about Marshall County Crossroads and Marshall County’s successful bid for Stellar Region designation.
I always have high hopes for these collaborative efforts. They really do bring the strengths of multiple people, agencies and entities together to create something bigger than the individual parts. There does seem to be a limited life span for them though. The Second Century Committee came together and did great things by organizing the participating groups. But then as the second generation of leaders took the reigns, it devolved into an executive committee that met and did most of the tasks themselves. They no longer had meetings to involve the underlying groups so the big initiatives went away. As the members of the exec committee burned out, less got done. They attempted to evolve into a Main Street organization, but that transition was not very successful. Main Street reorganized as Develop Culver. While Develop Culver is creating some successes, it’s not with the same larger collaboration of groups that made the Second Century Committee successful.
CDFF was extremely successful. The collaboration between communities broke down the long standing basketball rivalries and had Marshall County Communities working together. Attendees applauded the successes of their sister communities and networked after the meetings on ways to replicate those successes in the other Marshall County Communities. The other communities were all-in when Culver sought Stellar Community designation and helped make it happen. Because of that, I think CDFF was largely responsible for spawning Marshall County Crossroads and the designation of Marshall County as a Stellar Region. But a transition to a new executive director of MCEDC resulted in meetings that were more about his self-promotion and less about the collaboration. CDFF helped move us into the larger region with St. Joe and Elkhart counties when Regional Cities as launched, but at the cost of lost focus on our local communities and the tending of those new relationships. The meetings have devolved further and no longer list the accomplishments and goals of the communities. While they often bring useful information to those that attend, some communities no longer send representatives and there is no longer accountability or celebration of successes.
I was only peripherally involved with Marshall County Crossroads, serving on the larger committee and a subcommittee without having any leadership role. Crossroads took the base collaboration of CDFF and injected it with new life. It was CDFF on steroids for a while! The number of people that it brought in was amazing and the work that got done by the volunteer group was phenomenal. They accomplished the base goal of obtaining Stellar Region designation for Marshall County and set a follow up goal of continuing the collaboration and moving other issues forward as well. But the huge effort required for Stellar became difficult to sustain with a volunteer group. Crossroads has tried to spawn a new and more formal group, ONE Marshall County, but funding has been difficult and communication has deteriorated. Many of the Crossroads leaders have stepped aside and the new group is struggling to sustain the enthusiasm while also fighting some local politicians that (falsely) accuse them of trying to bypass normal government procedures. This has devolved back to infighting among communities. It’s unclear whether the group will survive Wolfe’s Dilemma.
While I continue to be supportive of collaborative efforts and think it results in outsized returns on investment, I’m coming to think that maybe they could work best as task forces in lieu of standing committees or long term organizations. So much of the initial energy and work is done by the original people starting the collaboration, but that energy and focus can become lost as the initial leaders burnout and others come in who don’t understand or agree with the core mission. Maybe they should be treated like fireworks that explode in a bright frenzy that everyone is excited about, and then everyone applauds at the end and everyone leaves happy as the smoke dissipates… Trying to sustain that frenetic energy isn’t possible and lesser results are seen as disappointing.
For this reason, I’m pleased that the three community foundations seem to be coming together for a common goal, but instead of forming a new group, they’re looking to MACOG to expand their services to sustain this. Combining the excitement and energy that bringing volunteers together generates with the infrastructure of an existing organization makes sense. This could be a new model that works. Only time will tell…
Solar Panel Ideas
January 13, 2025
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Humor, Personal, Rants, Tips
Humor, Tips
I’m always amazed when I see snow covered solar panels. Even some of of the ground mounted panels that are at a significant angle during the winter months often have snow clinging to them. In the case of the Culver home in the picture to the right, not only is there a reasonable angle on the panels that you would think would let the snow slide off, but you can see that the snow has melted off the rest of the roof around them. How is it staying on the black solar panels!?
So, I have a few ideas about this:
Someone is missing a good opportunity here. Maybe Elon is already working on this, but if he isn’t, he should be…
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