By Bob Lokken & Nancy Napier

A small child, walking along a beach, picked up a starfish
that had been washed ashore after the tide went out. She tossed it back into the ocean.

Some well-meaning adult followed behind and said, “What are you doing?
There are hundreds of starfish on this beach. You can’t save them all.”

The child said, “No. But I can make a difference to some of them.”
And she picked up another to toss back into the water.

The tide is shifting
Boise, Idaho, like many cities riding the wave of the pre-recession tide, needs a small boy who can make a difference. For a decade, the city was lauded for its low unemployment, fast growth, being a great place to start a business, ride a bike or raise a family. But tides come in, and tides recede.

Boise’s tide is waning and the city faces a different reality. According to a recent study of cities in the intermountain region by Brookings Mountain Monitor (17 March 2010), Boise has slipped from in the top two out of ten cities on various measures of employment and economic vitality to being rated #9 or #10, out of ten. Twenty years ago, several Fortune 500 firms or large divisions were based here (Albertson’s, Boise Cascade, Morrison-Knudsen, Micron, Hewlett-Packard). Today, Micron’s headquarters and privately held Simplot remain. Many management and professional jobs associated with the large divisions and headquarters have vanished, perhaps as many as 10,000 positions.

In the last eighteen months, both of us have been approached by or heard stories of young people who want to move to, remain in or return to Boise. The stories of specific individuals blur into a common theme. Young people in their late twenties / early thirties who have gone away for college, worked 5-7 years, want in: they want jobs and the quality of life they didn’t have in New York City, San Diego or Washington, D.C. Others have read the press about Boise as a great place to live and flocked to town, like Gold Rush seekers. They want in, but many are finding it hard going – jobs at a level they want disappeared as the headquarters firms have moved to Minneapolis or Chicago or San Francisco.

Others who either held jobs within the larger firms that shrunk or are trying to start new companies are also struggling. These people, many a bit older, in their 30s or early 40s, may have been laid off, received severance packages, and now, after searching for employment for a year or two, or trying to start new ventures, are unable to create the conditions they need to support the mortgage, family obligations, and life style they loved.

When we heard such stories, we began to wonder if they were isolated incidents or if data support the anecdotes. We are not demographers but when we looked at population pyramids of Boise in 2000 and 2008, even we could see a disturbing pattern. Each age group in Boise has increased in population since 2000 except those in the 30-45 year old groups. The “pyramid” looks more like a figure 8 – with increasing numbers of people older than and younger than the 30-45 year old age group.

We checked the MSA (metropolitan statistical area) that includes Meridian and Caldwell, expecting that if the 30-45 year olds had moved out of town because of less expensive housing and living costs, we’d see a blip in their pyramid in that age group. No blip. That suggests that this age group is either leaving or not coming into Boise at the same rates of growth as other demographic groups.

Losing the core
We don’t know where the 30-45 year olds are going – perhaps to the cities where the headquarters of the former giants moved, perhaps to other cities where there are jobs – Salt Lake or Washington or Austin. But whether they have left or are not arriving in the droves we may have seen a decade ago, the repercussions could be serious. We lose a group of people who would be leaders and founders of organizations in the next decade. We lose people who would become the leaders of the community – in business, education, politics, the arts — from school board members and volunteer community board members, to donors and members of the legislature. The experience they could have gained in that decade will go to other communities and start ups.

With fewer 30-45 year olds, will Boise become a hollow city? Worse still, if we hollow out with that group, is there a chance those in the 25-35 year old group may follow the path out of Boise as well?

Go for the starfish
Many communities have focused on attracting and retaining the “creative class,” which typically is defined as that highly educated twenty something group. We’re not so sure we need or want all of them but certainly, we do not want to be hollow. We also think that perhaps we can find the types of people we need in other age groups, not just the coveted 25-35 year old group that so many cities seek.

We argue instead that, like the small child, we should look for those starfish where we can make a difference.

What’s so great about starfish? Kids in school know that starfish can grow new limbs if one is cut off. But beyond that remarkable ability to regenerate, starfish also have two stomachs (!) – they are “opportunistic feeders,” looking for opportunities and taking advantage of them when they can. Finally, there are some 1800 types of starfish – from the Arctic to the equator – they live and thrive in a range of sometimes difficult environments, adapting, finding food when they can, and being ready to (re) generate when they need to.

So imagine people who are starfish – those who can build, (re) generate organizations, who are opportunity seekers and know how to take advantage of them when they find them. That’s the type of person who will make sure our community and our organizations thrive in the future. We see several in town, and not all in certain “age groups,” like the twenty somethings. Indeed, we are meeting older starfish who bring their jobs, create their jobs, and build anew, right here in Boise.

But as the child on the beach knew, starfish don’t always end up in the perfect situation. Sometimes, they need someone to help make a difference for them. While we might attract starfish, we also need to develop then, nurture them, and give them a little toss back into the ocean when they need it.

And all of us can make that sort of difference. Even if Boise cannot replace the thousands of lost jobs, we can make a small difference that will add up.

What if every leader of an organization – small or large, profit or not-for-profit — found one starfish to help each year? Just imagine the impact. If you can hire one fabulous starfish, do it. If you can’t hire full time, consider an incremental approach – a sort of testing period, internship, project based opportunity to see if the starfish is one that works for your organizations. If you can’t hire, then spend time, give ideas or support in other ways.

If we want for Boise to become known as THE place for starfish of all ages and fields – people who regenerate, take advantage of opportunities, and create environments for starfish to thrive – we have work to do. But like the child on the beach, we can start by each of us finding and helping starfish, one at a time.

Future ideas of ways to build the Starfish Initiative

Here are a few more ideas to consider….some you can do right away, others that different groups in town could spearhead:

1. “The Throw One Back” Program: Develop a “project employment pool” of 30-45 year olds looking to change careers, add onto, or apply their experiences in new ways. Employers could tap this talent pool through project work or as potential new hires. Employers would look to the pool when they have a gap in their organizations, especially a gap they normally look to fill from outside the state. Boise Young Professionals could provide a catalyst along with key employers.
2. “Keep this starfish off the beach:” Boise State University’s College of Business and Economics and local business leaders could jointly create a “personal leadership coaching program” modeled after University of Puget Sound’s Business Leadership Program, to give local undergraduate and graduate students an extra reason to go to Boise State University and stay in the valley. (http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/departments-and-programs/undergraduate/school-of-business–leadership/business-leadership-program/)
3. “Encourage a starfish to regenerate:” Work with the Idaho Technology Council on entrepreneurial mentorship activities. The interest and inertia is there – how can the Starfish Initiative help support it. Read this blog post to see what this might be.
4. “Make sure the water is right:” Create better environments for starfish to thrive, by pursuing more collaborative developmental activities — how do we create high performance, highly creative organizations with fewer resources than what larger organizations might have – by developing a pool and environment for starfish to learn, including jointly bringing in resources that no single firm could afford, but collaboratively several could learn from.
5. “Think like the child on the beach:” Make a difference to the starfish in our neighborhoods, our community. Value diversity of background and creativity, not just pedigree. Take a risk on hiring local agencies, firms, people. Realize that when we hire firms or people from outside the state, we may be endangering the health and future of the local community.
6. Build an E3 community: Build a creative, high performance “society” in Boise of like minded people with a purpose and an attitude, who seek to be engaged, energized, and enlightened. The core of the creative mindset, is The Gang, a group of eight high performance, highly creative organizations based in Boise. Members include the Boise State football program, WhiteCloud Analytics, the Trey McIntyre Project, the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, and Healthwise, among others.  They are consistently interested in pushing performance limits, sparking new ideas, pushing creativity, sharing ideas, collaborating.