Mecosta County official Jim Sandy to retire, reflects on rewarding career

Growing up in the Mt. Pleasant area, Sandy said, he often visited School Section Lake as a child, and later played golf at Canadian Lakes, and always liked the area.

“I always thought this would be a great place to live,” Sandy said. “This job has been fantastic. I love the people and I love the atmosphere. It was just a natural fit for us.”

Once retired, Sandy said, he plans to devote more time to some of the programs he and his wife, Joanie have supported for many years. I addition, he hopes to spend more time traveling and playing pickleball.

“We got an RV that we are gutting and remodeling and upgrading,” Sandy said. “My wife said one more project. I have to get my energy level back up so I can do that.”

“I go to Montana every year for a fly fishing trip,” he said. “We want to get back into that. We like to travel.”

They have grandbabies that they haven’t seen in a while, so trips to visit them will be on the agenda, as well.

A SHIFT IN FOCUS

In 2019, the organization’s executive committee began looking at where they wanted to grow and what direction they wanted to go moving forward, Sandy said.

“Part of that was an understanding that my time would be limited, and I would be out in 2020, or 2021,” he said. “We began working on a leadership transition effort, and then along came the COVID-19.”

Many of the things that were determined and identified as the organization’s focus — particularly working with larger corporations and workforce development, childcare and housing — those things that impact employment and the quality of employees — got pushed aside when the COVID-19 pandemic started, he said.

“Somebody had to serve those businesses that faced going out of business,” Sandy said. “Primarily the small mom and pop type businesses and restaurants. There was no one else to work with the small business relief fund, so we organized that to identify where we could help.”

The organization worked with local businesses to receive financial assistance through three different grant programs through 2020.

Through the administration of the Small Business Relief Fund, they were able to assist some local small business owners with outstanding bills, Sandy said.

“It was only $31,000 and we had over $1 million in requests,” he said. “We ended up helping some businesses make payments for energy bills or tax payments — something small. Our largest grant in that cycle was just $1,200.”

The organization ran three different grant programs and worked with over 500 requests for financial assistance, mainly from small business owners, which impacted over 1000 workers in the county, he said.

In addition, they assisted businesses owners by directing them to other financial assistance programs that were available, including the Payroll Protection plan and the Small Business Revitalization Act.

“We don’t work with those directly, but we can point people in the direction,” Sandy said. “The local banks have been wonderful about working with local businesses on the payroll protection plan. That has brought around $15 million into the county. Those are loans that do not have to be repaid, and a lot of our businesses took advantage of that.”

Despite the assistance many local small business owners have been able to receive during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sandy said, there are some that have not been able to hang on.

“Even with the grants, we have lost some,” Sandy said. “Around 12 to 15 local small businesses have closed permanently. They weren’t able to keep the doors open.”

Now that things are beginning to get back to normal with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic, and things are opening back up, the challenge is getting people back to work, Sandy said.

“When they are getting the additional $300 a week for unemployment instead of being out of the house and having to pay childcare and transportation and other expenses, you can’t blame them,” he said. “Until they cut that off, you would be silly to go back to work and bring home less money working 40 hours a week.”

LOOKING FORWARD

Although the organization has been going through some structural changes, Sandy said, the focus will continue to be on retaining and growing local businesses.

The pandemic got them a little off track from where they were going, he said, but now they have gotten back to focusing on his retirement and the future of the organization.

The executive committee decided that Sandy’s retirement would be a good time to look again at what direction they wanted to go.

“Some executive committee members came to me and said they wanted to look at how the organization will operate and who will operate it,” Sandy said. “We went through the process of talking to a number of organizations that provide economic development services and began a request for proposals with very specific criteria.

After considering some proposals, the executive committee decided they would prefer to keep everything in house and continue to do it the way it had been done, with some changes, including the potential of working in collaboration with Osceola County, he said.

“That is the direction we are going now,” he said. “The ads (for the position) are out and we are waiting for responses.”

FOCUS ON GROWTH

Now that the pandemic is winding down, the organization plans to get back to its original focus.

“The biggest focus has been to keep what we have here and to grow it,” he said. “That is typically where your economic growth takes place — that organic growth.”

Over the last 10 years, the assessed values of property in Mecosta County has increased by $302 million, while the taxable values have increased by $200 million, he said.

“The organization can’t take all the credit for that growth,” he added, “but if you have a healthy business climate and you are business friendly, then things will expand.”

One project they worked with was helping to bring back the former U.S. Marble factory.

“The employees came in after the Christmas/New Year’s break and there was sign on the door saying they were closed and everybody was let go,” Sandy said. “We contacted the prior owner, who still had some equity in the business, and we reached out to some other companies.

“A company out of Georgia ended up acquiring it at auction, and we had to work with them and with EGLE (Department of Energy, Great Lakes and Environment) because the previous owners had not filed the proper air quality reports,” he continued. “We got the MEDC involved and did some negotiating. EGLE said they would waive it if the company stayed current with their permits. That was a big hurdle to get them going again.”

The company is starting to get back the exclusive contracts with Lowes and Home Depot for their cultured marble counter tops, he added. They have not gotten back to fully staffed yet, but they are ramping up.

Another project they worked with involved the city, Wolverine WorldWide and Consumers Energy.

“The city had a grant to do some repairs on sewer and water infrastructure and move some electrical poles,” Sandy said. “At the same time Wolverine had some electrical poles they needed to move for an expansion. Consumers had two different teams working on the two projects side by side and were charging separately for both.

After contacting Consumers Energy, they agreed that it was redundant to have the work being done separately.

“That ended up saving Wolverine about $80,000 just by picking up the phone and talking to people,” Sandy said. “If no one is willing to advocate on behalf of the companies, then what can they do?”

Employee retention is another aspect the MCDC is involved with. They work closely with MichiganWorks! staff on retention visits to let employers know what services they can offer.

“We listen, and we ask employers what is going on in their world,” Sandy said. “They tell us about issues that impact employee retention, such as workers having trouble finding affordable housing or missing work because they don’t have childcare. Sometimes it will be issues with taxes and government regulations and we can contact the proper authorities and bring those things to their attention.”

CULTIVATING NEW BUSINESS

Working with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the organization occasionally gets inquiries from companies looking to relocate, and will respond to those inquiries, Sandy said, but most often they will have very specific needs that can’t be met.

“If they want an existing building that leaves us out, because we don’t have anything as large as 50,000 to 100,000 square feet. If they need to be near a railroad, we are not,” he said. “We have had a couple of companies that have expressed an interest, but it didn’t work out.”

The biggest challenge the organization faces, he said, is the perception people have of what they are able to do.

“Sometimes I feel like the perception is that we can just wave a magic wand and things will happen,” Sandy said. “When dealing with people making business decisions, you have make a very good, positive argument for why they should invest in your community. I think we do a very good job of that, and that goes back to when the organization was formed.”

Previously, there was nothing in place and they had some companies look at the area, but no one to respond to them, Sandy said. That was when the then president of FSU and some local bank presidents decided they could not let that happen again, and they formed the MCDC.

“We had community leaders that said, ‘we need to get that done and make that happen,’” he added.

“It is not every day that someone comes knocking on your door saying they want to come here, but you need to be ready if they do,” he said. “You have to have some mechanism in place and that is what our organization provides.”

One thing Mecosta County does have to offer is diversity, Sandy said.

“We have a good mix of manufacturing, we have tourism and travel, we have agriculture, and we have the retail community, so you have a good balance,” he said. “Even our manufacturing is diverse, with automotive, furniture, shoes, wood harvesting equipment and mozzarella cheese production. Then we have Ice Mountain, one of the largest employers in the area and one of the highest taxpayers.

“We are very diverse and that is one of the things that has been very good about working here,” he added. “Now, the Dragon Trail is going to be a big addition. We have people inquiring about property along 8 Mile Road for a hotel or a restaurant, so Big Rapids and Mecosta County will benefit from that project.”