UT Alumni Association : Urban affairs center alumna

Nurturing growth is part of alumna’s job at UT Urban Affairs Center
For most people, loading the car with flower and vegetable flats is a welcome tradition of spring. For Paula Ross (MBA ’86), northwest Ohio’s flora poses an analytical challenge. In addressing it, she’s helping more than gardens to grow. A research associate with UT’s Urban Affairs Center, Ross has been working closely with Maumee Valley Growers, a nonprofit association of regional growers, assisting them in making the local economy bloom. 
 

Reid, Ross and Perlaky in front of a TARTA bus  emblazoned with the Maumee Valley Growers’ logo

   The match is an ideal one, Ross says, for the Urban Affairs Center, an applied research unit of UT within the Office of Research and a member of the Ohio Urban University Program. With a mission of enhancing economic vitality and quality of life for the Toledo metropolitan region, the center thrives on creating solutions for neighborhood, urban and regional development.
    Joe Perlaky, program manager for Maumee Valley Growers, points to the healthy size of the industry, which has a local  economic impact of approximately $100 million. Some 60 to 70 wholesalers and retailers in a six-county area are involved in the collaborative. “Our goal is to increase awareness of the group, through branding and through the collaborative itself,” Perlaky says. 
    For Ross, some of the most enjoyable aspects of the project have been experiencing the dynamics of the different growers as they learn how to pool their strengths in a collaborative model. She says, “It’s been very rewarding — getting to know the individual businesspeople, understanding their business approach and commitment, learning about the generations of their business history.
    “At the same time, the growers begin to consider different ways of doing business. They build connections between themselves, with UT and with major players outside their own industry, making the network stronger.”
    It’s vital that the growers learn to function together independently of the Urban Affairs Center. As Neil Reid, director of the center, explains, “Maumee Valley Growers is funded yearly by a USDA grant awarded to the University, with the support of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. The funds will eventually end, so the challenge is to keep the organization going.”
    One way the Urban Affairs Center is meeting that challenge is a natural gas program. “It’s a pool program in which Palmer Energy, a Toledo company, advises the growers on the best ways of purchasing their gas,” Perlaky says. “The rate of savings varies from month to month, but in its first year the program saved growers $150,000. The second year should see savings around $450,000.” 
    The gas savings created a buzz picked up in Columbus and Cincinnati, and the Maumee Valley Growers board decided to expand the program statewide, Perlaky says. “Now southeast Michigan is asking to join the pool. We believe it will mean sustainability for the group because we’re able to put aside dollars to reinvest in the Maumee Valley Growers for the time when the grant funding ends.”
    Ross notes that energy prices, like global climate change, are unprecedented realities facing growers: “They’re major challenges, but they’re also opportunities, because clusters like this come together when they’re in crisis. Perhaps this is the best time to create a collaborative culture.
    “Farmers in general are very independent, so it’s gratifying over time to see them become more interested in working together, in expressing appreciation of the process that brought them together. One told us, ‘We were all on our own, now we see that others care and we learn to care about each other.’”
    With the involvement of several state universities in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, plus UT’s plant sciences expertise, Perlaky notes, “We’ve almost filled a supply-chain niche. Researchers are providing a lot of valuable science for the growers and the branding of Maumee Valley Growers creates awareness for the growers’ customers.”
    Perhaps even more important, the Urban Affairs Center staff agrees, is that projects such as Maumee Valley Growers can be replicated elsewhere. “We want to make sure we do a thorough job with this one, so we can fast-track similar projects with clients who have different cultures,” Perlaky says.
    Ross adds, “This program is an example of the kind of academic, community and government partnership that’s central to the Urban Affairs Center’s philosophy. I’m increasingly interested in social network analysis, a tool we used to look at this network and strategically build it. We can apply that knowledge to other areas of economic development.
    “There are global connections to be built. Just this morning I had an e-mail from Sri Lanka, someone who was interested in providing coir — a coconut husk product — as a growing medium. They made the connection by finding our online site!”
    You can find more connections at the Urban Affairs Center’s site: uac.utoledo.edu/;  the Maumee Valley Growers site is www.maumeevalleygrowers.com/