Rick Dickinson

TH: What kind of kid were you growing up?
RD: I had a Huck Finn life. A lucky guy. Great family to start with, but we lived about three miles from Sabula and on the river. From the time I was 10 years on, we had a little square-back canoe and my brother Dave and I were very close in age, we knew every slough, every bayou, every swinging vine overhanging tree. I'm sure my mother would have died an early death if she'd known what we did on the Mississippi River. I think that's where well, not think - it is where I developed a love for that river. It's never left me and I suspect it never will. My dad was an outdoorsman. We were involved in hunting and fishing. We were raised Catholic, but during duck season my dad said my religion was Mallardterrian.

TH: You might have to help me with the spelling on that one.
RD: I don't know if there is a spelling for that.

TH: What line of work were your parents involved in?
RD: Well, my dad was sort of the Andy Griffith of Sabula when I was a boy. He was the town marshal and the jack-of-all-trades. He took care of the sewer system and the electrical and anybody that got out of line at the local taverns. He did that until about 1960. Then he managed a small manufacturing company in Sabula that made loudspeakers for automobiles and TVs and radios. Eventually, he left and he worked at a sheltered workshop. Managed a facility in Clinton; worked in manufacturing and/or supervision until he retired in his 70s.

TH: That's a pretty varied background.
RD: And we lived on a small farm, too, so it was a bit of a hobby for him, about 80 acres. We always had some corn and a few milk cows and hogs. Lots of dogs. A great life for seven kids.

TH: What kind of student were you growing up in Sabula?
RD: On the campaign trail, I said I graduated in the top 25 of my class. Of course, there were only 25 in the class. But I was a decent student and I've always loved school. Went to William Penn College in Oskaloosa, where I met Rae Ann in my freshman year. We were married the summer before my senior year. Our first year of marriage, we were the head residents of the freshman men's dormitory. So if a marriage can survive that, it can survive just around anything.

TH: After graduation?
RD: We decided to go wherever Rae Ann could find a teaching job. She was offered a position at East Central Schools back in Sabula. So we moved back to my hometown. My first job was working at A.C. Nielsen Co., managing 40 wonderful women that had to sit down and count coupons eight hours a day. Then I left that and went into corrections. I was an adult probation parole officer for five years for the Seventh Judicial District out of the Quad Cities, covered Clinton and Jackson County.

TH: What followed that?
RD: I was fascinated by corrections. That's really what sort of brought me into the interest of human services and what happens to people when they get a pretty lousy start. But it was also a tough way to make a living for my family. A friend of my father's, who was selling to the speaker factory that he worked at, was going to retire. He suggested I look at a career in sales, industrial sales. (Dickinson joined Borden Chemical, manufacturer of Elmer's Glue and other products.) That started a career of about 15 years in industrial sales that finished with Franklin International, where I was a U.S. sales manager for industrial adhesives. I did that until I took this position in 1995.

TH: So when you served in the Legislature, that's when you were with Borden's?
RD: Actually, I was with H.B. Fuller Co. I served in the Legislature from 1991 through '94, two terms. While I was in the Iowa Legislature, I was the U.S. sales manager for H.B. Fuller Co. That was interesting. In fact, I was really fortunate. The CEO, the owner of the company of H.B. Fuller, was a guy named Elmer Andersen, who was a former Republican governor of Minnesota (1961-63). I'll never forget at a meeting, shortly after I had been elected to the Legislature. Elmer Anderson was one of those guys that mixes up with all the employees and showed up at everything. I think it was a Christmas party before I started serving my first year in the Legislature. He came up to me and said, "I just want to thank you, Rick, for taking the time to serve in public service. I think it's a very important thing to do." He said, "I think it's great to know there's going to be another good Republican in the Iowa Legislature." I said, "Mr. Anderson, I'm a Democrat." He paused for a second and he said, "Well, at least there'll be one good Democrat in the Iowa Legislature." And they allowed me - I spent a lot of time on the phone while I was on the floor of the House, of course, and tried to manage things and did it the best I could. Really, when this job (GDDC) came up, it was an opportunity for me to. I had already decided to step down from politics because it was taking too much time away from the family. I had been on the road two to three nights a week for the last 10 years. When this job opened up, it was an opportunity to do something I love, which was economic development and had developed an interest in as a mayor, a county supervisor and a legislator, but also spend less time on the road and more time with my family. It was a blessing.

TH: What do you see in Dubuque today versus when you first took this job on 11 years ago?
RD: First of all, I think one of the traps we've put ourselves in, in Dubuque in generations past, is to focus so much on what did happen in the past and sort of the do the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth because we didn't like where we were, where we had been. But in the 11 years that I've been here, I think the primary change I've seen is the change in the psychology of the community; forward-looking; bright; can-do attitude; confidence in mission and in people of authority. I'm sure that that's existed in prior generations in Dubuque's lifecycle, but I think it's especially strong now. I think that's what I've seen in transition. When I came in '95, obviously it wasn't 1983, 1984 when Dubuque really hit bottom, but I think it appeared we were treading water. We really weren't doing bold things and really trying to change the demographic of the future of the community. I think things have changed dramatically since.

TH: Are there certain milestones or events that you felt created some building blocks, or things that gave the community some traction?
RD: I took the position at Great Dubuque on June 1, 1995. Within a month, I had an opportunity for a one-week's seminar up at the University of Minnesota in Duluth for some economic development training. I took my wife, Rae Ann, and our two daughters up there. While we were there, I got the phone call that the Pack was shutting down. In that same month, the foundry burned down in East Dubuque. It was announced that the Silver Eagle was pulling up anchor and laying off 500 people. I think the city thought I was the Dark Angel of Death when it came to jobs in Dubuque because all of that happened at once. But interestingly, at least in my view, those tragic events in that very short span of time was the godsend to me and, I think, in some ways to the community because it was crisis and it caused people to come together to find solutions to that crisis. Probably the best thing that came out of that then was not the recruiting of Farmland Foods to keep the facility open for another 41/2 years, but it was the development of a team and a strategy for developing a notion of what we needed to do to change the future of Dubuque into something that was more palatable and better serving of the citizenry here. So that's really the way things were started. Developed a great working relationship out of crisis really with local elected officials, Mayor Duggan and the council, City Manager Mike Van Milligen, the people on my board that became immersed in the issue and so we developed a much more accelerated relationship than would have occurred if things were just sort of hunky-dory, stop in once in awhile to smell the flowers and congratulate ourselves on little minutia things that really in the grand scale of things would have nothing to do with changing the future of Dubuque.

TH: It was better that it was worse because it caused people to really step up.
RD: Life can be a wild ride. Sometimes things hit you between the eyes and you think that it's devastating but when you look in the rear-view mirror, it may have been for the better. Although that tragically impacted the lives of nearly 2,500 people, even with that, I think through their suffering and sacrifice and then the community rallying around trying to address those issues, it brought us to where we're at today, which is a much better place than we were in 1995.

TH: You're in a position where you're promoting Dubuque and the immediate area. Meanwhile, you have a long commute from Sabula every day. So, I'll just ask you: How come you don't live in Dubuque?
RD: Well, when I took the position, I agreed to move to Dubuque, and did. I bought a house here, a lovely little place up on Alta Vista, right next to the Loras College president's home, beautiful little weeping mortar brick house that we loved. We thought my wife, who is a career educator, would be able to get a teaching job in Dubuque and I was wrong. We actually moved up here the summer of 1996, and no teaching job came around. Rae Ann tried to commute in keeping her contract down in Sabula for about a month and a half. Some commutes are easier for some people than others. She couldn't do that. Fortunately, we had not sold our home in Sabula and we moved back down. We kept the home here for another four years, hoping that things would gel and that a teaching opportunity would come around. It didn't. So I let the board know around 2000 that I have purchased a home, we did try to move up here, told them of my circumstances and said if the condition of this job is that I have to live in Dubuque, then I respect that and I can't. And they said, "Ah, never mind." (Laughs) Or something to that effect. So that's the story. So around 2000, we sold the little house up on Alta Vista and I've commuted ever since the summer of 1996.

TH: Then, sometime in '05, you considered a run for Congress.
RD: Well, I think the consideration for that started in March of 2005. I spoke to my board about it, not to endorse me, obviously, but to allow me to consider a run. Probably made possible primarily by the fact that it was a run for an open seat, not for a run against an incumbent since I am a director of a private, non-profit corporation where partisan politics is a no-no. I'll always be grateful to them for allowing me to do that. I worked full-time at Greater Dubuque Development as the director. My politics were documented, as to when I was the director, when I was not. That continued through December. Then, Jan. 1, I took a leave of absence from Greater Dubuque, still did some consulting work and never really left my involvement here. But they selected a very able acting director in Bill Baum. Bill was here through the end of July. I ran full-time as a candidate. I lost on June 6 and took two weeks off. Came back full time around the 15th of June and became the director once again on July 1.

TH: To run for an office like that, you have to have a fire in the gut to do it. Would that be fair to say?
RD: Sure. You better have.

TH: So, what was your fire in the gut for that run?
RD: I have a passionate love for public service and I have all my adult life. It started in 1977, when I ran for mayor of my little town. That's where the bug bit me. The notion of seeing a problem and pondering how to fix it and then working to build a consensus among fellow elected officials and members of your community, then having a positive outcome of that. If you don't get a rush from that, then I don't know what you get a rush from. That's where it started. Up until my run for this congressional seat, public service has always been a hobby. I've always had a full-time job in addition to serving in public office, whether I was the mayor of my little community or council member there or a member of the board of supervisors in Jackson County or in my terms in the Iowa Legislature. For me, public service is a passion. It makes a difference in people's lives. I rile when I see people denigrate elected officials. Sure, there are some that fully deserve that denigration, but not as a body. There are some wonderful people in public office, on both sides of the aisle. I've always enjoyed being one of them. So, why did I run for Congress? Because I would have liked to serve in Congress. I'll always be glad that I did because had I not, I would have always wondered if I should.

TH: By that, should we conclude that that's it? Or is there a possibility somewhere down the road you might look at it again?
RD: Well, I'm a pretty straight shooter, so I would not say there is never a possibility. But the likelihood is pretty slim. This was sort of my one shot to do it on that level. It was an open seat. We're not a wealthy family and so we've accumulated enough debt that it will probably take us about 10 years to pay it off. So, who knows? In 2016 there might be a real opportunity there.

TH: I know from a previous conversation that we had when you were doing both, your current job and running as a candidate, you were quite meticulous in how you kept the separation between the two endeavors. What steps did you do to keep that separation throughout?
RD: Well, it was physically draining because I committed more than full time to my duties here at Greater Dubuque. Of course, every waking hour beyond that then went to the campaign. Then there was always the necessity for a few hours for eating and sleeping. What we did was we kept a calendar here of all of our activities. A typical day for me would get up around 4, try to be here at the Greater Dubuque office between 5 and 5:30; would work as best I could then until usually about noon. I'd take a break for three hours in the afternoon doing campaign work and documenting that. All of my campaign work was done off-site at a separate office, so even a phone call was forbidden here. Nothing having to do with the campaign was to take place in this office. Then I would come back at 5 o'clock typically, spend about two hours at Greater Dubuque. And then about 6, start campaign duties again. Trying to do, we kept track of every hour. I don't think we ever had a week where I had less than 50 hours of time at Greater Dubuque Development. And documented my time for the campaign, too, and that was often 30 to 40 hours during the work week. Did that through December 2005. Of course, then once I declared my candidacy, I was a full-time candidate. I still put in at least 10 hours a week at Greater Dubuque Development working with the acting director, Bill Baum, doing whatever I could to make sure things didn't fall through the cracks. If anything, things got better once Bill Baum came here. We started calling Bill "The Closer." Not in a bad way, but in a good way. While Bill Baum was here as the director, a number of great projects really came to closure in a good way.

TH: I know from another conversation that the schedule you were keeping, between the campaign and Greater Dubuque, nearly had a tragic outcome.
RD: Actually, I don't know if you are referring to my little spell. One day in November last year, after having had that schedule for about five months or so, I was driving into the parking ramp, clipped one of the pillars in the parking ramp and as I was scolding myself for being a lousy driver and driving a little too fast, parked my vehicle, walked over to the door here, leaned down to pick up the Telegraph Herald - you'll be glad to know - and kept going. Was quite dizzy at the time. Went into the office and thought maybe I just should have had some breakfast. When someone from the office came in, I asked them to take me up to the emergency room at Mercy. When they asked me what's wrong, I said I just don't quite feel right. When they looked at me, they insisted I go and come to find out, I had a TIA or a mini-stroke. My left eye was paralyzed. I couldn't look to the right. I looked more odd than usual.

TH: I didn't know if that was a political thing - can't look to the right.
RD: I tried to keep it fairly low key. The people at Mercy were wonderful. My daughter being a health-care provider, she made sure that I insisted that all necessary tests were done. And they were. I was just a lucky man. It was just a warning shot. I was at a meeting within two hours of the incident with no ongoing symptoms. It was just sort of a wake-up call. Probably will be on Plavix for a long, long time, if not the rest of my life and we'll monitor that. Yeah, it was a little scary.

TH: What did you learn about politics and running a regional campaign, such as a race for Congress?
RD: I was not green going in because I'd served in the city, county and state level, although obviously running a congressional race in 12 counties and the fundraising - the fundraising is the greatest unknown. I really didn't find too many surprises. In hindsight, despite the fact that we lost, I'll never regret the fact that I ran. That may sound disingenuous to some people, but I really mean it. It was a thrill. It was a learning experience. I really do think I'm a better man having had the experience. You get to know that there are just tons of wonderful people out there. I met folks that I never would have met in my life and, hopefully, I can maintain those relationships for the rest of my life. Money is a course of power in politics today, more than ever before. And that was certainly a reaffirmation of that for me. We were very successful in raising money. We did most of it in the district. We had over 1,300 contributions and nearly three-quarters of that was right here. We raised a little over $320,000, which is double of what any previous Democratic nominee had raised. Unfortunately, I was outspent by about $450,000 and we lost by 518 votes. If I knew then what I knew now, I would have done it again. I do have regrets, primarily two. First of all, probably as long as I live I'll feel as if I let those 1,300 contributors down, those 10,000 folks that voted for me. I'll feel like I left something on the court. I don't know what that is, but I think I'll always feel that way. And I will always regret that I didn't have the opportunity to serve, because I love it. But barring that, Rae and I set up a low-low payment plan at DB&T and it's served as the fancy car that we didn't need and would never have purchased. We'll just pay it off over that 10-year period and chalk it up as a wonderful experience. The other part about it I love, my daughters came back to help. In fact, people have suggested if I just sent Rae Ann, Katy and Sara on the campaign trail, and I would have stayed in the car, I would have been the next congressman from the 1st District. (Laughs) So that was a great experience to have them be on the stump with me. I could see them blossom. They could see what I do, what I love. That was cool.

TH: Do you regret not taking a leave of absence sooner, to spend more time on the campaign? Was there really any other time to give?
RD: I made a commitment the night of the primary that there wasn't going to be any woulda, coulda, shoulda. That was not healthy. I made a commitment that there was not going to be any sour grapes, so I congratulate my opponent and endorsed my opponent and went on with our lives. I really don't think it was a matter of time. It was a matter of money and I don't know how I could have raised any more. I mean, the people that helped me were ... one dear lady came to me and said, "You know, Rick, I didn't give you anything that I could afford." I mean people that helped me gave me more than they really should have in most cases and I don't know where I could have gone for more. The general election would have been a different matter, as it has become a national race with most of the money coming from the outside. But in a contested primary, it's pretty much what you can generate from friends, family and acquaintances. It just wasn't enough.

TH: We are visiting before the election, but this interview will actually run after the election.
RD: That's a good thing, because I don't think we'd be having this conversation if it weren't.

TH: But when you observe what the tone and tenor of the campaign with Bruce Braley and Mike Whalen, are you sort of glad you weren't the target of the ads?
RD: No, I'll never be glad that I lost that primary. I'll never regret that I ran, but I'll never be glad that I lost. The general election has become a royal food fight and that should be a surprise to no one. It's too bad because, knowing that this interview will be published after the election, I can tell people of the 1st District of Iowa that both of these candidates are better than the campaign indicates. Bruce Braley is not a greedy trial lawyer with communist leanings and Mike Whalen is not a greedy businessman that wants to have indentured servants across Northeast Iowa. These are both hard-working, bright men that I look forward to working with one of them as the congressman from the 1st District of Iowa. So the people of this district need to know that. Politics in America today is in a bad place. I think that's why you see not just partisan frustration but incumbency frustrations. I think good people will eventually lead us out of that. Crises will eventually lead us out of that. I mean if you look at the history of this great nation, when things get bad, good people come to the front and do good things and start the cycle over again. Tragically, you hit bad times in order for that to happen sometimes. We're a great-enough country that no one person can screw it up.

TH: Back to your current job. What do you see as this community's biggest challenges or obstacles to success?
RD: Well, every community has challenges. I think the first one for us is to not believe our own press and to think that we've arrived, because as soon as you believe you've arrived, you've already missed the train. So I think it's imperative that as a community we realize we've accomplished a great deal, but we have so much more to accomplish. Secondly, I think as far as the core issue, work force. The demographics of this community, this region, this state, the Midwest, is a critical issue that needs to be resolved. In the United States, Iowa rates, I believe, fourth in age of population of all 50 states. Dubuque is the oldest metro area of the fourth-oldest state in the union. All demographics are going in the wrong direction. It's a bit of a perfect storm for Dubuque because we've been fortunate in job creation here in the 11 years I've had the opportunity to be here in Dubuque. In the last year, since September 2005 to September of this year, Dubuque ranks No. 1 in job growth as the percentage in the state of Iowa. If you go back three years, Dubuque ranks No. 1 in the state in job growth of all metro areas in the state of Iowa. In the last year, Dubuque, and when I say Dubuque, I'm referring to Dubuque County, Dubuque County is about 3 percent of the state's population, but from June 2005 to June 2006, we were responsible for 10 percent of all private-sector job growth in the entire state of Iowa. What great news. But if you combine that job growth with the fact that we're the oldest metro area of the fourth-oldest state in the union and that our population is relatively stagnant, there's a wall not too far from our nose that we're running headlong into, and we have to address this as a community that we need to keep the talent that we're nurturing and educating at our colleges and community college and our high school. We need to reach out to people who have left Dubuque for whatever reason over the last 20 years and ask them to consider coming back. And eventually, and this would be the Holy Grail, we have to be identified as a place of opportunity for anyone in the country. When they think of Dubuque, they think of opportunity and a wonderful place to raise a family and live. That's our greatest challenge. That's our greatest opportunity. We need to get on with getting that done.

TH: What ideas do you have to try to help move that along in that direction?
RD: Well, there's a lot of balls we have to keep up in the air simultaneously. It's a unique juggling job. We have to develop the opportunity to be here because this whole notion of people live in a community because that's where they want to live and jobs come secondary, that's as good as the first paycheck. In fact, you have to have that job. So we have to maintain the vitality of this regional economy with service, jobs, financial services, job insurance and manufacturing. That's one ball that has to be kept up in the air. We have to be able to ably communicate the opportunities that exist in that vibrant economy to people who live here today, people who are going to our colleges and people who left that we would like to consider to come back. We're not doing a good enough job of that. We're sort of nipping at it, but we're not really nailing it. And this community, more than any other, needs to nail it because simultaneously with being an aging community, and that's not all bad. The reason we're an aging community is people don't leave Dubuque. It's a wonderful place to live, no matter what your age. So folks are actually retiring here, not in Scottsdale, not in Florida, but right here in Dubuque, staying here because they love. They're part of the mosaic of this community; makes it a wonderful place. But we need to backfill it. We need to put more people in the top of bucket than leak out the bottom of it. And that's the challenge for us.

TH: Is Iowa's and Dubuque County's current situation, with the aging population and such, hurting us already? Have we lost some potential employers, or do we have enough workers to fit their demands?
RD: Not that I know of. Because of one fact and that is it's an unspoken truth, and it's an embarrassing one, and that is a number of people who are in the workforce in our region are underemployed. Bright, hardworking folks, willing to learn new skill sets that are barely getting by, working two, three jobs, two household, everybody's chipping in just to try to pay the bills. You come in with a better opportunity and these folks are going to take that job. Now, they're leaving the lower-paying job, but that's the way we've sustained this growth is we are, these employers are thrilled to find folks with a great work ethic, who are bright, to take a position because they raise the bar and they're paying them a little more, providing a better benefits package. You look at Sedgwick CMS for example, one of the newcomers this year. They are thrilled with the caliber of people that they're hiring. They submitted their postings for the jobs. They had, I think, 600 applicants for about 100 positions. They said they could have easily hired 75 percent of all applicants. Thrilled with that. And they're already well over 100 employees and I think will grow beyond that. No, that's part of our danger though is we haven't hit the wall. The critical mission for us is to fix it before we do. That's really the difference in our community today versus where it was in years past. We always waited to get pounded before we had the wake-up call and did something about it. Here's something that's as clear as the nose on my face, and that's pretty darn clear, that workforce is a primary issue that we have to address and fix before we hit the wall. I think we have a window of opportunity of a year or two before we do see clear evidence that we have lost opportunity. Now that clear evidence won't be the company that doesn't come that would have otherwise come because we really won't know about that. It will come from existing employers who will be making decisions to go elsewhere with their expansion needs because they can't find the people they need here. There are little snippets of that in our community today, but not to the point that you would define it as a crisis, but it's coming.

TH: Related to that, one of the efforts going on is this program the TH is involved in, Your Hometown.
RD: Accessdubuque.com and the Dubuque Your Hometown, Your Future.

TH: That's one effort that's out there. But I hear you saying that while that may be all well and good, it really has to be ramped up on multiple fronts.
RD: Yeah. We need to do a number of things. We need to do it as a community. No one organization can do it all. Our board is crystal on that, that's why Greater Dubuque Development is the largest investor in the Chamber of Commerce's workforce program to the tune of $20,000 a year. But that's still not enough. There are only about 45 companies that are actually positing jobs on the Accessdubuque.com site as a financial participant in it. So a number of opportunities that in fact exist here aren't in a place where people go to look. If it's not there, it doesn't really exist. It's as if Dan Kruse was in a full-page ad of the Telegraph Herald promoting a blowout sale at the Dan Kruse Pontiac before it was sold and in the picture was Dan Kruse standing in an empty parking lot. It just doesn't happen. If you tell people that Dubuque is a place of opportunity and you direct them to a Web site and you don't have quality jobs on that Web site, young people don't go there for a second look. The sad part is those jobs do exist, they are here, and we have to appeal to employers, not just for their own sake but for their community's sake to make those jobs known so that we can not only find the right person for them for that job, but we can demonstrate that this is a community of opportunity because we need to recruit people to Dubuque. Not in a controversial way. We need to recruit people with the skill sets to fill the positions that are being developed in this vibrant regional economy. If we don't do that, then they're going to have to develop those jobs some place else.

TH: Part of the sales job, if you will, at least to close the deal, talking about incentives, different packages that can be put together. But I've heard it, and I'm sure you have too: the term "corporate welfare." Is there an end to the public financed incentives that go with some of the recruitment efforts?
RD: Oh, it will evolve, but it won't end. God knows where it will evolve in to. This is a very competitive business. It's not a regional competition. It's a global competition. Dubuque is fortunate. Our No. 1 incentive is people. People who are here; people who are underemployed here; people who have graduated from high school and have advanced education and know that they have an obligation to show up for work and do their job well. That's a pretty unique product in this day in age, sad to say. That's our No. 1 incentive. Doesn't cost us a dime. This city has invested in land. When I came on board in 1995, we brought somebody in from Chicago, an expert to do a SWOT analysis, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The first finding they had was if you don't have a place for an industry to go to, why do you have an entity to recruit that industry. We had no commercial industrial ground here. The city has since invested in well over 900 acres. Developed some of the nicest property and that property is growing leaps and bounds. We're addressing the third phase of expansion of the Dubuque Industrial Center West. We have six occupants at our technology park, either there or under construction. If not for that investment, it wouldn't have happened. So, workforce, the place to be, access to good transportation are components that we already have. The other stuff is where we debate mostly and that is the per-job incentives and so on and so forth. I guarantee you do not have a workforce if you do not have a place to be if you do not have access to raw materials and market. It doesn't make any difference how much you'll pay somebody on a per-job basis to have that there. So we have is that's the icing on the cake. And we need that icing because it is a competitive world. We can moan and groan about it and I understand that. Sometimes it is frustrating. For example, tax increment financing. If they don't build the building, you don't have the tax to give away anyway. I can't think of an instance here where we haven't provided TIF to do that, which would not otherwise have occurred had we not provided those kinds of incentives. I listen to people when they're concerned about that and I acknowledge that it's frustrating sometimes, but when you really look at the harsh reality of this world and the fact that it's global competition, we're doing pretty darn good. People say well, yeah, but would that have happened anyway? That's a legitimate question. Something we should ask ourselves every day, with everything we do. And I would say, no, it wouldn't have happened anyway and the test of that, I think, is to find out if it's happened elsewhere. I mean, who 10 years ago would have said Dubuque, Iowa, would have outpaced every other metro area in the state of Iowa in job growth? Who would have said 10 years that Dubuque, Iowa, Dubuque County, would be responsible for 10 percent of all job growth in the state of Iowa? They have the same incentives we do. We've done something over and above that. I think the thing we've done, Brian, is we've focused not on trying to recruit that plant that's never going to come; we focused on taking care of the people who are already here. The business retention, and as a result, expansion of that retained business. And then the companies we've attracted, we've attracted because they've seen how we've taken care of the people who stay and are already here.

TH: Do companies that are thinking of relocating send out people clandestine, to just sort of go to the restaurants and walk up and down Main Street or is that just an urban myth?
RD: No, it's not an urban myth. Site locators are the new component in the last 10 years in economic development. Companies don't look for a site. They retain somebody to look for the site for them. Site locators don't have a heart. They could care less. Seldom do they actually come to the community. They do do a tour of the community, but it's a virtual tour on the Internet. If you do not have a presence on the web, you do not exist. I don't care how good you are, how many incentives you have, how great your workforce is, if you don't have it on the Web site, you do not exist in this world. If you look at our Web site address, we don't show people water skiing or playing golf; I mean, it is a nuts-and-bolts site designed for one audience and one audience only - site locators. We know what information they're looking for. We try to provide that information in a concise format. As little glitz as possible. No warm fuzzies. Nothing but the facts, ma'am. And that's the tool that you use today. When you subm it a proposal, whether it's an anonymous inquiry or a lead we get from the Iowa Department of Economic Development, most times you don't know who the company is. You know basic parameters of the size of the operation and what they do, but you never know who they are. It's an anonymous proposal. We don't submit DVDs and videos and four-color pictures because as soon as they get that, they throw it away. They didn't ask for that. They ask for this, this and this. You either have it or you don't. I think our staff here puts together the best proposals in the state of Iowa. In fact, they're used at every PDI, Professional Developers of Iowa, conference. They use Amy and Kim's work as an example of this is what you're supposed to do. "Forget about the DVD or the video. This is what you need to do to be competitive." I think many of the things that our staff here puts together are models for what we're doing. I think what we're doing with retail expansion and with retail empowerment, which is the providing of info rmation, a project that's modeled after one in Littleton, Colo., called Economic Gardening, I think that will eventually be a model for the rest of the Midwest. To one, sit down with retailers and actually ask what's going on in their world, just as we do with manufacturing and financial services and the insurance industry. Put that information into a data base and then have access to information that those entities need in order to be more successful than they are today. Our attempts there, and that's a new approach for Greater Dubuque Development, to assist the retail market, is a realization that 12 percent of our workforce works in retail and we should be growing that market. People that buy things in Dubuque County pay a sales tax that help governmental entities survive and the fact that retail is part of the quality of life that people define your community by. We need to do better in that. For the first time in our 20-plus- year history, we're not working with the retail community because quite frankl y, we've ignored them for generations.

TH: Isn't some of that, frankly, the division between what the Chamber does and what a development office does? Doesn't retail just sort of fall into the cracks, so to speak, between what development would do and a chamber?
RD: Well, not enough of it is falling into our crack. I think that's the rub. The chamber is a critical component of our community. The chamber operates above the radar. One of the problems with the chamber of commerce recruiting retail is they offend, perhaps, an existing chamber member. People have to understand that Greater Dubuque Development is not a membership-driven organization. It is a mission-driven organization. It's financed by public dollars but mostly, two-thirds of our budget is financed by private sector investment who are interested in transforming this community to reach its full potential. We don't ask anyone who needs services or proposals or assistance of any kind whether or not they're an investor in Great Dubuque Development. If we did, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot. In turn, unlike the chamber, we are not the political wing of the business community. We do not become embroiled in partisan politics. You don't see us having a $10 breakfast for a partisan politician. Thankfu lly, the chamber does do that. Introduce these candidates to the community and introduce the business community to these candidates.

TH: They do have both parties at those breakfasts.
RD: Absolutely. But that's not what we do. We don't do ribbon cuttings. We try to make sure there's a ribbon to cut. We do not have Business PMs. We are not the social wing of the business community. That's a clear and valuable function of the chamber of commerce. We are not the Convention and Visitors Bureau. That's not what we do. That's what the chamber does. But we know clearly what we do. And what we do is everyday work on that mission. That mission is our acronym CREATE - Collaboration, Retention, Expansion, Attraction, Transformation of the community, and Empowerment of our business community with information as the central location for the dissemination of information for the Greater Dubuque area. I see that when I close my eyes and go to bed. Our mission is to make sure that we communicate that as best we can to other people that live in our service area, which is the Great Dubuque area, Dubuque County and, I hope, eventually 50-plus-mile radius of this hub. For us to arrive, we need to be the c enter for retail, center for health care, center for education, center for entertainment and finally center for quality of life. Whatever happens in that 50-mile radius is good for the goose and the gander. If something positive happens in Dyersville, it's good for Dubuque. If something happens good in Dubuque, it's good for Maquoketa and Platteville and on and on. We need to get away, and I think are moving slowly away from parochialism, the greatest disease that defeats any region. That's not an easy thing to do but I think we're getting there.

TH: I wanted to ask you about outside the office. You alluded to it earlier with some of your outdoor escapades when you were younger, but what do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Now that you're not running for office while holding a full-time job.
RD: My hobbies are woodworking, reading, drawing and painting. My passion is the outdoors. I love to hunt and fish. The greatest 14 days of my entertainment life was my brother Dave and I taking our father to the Yukon on a Dahl sheep hunt where when you stepped over every vista, it's as if you were the first human being to ever be there. I love to be in the woods. I love to get all cammoed up and get on my leafy garb and sit in a tree stand and just become invisible and watch the world go by. That's what my passion is. I'm fortunate to be in a place where I can do that. About once a year, I try to get out to Colorado and backpack into the Rockies with my son-in-law and chase a bunch of elk that are much smarter than we are. That was ingrained in me by my father and I'm looking forward to trying to ingrain my granddaughter with that.

TH: So, what's ahead for you? RD: I don't know. If the good Lord took me tomorrow, I'd consider myself a very lucky guy. I'm a man blessed. I hope I get another 30 years. And I hope in those 30 years I'm even more productive than I was in the first 53. But I really don't know. I mean, I love this job. In the 11 years, I've never regretted driving to work, ever. Some days are more fun than others, but every day is fun. I don't know how much longer we'll be doing this, but I've never ... What the future holds, I don't know. I would be perfectly satisfied if it's doing what I'm doing now.