Small Town Roots to CEO of Greater Topeka Partnership | Molly Howey

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I want to like make good things happen.

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All right, we have Molly Howey, the new CEO of the Greater Topeka.

Partnership. Thanks for being here, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Oh, super exciting.

Yeah, this is amazing. So you're the brand new, fresh CEO of the Greater Topeka Partnership. Yep, what's it like being the CEO now?

Yeah, okay, so I was thinking earlier. First day officially was last Monday.

Wow.

So you know, almost finished with two full weeks here and you haven't quit yet. No, haven't quit yet. No, Drinking from the fire hose.

Yeah.

And even though you know I have been in the organization, this is a much different perspective. So doing a lot of listening a lot of observing a lot of discussions, a lot of feedback and suggestions coming my way, yeah.

Yeah, so what role were you in before?

Previously I was president of Go Topeka, so the economic development organization that's part of the greater Topeka partnership Um, but was there for 14 years, so I was with the organization before we formed the partnership and and it feels, like it was kind of two seasons there, two different communities too.

Wow, you want to give us a little bit of your background, or you're from the area and what, I guess what got you to here?

Yeah, so um, born and raised in small town South of here, Overbrook, Osage County, so uh, Washburn.

Overbrook is the one with the huge fireworks show.

No, you're probably thinking of Wamego.

Wamego has a good firework show. I hear Overbrook's on the up and up though.

Well, and Overbrook is one that is known for their water tower that says don't overlook Overbrook. Ah yeah, so you know, besides Good Golly, Miss Molly, I hear, don't overlook Overbrook.

There you go. That's funny. That's what people respond with.

That graduated high school at Santa Fe Trail High School, went to Washburn Tech and then Washburn University, graduated from there and now live out north of Topeka in the country between Silver Lake and Topeka.

Nice, cool yeah. So how'd you initially get plugged in with Go Topeka and just kind of the economic development in Topeka and all that Sure?

Yeah, so before Go Topeka I was with a B2B marketing firm here in town called Kid Stuff Marketing. Most people don't even know it exists, but I was there doing work with them for about seven years and then I took a couple of years off to stay at home with my kids when they were little. We had the opportunity to do that. I thought well, while they're little, I'm never going to get this time back.

I'll do that.

When I entered the workforce again, it was back when you were like looking in the paper maybe for jobs and Craigslist, and where you know it wasn't. I don't think it was indeed time yet. Um, but I saw what was listed as research manager at the greater Topeka chamber of commerce and I thought, well, I don't really know much about the chamber, but every community has one, seems like it's pretty stable. You're not going to, you know.

I was looking for stability and just to get my foot in the door, get back into the workforce, and I also thought I'll meet a lot of people and if I don't like it, then maybe I'll see another opportunity from there and see how it goes, you know. 14 years later, here I am.

So but, I started it in the research manager position, which really is kind of the back end of economic development, and doing a lot of data analysis and answering requests for proposals from companies that are looking at where they should relocate to. So from the ground, you know behind the scenes in the initial contacts with companies and then just took on more and more responsibility from there and was in the president role immediately before joining as the CEO of the partnership.

Yeah, wow. So help me understand as a. I mean, I'm not a business owner, I'm just like a normal citizen person in the city. Like what is what is? When you say the economic arm, like what does that mean? How is it developing the economics of the city? Like what does that mean?

Yeah, economic development is kind of an interesting term because in every community you talk about economic development in a different way. So, for example, in Overbrook economic development may be when they bring in their dollar general or they get a new restaurant In Topeka, in a larger city we are really focused on I mean it's holistic in nature we need to build our product of our place and make sure that this is a good place to live raise a family do business.

That's kind of more indirect to the actual definition of economic development for us at Go, topeka and throughout Shawnee County. Really, what we're focused on is everything that creates more opportunities for prosperity for folks. So we mean in the way of quality employment to allow them to have some extra money to spend at those restaurants and those entertainment venues.

But it's workforce development, it's entrepreneurism, small business development, existing business expansions, because we've got some large and midsize companies here that really have opportunities to grow in other locations and we want to make sure that we're helping them continue to choose Topeka as their location. And then what usually gets the splash is the new business attraction piece, where you're bringing in new companies from outside the area. The misnomer that sometimes I have to dispel is we are not usually involved in retail.

coming to the area, so, when a new fast food restaurant comes in, as excited as my senior son is about raising canes.

I have nothing to do with that.

Who would be?

involved in that? Is that purely a raising canes decision? It's mostly a raising canes. I had nothing to do with that right, so, um, who would be involved in that? Is that purely a raising canes decision?

it's mostly a raising canes decision. I mean they look at what the market. You know um demographics are. They're not talking with they're talking about the city, oh okay, they are yeah, they're talking with the city. Um, we're not part of the city, but they're talking with the city um to to understand really more permitting planning development process, I have something funny about Raising Cane's in that regards.

I got a buddy who's a realtor he does a little bit on the commercial side. When Raising Cane's was announced that they were coming to Topeka, he posted on Facebook and he said just so everybody knows. For the past decade I have been searching locations for Raising Cane's in Topeka and I've been emailing the corporate office walking through projections on why this location would be good.

This location would be good trying to get them to Topeka. He said for like 10 years he's been emailing the corporate office and of course you know, are they seeing it? Probably not, but it was so funny when they announced one of his locations.

No, but when they finally announced it, he was he was like this is because of me. Everyone likes to claim the fun stuff, right? I can't think of a fast food restaurant. I like that much to do that. Have you been to Raising Cane's Once? Maybe that's your problem?

I don't know.

Well see, I'm not a cult fan like most people are either. My son. I think the teenage boys really love it. My daughter actually does too, but I'm like you know, it's chicken strips. It's chicken strips on a sandwich. It's chicken strips on their own and they only have their canes.

You can't even get ranch there, you can't even get ketchup. Wow, no, ma, you don't get it. It's raising. Yeah, it's just straight up. It's way more.

You basically get a sandwich three count a four count fries piece of bread, yeah, yeah, the only decision I make when I get there is do I want three or four, and do I want two pieces of bread instead of my cane sauce?

and so is the bread good because usually I feel like you go to like a fried chicken place where they give you like a slice of toast. And it's like burnt and it's hard to know.

What is that? For no way, this is good stuff.

It's usually like a barbecue place gives you like a slice.

No, this is good stuff, we'll go, buddy, we'll go Anyway.

All right. So you guys, what were some of the most exciting parts of like you were there, you said 14 years with the economic arm.

Yeah, Well, it's. I mean, it's its own entity. Go Topeka, you know, part of the Greater Topeka Partnership. We're a complex system, so I don't expect that everyone understands what the Greater Topeka Partnership looks like from from the inside. But Go Topeka is focused on economic development and all those items that I that I talked about. But Go Topeka is focused on economic development and all those items that I that I talked about. And then the partnership encapsulates Go Topeka. Visit Topeka, the Chamber of Commerce in downtown Topeka.

You give us a little bit all four of those, just the 15 second. Highlight what they do. Sure I think everyone's seen, you know, posts from Visit Topeka. Well, what's the difference between that and the Greater Topeka Partnership?

Right, right, yeah, yeah, so Go. Topeka is focused on creating jobs, workforce development, entrepreneurism, those types of things. The Chamber of Commerce is really unique because with the formation of the Greater Topeka Partnership, it was the only entity in the partnership that doesn't receive any public dollars. So they are really focused on advocacy, public policy active at the state house, for you know, legislative policies that are that are pro business.

And then we've got downtown Topeka pretty self-explanatory, you know, kind of a city within a city and all things that are happening down there and Visit Topeka is tourism, so focused on conventions, tourism conferences and just travel A lot of things to do that are bringing in people to come visit the city and spend their dollars here and add to our economic vitality.

That's cool, and so you're the CEO of overseeing all those.

Yeah, yeah, that's so cool and we've got really awesome leaders at the table as well. Of course, my position. We've got a backfill, so we've got that vacancy. We also have a vacancy in the Chamber of Commerce position, but downtown and tourism have presidents.

Who are the presidents of those?

Sean Dixon is president of Visit Topeka. Okay, and then Andrew Holt is the president of Downtown Topeka, and he just came to us about a month ago from Lawrence.

Gotcha Wow about a month ago from Lawrence Gotcha Wow, nice. So what was the hiring process like, uh, the vetting process with their interviews, like I mean, they knew you pretty well, right you?

were in the role for 14 years. Yeah, yeah, but I think, um, you know, our leaders really wanted to make sure that they did their due diligence. This is an important role and, um, it would be irresponsible to just slide someone in without looking at what other talent may be interested in the role that may be a good fit for the community. So they engaged. They had a local search committee. Dr Mazacheck at the at Washburn university chaired that.

Yeah.

And a number of other community leaders were around that table as well, and they also engaged with an outside search firm. So a lot of exec positions will will do that, and so they had an outside search firm called winter partners that's based in Florida but does a lot of these types of um exec position searches for our industry. So they brought that group in and um, you know, obviously advertised everywhere and.

I'm told they had a hundred plus applicants for the for the role. Um, and then you know whatever they did behind the scenes narrowing that down and vetting those. And, um, you know your typical process of zoom interviews and person interviews um, some meet and greets with business leaders and staff and feedback from a number of individuals to bring them to their decision.

That's got to feel good.

Yeah.

A hundred people interview and you get the role. That's got to feel good.

Yeah, I have some inside knowledge, so I felt like I had a little bit of an upper hand at times. But it can also be attractive to bring in someone new Right. They may have some fresh ideas that they may think that don't already exist in our community.

So I feel like that. I got to imagine, after really the momentum of what it appears to be a strong momentum from the creation of the partnership in the last 10 years and all those things, um, I got to imagine maybe the feeling is like, hey, we, we don't necessarily want to like totally change everything, we want to keep the momentum going. Was that maybe a lot of the the motivation to like, hey, we need somebody who's been here, who knows where we're going to keep us going that way Is that.

I can't say for sure if that was a driving factor in the decision to hire me into the role, but that was definitely one of the reasons that I was interested in it.

Yeah, cool.

You know, as I said before, I've been there since before the formation of the partnership, so I saw where we came from and I'm very passionate about protecting that momentum and making sure that we continue to work collaboratively with all of those agencies and drive this progress forward so you can have the skills for the role and, you know, a great personality and things like that. But a passion for the community and knowing you know how much progress we've made and how much sometimes we've had to kind of scrape and claw to get things done is a different level of fuel and energy behind the strategy Totally All right, you're sitting down with a Washburn graduate just graduated who's looking to go get employed somewhere.

Give him or her the 30-second minute pitch on why they should stay in Topeka, in Topeka, topeka.

Okay, so Topeka is a city for a recent grad, for that audience, that you have a lot of different career opportunities, a variety of careers that you can really tap into that are good corporate partners that allow you to get involved in the community are good corporate partners that allow you to get involved in the community and I think that's really an interesting piece of being a young professional or anyone in the community is that we're a large enough city that you've got what you need, but small enough that if you have an idea or you want to make an impact, you can do that.

You can call the mayor, you can call, you know, a decision maker in the community and say, hey, I've got an idea. Can we sit down and have a coffee or a white monster and talk about what your passion is and what your ideas are? And chances are you're going to find somebody that could advance your ideas and move things forward, and I think that's really exciting. That may not be you know what the core of someone's career focus is coming out of college, but it's definitely something that helps you get rooted in your community. I think that's something I take for granted.

I mean, I've lived here my entire life and so you know, you always hear Topeka is the biggest small city you'll ever live in and I don't know any different. So you know, if I have an idea, I'm pretty well connected. I'm trying to envision a world where I couldn't do that and it's like you know that's a reality in Kansas City. You know you're not going to know. You know a lot of people in Kansas City. It's too big, it's hard to get your ideas out there, it's hard to make an impact, but in Topeka it's kind of the world's your oyster here, right, yeah.

And that is true for the business community as well, Because Companies that are coming in and looking at Topeka for a potential location. They don't see that value in other communities either, and they remind us of that. You know, when we've got a company that comes in and they want to sit down and have a meeting, we ask who they want to meet with and we can get all those folks around the table. Wow, and that convening power and speaking from mostly the same vision and the same mission and motivation is really, yeah, something that we we sometimes take for granted, so businesses see it too.

It's not just individuals, yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it's fun, it's amazing.

Yeah, I, I think there's so much in that. I think that's one of the things I love about Topeka is it's I I always call it it's like the wild west in in terms of like, there's so much opportunity, you know, like hey you know like hey, you're not doing something, or like you're not seeing something, like you could do it, you could do it and you could probably succeed at it.

You know which is I think is amazing, and you know a lot of people get the allure of larger cities because there are already things happening.

Like oh, there's more things happening and it's like, yeah, I mean, that's like not, it's not a bad allure. It's like man, it's like, yeah, I mean, that's like not, it's not a bad allure. It's like, yeah, it's great. But I think there are certain personalities, especially like some of us, that are really drawn to like I don't want to just like experience good things happening. I want to like make good things happen. I want to be involved. I want to be like someone that's making things happen. You know, like I want to get my hands dirty and play like put me in, you know put me in the on the field coach and I.

That's one of the reasons I love Topeka so much. It's there's so much opportunity. You know, as I feel like maybe one of the elephants in the room that is just that your predecessor made pretty big splash in Topeka. Is that exciting to step in his role? Is there some like intimidation of like oh man, I got big shoes to fill? Like how are you processing kind of filling that Sure?

You know, hey, quick heads up. If you've been thinking about moving to Topeka, topeka might actually cut you a check to move here.

Not even kidding, that's right a check to move here. Not even kidding, that's right. You can get up to $15,000 to live and work in Shawnee County. Check it out at choosetopekacom.

Matt and I are good friends and I got the opportunity to work alongside him for the whole time that he was here in Topeka.

That's cool.

Learned a lot from him. Yeah, brainstormed a lot with him, but he and I are different people, and that's okay.

I noticed you didn't wear a bow tie.

Yeah, no, bow tie no bow tie for me, but yeah, so we're different people, but I think that he came into the community when we really needed the community to bring someone in that was going to shake us and wake us up and say hey, you can be something else.

He came at the right time. We're not at that time. Like you said before, we're not at that time right now. Not that we don't always need reminders that we can be bigger and better, and I plan to do that but we are at a point where we need to continue that momentum, continue the relationships, the continuity, the projects that are underway and, you know, make sure that we get them across the finish line. So, um, you know, I don't know if you've ever done a quiz about your strengths or anything like that, but one of my top strengths is tenacity.

And so I'm like, okay, let's get this finished, let's mark this off the list, let's move forward, and then what's next? So, um, I think that skill that I bring is is really great. But yeah, Matt, and I still talk all the time he's. You know, I'm sure when there's a music festival going on in Myrtle Beach I'll be down there to visit him. So but I have to admit, I mean, it is big shoes to fill, literally and figuratively.

Yeah, exactly, he's a tall guy. You mentioned tenacity. Are you referring to the Working Genius?

Yes. That is my favorite assessment?

yeah, I mean, there's so many of them out there. Oh, that's an awesome one. Is that the one you told me about?

yes, it is my favorite one. It highlights, I think it's the six uh steps of solving a problem and it gives you your two working geniuses and uh. What's funny is tenacity is actually one of my working uh. Is it failures?

oh, you're working. Frustrations, yes, yes, not a tenacity guy.

I'm not a finisher, I'm a. I think it's an ideation. I'm an idea guy and I'm a galvanizer. Okay, I have ideas and I'm going to rally the troops and I'm going to tell everyone why it's an awesome idea and we're going to go do it, and then you're going to want to do that anymore, and so, yeah, sometimes I really struggle with that. That is cool.

Yeah, our team, all of us did that um, that quiz, and so we know about one another. So it's I mean, it's pretty helpful. If you're doing something and you know that about yourself, then you know it's best if you share that with someone who's an implementer or has tenacity you know, and so it's.

it's really interesting, and I think the coolest part about that assessment is your working frustrations or your geniuses aren't necessarily what you're good at.

Right or bad at.

It's what frustrates or gives you life.

Yes, and most of the time they go hand in hand with what you're good at, because typically you like to do what you're good at. But you know, it doesn't mean that I'm a bad finisher which I am, but it doesn't mean necessarily I can't do it. It's just it doesn't give me life and if I'm constantly having to finish projects and I don't get to be creative, then you're not going to stay in that role very long. Yeah, right, so it's. If you haven't. What's that assessment called working genius? Honestly, I think it's 20 bucks to take and it's my favorite by far because it really provided words to what I love to do and my line of work. I don't really get to choose too often. You know, I kind of have to do all of them because as a solopreneur, you kind of have to finish things or else no one will.

Yeah, but it does provide some context. Hey, I do love creating ideas and I do love rallying the troops and surrounding myself with people that will finish those ideas. I mean honestly, actually, it did provide some good ideas for, like, I have ideas for a podcast. Ok, I want to do this. I have the idea. I'm really excited about it. John, we're going to do this. Well, we need someone to finish it, because I know, if I'm in charge of editing and if I'm in charge of doing this and that it's not getting done. So it's like gabe, we're gonna hire gabe to do these things because his job is to finish them. That's his job, and so I know that about myself. When we launched this, I'm like, okay, we have to have someone do this, yep, or else it will never get done because I'll quit yeah, yeah, there's a book and everything, yeah oh, oh, cool, okay, yeah, yeah, that's awesome, that's good stuff, okay.

Switching gears. Yeah, you said that you have. There's the Greater Topeka Partnership has lots of projects that you guys are working on behind the scenes, maybe things that haven't been announced. That's what I wanted to ask about. What are some of? Hey, you should know, this is coming up, uh, in Topeka.

Hmm, gosh, I feel like everything is either.

Or maybe what are some of the projects you're most excited about?

Yeah, yeah, um, I don't know that I I I want to narrow it specifically to projects. Maybe it's more like focus and energy. Um, go for it. I think you guys had, and when you did have Curtis Neen at the airport. So I'm really excited about the focus at um both airports because I think there's opportunities there and I think it's awesome to be able to add to the variety of um, of businesses and types of activity that we have in the community.

We really don't have much around aviation, aerospace defense, those types of things that would be natural fits at the airport. So I'm really excited about the energy and the focus around that work and got to be a part of kind of making sure that we turned that ship around and had the creation of Curtis's position, because we haven't usually had you know, we haven't had a development director at the airport. So I think there's some really good opportunities on the horizon there and I also am excited about just this is not a project again the morale of our community, I think, is continuing to increase and that's something that we measure. You know our Momentum 2027 strategy has one of our metrics is the net promoter score.

That's so cool. Matt told us about that.

And it is continuing to tick up, and I think that's awesome. And just continuing to talk about all the great things that are happening, the entrepreneurs that are growing in our community, I think there's a lot of opportunity around that. Go Topeka has been working for a number of years on a project that we broke ground on in June that's called the link innovation center, and so that should open in early 26 and will be a home for entrepreneurs and innovators to really start and launch businesses entrepreneurs and innovators to really start and launch businesses and it provides a place in that ecosystem that we haven't had. We've got some capital, we've got a lot of great ideas, we've got resources to wrap around entrepreneurs, but for the specific industries that we are trying to target initially, there's no place for them, and what I mean by that is we. This is a little bit further than what you asked for, but we sit in an area between Columbia, missouri and Manhattan, kansas, called the animal health corridor, and about 60% of the world's GDP in animal health and diagnostics happens in that corridor.

Really.

We're right in the middle of it.

Wow.

You know, we've got Hills Research Facility here.

That's great.

We've got, you know, pet food manufacturing and things like that, but we haven't really capitalized on the entrepreneur side of that and the innovators piece that falls into that ecosystem.

So we've got a partnership and actually there are I don't remember how many, but a handful or a couple of handfuls of startups in the community this week for Innovation Week and they're from around the world and they're focused on adjacent to or directly involved industries that have to do with ag tech and animal health. So we've got folks that are working on sustainable packaging options and diagnostic tools for pets and production animals and they need lab space and in the region we are really short on lab space. So one of the things that that link innovation center is going to offer is lab space. So we've got, you know, companies that are coming in and they toured the, the construction site to see, hey, where do you want to claim space? So that when they're running through the accelerator program that we have with plug and play and they come out of that and they need to have four walls and a controlled space to continue their research, we can allow them a space to do that and encourage them to do that work in Topeka.

Where is the the lab at?

Yeah, it's on um six and Moreau used to be an AT&T building. You can see it right off of the highway down there. Uh, it's like a five story building right next to the big black um Topeka town site building.

Oh yeah, cool, yeah. Yeah, we just had Lindsay Lebon on with plug and play, yeah, so she kind of gave us a little bit of that. Yeah, but yeah, that's really cool.

Yeah, it's a lot to wrap your head around.

Yeah.

I mean, their system is very large but ours is one. Our vertical in animal health has been very successful here in Topeka and I think there is a ton of opportunity to make sure that some of those companies plant their roots here in Topeka.

That's really cool. What is vertical?

Like the industry focus you know, oh, okay. So animal health ag tech Down in Northwest Arkansas they have logistics with Walmart Tyson and JB Hunt being their kind of corporate partners. Every type of industry is just called vertical to be more fancy.

Lindsay said that word a lot and I was like I meant to ask her. I just totally forgot. Yeah, yeah, uh, that's awesome. So what? What are some of the things that you guys are doing? You kind of laid some of them out, um, to foster business and entrepreneurs and attract, like. What are the things that that you know your office and people are doing? Is it facilitating relationships? Is there like? Yeah, I'm just curious what that looks like.

Yeah, on the business side, I mean that's, that's really a go Topeka's focus. So I could talk about that all day, cause I've got a lot of history in it. But, um, what's cool about the partnership is businesses aren't just looking at the data that they used to look at when I was the research manager in my first year um with with the organization. They are looking at the whole community, because workforce is so important.

They have to be able to fill the jobs they're bringing right, and to fill those jobs you've got to have a community that people want to live in. So that's what's awesome about the Greater Topeka Partnership model, because you're talking about downtown development, which is really kind of the unique piece of every community. You're talking about the business environment and the policies and whether they're pro-business or not, which is the Chambers piece, and then you're talking about the things to do and the vibrance of the community, which is what Visit Topeka brings to the table. So the pieces and parts of the Greater Topeka Partnership all play a role in a business's decision where they want to locate.

So. So, for instance, the net promoter score like do people like living here. Yeah, things like that really play a big factor. Yeah, let's talk about that for a second.

Um, cause that was something I really wasn't familiar with what a net promoter score was until we talked about it a little bit with Matt Um. Can you walk us through what? What is a net promoter score for someone who doesn't know?

in general.

And then, what is Topeka? What does it mean when Topeka has got a net promoter score?

Yep, yep. So net promoter score is usually something that retailers use to measure the. You know whether people would recommend their product or not. And it's one question how likely are you to recommend Topeka as a place to live or do business? And then gosh, I think it's a 10 point scale. Some of these little details.

I'm probably not going to agree.

But they take the active promoters, which are not just the five through 10. I think they only take seven through 10 or something, consider them active promoters, and then they kind of throw out the middle and there's some math that's done between the major detractors and active promoters and that gives you a score and zero is neutral. We start when we started measuring in oh gosh, that would have been 2018. I think we were like a negative 48 or something wild, yep.

And now we're a positive, if I'm not mistaken. I think we're a positive 15.

Come on yeah.

So I mean when you see plus 15,. That may not sound amazing, but the progress has been great and to be on the positive side. We're in the black.

Yeah, let's keep moving, let's go. Yeah, I think 15 is higher than when Matt was telling us about it too, so I think it's just like inching its way up.

That's really cool, that's awesome, it's great, and I mean so. To keep talking about that is is what helps fuel more of that positivity.

Right.

And so conversations like this are great. I mean, I love that that you guys are highlighting the great things that are going on in the community, because sometimes in Kansas we're a little humble and we don't talk about the cool things that are going on, we just keep our head down, work and do the you know, do the good things and know that that's what we should be doing. And if we, if we pound our chest a little bit more, then I think we can continue to grow that.

We love talking about how much cooler we are than Kansas city and Lawrence.

We'll just keep going on that they're the worst hey now we do have to be a pretty cool region because you know we are part of that greater. Say that totally we're part of that greater region.

Yeah, it's like. It's like rooting for the, the big 12, you know.

Yeah, there you go, well I was explaining that concept to my dad and I was like, hey, do you know what a net promoter score is? And he's a business owner. He goes oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. I said you know, topeka was the first city to measure its net promoter score? Yep, and he goes no. And so I was explaining to him exactly what we just talked about, I think that's super interesting and probably a lot of people don't. Yeah, I don't know that it really is.

It's really good for us to be self-aware as a community right and see okay, well, where do we need to grow, where do we need to focus? And a lot of that has been just the dialogue and the rhetoric in the community, and I think we're making big changes. We've always got, you know, room to grow and every metric that we're measuring within the momentum 2027 strategy doesn't have a okay, we're done. Now. It's like we can always do more, so I love that.

So what would be like a healthy score, like? What would be like, oh yeah, we're killing it right now like people, love being here.

You would ask me that I have no idea um is 100 a perfect score? Yes, okay, so it'd be somewhere nobody has a perfect score like I think you'd probably want to look at like what's starbucks?

or apple what is?

their score and I haven't looked at those lately I would be, I feel like you would know.

No, I don't, I would be, really, can you?

Google. What's Apple's net promoter? Score Jamie.

I would be really curious because we always hear not on the show necessarily, but the grass is always greener. But we want to go live in Kansas City, Kansas.

City is bigger and better.

I would be really curious what Kansas City's net promoter score is. Right.

I don't even know if they measure it.

Exactly, Exactly. And I would be curious just from, like a you know people always from Topeka think it's bigger and better over there. Yeah, but what do people think about living there?

Yeah.

Because you know they're probably thinking the same thing about. You know other cities Right. Like you know, Kansas City sucks. We want to live somewhere else. Scores would probably speak to that.

Probably probably be interesting, yeah it reminds me of kind of like like financially too. They've done like happiness studies on how much families make, yeah, per per, and so there's like obviously there's, there's a low end, which you would you would expect. Okay, the the poorer you are, the harder life is. Um, but it was surprisingly. It's like a bell curve, like the more money you have, the less happy you are as well yeah there's a, there's like a band that's lower than you would expect.

That I think it's like 70,000 a year is like the families and it's like not single people that makes it. It's like families that make 70,000 are the happiest in terms of how much money they're bringing in.

Yeah.

And so if you make more than that, your happiness generally starts to to creep down, and so I think a lot of times it's the, it's the same Like. If you make less than that, you're like. Oh, if I just made more and you're like?

well, not necessarily like you know, and, uh, you know it is aggressive.

That's really interesting. I didn't know that there's a song.

You guys probably don't know it, but there's a line in it that says love grows best in little houses. And so it's kind of speaks to that and then from the economic side, when we were doing, we were launching the Choose Topeka Relocation Program we were talking about.

okay, we need to bring highway journeyers into the community, and when we dug into that information and looked at the financial habits and where people spend their money, there is a sweet spot for that. Also, you don't want you don't want all of your community to have so much money that they could travel whenever they want and go spend their disposable income. So people that that make a certain level of income.

Yeah.

Don't spend as much in their community because they've got another house somewhere else.

So they're flying. You know, only spend money at Gucci stores, so somewhere else. So they're flying you know I only spend money at gucci stores.

Yeah, so dan and shay. Okay, I do know the song yes, okay, yeah, of course you do.

Yeah, I don't know, I had to flex and I was pretty proud about that. Let's hear it. Kate, apple's net promoter score is 60s to 70, which is supposed to be one of the top. Wow. So 60 70 is like the ceiling that is possible.

Basically, yeah, and we're at 15 in the positive moving up that's pretty solid yeah, it feels like that honestly part. It probably feels like that to me because we're constantly talking every week with people on this podcast, but it feels like that, like it's it's inching its way up just the vibe in the city. Yeah, doesn't feel quite as negative.

It is interesting I was thinking the same thing the other day. I'm like you know what? I think we've come a long ways. I haven't heard someone complain about topeka in a long time and then I did kind of realize. I'm like I wonder if that's just my echo chamber of the people I'm around. And what's funny is we've been running ads for this show lately on facebook and you hop on social media and you talk about how great topeka is. Oh boy, the other half comes out on how Topeka sucks yeah.

I can't believe someone wants to talk about how good Topeka is and it's like okay, there's the other half.

Yeah, I haven't seen you guys in a while, and so we're gonna hide that comment, delete that one.

That one's got a lot of profanity we're deleting that one gosh, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, we, yeah it is. We do take for granted that we basically have a Topeka is awesome podcast. That's like all we're talking about all the time is how awesome Topeka is.

Well, they say surround yourself, so it's what you want to be. So if that's what you're doing, then that's great.

Yeah Well, do you want to switch to some rapid fire?

Yeah, I was going to switch gears to more, just like you, as a person who lives in Topeka. You grew up near here. You've lived in Topeka a while. You went to school in Topeka. What are some of the things that you love about living in Topeka? You said you have a family as well, like as a. As all of those things, what do you love about being in Topeka?

Yeah, I mean, there's just so many little things. I love that our commute times are pretty predictable when we don't have a bunch of road construction, but our commute times are it's like you can get anywhere you want in 15, 20 minutes, so it's fine. I love the people, the people in.

Topeka are awesome, you know, just down to earth, humble, want to work together, collaborative, creative. So the people are top of the list. Cost of living is great, the variety of businesses and opportunities that are out there. You know, I wish we had a little bit more shopping.

I guess I'd say Gucci stores, not Gucci stores, but yeah, I think it's a beautiful city.

The amount of parks that we have when you go around and give those tours people are like Whoa, you have a lake on that side and a lake on that side, and look at that and I'm constantly driving past parks.

I've never seen before. Yes, amazing.

Yeah, yeah. So that's awesome. The outdoor lifestyle um is kind of where our family hangs out and so we're camping and going to lakes and fishing and doing all kinds of outdoor stuff um a lot. And when you talk to people from around the country, they're like you live in Kansas and you guys have lakes. Okay, we have lakes, we have hills, we have trees, we have bluffs we have all kinds of.

we have amazing sunsets, um so, so that's great. And then I think that, um, you know, there, what also excites me is that we have made a lot of progress, but there's so still so much left to do and some big things left to do. So you know, our river is one that river is never going to go anywhere.

So we either are going to capitalize on it and make it something really cool or it's just going to continue to exist and be something everybody drives over, right? So yeah, so I mean we like to golf a lot. There's a lot of great golf options around the community. You know biking and just it's a pretty safe place, contrary to what some people say. If you've ever talked to Bob Ross, do you guys know Bob Ross?

I was about to bring that up. Yeah, that was a game changer for the way I thought about the city.

I have told so many people about this.

I think you already know what we're getting ready to say explain it to us, it's just the unincorporated area of folks outside the city limits of Topeka that still have a Topeka address and are receiving city services and things like that. But they're not counted in the demographics of Topeka because Topeka stops at the city limits. So there's 50,000 people in that three mile ring around Topeka city limits and when you look at the data around the 125-ish thousand in Topeka, it's not you need to be doing 175,000, you know to really capture the true picture of the community.

Like.

Sherwood, not counted. In the city limits there's a lot of really great assets and people and development that's happening just outside of the city limits.

Yeah, so when you hear stats about poverty or crime, you know you're not including some of the wealthiest parts of Topeka and some of the other parts of Topeka. That would really shift those stats Right. It's crazy to me. They have a Topeka address, I know.

And I think your average person in Topeka would consider all of those places Topeka, right. You're like, oh yeah, I'm going to that part of Topeka. They would consider it in their minds in city limits, basically, yeah, yeah. So you said you called it ETJ.

Yes, Gosh. What does it stand for? The something extra, something jurisdictional area?

Good enough for us. Yeah, it's the ETJ, yeah, the ETJ. Yeah, it's the donut and the city is the whole. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it's funny.

You mentioned commute times as a thing you love about Topeka. Yeah, that is so not appreciated by Topekans, true? So I'm a realtor and so I'm giving lots of relocation tours and talking about Topeka, and the number one thing I always hear, cause when people relocate here, it's usually for a job, and so it's like, hey, I need to be within, you know 40 minutes of my job. You know, I always hear that. It's like hey, I can you know. I kind of ask them where, maybe they want to be Exactly.

I didn't do the 40 minutes of my job. You know they're coming from Alabama or something and it's like all right, well, we can be anywhere in here, a large area. And they're like really, I'm like yeah, you can get anywhere in 20 minutes.

You know, even with you mentioned construction, even with construction, you can still get anywhere within 20, 25 minutes and they're blown away by that concept and I think that's something that I mean I know myself. Until I started hearing that multiple times, I'd never taken. I never really thought of that as a perk. But yeah, you go live in a major city or any other city, you know it's going to take you a 40, 45 minutes to get to your place of work and that's two hours a day yeah.

My brother lived in even in that 20 minute you know drive time there are a lot of different opportunities for lifestyles too. I talk about that. You know I live in the country. It takes me 17 minutes to get to downtown Topeka. I live, you know, north out on five acres. You know, with space you can do that. You can live in a loft downtown.

You can live in suburbia with a cul-de-sac.

You can live in Overbrook.

And you can live in Overbrook.

But yeah, so the just the, the variety of lifestyle you can live on a lake.

It's so true.

And be 15 minutes from downtown, so that's awesome too, and I think that is something that maybe people take for granted, because I don't know where you can go and find that.

It's so true. The number of options you have in such a small drive is really nice. It's great. Yeah, yeah, my brother lives in LA or lived in LA. It's great, yeah yeah, my brother lives in LA or lived in LA, and so we went and visit him and the traffic, I mean it's gotta be one of the worst in the nation. But even like you know, you go to Dallas and it's just as bad and it's like it takes like an hour to go, like two miles.

Like you can see, you can look back in your rear view mirror and see where you started and it's been like 45 minutes, right, and so, yeah, I think you can. You can ride your bike around the city, it's not bad.

You talk about LA. I was in an Uber in LA and just chatting with the guy and asking him.

It's like the start of a Miley Cyrus.

Well I was asking him you know what do you like? You know what do you like about living in this area? He's like, well, there's the beach, and then you got the mountains. Oh well, how often do you make it out there? Oh, I don't ever go out, you know, traffic's horrible. And I just thought well then, I could probably go as much as you, because it's much cheaper to live in the Midwest and in Topeka, and jump on a flight to go travel to one of those places and actually enjoy the assets that are there because you've got the disposable income and time and ability to do that, and then come back home and live your comfortable easy commute.

So true, that's pretty funny. I have a good friend of mine who's a financial advisor, who's a few years older than me and is kind of a mentor, and he said something similar. He's like hey, man, those places are great to visit on vacation, but this is the best place to live, live in the Midwest, go there on vacation.

It's so much better Live in the.

Midwest. Go there on vacation. Yes, it's so much better. Yeah, and it really is. It's true, totally agree, it's awesome. Yeah, that's funny.

Well, rapid fire. Let's hit her with some rapid fire, all right, so just heads up.

Okay.

I feel like you're probably in your new position, you're probably not going to be able to give us your personal opinion on some we'll do our best. We'll ask you anyways, but try okay, because now you know, you represent everything yeah or whatever.

Um, okay, you have a favorite coffee shop?

circle. Oh, you're allowed to give us, let's go we've had several people on here who are like I can't, you don't want to well, this is, this is molly, howie as a person, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. Yeah, we need to.

We clip that and send it to some other people. We're like you're allowed to give us your actual opinion of this stuff. Love it. Um, who on your staff do you want to fire right now? I'm kidding Nobody, Nobody.

You're doing a home project Menards Lowe's Home Depot.

Gosh, I don't really now I don't know if I can answer some of those Actually here. Here's my answer I don't choose, I would give that job to my husband.

He's the fixer. Where's he going?

That's a good answer. Okay, what is something that Topeka is missing? Maybe like a restaurant, maybe realistic or not realistic that you would love Topeka to have Something that you love going to and you wish Topeka had this ahead.

this can be anything I mean, I really like chicken and pickle oh, let's go, yes, yes so that would be awesome that would be awesome, that would be sweet h&m shopping come on, let's go opportunities, things like that yes, but yeah, but they're all close by so i's, yeah, I'm back to my job it's fine we can go there, you're not gonna go there every week, so you really don't need it in your community yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, um what else we got?

uh, ideal date night, yeah going out on the town on a Friday night so I can answer this.

I'm really boring because in my role I don't really my date night. My ideal date night is not to get out on the town on a Friday night. I am like, let's grab our golf clubs and go to a golf course somewhere else and then finish with maybe we like to go to like a lot of little towns, to their little cafes and stuff around, so we'll go somewhere to, you know, outside the area just to check out what's the small kind of eateries out and then probably to a lake, depending on the weather.

we like to go out on the water on the boat and just fish and hang out and listen to music and just enjoy.

I actually totally get that, my wife. She gives me so much grief for my weekend time. You know I'm constantly working and I'm constantly talking to people and you know she doesn't see as many people as I do, and so come Friday night I'm like my ideal date night is watching Netflix and not speaking to anybody. Yeah, and she goes you claim to be so social, and you know when we want to do things, you don't want to do things.

It's like, yeah, I'm exhausted, I know just mentally. So I get that. Yeah, uh, okay. Favorite golf course in topeka oh um gosh I don't know if I can answer this one either. Um okay, my favorite golf course in the area is not in Topeka.

Hit us with it.

I really like Lake Perry. It's part of Great Life.

Really Okay. I've never played there.

I just like the topography changes and it's got some hills and water and it's just different. How far is that? How far?

is Lake Perry. Like 20 minutes 25, 30 minutes yeah, oh, that's a piece of cake.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, okay. How many potholes did you hit on?

the way over here. Well, I don't think I hit any, but I was very strategic and I kind of have them memorized.

There we go, there we go. Yeah, you're an attentive driver. Yeah, yeah, yeah, love it.

Yeah, any others. I think we're good. Yeah, all right when could people find you if they wanted to follow you or, you know, hear how the partnership's doing? Yeah.

I mean our Facebook page. The Greater Topeka Partnership Facebook page is pretty active. We try to keep everything up to date on there, so that's the best place to follow the Greater Topeka Partnership. We're getting better at Instagram Visit. Topeka is doing really great with Instagram showing off the fun things in the community, so if you just want to see what's what's good in Topeka, then that's a good thing to follow also.

You got the staff doing like TikTok dances and stuff.

Not quite yet, but they're getting creative yeah love it.

Cool Molly, thank you so much for joining us. This has been so great. Seriously, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

You're week two in the job and us, no problem, thank you, thank you.