Hello, again, West Michigan! Wyoming, I’ll Miss You!

Hello, again, West Michigan! Wyoming, I’ll Miss You!

They say you can’t go home again. However, before the end of the year, I’ll be returning to Michigan where I spent my entire life until I moved to Wyoming 5.5 years ago. Wyoming has made a better man, a better citizen, and elevated me to a role in community leadership that has been inspiring and humbling.

Sadly, I leave behind more good friends and colleagues than I could imagine I would find in a lifetime let alone a mere 5.5 years. While it’s hard to imagine leaving the projects and successes that have come to define my time in Gillette, Wyoming; my wife Christen and I reached the decision because the distance to all of our family in Michigan felt too great to overcome.

Anyone from Wyoming would understand why it’s hard to leave. While it’s a beautiful state with wonders from the Big Horn Mountains to Yellowstone to the hot springs and abundant natural beauty throughout the state, it's the people who make Wyoming unforgettable. With a population of 550,000 in the 10th largest state by total area, the whole state of Wyoming has been described as a small town with long streets and the state averages less than 6 people per square mile. By comparison, the state of New York has half the total area of Wyoming, but with 20 million people has 429 people per square mile and New York City boasts more than 28,000 per square mile. 28,000! The borough of Manhattan has less land than the City of Cheyenne, but triple the population of the entire state of Wyoming. It’s the small town environment of Wyoming that brings people closer together and makes you feel so welcome.??

Last week, I had the opportunity to talk to Wyoming’s Governor Mark Gordon at the Wyoming Economic Development Association (WEDA) Wyoming Working Together conference. I asked Governor Gordon if he would get a picture with my son Charlie who hammed it up for the photo op, and the governor was no stranger to silly boys (who might con their dad into being “too sick” for school.) I broke the news to Governor Gordon that I was leaving. He grinned, and said, “You’ll be back!” And again, I had to ask myself if I was really willing to leave a place where leaders across the state would genuinely miss me and the contribution that I brought to our state. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Governor Gordon and his team, to have known the current and previous Speaker of the House of the Wyoming Legislature, and leaders across the state. Governor Gordon is such a humble down-to-earth leader with a lifelong passion for advocating the greatness of Wyoming and balancing the history of coal, oil, and gas in Wyoming to the future of the all-of-the-above energy opportunities, I’m truly humbled to have the opportunity to be known and to work with him and his team.?

Of course, my music-addled brain couldn’t hear “You’ll be back” from Governor Gordon without associating his comment with the humorous tunes “You’ll Be Back” and “What Comes Next” from “Hamilton” with Jonathan Goff as the hilariously silly and unforgettable charming authoritarian King George III.?

What comes next?

You've been freed

Do you know how hard it is to lead?

You're on your own

Awesome, wow!

Do you have a clue what happens now?

Oceans rise

Empires fall

It's much harder when it's all your call

With all due respect to Governor Gordon and his love of Wyoming, what pulls me away from Wyoming isn't the state, the people, or the opportunities, but the love of family back in Michigan. If we could uproot all of our relatives in Michigan to move to Wyoming, we would stay.

As the second-in-command of the economic development for the third largest city in Wyoming, I never expected to have a governor know me. But Wyoming is a place where the people revere the cowboy ethics defined in the Code of the West:

1.? Live each day with courage.

2.? Take pride in your work.

3.? Always finish what you start.

4.? Do what has to be done.

5.? Be tough, but fair.

6.? When you make a promise, keep it.

7.? Ride for the brand

8.? Talk less, say more.

9.? Remember that some things are not for sale.

10. Know where to draw the line.?

When I started at Energy Capital Economic Development in 2020, it was a challenging time for communities across the world. I described Wyoming as a “handshake state” where leaders would rather drive 6 hours to meet face-to-face than consider a phone call or video conference. And yet, when we started offering “Business Impact” webinars, we drew audiences across the state and we were on the leading edge of an increased willingness to have virtual introductions and meetings. Within 2 months of starting in the role, we faced an unprecedented pandemic and aimed to be at the forefront of supporting businesses through the unknown challenges to come. I was able to bring my private sector experience into an opportunity to bring leaders together to share how they were finding ways to adapt and thrive throughout the pandemic.

While there are many, including my boss and Board Members, who have pointed out how my departure is a big loss for our community, it is equally heart-breaking for me to leave a community that has been so great to me and my family. It was the great philosopher Mick Jagger who said that “wild horses couldn’t drag me away.” And it’s hard to imagine anything dragging me away from Wyoming. But almost all of our family is in Michigan. The opportunity for our son to be with his cousins, to be around his aunts and uncles, to be somehow MORE spoiled by his grandparents than distance currently allows is too much for us to overcome. While the friends we have made in Wyoming have become family, there’s no replacing those siblings and parents and nieces and nephews who make our lives special.

And I would be remiss not to mention the 41 colleagues in the Leadership Wyoming class of 2022 with our “gang symbols” of 2 fingers to signify "22" and the love and kindness we shared with each other nearly a week every month for a year as we learned about each other, our communities, our state, and our commitment to leadership. We share a group text on WhatsApp messaging, and it was the hardest message to send to share with them that I would be leaving. From strangers in August 2021 to some of my best friends by May 2022, I’m devastated to leave a group of amazing leaders from across Wyoming and I will be forever grateful for their love and friendship throughout our journey together, and I'll be back to visit them at every opportunity. And if I’m totally honest, it was the love and support of my newfound family in Leadership Wyoming that reminded me how important family is to me.?

It’s undeniable how much Wyoming means to me. It’s not a place, it’s a people. Like any community, we have our ups and downs in Gillette. We have our failures and successes. But, I’m so proud of all our community does to make Gillette and Campbell County a great place now and in the future. A great place to live, learn, work, play, and stay.

As a firm believer in the campfire rule that I should always leave things better than I found them, I worked to find a volunteer in the community to replace my volunteer role on the Board of Directors for the Northeast Wyoming Regional Airport and reached out to L&H Industrial, Inc. CEO Mike Wandler , who has long been an advocate for the economic impact of local airports throughout Wyoming and encouraged him to help me find someone interested and he found his CFO Tom Dillon willing to apply for the position. It's not any one person who makes a community, but the efforts of many.?

One of my best friends in Wyoming, my mentor and one of my biggest cheerleaders Betsey Hale, CECD of Cheyenne LEADS , has been a champion of the work I have done to move Wyoming forward. And I called her to make sure I was making the right decision to leave all the great work I’ve done for Wyoming to move back closer to my family. Her assurance that family was more important than anything I had done for Wyoming was all I needed to feel like my place was back where my son could have more time with his cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Where my wife Christen and I could be close to those family members most important to our success.

I say all of this while I am in the absence of my best friend of 8 years. My dear wife Christen Burdette , who by accident or fate, was recruited to a position where the recruiter thought she was in the Michigan city of “Wyoming” rather than the state. She left for Michigan ahead of us to start her new position with Superhost Hospitality to be Director of Sales at the Home2 Suites in Holland, Michigan. As Tim Minchin describes in “The Absence of You,” that “all of this beauty runs over and through me and pools round my shoes, and the pattern it forms conforms to the shape of the absence of you.” It's tough to be apart, but I'm so grateful my wife has been honored with an opportunity to let her professional excellence shine. While I might publicly declare that staying behind in Wyoming is “boy’s night every night” where I spend every night with our seven-year-old son Charlie, there is a hole in our hearts without her here with us, and we are counting down the days until we are reunited.

While Wyoming may have been home for nearly 6 years and is an absolutely wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family, it is the call of family that brings me back to Michigan. I have one more month in Wyoming before I make the move east to Michigan, and I’m savoring every opportunity to be part of my commitment to move Wyoming forward and to say my goodbyes to all the people I love throughout this beautiful state.?