Tribute to Gary Olsen

"You Can't Take It With You"

as told by Gary Olsen - April 2007

I believe in the philosophy that you can’t take it with you. As life moves on and I’m 87 years old now, you don’t want to end up with a bunch of “I wish I would have’s.” I had three misfortunes in my life that shaped who I am from an early age. I was born to Norwegian parents in Holton. My father, Ole, was 65 years old when I was born and my mother, Gina, was his second wife. My father had many vocations in his lifetime, first a sailor, then a lumber mill worker, next a pastor and finally a farmer. He never learned English, which was a hardship with his first wife, as she didn’t speak Norwegian. After she passed, he went back to Norway and made sure that he found a wife who spoke his native tongue. Life was hard on the farm. My mother came from a well-educated family in Norway and she bore the farm life in Holton with difficulty. When I was 9 my first misfortune struck and our house burned down. We then moved into a 3-room “poverty” house in Muskegon and sadly my mother died 2 years later of dropsy. That was my second misfortune.



I overheard my mother talk to her friends in her final days of illness “what is going to happen to my little boy?” For she knew that with my father’s advanced age and health that I would likely be an orphan soon. When I was 13, my third misfortune came to pass and my father died. It was then that my cousin, Clara Anderson and her husband Andrew took me in as one of their own. I called them Aunt Clara and Uncle Andrew out of respect and I grew up along side their son, Robert, who was one year older than me. Bob and I attended Muskegon High School and we were close friends for years.

As I reflect back now on that time with a mature, senior mind I realize the sacrifices and caring decisions that Aunt Clara and Uncle Andrew made for me. Uncle Andrew was the head custodian at Muskegon high school and well loved by staff and students. He also was a sports enthusiast and saw to it that I learned to ski along with the rest of the family. We were members of the Pontaluna Ski Club and active participants in ski jumping. I worked up to jumping over 100 feet in the air. I lived with them until I was 24 years old and was drafted into the armed services during WWII in 1943.  

Upon returning to Muskegon, I met my wife Doris at the roller rink one night. I had a really nice car in 1941 and she told me later, “you didn’t make that much of an impression on me, but boy I liked your car!” We have 2 boys, Steve & Dan and a daughter, Sandra, who have blessed us with 6 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. My two sons now operate the family business, Northern Machine Tool Company. There were once 6-8 other tool & die businesses in Muskegon. Now, we are the only ones left– its not that we’re better, we’re just stubborn. I still go into the office everyday - the building is one city block, so I use an electric cart to get around.

I created the Gerhard O. and Doris E. Olsen Memorial for Andrew and Clara Anderson Fund to honor the gift of love, family and home they gave me. The fund provides scholarships for Muskegon High School graduates.

Muskegon's Urban Farm

Community enCompass Adding 'Hoop Houses' to Lengthen Urban Farm Growing Season

By Dave Alexander | Muskegon Chronicle
November 29, 2009, 10:34PM

A hoop house is being assembled at the McLaughlin Grows Urban Farm which will help extend the growing season. The half-acre farm is located behind the Goodwill Industries of West Michigan's corporate headquarters. The hoop house will extend the growing season at McLaughlin Grows Urban Farm.

Community enCompass is taking the concept of the urban garden to the next level. Officials call it urban farming.

Playing off the successful half-acre garden plot that grew last summer on a vacant lot owned by Goodwill Industries, the Christian community development organization in Muskegon’s McLaughlin Neighborhood has created the McLaughlin Grows Urban Farm at Iona and Sophia streets.

With the help of the Community Foundation for Muskegon County and its Richard and Marilyn Witham Fund, the urban farm is adding “hoop houses” to extend the growing season year-round. The idea is to create business opportunities during economonically tough times.

McLaughlin Grows is a for-profit, micro-enterprise venture designed to produce locally grown, healthy food; energize the neighborhood; and provide potential employment opportunities. The foundation funding — more than $50,000 — has given McLaughlin Grows coordianator Teri VanHall three years to make the urban farm a viable, self-sustaining operation.

“Urban agriculture initiatives are springing up across the United States,” Community enCompass Director Sarah Rinsema-Sybenga said. “It is exciting to see Muskegon on the cutting edge of this trend.”

Teri VanHall, program coordinator for McLaughlin Grows Urban Farm, left, Tom Pastoor, president of McLaughlin Neighborhood Association and board member of Community enCompass, center, along with help from a You Turn student, work on affixing the metal supports for a hoop house that is being assembled behind the Goodwill Industries of West Michigan's corporate headquarters. The hoop house will extend the growing season at McLaughlin Grows Urban Farm. (You Turn students cannot be identified by name nor can you show faces.) 

Community enCompass and Goodwill have an agreement for the use of the vacant lot. The McLaughlin Grows initial farm garden began in May with plantings of greens, tomatoes, peppers, okra, cabbage, squash and other crops.

The business used neighborhood youth workers through the Muskegon County Department of Employment and Training to keep the garden going throughout the summer along with providing volunteer opportunities for local residents.

The vegetable harvast off an initial 2,400-square-foot plot was sold on site, through a stand at the Muskegon Farmer’s Market and to the nearby Mia & Grace restaurant, which practices “farm-to-table” food sourcing.

The estimated future revenues for the urban farm are annually about $12,500 per hoophouse and another $12,500 from the outdoor garden, VanHall said.

McLaughlin Grows is practicing organic farming, said VanHall, who was trained in the agriculture processes through Michigan State University. The urban lot was a good producer, she said.

“I was amazed at the amount of glass we were picking out of the soil all summer,” VanHall said. “But even with the sandy soil, we had a real good harvast.”

With the garden done for the year, the “hoop house” project is under way. Plans are for two 96- by 30-foot passive solar growing shelters. The first $16,000 unit from a manufacturer in New Hampshire already is in place. It will have electric fans for an efficient growing operation.

The hoop house is made of a metal frame covered with clear plastic sheeting. VanHall said that greens and root crops will be able to grow throughout the winter and seedlings for the next growing season can get an early start in shelter.

Dick Witham has a passion for helping create economic opportunities in Muskegon’s urban neighborhoods. He is a retired industrialist who is the former owner and president of the Michigan Spring Co.

“I’m 71 years old and I want to use my skills to create an environment where people grow and prosper,” Witham said about his community foundation fund’s support of McLaughlin Grows.

“I was encouraged to leave Muskegon when I sold my company, but I was born and raised here and I care about seeing this county thrive and prosper,” he said. “This is better than any business that I’ve every been involved in — it’s exciting.”

Turning the McLaughlin Grows into a sustainable business will be a challenge, VanHall said. The micro-business will need a successful marketing plan and might need subsidized labor to make it profitable, she said.

Outside of the employment and profits that could be generated off the urban farm, Tom Pastoor said the initial Community enCompass already is transforming the neighborhood. Pastoor is president of the McLaughlin Neighborhood Association and a Community enCompass board member.

Carlos Avrard, strategic program director for Community enCompass, works on affixing the metal supports for a hoop house that is being assembled behind the Goodwill Industries of West Michigan's corporate headquarters.

“The neighborhood is abuzz with the fact that something is happening,” Pastoor said of an urban area in Muskegon that has been hit hard by the economic downturn. “People are engaging. Maybe it’s not cool any longer to sit back and watch.

“Even in these dire economic times, this absolutely brings a sense of hope,” he said of a neighborhood in which he has lived for 30 years.

VanHall hopes to spread the farm activities of McLaughlin Grows to other urban areas of Muskegon where vacant land awaits. Urban argiculture is taking hold in cities such as Flint and Detroit as well as Muskegon, she said.

“It’s about people reclaiming their neighborhoods and producing fresh, healthy food,” VanHall said. “Hopefully, this will be a model for other lots."

President's Message 11-09

November, 2009

Dear Friends:

About 14 months have passed since the thrill ride known as the “9/08-10/ 09 economy” began.  We certainly can’t say the ride is over, but after two quarters of some positive market and economic activity, at least the hair blowback and the screaming have subsided.  We have time to reflect and even to make decisions that will affect how the ride goes from here.  Big questions are on our minds: Are our best days behind or ahead of us? Can our kids and grandkids expect a better standard of living than we had?  Where will the jobs come from to reduce our unemployment rate? As those questions floated through my mind, clear confident answers came from some sources close to the Community Foundation.

Answers came in the dedications of the Culinary Institute of Michigan, the Hackley sculpture, the Olthoff Street Stage, and the new fence surrounding the Lady Victory monument in Hackley Park, all within four weeks of each other.  These are expressions of generosity, excellence, and faith in a big vision:  they tell us we will go forward, elevating the best in us and building on the best we have ever been.

Answers came in reflecting on the full life of Bill Jackson, who died October 7 at the age of 90. A child of the Depression, whose mother died when he was ten, Bill and his three brothers lived for several years on the Goodwill Farm, an orphanage in Iron Mountain, while his father looked for work. One might think that experience of personal and economic upheaval would make Bill want to play it safe in his career.  Instead, he had a burning desire to start his own company so that he could innovate according to his inspiration, operate with the highest standards for environmental and business practice, and make a difference in the lives of many.  This founder of Burdick and Jackson, environmental philanthropist and benefactor of the GVSU research vessel named after him, is a lesson in determination and pursuit of better times.

Answers came in Pastor Rob Cook‘s eulogy of Lucille Chambers, a great friend of Muskegon and the Foundation.  Rob described that it was 1967 and Lucille was a stay at home mom with very young children when her husband Curtis was laid off from his engineering job. Curt wondered if now was the time to start the business he had dreamed about—and Lucille said “I think you should. I have faith in you.”  He did, and Pliant Plastics was born, and then Dynamic Conveyor and then Nauticraft, all companies that are still in business today.

Curt told me that he looks back and shudders at his audacity.  None of his prior jobs had anything to do with plastics, and he created the company on the thinnest of plans. But Pliant Plastics crawled, then stood and then walked, surviving and thriving despite lack of bank financing, the “oil crisis” of ‘73 and ‘74, and high interest rates and inflation. Asked if he thought high unemployment might be the “new normal”, Curt says immediately, “This country has been through so much worse.  We have to be optimistic; there is no other rational choice.  There are too many people who want the good life and are willing to work hard for it.” 

John Mauldin, an internationally known economic analyst whose newsletters Sherm Poppen turned me on to, agrees.  Not known for being bullish, Mauldin nevertheless wrote in a recent letter: 

“The correct answer to the question, "Where will the jobs come from?" [during the recession of the70’s] was, "I don't know, but they will." And that is the correct answer today.

Our kids are getting ready to live through what will be the most exciting period in human history. There will be a century's worth of change, measured by the standard of the 20th century, just in the next ten years, and then we will double that pace in the next ten after that. …

But we are not going into some long dark night. We, and our kids, get to choose how we respond to what is the reality of the day.”

Yes, we can choose our response.  Continue to respond with optimism.  Respond with faith in others, faith in yourself, and faith in the vision of a prosperous and greater community.

All my best,
Chris McGuigan
 

MCC Exploring Move

Editorial: Schooling downtown

By Muskegon Chronicle
October 11, 2009

MUSKEGON - Over the next nine months, Muskegon Community College plans to explore the possibility of moving one or more of its programs downtown.

MCC, like Baker College, is experiencing record enrollment and needs to develop more facilities to meet the demand. The successful opening of Baker College’s new Culinary Institute of Michigan downtown — including a 68 percent increase in culinary class enrollment — is inspiring. A similar jump in enrollment in a downtown program for MCC would certainly help a new facility pay for itself, while creating more space on the MCC campus for other programs.

MCC President Dale Nesbary, who has been on the job about four months, told chamber members recently that he will work with business leaders to develop a strategy for moving programs downtown. He has suggested downtown programs could include natural sciences, humanities/fine arts or continuing education. And he wants to hear from business and community leaders about programs they would like MCC to offer.

It’s a golden opportunity. And an important one.

We agree with Community Foundation for Muskegon County President Chris McGuigan, that any new MCC program downtown needs to provide a “wow” factor that might spur other downtown and waterfront development. It also needs to work well with existing downtown businesses and Baker College.

So, what would work best?

We think the best fit would be a humanities and fine arts  program— and we’re defining that broadly.

With the Muskegon Museum of Art, the Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts, L.C. Walker Arena, the Lakeshore Museum Center, West Michigan Symphony, Muskegon Civic Theatre and the Watermark Center movie studio all within blocks of each other, a humanities and fine arts student could find just about any resource he or she might need right downtown.

Developing a partnership with these institutions would certainly enhance MCC’s traditional fine arts, theater, dance and vocal and instrumental music programs. A partnership also will help these institutions grow as they are invigorated by the energy and curiosity of an influx of students learning — and questioning — their displays and operations.

Nesbary also is in a unique position, through his longtime membership on the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp board, to draw on resources there. Perhaps Blue Lake would consider a winter program in partnership with MCC or maybe some of the camp’s summer instructors could provide workshops for MCC’s students.

In addition, we would like to see a new moviemaking program developed in combination with an expansion of the radio and television courses already established.

Also, Web design and development and a graphic arts component could be part of the expanded humanities and fine arts program. One suggestion for a certificate program is digital storytelling, which could be used to enhance the Web sites of area businesses or could fit in with the moviemaking and expanded radio and television program.

Other possible programs could include animation, video game design and photography.

The creative energy the students would bring downtown could invigorate an entire community. Plus, the humanities/fine arts students would be a good fit for the foodies at CIM.

For the city, it will mean continued expansion and improvement in downtown at a time when private investment is unlikely.

The city’s plan is to become a global leader in advanced manufacturing in metals, plastics, alternative energy and agricultural processing; a regional center for health care; and a regional center for retail services. The city also plans to expand its tourism base.

Slowly, but surely the city is redefining itself — with a little help from its friends. 

Olthoff Street Stage

Open-air performance stage ready for use in downtown Muskegon

By Marla Miller | Muskegon Chronicle
October 11, 2009, 2:17AM

Kendra Stanley-Mills
An outdoor stage is nestled between the Sidock Building, left, and the Culinary Institute of Michigan, right, along Third Street in downtown Muskegon.

MUSKEGON - The days of imagining lunchtime lectures, free outdoor concerts — even street performers playing for tips — are over with the completion of the open-air Olthoff Street Stage downtown.

IF YOU GO

• What: Opening and dedication of downtown Muskegon’s newest dramatic hot spot, the outdoor Olthoff Street Stage.
• When: 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
• Where: On Third Street between the Sidock Building and Culinary Institute of Michigan. The ceremony will be moved to the lobby of Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts if it rains.
• Activities: Remarks by lead donors Mike and Kay Olthoff and city officials. Performances by members of West Michigan Symphony, Muskegon Civic Theatre, the Mona Shores Freshtet and Muskegon Heights Drum Corps.
• How the stage will work: Nonprofit organizations, concert associations and residents can reserve the stage to guarantee its availability through Muskegon Main Street. Daily fee is $50. If the stage is not in use, anyone is welcome to use it for free. For more information, or to schedule the stage, contact Dan Rinsema-Sybenga at (231) 724-3180.

Conceived in 2004 as part of the Imagine Muskegon campaign, the Third Street Promenade’s street stage will be dedicated this week and is the last piece of the block-long plaza between Western and Clay avenues. But with autumn’s inconsistent weather upon us, it may be next spring before residents can make much use of the public gathering place.

Thursday’s dedication ceremony will go on regardless and include remarks by city officials and the “naming” benefactors. Mike and Kay Olthoff, the owners of Nichols Paper, donated $100,000 as a lead gift for the Third Street Promenade and the public stage.

The stage is on Third Street between the Sidock Building and Baker College’s Culinary Institute of Michigan. It will allow for everything from musical and theater performances to lectures and discussions.

“We’re thrilled with how it looks,” said Kay Olthoff. “The arts have always been very important to our family and we thought this would be a great way for  everyone in the community to enjoy them.”

Urban planner Harry Wierenga of Fleis & Vandenbrink Engineering Inc. designed the promenade and stage area and the property is owned by Downtown Muskegon Development Corp. No. 1. The DMDC’s board of directors has developed a reservation system, which Muskegon Main Street Manager Dan Rinsema-Sybenga will oversee.

Organizations and residents can reserve it for a $50 fee to guarantee availability and have access to amenities such as electricity. The hope is that small concerts and weddings will be held there, but that it also will serve as a town square type of gathering place, Rinsema-Sybenga said.

“We’re not discouraging people from using it informally,” he said. “Generally, we are making it available to the public.”

There is limited seating, so those who come for concerts and other events will need to bring their own chairs.

The space around it can accommodate several hundred people, Rinsema-Sybenga said. At some point, a canopy may cover the stage to help with acoustics once additional funding is secured, he said.

“The street stage is the most unique and innovative aspect of the Third Street Promenade,” said Chris McGuigan, president and CEO of Community Foundation for Muskegon County. “The hope is that it will highlight the outstanding artists we have in the community.”

Original plans for the linear promenade had it extending along the east side of Third Street from Clay to Morris avenues, with a pedestrian walkover across Shoreline Drive at the end of Third Street, McGuigan said. There is another smaller stage area in front of the Hines Building, which houses the Muskegon Area Chamber of Commerce, designed for press conferences and business gatherings, Rinsema-Sybenga said.

Except for possibly upgrading the wood chips at the north end by the Hines Building, the promenade is done as far as the Downtown Muskegon Development Corp. site is concerned, they said.

“Our plan for the sidewalk/parking lot along the rest of Third Street (toward Morris) is for commercial development, at least two-story storefronts,” McGuigan said.

The entire cost of the Third Street public space project was paid for through a variety of sources. For instance, Baker College agreed to pay for the plaza area in front of the CIM building, McGuigan said. Other gifts included $25,000 from the Alcoa Foundation and $50,000 in downtown beautification funds from the Eunice Nash Bush Fund and Alta Daetz Fund of the Community Foundation for Muskegon County.

The Muskegon Area Chamber of Commerce and Muskegon Main Street — the downtown district promotion agency — is offering a gift program through the community foundation where people can purchase paver stones or invest in interactive art for $250 to $25,000.

Beautification features still needed include benches, planters, public art and a rain garden. The community has been asked to take ownership of the promenade through private donations.