Peter Benkendorf is the founder of The Collaboratory, where Dayton’s dreamers and doers gather to move innovative ideas to transformative action. In this episode, he shares about current community initiatives that are generating new economic, civic, and creative opportunities and value to promote a healthier, more thriving region.
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Episode Transcript:
David Bowman: Welcome to Creating the Future. I’m David Bowman,
Evelyn Ritzi: and I’m Evelyn Ritzi,
David: and today we are joined by Peter Benkendorf, founder of the Collaboratory, a man who’s known for bringing people together and championing big ideas. Peter, thanks for being here today. Absolutely excited about the opportunity. Thanks for having me. Well, let’s start with your story. So what led you to beautiful Dayton, Ohio.
Peter Benkendorf: So it all started on Saturday, April 21 2007 we were driving him back from Washington, DC to Chicago, following my sister’s wedding, with a planned stop in Dayton to take our daughter to lunch. She was a UD freshman at the time. Unfortunately, we got a bit of a late start and didn’t really get into town, probably was after three o’clock. Now, that was the bad news. The good news was I had a whole bunch of Hilton points, and so we were able to stay over. And we decided to stay at what was then the double tree Hotel, which was located at the corner of third and Ludlow, yeah, right down the street, exactly. Took our daughter to dinner tie nine. And of course, she had it right back to campus, because, you know what if UD students want to do, but they want to be hanging out in the student neighborhoods. And somebody, I don’t remember, who directed us to the wine Gallery, which in its original location was at the corner of third and way. Needless to say, we made our way on down to the wine Gallery, and probably around 1030 that evening as we left the wine Gallery, and maybe it was the wine talking, I had an epiphany that I needed to be in Dayton Ohio, that Dayton Ohio needed me, and I needed Dayton Ohio just a little bit of a back story, a little bit of context too Well, where did that come from? So I started doing community work in 1992 in Chicago, and I spent four years working in public housing in Cabrini Green, specifically. Fast forward a little bit of time, and we had moved out to Woodstock, Illinois. For any of your listeners who saw the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray, that’s where the movie was filmed. And so that became a whole cult following in of itself, and we did a big Groundhog Day celebration. And I certainly love the country vibe and the old time Town Square and the kind of the accouterments of the quality of life out there, but I realized I I missed my urban roots, and something about being in the middle of downtown Dayton at 1030 on a Saturday night. Just just spoke to me. So that set some wheels in motion. Eventually, I got connected to Paul Benson, who was the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at the time, because we were operating a international summer artist residency and Youth Collaborative called Blue Sky project. And the vision was to see if we could bring back, bring that to to Dayton. And so in the summer of 2008 Paul came up to came up to Chicago area, where we were in McHenry County, smallest of the collar counties where wood stock is located, and saw what we’re doing with blue sky, and got really excited. And said, Yeah, I want to help you come to Dayton, which was great. Now, little did I know that two weeks later, Dayton would be named one of the 10 fastest dying cities, and two weeks after that, when we were in Dayton for some meetings with UD, my car would be stolen from the Courtyard by Marriott. Now that once again, that’s the bad news. The good news was that it was found the next day over in the DeSoto bass neighborhood in West Dayton. The ignition was stripped. The car was still running, and the middle seat was missing. We’re not quite sure what that is. My theory is that maybe they were either trying to haul stuff around or where they were going for the stretch limo effect. So undeterred, we still move forward with our with our plans to move to today, and it brings blue sky project here. Fortunately, that the Forbes, 10 fastest dying cities list turned into another opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade, and I, at the same time, I was bringing blue sky project here, organized the 10 living cities symposium, which took place on the one year anniversary of the publication of the Forbes 10 fastest dying cities list. We had eight of the 10 cities represented. We actually had nine, with Scranton, but the person had a last minute issue come up. We had brought in Josh zumbrunn, who wrote the article. I mean, it was just a wonderful day, and in many ways, that opportunity changed the trajectory of my my whole time here in Dayton, it made it opened up new possibilities. People found out who I was. As it led to the collaboration with the Air Force Research Lab around innovation and bringing artists and engineers together to explore possibilities, etc, etc. So anyway, I have, I have the wine gallery at the corner of third and at the corner of third and Wayne to thank for how I ultimately ended up in Dayton.
David: As do we all.
Evelyn: Well, tell us about founding the Collaboratory. Where did the idea come from, and how has it taken shape over the years here in Dayton?
Peter: So the organization was formally incorporated as Involvement Advocacy in 1992 in Chicago. But I guess I would say it’s – the Collaboratory is less of an idea and more of a way of being. It really is a reflection of who I am. In essence, the Collaboratory is wherever I am. It’s not really me. It’s all about collaboration. But that that ability to meet people where they are, to create engaging civic brands, to be able to put together kind of product development process, concept development processes allow us to take on lots of different kinds of of opportunities. So from a single idea a single project in Chicago in 1992 called Sister neighborhoods, to eventually evolving to creating the blue sky project, which I mentioned previously, which we brought to Dayton to now, excuse me, having a whole portfolio of civic brands, it really is just based on being out in The community, listening to people, observing where the needs are having an open door. So sometimes people come in and bring their ideas to us to help them develop. Other times we take on ideas. But it’s very much an opportunistic trying to create a sense of new possibilities. And so it’s really just grown since I’ve come to Dayton and had a really, the right kind of vehicle, the right kind of space, and been able to build relationships with lots of different people across the community.
David: Well, let’s talk about some of the Collaboratory’s core projects. There are some real, popular events in the community, and people might not know that they were actually born in the Collaboratory: Dayton Sewing Collaborative, one of my favorites Dayton Porch Fest, where you can go see cool people like Kyleen Downes or Nick Kizernis or any number of other local and regional and even national acts playing on porches all around St Anne’s Hill. Tell us. Tell us about some of the programs that have spun out of the Collaboratory.
Peter: So absolutely, Dayton Sewing Collaborative was probably the one of our bigger success stories. That was an idea I came up with, probably is back as far as 2012 things started to set in motion in 2014 with within a week of each other, in August of 2014 I met two women, Pam and Pam and one black, one white, but both engaged in sewing. And it was almost like a sister neighborhoods redo. They came together. They got excited about the idea. And we actually went up to Cleveland and looked at a place up there. And then in early 2015 by again, by chance, I met Brenda Rex, somebody she was consulting with said, Hey, let’s go hang out the Collaboratory today. So she came in. Eventually she got excited about the project, and one thing led to another, and we originally opened our doors in June of 2016 and then in October of 2017 the Dayton sewing collaborative became its own nonprofit organization. It’s subsequently relocated. It’s over in the Goodwill Easter Seals building, and it’s just going great guns. It’s got a big relationship with Lion apparel. It does a lot of train to sew activities. It’s doing a lot of entrepreneurial work, supporting entrepreneurs. It’s a community space. It’s really become a huge success. And in many ways, it’s really an example of what the what the collaborator is good at, which is starting stuff. I mean, we are not here. We’re not a direct service organization. We really are a mix of an R and D department, an incubator, not necessarily what you think differently than the Entrepreneur Center, although we’re focused in the community space, as opposed to more of the tech space or for profit space so and then, and then we’re a community convener, so that that kind of opportunity really signifies what we do. Well, another organization that we spun out is the journalism Lab, which was started by Stephen star, who is an Irish national, freelance, freelance writer, who had found me about two weeks after he moved here, had a vision for what he wanted to do. We helped him put his vision together. Helped him hooked up with his three partners, who the four of them really were the backbone of starting the journalism lab. And this is about training citizen journalists in the in the community. So again, once you know they saw the Collaboratory with a 501 c3 as a. Place to bring their idea to life, and then again, move on. Go out and get your own 501, c3, and set your organization up, you know? So those are a couple of examples where we’ve taken initiatives and sent them out on their own. We’ve got an initiative called Silver is gold. Silver is gold helps connect businesses and organizations with immediate needs, with actively engaged retired professionals with focused expertise and experience to meet those needs. On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got an initiative called X factor, which is a Citizen Service Corps made up of formerly incarcerated individuals looking to help them find find purpose back in the community, but more importantly, as we try and help the community see formerly incarcerated people differently. You’ve mentioned Dayton porch fest, which we’re coming up on, our eighth year, August 16, in st Ann’s Hill. We’ll have 57 bands playing all sorts of genres, very family friendly. It’s a free event. Again. Here’s an opportunity to celebrate the breadth and depth of the Dayton music scene and all the creativity that we have here. And for a lot of folks, they’re not going out clubbing. They don’t really get to hear a lot of these bands. So it’s a great way for the bands to get more exposure, a great way for the community to come together and really celebrate something that we do so well. Here the other the other event based activity that we’re involved in is Ethnosh. We brought Ethnosh here originally. It was started in Greensboro, North Carolina. We started it in 2019, Ethnosh organizes monthly community dinners at different immigrant owned restaurants. So usually we’ll have two or three seatings. We’ll bring anywhere from you know, 40 to 50 people proceeding together, they get to sample some wonderful cuisine from around the world. Probably more importantly, they get to hear from the owners of the restaurant. Tell their story. How did they get to America? How they get to Dayton, how they get the restaurant business? Most of these people had no plans of being a restaurant tour. Their education probably wasn’t in cooking, but at some point they missed the flavors of home, and so they decided that this was an outlet for harkening back to growing up, but bringing some of those flavors and culture to the Dayton community. So that’s been growing really feverishly since we rebooted it post COVID here, which obviously slowed, slowed a lot of things down. We’ve got another project called Essential arts. Essential arts and essential artists Dayton, which is really intended to serve as a business development vehicle for the visual artists in this community. We’re currently in conversation with the Dayton airport to try and help curate local art to be shown at the Dayton airport. But there’s certainly lots of businesses, hotels, others in the community who could be displaying local art as we look to increase awareness, visibility and sales for local visual artists, we’re in the process of rebooting Dayton homecoming, which is a peer to peer marketing effort to try and get people to either move back to or move to Dayton. So, you know, we are, we are engaging what we call Dayton evangelists. Those are not Dayton evangelicals. That’s something completely different. But Dayton evangels are people who are really passionate about Dayton, yeah, and in many cases, are already engaged in this activity. They’ve, maybe they’ve moved back, and now they’re trying to get their brother or sister to move back, or getting friends from high school to move back. Or we actually have a number of transplants who are Dayton evangelists. And they’ve they’ve come here, and now they’re telling their their friends and people where from, where they move from, they got to come in and check out Dayton. So that’s going to be relaunch in the next six weeks or so. So we’ve got that going on. We also have a very exciting project called Race Dayton, which is our effort to put a go kart track on top of the Transportation Center garage in the middle of downtown Dayton. This was an idea that was first floated in Dayton business journal article in 2017 I guess it was a little prescient, or ahead of its time, as it was no chortling, by the way. And if you know my feeling is, our feeling is, if Dayton would have the only urban rooftop go kart track in the United States, we could create a whole new narrative about the kind of community this is. This is something that would draw people from, from Columbus, from Cincinnati, from other cities in the region. I mean, right now, if you want to get an urban experience, you you tend to go to Cincinnati or Columbus. Maybe I’ll do an overnight, you know, with with a significant other, you know, what? What would it say if we could get people actually come in here? What kind of catalyst for more, more of a renaissance happening in the in the urban core? So we’re really excited about the prospects of this. We’ve still got some work to do. We have another somewhat interrelated project that’s way on the back burner, but could be on the front burner, called Putter Up Dayton. It’s really an outcome of our tech arts collaboration with the Air Force Research Lab, and the idea is to build an 18 hole miniature golf course to be dispersed around town. But what’s unique about this is each one of the holes would be assigned to a team of at least one artist and one technologist to design the hole. So again, tapping into that wealth of of creativity and expertise we have in this community to help downtown come alive. So working on that, the other project that needs to be mentioned, certainly is, because it’s really, to me, the capstone of the work I’ve been doing for the last 33 years is the community of well being initiative, which is really all about, how do we center well being as the new metric of community success? We’re working with the Gallup organization has done a lot of work over the last 16 years or so to really understand the impact of well being on community outcomes. And so while it’s nice to talk about average household income or how many jobs have been created or how many jobs have been retained, those can all be pointing in a positive direction, but that really doesn’t say how members of the community are doing. And so this notion of really thinking differently, because what you measure is what you value, but what you measure also defines how you build your model. So we need a model. We need a system, a socio economic system that is intended to maximize well being. And so if we can create a model that puts people and well being on a par with profits, we can really build a region that I believe everybody has the potential to realize their everybody has the potential to realize the potential, which is somewhat of a redundancy, but you know what I’m you know what I’m saying, but you can’t realize your potential if you’re not experiencing well being. And as a part of that, about a month and a half ago, we announced a campaign to eliminate about $23 million of medical debt across seven counties, impacting about 13,000 people. Medical debt is a huge problem in the United States. In fact, it’s really a uniquely American problem. Impacts about 40% of Americans. So we are working with a nonprofit organization on the east coast called undue medical debt. All they do is acquire medical debt. And if we can raise the money, then we can basically, rather than buying the debt and then going out and trying to collect it and making a profit for ourselves, we can basically write that debt off. So what’s exciting about this is, for every dollar we raise, we can eliminate $180 in medical debt, which is a huge return on investment when you’re looking in the in the in the nonprofit space, so that that that project is really exciting. And I know I’m jumping around here a lot, but I’ve got my I’ve got my initiatives board in front of me so I don’t forget anything. And the other thing that we’ve been involved in is built the building of the first two skateboard parks in the city of Dayton. So we’ve just completed the first one, Claridge Park, which is up on North Webster Street, not too far from the Kroc Center. We took over two old tennis courts in Claridge Park, hence the name Claridge Park. And both these projects are being built as DIY. Do it yourself. Basically, folks from the skateboard community come in and pour the concrete and build the obstacles. And then the second one, which was going up somewhat rogue, but we’ve been able to work with the city, is the home Avenue DIY, which is on home Avenue under 35 on the near west side, not far from the New West Branch of the Dayton library. And that’s being head, headed by a couple of folks who actually have professional skate park building experience and credentials, so that one’s much more aggressive and interesting. Again, about that, we’ve actually gotten some funding from from rhyme Sayers entertainment, which is a black owned Hip Hop label out of Minneapolis, who, through some searching of the internets, as it were, found us Aesop Rock, who is one of their artists, lives up in the northwest, is a big skateboarder, and he was looking for a project like this. So he dropped a track back in December of 2023 called Pumpkin Seeds. And all of the proceeds from pumpkin seeds are going to support both of our both our skate park project, so to the tune of about $35,000 invested results. So if you check out pumpkin seeds and ASAP Rock, you’ll see lots of mention of Dayton in the collaborator in the work that we’re the work that we’re doing here. So yeah, that’s just some of the stuff we’re working on.
Evelyn: Just some of the stuff, just a couple things that is quite a few. A lot of them are really super fascinating. Out of curiosity, how, if someone has an idea they want to, they need some help with it. How do they approach you about that? In your office downtown, do they just walk in? What does that process look like of taking an idea?
Peter: A lot of people walk people walk in. I prefer you make an appointment, but, oh yeah. I mean, if I’m, if I’m not, if I’m not, on a zoom call on the meeting, we pretty much meet with anybody. But, you know, we’ve got, we’ve got about 80 feet of whiteboard, and you know, we don’t charge anything. Again, we’re here like a public utility. And so, you know, let us know what your ideas and I mean, we’ll probably give you an hour and a half or two hours the first time you come in to really help you think through things. I’m a big fan of, fan of Simon Sinek and his why, how, what? So getting people to kind of go through that process, to begin to think about what they’re trying to do, and then hopefully connecting with some other people in the community. I’ve got a fairly extensive network of folks to help them kind of begin to think about where to where to carry it out. But we’re pretty much open to all all comers, because you never know where the next good idea is going to come from.
David: Yeah, so what do you think it is about Dayton, obviously, beyond a good bottle of wine at third and Wayne, something called you here, right? And, you know, it’s a place where you were compelled to come and create, right? So, what is it that makes Dayton kind of a good testing ground?
Peter: I didn’t, I didn’t know any better. I mean, I am from, I’m from Ohio. Grew up in Cleveland. I went to UC. So, I mean, I have, I have Ohio in my in my blood. But, you know, I will, I mean, I have two answers to that question, one structural, the other one’s observational. And I will say that the observational there is. There’s a negative side to that as well. But I’m here to be honest with you. So structurally, Dayton, in the Dayton region, is an incredible microcosm of America. So we’ve got this sort of hollowed out urban core, city, neighborhood, suburbia, from getting along to flourishing. You’ve got small town America, like your Troys and and whatnot. You’ve got rural America. You’ve got, AG, you’ve really got, you’ve got everything here, but it’s small enough that you can wrap your arms around it. Do they get media coverage in in Chicago? Absolutely. But here you can really have an impact, kind of across the board. You can connect with people, you can work with higher education, you can work with government, you can work with the business sector, and you can really have an impact, and really looking at systems potential for systems change, or being able to do some systems thinking. Where I’m from, Cleveland rich. I mean, again, the bigger cities, it’s a lot harder to do. I will say, the other piece of this, though, too, is that there is also a certain indifference that permeates this community. But the beauty of indifference is, if you want to go and do something, basically you can go and get it done here, because people don’t really care, and they’re not going to get in your way and bother with you too much.
Evelyn: I think a lot of it too is like finding the people that share that passion that’s been a huge through line is like, well, to collaborate, you need people that that share that with you. So if you were to give advice to somebody, maybe it’s somebody even new to Dayton, or somebody on the younger side who wants to make a change in their community in some aspect. What kind of advice would you? Would you give to somebody like that?
Peter: I mean, you have to start with what you’re passionate about. You don’t have to start with what you’re passionate about. I mean, but usually you’re going to be drawn to that. If you want to do again at what level are you? You know you want to do literacy. Go to the Brunner Literacy Center. I mean, they’re wonderful organizations where you can volunteer at today. City that are doing really important work. You know, there’s Dayton serves. You can go online. You can find a whole list of places to to volunteer, you know, so that that’s one direction, if you’ve got a if you got a concept, again, that’s right, my sort of earlier point, are you a collaborator or a disruptor? I mean, I think we try and be both. And it’s just, it’s hearing them and giving them the confidence, and then letting them know that there’s somebody that’s in there that’s in their corner. You know, even if you don’t do much, you know, sometimes it’s easier to do something with somebody else just because having somebody else in the room, you still am doing 95% of the work, but you can never get yourself motivated if you just had to go do it on your own. It’s just, it’s, it’s really that sort of thing. I think the people who show up are already motivated enough to show up, and it’s just giving them the confidence to kind of take that first step and go and do something.
David: So the old cliche is, change is hard, right? And you are someone who is constantly working on change, right, which is by definition hard. And so you’ve got so many, I mean, you listed off project after project of things you’re working on, right? And so how do you stay motivated, right? Especially when you know, as you said, like some of those projects can get going and some of them get stuck, but how do you you’re somebody that every time I cross your path, you’ve got a new thing to tell me about, right? So how do you sort of keep that energy going?
Peter: Well, I think that I mean that it’s the question and the answer at the same time. If I didn’t have all these projects, it would be very different. Very difficult. None of these projects are really would I can’t do. There’s nothing here that would take 40 hours of my time right now, especially when you’re in the product development process, and there’s, you know, we’re trying to get a meeting with seven people, you know, artists, getting me with seven people, you know, you got to coordinate calendar. So that takes, that’s a month out, you know. So just things move slowly. So having multiple projects, you know, is really part of that. That’s what keeps me energized. It’s not about chasing the next shiny object. And, you know, I hear the hear the comments somebody, you know, Peter never finishes anything. One, that’s not true. And two, we’re not trying to finish things. We’re trying to start stuff, I mean. And part of being an R D, you know, I’ve got a mechanical engineering degree, which is not the same as being a mechanical engineer. Just, I want to be clear about that. But you know, it’s understanding what that that process looks like, and from an R and D standpoint, if your R and D department is having 100% success rate, you’re probably not taking enough risk. If it has a 0% success rate, you might want to get some new people in your R and D department. But the whole idea is to continue to to bring new ideas up. I might bring up the sewing club, and let’s go. This is great. You know, I come to talk to you about, oh, I’m not interested, but you know what, my my wife’s best friend would be really interested? So you’re you’re always pitching, because you don’t know where that connection is going to be, where that resource is going to be. So part of the motivation is the fact that you’re keeping all these plates spinning and again, some things, it takes two or three years to get them going, or you get a little bit Dayton homecoming. You know, we couldn’t keep it going now we’ve got a new group of people who are really committed. Dayton is a little bit different place because they’re making a big investment in the talent, in the talent pipeline work that Joe should be because leading, and this needs to be a part of that, just as the silver is gold, as does the X Factor work. These are all. These are all demographics of folks that need to be considered as part of the talent pipeline and needs to be built in the program. So, I mean, we’re talking to him and other folks, particularly around Dayton homecoming, because there should be an annual Dayton homecoming event, you know. And it really is. It is about giving people a sense of pride. And even if you’re not going to move back, you maybe you want to be an investor, whether you’re investing in buying a building, whether you’re investing in a startup that coming out of the Entrepreneur Center in the Hub. So these are the kinds of things that really lend themselves to support what other people are doing. Again, I think it’s oftentimes, can be challenging to get these institutional players to open up. You know, he brought up change his heart, Kettering. Had a wonderful line, everybody loves innovation, but nobody wants change, you know, but you can’t have innovation without change. And I mean, even that narrative, I’m not necessarily a believer that Dayton has a history of innovation more so I believe it has a history of invention. And I think we confuse the two, not that they’re 100% polar opposite from each other. But I think when we articulate this was the Silicon Valley of electromechanical engineering, 120 years ago, but it was much more about that invention. You know, not that there wasn’t certain innovations that took place here, but it’s a completely different mindset. You know, innovation tends to be an expansion, and innovation tends to invention tends to be a narrowing. You know, you’re going for a certain goal. You’re trying to invent an airplane. Doesn’t mean you can’t be creative, but you know what you’re trying to do, and it’s do you have the the technology and the creative curiosity and intuition and perseverance to keep trying to till you get it right? And so I think again, you know, getting more people who are have less indifference and more passion, are willing to take risk here. I think we would benefit from, from opening that up, you know, as part of the DNA of our community.
David: I think like too, like people, you know, if you were inviting your friends to town and you went to porch fast, right, and you’re just walking around this really cool neighborhood, beautiful houses like, you know, just such a sense of community. Everywhere you look, just people have a smile on their face, super welcoming. Million different types of music, and you could just walk around like, this would be a cool place to live, right Fifth Street Brew Pub’s right there. And like all of it, think it’s things like that create an experience that then, you know, make Dayton a possibility in someone’s mind of like, oh, I never thought moving to the Midwest to this city might look or feel like that, but that would be cool, right?
Peter: But the experience is really relational. And I think when you talk about those kinds of experiences, what makes porch fest valuable? What makes it a wonderful experience is the people that you’re walking around with there. I mean, you can go there, not know anybody, and meet some people, but you know whether you’re going to some of the great restaurants here, or whatever it is, it’s still about, it’s still about making those connections and feeling connected. And in the context of we got these cool things, and just imagine we have that rooftop go kart track, which, in and of itself is a talent attraction and talent retention strategy, again, part of telling that story, because there’s, you know, my tagline for Dayton is Dayton, Ohio. It ain’t cool, but it’s got a lot of cool shit and, and I think that, and let’s own it. I mean, frankly, owning the fact that we’re not cool is kind of cool, but we do got a lot of cool shit here, but nobody’s talking about, let’s go to Dayton because, because it’s not cool. But when you bring your friends here, if you had them here for a couple days, for a weekend, they’d leave say, oh, man, I didn’t know Dayton was so cool. Because partly you got a good vibe. You got a good vibe.
Peter: So I do think we have an opportunity to try and get more people coming to some of the amenities that we have downtown. And again, it’s it gets everything we do is really relational. At the end of the day, all these projects that you see here, I mean, they can only happen because we have relationships. The people we who walk through our door have relationships. And these, you know, and the onus is on us to develop concepts that are really unique and compelling that people want to be a part of, or if they don’t want to be a part of it, because I don’t know, they’re going to tell their they’re going to tell their sewing friends, this is something you need to get involved in right?
Evelyn: Yeah, I always like to think, like, oh, there’s seven degrees of separation. But in Dayton, it’s like two degrees of separation, right?
Peter: You can right away. That makes things a lot easier. I mean, it is a very, it is a very welcoming community in a lot of ways. Mean, there’s plenty of positives here. I’m not, I mean, I get up every day figuring out how we’re gonna make it a better place. So, but if we’re not intellectually honest about what is really going on here, I do think at times, we we have a lot of false narratives about the community, and we think we’re something that we’re not.
Peter: We need to celebrate the talent and the assets that we have for which, again, gets back to the well being initiative, and this belief that when you experience well being, you have a chance to realize your potential.
Evelyn: Well, there is one last question that we ask all of our guests, which ties back to the name of the podcast, but what’s the future that you want to create?
Peter: Well, I’ll be a little redundant, but I want to see a community of well being where everybody is experiencing well being and has an opportunity to realize their potential this. This needs to be a community of dreamers and doers who are coming together to celebrate the arts, to celebrate technology, to celebrate recreation, to celebrate education, to be collaborative and really build a build a thriving region that people want to move to and stay in. I think that’s number one. And, you know, I want to see a community that can think outside of the box and put a go kart track on top of the Transportation Center garage, because I think it can really drive an authentic new narrative for Dayton as a catalyst for a place that’s really doing cool shit. I mean, there’s just, there’s, there’s so much talent here, just that’s bursting at the seams. And so let’s continue to celebrate the talent, and let’s get some big ideas, and let’s make Dayton the best place that it can be.
David: Love it. Thank you so much, Peter.
Peter: Great to be here, again, and thanks for having me.
