Small Town, Giant Aspirations
Nevada (pronounced Ne-VAY-da), Mo., is in many ways a typical small town in America. Although it is technically a city because of its government structure, Nevada, with a population of around 9,000, is a snapshot of the Midwestern rural community,close-knit and hardworking, filled with farms, quaint family-owned restaurants and retail shops.
Nevada is also unique. Despite its rural location, Nevada has embraced IT with the forethought and effort of an urban metropolis. The city government, local businesses, education centers and private citizens have marched forward on the Internet with an aggressive attitude, defying the notion that the Digital Decade has bypassed small towns.
Want proof? Yahoo, for example, selected Nevada as one of the 50 "Most Wired" communities in America in March 2000. And last year, the World Teleport Association named the city as one of the group's Top Seven Intelligent Communities,worldwide. Seemingly against all odds, Nevada has become a fertile patch of wired businesses, e-government and steady Web surfers.
Its citizens have evolved with the times, as well. Today, a city employee who used to read water meters as part of his job now builds server networks. A former school teacher became the head of the city's high-tech center, which serves as the beating heart of the town. And business owners with a passion for progress are reaching opportunities with the Internet that were once considered unattainable.
Last month, VARBusiness associate editor Rob Wright packed a suitcase and hopped a flight from Boston to take a closer look at how Nevada's business community and government have embraced technology,for the most part, amazingly, on their own,where the city is headed and what it all means for the solution-provider industry hoping to mine opportunities in SMBs. One thing's for sure: Any preconceived notions you have about a small town's use of technology are about to be tossed in the cornfields. (For Rob's Web diary of his trip, click here.)
Technology Boom
Nevada bears a familiar landscape, with numerous churches, a baseball field and a tall, distinguished-looking courthouse surrounded by family-owned businesses in the downtown square. Nevada also touts a high-tech center that rivals the resources of most colleges and universities.
But, while Nevada is thriving today, that wasn't always the case. In 1991, the city's state mental hospital closed, leaving hundreds of Nevada residents jobless and the local economy in shambles. Other employers exited as well. The unemployment rate of the city, which had historically been lower than the state and national averages, soared to 10 percent. "There was a lot of pessimism here. "The city was like a ghost town," says Mary Reinert, a former school teacher and librarian in Nevada. "Instead of just going out and finding another employer to build a factory, we decided to solve the real problem."
Government officials, community leaders and members of the Nevada Area Economic Development Commission (NAEDC) decided on a new approach that would focus on improving education and job skills for the city's workforce. The tool to deliver the solution, they decided, would be the Internet.
In 1995, former Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan agreed to donate much of the abandoned state hospital complex to the city to use as a technology center. The University of Missouri-Kansas City Computer Science Telecommunications Program met with Nevada leaders and, as part of a grant program to assist rural areas with technology, installed a T1 line in one of the abandoned buildings, connecting the university with Nevada's R-5 public school district. As interest grew in the Nevada "TeleCenter," more partners, such as Southwest Missouri State University and Nevada's Cottey College, signed on to offer college courses and adult education through interactive classrooms. In addition, several local businesses and major employers donated money, technology and furnishings.
The TeleCenter, which opened in the fall of 1997, quickly became a pulsating oasis of education and IT resources for the city. The classrooms throughout the 70,000-square-foot building filled fast, with waiting lists to boot. Today, what looks like an ordinary brick and concrete building on the outside boasts interactive televisions, digital projectors, and numerous PCs and servers that are housed in nearly 20 classrooms. The TeleCenter offers everything from National Guard training to nursing and health-care education.
"The Internet, and the TeleCenter especially, has had a huge effect on Nevada," Reinert says. Although she retains the look and feel of a classic school teacher with her caring tone and optimism, she now presides over a much larger educational institution, having served as coordinator of the Nevada TeleCenter since 1997. "It's better than just another factory coming to town because, eventually, factories pick up and move. Now, we have job skills and education."
Major employers, such as 3M, also use the center's IT resources to train new hires. The TeleCenter staff has helped farm owners to better leverage technology,everything from using Quickbooks for accounting on their PCs to digitally mapping their farmlands. And sometimes, people come to the center simply to use the public computer lab.
Businesses Reach Out
The TeleCenter planted a seed in Nevada that grew quickly. Soon, businesses began to see the Web and IT as a way to improve their operations and expand their reach beyond rural Nevada. On the counter at a local retail shop, don't be surprised to find the latest touch-screen point-of-sale system rather than an old-fashioned cash register. On the wall at a local restaurant, stock tickers on CNBC and technology news replace sports highlights and trashy daytime TV shows on a big-screen television. Perhaps most impressively, the unemployment rate in Nevada is down to around 2 percent, thanks in large part to the job skills and IT training offered at the TeleCenter.
Vinyard Farm and Home Supply in Nevada is a prime example of just how much the community has changed over the Digital Decade. Owner Phil Vinyard says his family-run business started out selling strictly farm supplies. Recently, after succeeding his father as manager, Vinyard brought in a Radio Shack outlet and began selling computer parts, peripherals and cellular phones. "There's been a massive cultural change here in Nevada," he says. "We're much more technology-intensive today."
In addition to selling technology, Vinyard bought quite a bit of it himself to drag the family business into the 21st century, adding Unix servers, handheld computers and PCs to automate and organize the store's operations. It's quite a change for Vinyard, an imposing figure who once studied the ministry at a Massachusetts seminary. These days, you'll find him in his office running sound-editing software on his PC to produce his own radio commercials, which he then burns to CDs for the local station. "People come into the store all the time quoting those suckers," Vinyard says.
Jeff Tweten is no stranger to technology, either. The Nevada native used to run Global Web Systems, a small solution-provider business. Tweten and partner Steve Highlander developed many of Nevada's Web sites for both local businesses and the government. "A lot of us got excited early,too early, but I think it's come around now," he says in his downtown office near the Main Street square. "It's ironic, in a way. The Internet boom is supposedly over, but we have more people on the Web and using computers [now than we did two or three years ago."
Tweten sold off his share of Global Web Systems last year and is now vice president of sales and marketing at Lumber Buddy, a new company started by his brother Jamie that manufactures a patent-pending portable lumber-stacking device. Tweten's IT experience and knowledge of small businesses from Global Web Systems come in handy at Lumber Buddy: The start-up features an e-commerce Web site and has customers in nearly 40 states and Canada. Tweten uses the Internet for the bulk of his business communications, as well as to connect to his brother, who runs Lumber Buddy in Seattle. In addition, Tweten uses the Web to price-hunt, locate buyers and suppliers, and communicate with partners and customers.
Meanwhile, Tweten's former partner, Highlander, still does Web-site development in Nevada and says more businesses today are looking to harness the Internet and IT. "Small businesses know that they can manage their businesses remotely through the Web and expand their presence," he says.
Do-It-Yourself Mentality
Not resting on their laurels, business leaders in Nevada strive to keep the IT movement fresh. Tweten serves as the chairman of the NAEDC, which formed a technology task force in February 2001. That was a major milestone, Tweten says, because it brought together IT people from Nevada and surrounding counties to exchange ideas on improving economic development through technology and the Web.
Like Tweten's Lumber Buddy, the Nevada business community has been forced into a do-it-yourself approach for IT, performing most of its services itself, piecing together its own solutions and relying on word-of-mouth advice for technology-buying. While some solution providers operate in Nevada and surrounding regions, the lack of presence from technology sellers and service providers leaves the city in a pinch for both the necessary tools and expertise to keep itself on its remarkably progressive path. "In a small town like this, you have to take your destiny in your own hands," Tweten says, "because if you're waiting for the big tech suppliers to come to a place like Nevada, you'll be waiting a long time."
Adams and Associates agrees and isn't waiting around. Owner Jim Adams says the Web has allowed businesses such as his 25-year-old architecture and consulting firm to remain based in small-town Nevada while reaching clients across the nation. Still, Adams says he has never used a reseller and can't remember the last time he contacted a vendor to purchase the technology or solutions his company uses. Most hardware is bought online, such as the Macintosh computers that fill his office, and every solution is homegrown. "Everything here we invented ourselves," Adams proudly declares.
Adams' son Jeremy, who previously worked for Nortel Networks and has a master's degree in computer science, is assisting his father's business this summer. He sees a wide gulf between larger urban areas where enterprise-buying is plentiful and smaller towns such as Nevada. "There's a lot of potential to make money here and in places like Nevada, but I don't see technology companies taking a small-business approach," he says.
Adams considers the 3M plant in Nevada an "anomaly." Few tech companies bring IT jobs to the area, and even fewer bring actual technology or solutions, leaving residents to travel more than 90 miles to Kansas City for IT. A handful of VARs have traveled to Nevada and won customers, such as Jack Henry and Associates (JHA), a solution provider based in Monett, Mo., that specializes in solutions for banks and credit unions nationwide. It currently serves one of the four banks in Nevada.
Kevin Williams, CFO at JHA, grew up in Nevada and sees much potential in small towns and businesses. "We've seen a lot more growth and spending in rural communities and small towns compared with the larger urban areas," he says. "You just don't have the economic decline and layoffs in the small towns." Still, Williams says areas like Nevada often go unserved by technology companies.
Part of the problem is a lack of high-speed access, business owners say. Nevada is currently on a waiting list to get DSL consumer service from SBC Southwestern Bell, a roadblock that has stinted the growth in Internet use within the city. Residents and business owners are struggling with slow dial-up access in their homes and offices. City officials and economic leaders within the Chamber of Commerce and NAEDC have tried in vain to attract a DSL provider to Nevada. Yet, despite the high demand,as many as 80 percent of residents are online, according to city estimates,Nevada has fallen victim to being passed over for broadband service, just like other less-wired rural areas.
Government Gets Involved
The past three years may have deflated the Internet economy, destroyed the dot-com bubble and put telecommunications giants on the endangered-species list, but, during that same period, Nevada's city government grew like never before. Three years ago, Mark Mitchell was part of the building inspection team and spent much of his time reading water meters. At that time, City Hall had three computers and no network.
Mitchell, like many Nevada residents, took the initiative. With the do-it-yourself spirit that permeates the city, he studied IT relentlessly and constructed a network from scratch for City Hall that includes 21 systems. Mitchell soon became the IT specialist for Nevada's government. Now he spends his days monitoring the city's extensive network, hopping from office to office and building to building with his trademark red hair and wide smile.
Like the TeleCenter, the Nevada City Hall looks like a typical, bland government building on the outside, but inside it's brimming with excitement and innovation. The city government staff has bigger aspirations besides having a network with the latest and greatest PCs and midrange servers. For example, the city is near completion for its "paperless government" plan. Document management had become an overwhelming burden on the city staff during the past year. Documents from various boards, commissions, offices and a steady stream of meetings led to an exponential increase in paperwork. "We were drowning," says City Manager Craig Hubler .
Hubler, Mitchell and City Clerk Robin Fisher began digitizing every paper copy they could find and constructed a document-management system for all government data. Now, the city has a database of meeting minutes for its numerous boards and commissions, and the entire city code is available online. City officials can quickly download sections of the city code on their PDAs, which also house city budgets, ordinances, meetings and addresses. "I was at a city clerks' convention awhile back, and we were asked how many of us were running a paperless system," Fisher says. "I was the only one to raise my hand."
With the exception of broadband, the tools, services and solutions at City Hall are impressive and entail a wide variety of elements. The city staff gleefully shows off their "toys," such as Dell servers running Windows 2000, an IBM AS/400 system for payroll, budgets and billing, and even a few digital cameras (one of which was kindly loaned to this reporter during his stay in
Nevada). Mitchell, himself, installed Linux-based firewalls and constructed many of the software solutions, and Fisher is currently working on constructing a city personnel database.
Hubler doesn't know the exact dollar figure spent on IT in the past five years, but says it could be somewhere around $50,000. All IT products, however, were bought off-the-shelf or online. Hardware purchases are made through retailers such as PC Connection, while software is bought and downloaded via the Web. Installation and implementation tasks are handled in-house by Mitchell, Fisher and others,not because the city doesn't want to spend dollars on solution providers, but simply because no one has come looking for the job. The city government,like the business community,has become painfully accustomed to building its own solutions and ordering the parts online with "some assembly required" in fine print.
"Businesses could make a killing here because there's so much room for growth," Mitchell says. "We've done a lot, but it's all duct-taped. If an IBM, Microsoft or Xerox were to come and give us some help, we'd get things done that much faster and better."
The lack of both broadband and interest from technology providers isn't worrying the city government too much right now, though the staff realizes it'll have to work hard to stay with the IT industry's evolution. Once high-speed access becomes available, Mitchell foresees a more advanced local government, complete with Web collaboration and knowledge-management solutions, videoconferencing, high-end database searches,the works.
Hubler's shirt, tie and neat haircut stand out in Nevada, but his determination and resolve is commonplace in this small town. If the city can't get broadband, he says, it'll turn its attention to something else, such as backup and data-recovery solutions and more advanced storage systems. With most of Nevada's government operations and data stored online and in various servers throughout City Hall, staff members realize it behooves them to create a backup system in case of a fire, natural disaster,or worse. In addition, Hubler and the rest of the staff see enormous potential for wireless. "The Internet has allowed us to make major improvements in customer service," he says. "When we get G3 mobility, we'll be able to use technology in more of our field operations."
The city staff makes one point clear: With or without broadband, Nevada isn't going to stand still. Mitchell says city officials will continue to do what they can with dial-up and find creative ways around slow Internet speeds. "That's why we're on the map. We do so much with so little," Mitchell says with contagious enthusiasm. "When we get broadband...whoa, watch out!"
What's Ahead?
Besides broadband, what does the future hold for Nevada? Many business and community leaders say the most influential changes brought on by IT are still to come. Sam Foursha, director of economic development for Nevada and a member of NAEDC, believes the Internet has fundamentally changed the city since the TeleCenter was first created. He believes that the promise of high-speed access will only accelerate the shift. "If we had broadband access, the city could attract more businesses and people who want to live in a quiet town and work remotely through the Web," Foursha says. "You can live in a place like Nevada and still work worldwide."
Kathi Wysong, executive director of the Nevada-Vernon County Chamber of Commerce, also sees potential for growth in Nevada. A quiet, scenic community with a low cost-of-living and an excellent, resource-rich public school system may begin to attract more educated young people who usually migrate to larger urban areas. "Nevada has a lot to offer," she says, walking around a scenic neighborhood near the Nevada Country Club.
Community leaders and city officials know the city will need better tools to continue its growth as a technology-savvy community and stay ahead of the times. It will take more IT expertise, improved Internet speed and better access to new technology and solutions. While Nevada has been overlooked in the past, its people are optimistic today,and they have no intention of letting the progress slow.
"Our job now is to keep recruiting people and businesses to the area," Adams says. "We created a new market here, and now we have to keep it going."
Technology and Small Town America, Day 1 in Nevada, Mo.