If we want our community to be healthy, then its citizens need to step up to the plate and engage in civic participation and action, according to John Niederman, who made the exhortation Wednesday during the Huntington University Leadership Luncheon.
Niederman, the president of Pathfinder Services, Inc., shared his experiences, philosophy and vision for leadership in Huntington County and issued a challenge to the community’s leaders to create a leadership structure that “identifies and then works to strengthen the social and physical assets that are important to future growth and stability.”
He said Huntington’s future depends on a new community vision, which he said hasn’t been updated since around 2003.
“We have had some difficult times in this community, that I think many of you can understand in this room, with some of the economic decline and things that have happened with people and their struggles,” he said. “But also, I think we have had our own struggles with identity for Huntington … our identity as a positive, forward-moving community and that’s not always appearing in public perception.”
Niederman suggested Huntington residents create an opportunity to lead the future by recruiting more leaders to engage in service and civic and civil dialogue.
“We need to become much more intentional in building self-reliance,” he said. “We need to create a leadership structure that identifies and then works to strengthen the social, economic and physical assets of the community.”
Niederman added that the educational component is included in the social aspect, which he said is a critical part of the social asset.
Niederman’s words did not fall on deaf ears. A room full of some of the county’s top leaders and others from throughout the area listened intently during the presentation and several people said they found something in the speech they could take to heart.
“I thought it was very informative and very insightful, with the things John has struggled with and has persevered to come through,” said Steve Higgins, district executive of the Boy Scouts of America Wabash Valley District. “You talk to people like this and it helps energize your mission and you get to meet more people. With all the training I’ve taken in Boy Scouts, it’s all about relationships, and you have to know people – you have to be known and you have to be involved.”
Pam Fech, the enrollment manager at Indiana Tech, said she found Niederman’s talk inspiriational.
“It definitely encouraged me,” she said. “Not that I’m not involved now, but to become more involved in the community.”