On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares insights from recent tours of Ellis County's largest employers.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
James Bell
Few of the largest enterprises in Ellis County have a significant impact on the area economy. Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to share some of those insights on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Fort Hays State is the crown jewel of western Kansas, we got to tour the three new buildings to three, three newest buildings on campus. I was just blown away by what all they have down there, and how nice and just effective and what a wonderful resource those buildings are. To the art department, the technology department and the Center for Student Success and just amazing buildings. You just go in and you don't feel like you're in hate, you know, you feel like gosh, I shouldn't be in a metropolitan area, or huge university someplace, but it's right here and it's impressive. Yeah,
James Bell
yeah, I really like about all of the construction they've done because I was I was on campus there when they started with the with Hammond Hall, and kind of that whole process. I love that the new buildings the the the consensus, the goal is to make them look like they're part of the old campus. You know, there's an aesthetic there that I just I can't think of another college and I've ever been on to that really does that.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well they've done a terrific job of maintaining the limestone construction, you know, the same building materials and and the look and feel with with some modernization. And of course, the art area, they use the old power plant and being a lifer here in Hayes. I remember that powerplant, my granddad used to work there. And I used to go down there when I was a kid, and walk through there with him. And that was longer ago than I'd like to think. But they, they were able to restore that building, at least the exterior structure and things keep the bill brick and that kind of thing is really cool how they did that. So it they have done an amazing job. And we can be very proud of, of what we have there. And what a wonderful asset it is to western Kansas and to Ellis County in particular, to have that type of an institution there. It's it's just tremendous.
James Bell
Absolutely. You know, I love then it's and I know, it's not a haze, exclusive thing, but there seems to be just such an undercurrent here of people wanting to reutilize those historic structures, those old buildings and I love that we do that in Fort Hays is done that I think is in modern history, at least has absolutely much as they can.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
They have, you know, as I said, the old power plant they use for that the library's the next project with the grant that they recently received a $17 million grant, I believe it was, and they're going to be renovating the library, but I don't think they're going to be changing a whole lot on the exterior. I say that they probably aren't going to do a fair amount to it, but but they're going to maintain the spot they're going to maintain some of the the structure and things and so they'll continue that look and feel and and you know, really the only other a couple buildings on campus that aren't of the limestone, I think domanick Hall is, is maybe non limestone and things but I tell people this all the time I would I would compare our campus to any other anywhere really, in terms of the look and quality of a campus is is just really second to none. And I mean even big schools and, and division one schools and it's just an amazing place.
James Bell
Absolutely. And I love talking for hates, everybody knows I went for Hayes and big champion of everything they do down there. Well, I
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
went there to just not the whole ride. I got sidetracked along the way college algebra. As I told the group the other day, college algebra ended my college career. And however I told them in the Center for Student Success, they have an area for tutoring, and they bring in tutors. And it's a great spot where kids can come in and get the help they need. I'm sure something like that was probably available when I was there, but I didn't find it. And if I were to go back, I might have gotten through college algebra and continued my college career path. But that didn't happen. So kids have a much better opportunity today to utilize those resources.
James Bell
Absolutely. Hey, and I'll share this with you Doug. If you keep it between you and me. College Algebra. I took it six times six before I finally got
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
through sixth time's the charm.
James Bell
Everybody knows to I was in college forever. I was there for dang decade. It was amazing. Probably why I love it so much. Why
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
ever leave? Yeah, exactly.
James Bell
But, you know, four days, you know, and that's it. That's a showcase piece. And it's easy to point to that but you had some opportunity here in the last week to go through some of the large employers here in Hays and, and really kind of see what they do as well, right? We did
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
yesterday, Scott, the plant manager at EnerSys was good enough to give us a tour of intercepts and I had never been in there. That's one of the really cool things about this job I have is that I get to go in some places that I've never been. You know, I mentioned I've lived here all my life. I remember very well when it was traveling all and you know it was our Our largest employer at that point in time, but I was never in the physical plant. I've been in the front offices. So yesterday, we got to take a tour of the entire place. And wow, it's it's an impressive place as well in a different kind of way. Because it's hardcore manufacturing going on in there, you know, plant floor and Fire, fire deals, melting lead, and pouring lead into forms and then turning it into batteries, ultimately, big batteries and things. But what an impressive place and just shows we've got a lot going on here. I've had tours of brands, I've had tours of Glassman, we have some really impressive has. We had some really impressive businesses here that are doing some amazing things right under our noses. And I don't think we realize it sometimes just how impressive these things are.
James Bell
Yeah, absolutely. I was even I had a conversation with my wife not too long ago. And matter of fact, we were talking to nurses, we knew they make batteries, but like what they actually do, we don't know. And it is it's so easy to overlook those those major employers Hays med is another one here in Ellis County that really helped drive our economy, but they're kind of you know, you don't think about a lot of them frequently, maybe his med is a bad example. Because you do. Most people out there though
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
maybe higher profile in the community. But you know, in our system, we talked about this yesterday, they're kind of on the edge of town. And so you drive by that building all the time, but you don't really think about what goes on in there unless you have some reason to either know, somebody that works there or having worked there before. But it's an impressive operation. And they, they produce some amazing products to get used all over the world. I mean, these batteries, these are not your car batteries. These are industrial type batteries that are used for backups of telecom systems and computer data centers and that type of thing. Even utility companies use them nuclear power plants use them for their backup, because they want to have backup power if they have to shut down the plant for some reason or another. So these products are used everywhere. And they're made some I mean, they have multiple plants but least these are made right here in Hays America.
James Bell
I love that are we're literally, you know, building the things that are driving the world.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well, at some level we are, you know, I know tronics makes parts for the the auto industry and for General Motors and the big car manufacturers and cross Of course, I'm not sure exactly what all they make products for, but their products are used all over I know. And RANS my gosh, he's, he's got airplanes all over the world. And he's been at it a long time out there, Randy and his crew and they do a terrific job as well. So pretty special stuff goes on here.
James Bell
Yeah. You know, from a truly economic standpoint, I wonder, you know, how much of our economy is driven by those large employers? And I don't know where you draw the line on large. But, you know, those are the ones who are most talking about
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
the end. You're right. The definition of large is always interesting. When I was back into computer business and working with IBM, they called small businesses, anything under 1000 employees. Those were small businesses. Well, they're not small to us. But those employers are critically important to our local economy, and they contribute a lot. You know, Fort Hays, state Hays med EnerSys has Glassman RANS, all of those cross, they all contribute a lot of dollars in employment to our community. Unfortunately, they're all facing the same problem right now is finding people. That's that's the real challenge. The biggest challenge that they face, you know, I'm talking with the Scott at an intercessor. He also talked about supply chain issues, you know, they have been challenged with supply chain issues and trying to get products and, and it's a process. So when you lose one piece of the chain of manufacturing something, it gums up the whole work. So it is some challenges, some challenges, but I think employer employees are their biggest challenge to find good qualified employees.
James Bell
You know, and that's something we talk about quite a bit. And one of the driving factors on that is housing here in the area. And from what I understand there was a reason how recent housing study done by the city of Hayes, I wonder if you want to share some of the insights from that? Well,
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
there was the city page recently completed a housing study. The document Institute did a housing study forum and in a company called rd G did a supplemental study. And it showed us basically kind of what we already know that we have a shortage that we have under built for quite some time. And it's put us in the hole in terms of available housing and thus our ability to recruit the workforce is challenging, because we don't have any place for him to live, whether it be a very white collar person that's looking at our community health care provider or a college professor, school team. Teacher, or somebody that's got a skilled laborer that's looking to go to work for one of these manufacturers that we're talking about, they have to live someplace. And we have not built enough homes over the last 10 years to meet the need. And then if we want to take advantage of this urban migration that's taking place over the next five to 10 years, we're gonna have to really ramp it up. So we have some real challenges ahead of us if we expect to continue to have any growth and do better than we have done.
James Bell
On that same note, though, there are some positive actions going on here in Ellis County that are designed to alleviate some of those shortages, right?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well, we're obviously the heart of America development out and Tallgrass is 36 homes that will be added to the market. The Ellis Estates is adding 42 units to the market out there. And there's other projects that are in at least a conceptual stage. So absolutely, we're looking at solutions and trying to get new housing going. We couldn't have picked a worse time to try and build things. Because the construction industry has labor shortages as well, costs are higher than they've ever been escalating interest rates mean, we could talk all day about the challenges really doesn't matter. We've got to figure out solutions, because we've got to provide housing for people that might want to move into this area. So we're just going to have to do
James Bell
- You know, as we heard earlier from again, from the city leaders here on our City Commission recap on the show. There's another IRH ID that they approved to hear. But I guess yesterday
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
last night, yes, I didn't mention that in terms of stuff under construction. But Mike Graham is going to build 33 or 36 units at the corner of fourth and fort. That will add obviously 36 units, by my estimation, we're probably four to 500 units short, in our current housing supply. I say that because our vacancy rate is virtually non existent right now. And, you know, we've got about 9000 units in our community, a healthy vacancy rate would be five or more. So if you do the math, you come up with, you know, anywhere from three to 500 units that we could use. And it also would help other landlords be a little bit more motivated to upgrade what they have. Because there's no motivation to fix things, or to upgrade properties, or even to possibly knock down properties and put something new up, so long as you have a rental market where everything rents. And so if we can add properties to the market, we'll see some of that kind of thing take place. And that's a good thing that's healthy for a community to to go through that process. It's not healthy, to not have places for people to live when people want to move here. That's not a good situation. We need to resolve that.
James Bell
You know, we've talked about this so much. But I wonder if you want to put kind of a timeline on it. And I know that we we both frequently say this, it never moves as fast as you want. But I'm wondering at what point do you see that here in Ellis County, we might get past that kind of crisis point in the housing and move into that place where we're in a, at least a stable and positive looking outcome.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
I think even if all the projects we have on the board would occur, we're still two or three years away from getting to the point where we have adequate inventory maybe longer simply because it takes to a couple of years to take a project from concept to reality or longer to get things built. So we're still two or three years away from having any hope of resolving some housing issues. So it's going to be an ongoing thing for quite some time. Oh, we're gonna get there. We absolutely are.
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