Creating a Place Where People Matter

Troy Domine, Montgomery, BCLP 1999        
Community Development Director

Moved to Mobilize
Troy Domine may not be a native of Montgomery, but he’s spent the past 15 years working to revitalize the only rural community he and his family have ever called “home.”

In many ways, he and the community of Montgomery have grown up together. In 1992, Troy, a graduate student in Urban and Regional Studies, was looking for a job. Montgomery was looking for someone to lead its new community development initiative: Mobilize Montgomery.  Faced with impending growth from the Twin Cities, but still reeling from the farm crisis of the 1980s, the organization focused first on revitalizing its downtown. “Through the years that role has ‘morphed’ a bit. Today, we do whatever needs to be done, whether that means taking the lead or serving a support role, to build healthy community. We’re here to help…to sustain relationships and mobilize resources…to run with projects, ideas and concepts that otherwise might fall through the cracks between government entities and the private sector — often serving as a strategic communications link between agencies and even among neighboring communities.”

Gaining Input & Insight
Today, as Montgomery’s community development director, Troy serves on numerous boards and provides oversight for a variety of projects, including the recently completed downtown library renovation. While the variety of work might drive some to distraction, Troy draws energy from it, particularly from getting to know people.
Recently, he’s been a driving force in another community listening process — meeting with 75 small groups of citizens from Montgomery and surrounding towns to generate insight and input into long-range planning. He is a founding member of the Czech Area Development Committee, focusing on projects of regional benefit. As a representative of Mobilize Montgomery, he’s worked with the Chamber in New Prague to develop an annual business expo. He has been instrumental in training people on the fundamentals of business operations and in exploring how area communities might work cooperatively with Mankato State University to provide greater local access to higher education. He chaired a committee of Montgomery and Lonsdale citizens to draft a strategic plan for the school district that, among other things, is successfully passing a bond for a new school with strong support from both communities. In addition, Troy and his wife run a dance studio and a fitness center in Montgomery and are raising five children.

Creating Opportunities for Growth
What makes a citizen-leader do all of this? The answer comes from Troy’s deep rural roots. He grew up on a farm in southwest Minnesota and knew early on that he and his wife wanted their children to experience being close to the land, living in a community where people mattered. Troy’s deep affection for rural Minnesota isn’t sentimental nostalgia for the “good old days.” He knows that for rural towns to thrive they need “to create opportunities for people, quality of life, accessible leadership, and an innovative spirit to get the job done.”

Troy matches that conviction with his own record of engagement with local and regional issues. “One of the questions I come back to often is how do we retain a sense of community with the push for development from the Twin Cities?” He sees this as maintaining a balance between a community’s identity — its inner core — and the need for that community to grow and develop. For him, the inner core is all about the quality of relationships, a value that can’t be squandered in a rush to attract big box stores. “What we have working for us, I think, is that we are not desperate. We have a plan that allows us to manage our own growth, to remain in control of what happens here and not simply embrace every development proposal that comes our way.”

Leveraging Community Leadership Skills
When Troy reflects on what have been his most satisfying moments as a community leader, he points first to the work of Mobilize Montgomery. Particularly in the past six years, this group has encouraged a lot of talking about what is important. “It isn’t always pleasant; some of what we hear is controversial, but we have to listen for the sake of the common good.” That is key to Troy’s view of leadership…keeping people engaged and providing them with a sense of passion for the common good. All conversations convened by Mobilize Montgomery eventually produced a strategic plan for downtown redevelopment, which included a new grocery store, a bank, and now a library.

“The listening process built trust and confidence. We helped people see how things fit together. We had a plan that made sense. We were able to take small steps, keeping the community with us. And we had longevity in leadership — people whose commitment was true and deep. We can keep the vision out there because we know it is ‘of’ the people.”

A Legacy of Dynamic Leadership
Troy’s experience in BCLP served only to enhance his commitment to community leadership, especially understanding himself better through the eyes of colleagues in the cohort. Appreciating one’s leadership style in relation to how others approach those tasks expands the potential for leveraging the diverse gifts and talents of a group of citizens.

Troy is the first to say that the promise for Montgomery and its neighbors is not of his making alone. This is a widely shared effort of cooperation and affection for what a community can be. He believes firmly that leadership is about the process — for the tools, the talent, and the people are all out there. He also knows that any effective leader needs to be patient, to “hold on long enough for the future to take hold.”

Since the source of Troy’s commitment to rural Minnesota stems from his own experience of community life and desire to share that with his children, he takes particular satisfaction in the fact that more high school and college students are talking about how they will find their way home to Montgomery. Troy believes that this shift in attitude from “fleeing” to “returning” results from young people hearing the story of promise around the dinner table rather than anecdotes of doom and gloom. “They can see dynamic leadership at work in this town and actually feel the positivity.”

There are many ways to measure an effective commitment to building and sustaining healthy community. Troy and fellow leaders in the Montgomery area are discovering that those efforts create a legacy of belonging to a community “where people matter.”