“So, the one thing that I am concerned about and I worry about all the time is the future of towns the size of Cape Girardeau. What does a town the size of cape look like in 20 to 25 years, you know? What will our economy look like? What will our workforce look like? What do our pillar establishments look like? What kind of business attraction, economic development, workforce association do we have to put together to be the best 40,000 person town or 50,000 person town in 2025 that we can be? It keeps me thinking all the time. What is it that we have to do differently now in order to elicit a different outcome in the future?

“Personally, I’m a horrendously competitive person, and I am constantly looking at what our competitors are doing. I just see this world opening up where we’re going to have to fight for every new job, every new citizen, every new business, every new student recruited to our university. I keep a Post-It note on my computer that says, ‘Consideremus aliud,’ which means ‘let us think different’ in Latin. I just always am pushing myself to think differently about it. We as a community have incredible momentum right now. How do we build those little intricacies that people really love? Those things that really build memories about why people want to be in Cape Girardeau. That’s what I think is going to set us apart going into the future when we are actively recruiting new residents and businesses. That…that is what I think about all the time.”