Love. Love for Omaha.

March 6th, 2008

I have a great deal of love for Omaha right now. I have again been reminded of the amazing potential that exists in this city. Today was the 3rd Annual Young Professionals Summit and congratulations are in order. First of all, I want to congratulate the Young Professionsals Council. They should be congratulated for keeping the fire burning for young professional issues, for building on past success and for again issuing a call to action for young professionals and our community as a whole. I also congratulate them and love them for putting on the first GREEN conference to take place at the Qwest Center…that is the type of thing that communities really need from their young leaders…AND I want to congratulate the YPC for awarding the first Young Professional Choice Award.

Congratulations to HDR for their wonderful sponsorship (they clearly get it), congratulations to the Chamber of Commerce. The people that are on the council and involved with the planning of the summit should be very proud of themselves, I think that they are doing incredibly valuable work. Probably deserving of extra special congratulations are Sean Olson who has provided strong and consistent leadership for the YPC as it has evolved over the past couple of years, Craig Moody, who served as the summit chair, and Kirsten Case-Penrod who is the Chamber staff person with responsibility for the YPC…and while I am at it Kelly Gering should get some love as well…she preceeded Kirsten and was involved with the birthing of the YPC.

The YPC also launched The Global Impact Survey today at the summit and I suggest that you all participate. The survey will provide the YPC with some very valuable data for moving forward, so participate and tell your friends to participate.

It was a just a great event, the turnout was great, and the speakers were all good (although I had to chuckle when Gov. Heineman was speaking, because I would say that he is really pretty clueless about all of this…especially if you compare the lack of state level activity in Nebraska to what Iowa has done).

Also very deserving of congratulations is Cox Communications as the winner of the 1st Young Professional Choice Award! Why am I not suprised? As someone who pays attention to this type of thing, I see Cox as one of the organizations setting the standard locally for attracting, engaging and retaining a diverse and talented workforce…they really get it. I am not sure about this, but I am guessing that the lovely and talented Tawanna Black deserves at least a little of the credit for this. Congratulations Cox!

And congratulations to those that participated in the Young Professionals Choice Award (can’t win if you don’t play):

21st Century Systems, Inc.
Anderson Partners, Inc.
Bailey Lauerman *
C&A Industries
Camp Fire USA – Midlands Council
Carlson
Cassling Diagnostic Imaging
Concentric Corporation
Cox *
Deeb Realty
Deloitte *
Envoy, Inc.
First National Bank
Frankel Zacharia
HDR, Inc.
Investment Management Group
KPMG *
LinkedIn Corp
Lutz & Company, PC
MarketSphere Consulting, LLC *
Mutual 1st Federal
NorthStar Financial Services Group, LLC
NP Dodge Company
Olsson Associates
Omaha Children’s Museum
Omaha Community Foundation
Omaha Performing Arts
Roncalli Catholic High School
SnapStone
The Harry A. Koch Co.
The MSR Group
The Nebraska Medical Center
West Asset Management