By Mark Wineka
mark.wineka@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Susan Sides still thinks of that first Leadership Rowan Class 25 years ago as a life-changing experience.

She went on a nighttime ride-along with a police officer. A pilot took her for a plane trip that gave her a new appreciation for the vastness and beauty of Rowan County. She became engrossed in a history session talk given by preservationist Ed Clement.

“Ed Clement will change the way you look at the community,” Sides says today. “It was most enlightening.”

Sides’ story has been repeated countless times since 1992 by more than 550 graduates of Leadership Rowan, an intensive, nine-month program sponsored by the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce.

When he first moved to Rowan County in the mid 1990s, Greg Edds, current chairman of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, asked what might be the best way to plug into his new home. Right away, someone suggested Leadership Rowan.

“For a newcomer, this was exactly what I needed to introduce myself to the community and people,” says Edds, who was part of the 1997 class. “… I made long-term relationships who are great friends and contacts today.”

Elaine Spalding, president of the Chamber, describes Leadership Rowan as “a deep dive” into Rowan County — a big picture overview of what’s going on, while also serving as a community and leadership development program.

The 2017-18 Leadership Rowan Class met for the first time this past Thursday. The group will go on a SIMSOC (simulated society) retreat this Thursday and Friday at the Catholic Conference Center in Hickory.

They also will be invitees, along with all graduates, to the Leadership Rowan 25th Anniversary party at the Firewater restaurant. Aug. 22. (See box).

Chick-fil-A’s Dustin Wilson, who now serves as chairman of the Leadership Rowan Steering Committee, graduated with the 2013 class.

“It was incredible,” he told this year’s group at their opening reception Thursday. “It changed my life. … Every one of you will walk away with a-ha moments.”

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Participants — there are 25 to 30 chosen each year — start off with the two-day retreat then attend nine monthly sessions touching subjects such as history, public education, criminal justice, human needs, local government, business, the economy, communications and quality of life.

The Leadership Rowan graduates also play a significant role in developing and leading the next year’s sessions.

Spalding says the real power behind Leadership Rowan springs from the participants themselves.

People bond and make lasting friendships. They take exclusive tours. If they aren’t involved already, Leadership Rowan inspires them to take leadership roles in the community or at the least makes participants aware of what’s going on in Rowan County.

There’s also an element of conflict resolution that could come into play years later when a divisive issue arises, Spalding says.

Who knows, graduates of Leadership Rowan could find themselves on opposite sides, but Spalding says their reaction more easily will be, “I know that person. We can sit down and solve that problem together.”

Leadership Rowan’s steering committee purposely tries to come up with a diverse group of people each year based on age, occupations, business sectors and ethnicity.

Spalding says it’s a program as important for senior managers as it is for young, up-and-coming professionals. It’s as much for newcomers as natives.

Spalding was a participant herself during her first year as Chamber president, as is Rod Crider this year. Crider is the new president and chief executive officer of RowanWorks, the county’s economic development arm.

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The two-day SIMSOC retreat includes provides simulation games reflecting real-life society issues. It forces the participants to communicate, show trust, solve problems and interact face-to-face.

Beyond the role playing, the retreat stresses team building and puts classmates on the road to bonding. The retreat starts on the bus trip to the retreat center and continues on the ride home.

For years, the SIMSOC facilitator was Larry Peppers, who retired three years ago. Now that job falls to Dick Hammond of Leadership on the Move! based in Ponder, Texas.

Spalding says every SIMSOC retreat is different because the people and the dynamics of the group change. Each participant gives himself or herself a nickname, partly in an attempt to describe themselves.

The nicknames also must be alliterative. Hammond is “Dizzy Dick,” for example. Spalding was “Enthusiastic Elaine.”

Through the year, the leadership class participants are given homework assignments before the monthly sessions, which are held on third Thursdays and last the whole day.

Students might have to make preliminary visits to places or conduct telephone interviews with companies as part of their research. Spalding says students have sometimes identified important issues needing to be addressed just through their homework assignments.

Prior to this week’s retreat, the group is supposed to read 32 pages about SIMSOC.

After each monthly session, the participants evaluate the day on paper, and the steering committee and the next year’s leaders use those comments for guidance.

“We’re continually evaluating the Leadership Rowan Class to make it better for the next year’s class,” Spalding says.

Two co-chairs from the previous year’s class organize each of the monthly sessions and serve as facilitators for that day. They schedule the speakers and locations and run their draft agendas by the steering committee for input and approval.

“You always want to give as much information as possible,” Spalding says of the goal.

Classes have found themselves going great heights in bucket trucks, sliding down fire poles and hiking through farmers’ fields. Each daylong session starts out at the Chamber’s Power in Partnership breakfast at Trinity Oaks.

The Leadership Rowan classmates then board a bus together and take off on their day of activities. A participant is not allowed to miss more than one monthly session or he can’t graduate. The retreat is mandatory.

The cost for Leadership Rowan is $800 for Chamber members and $1,200 for non-members. Part of the reason for having a 25th anniversary party Aug. 22 is to provide scholarships for future class members, as well as setting up a formal Alumni Association and holding quarterly functions.

•••

Ray Paradowski was president of the Chamber when Leadership Rowan started in 1992, and he gives Dianne Scott and Dr. Richard Brownell much of the credit for getting the program off the ground.

Scott had graduated from Leadership Spartanburg (S.C.) in 1985, and her experience in that program served as the playbook for the Chamber’s Rowan County version. “Dick Brownell was very helpful in getting it all started,” Scott says.

Scott, then executive director of Rowan helping Ministries, was involved in every session that first year, and for six or seven years, she attended every retreat. Scott describes herself as the “mother hen.”

“I really enjoyed getting to know the group every year,” she says.

Bob Wright, who followed Sonny Epting as executive vice president, wanted his staff to become more involved in carrying out the logistics of Leadership Rowan. Anne Orrell became the go-to person for information, as Charlene Deese of the Chamber staff is today.

Kelly Baker, deputy clerk for the city of Salisbury, was part of the 2011-2012 Leadership Rowan Class. She grew up and has worked in Rowan County her whole life, but “there were things I wasn’t aware of,” she says of what she learned. “… There was a lot I didn’t know, especially on the non-profit side.”

Karen South Jones had a similar revelation. She had grown up in Rowan County, had left for about 10 years and returned to work at the VA Medical Center.

“I still thought I knew Rowan County,” she says, “… but I realized I didn’t know as much as I thought. Beyond that, it was just fun. It was great fun. There were a lot of really neat people in that class.”

Jones was in the second class overall. She says the experience inspired her to run for the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education, and she won a school board seat.

Jones especially liked Leadership Rowan’s law enforcement session, and today she finds herself working closely with the courts and law enforcement through her duties as executive director of the Youth Services Bureau.

She also was impressed with a session on Rowan County agriculture. “I had no idea how much was grown and raised here,” Jones says.

Jones made lasting friendships and connections through Leadership Rowan. “It’s almost like going to college together,” she says.

Even though he had lived here for 20-plus years, Gary Blabon says Leadership Rowan taught him a lot about Rowan County’s history, the inner workings of city and county government and things unique to Salisbury.

Something that really stuck with Blabon, a member of the 2015-16 class, was a history presentation on the Freedman’s Cemetery for African Americans at the corner of Liberty and Church streets.

“That blew me away,” Blabon says.

He also enjoyed the law enforcement day, in which the class was able to tour the county jail and hear from Rowan County Sheriff Kevin Auten and some municipal police chiefs.

Blabon is senior director of professional and support services at Novant Health Rowan Medical Center, which believes strongly in Leadership Rowan and routinely has at least two people in each year’s class.

Wilson, the head of Leadership Rowan’s steering committee, told this year’s participants they definitely will be nervous going in.

“But you will absolutely love it,” he added. “… It’s a big county. There’s a lot going on.”

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263.