The Ontario Growth Association (OGA) welcomed guest speaker Bill Sharp to its regular meeting on Thursday, April 3.
Sharp serves as Director of the Mansfield-Richland Area Educational Foundation, started by the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce. He shared with members of the OGA details of some of the foundation’s leadership programs, starting with the Young Leaders Institute founded in 1980. The Young Leaders Institute serves two high school sophomores from every public high school in Richland County. Sharp started his involvement with the Young Leaders Institute 14 years ago.
“That age group, 15 and 16 years of age, is an amazing time for these young people,” he said. “It’s just so rewarding to watch them grow.”
A second leadership program under the umbrella of the foundation is Leadership Unlimited, geared towards adults who are already leaders in their fields. Leadership Unlimited is probably the most well known program of the Chamber foundation according to Sharp, with about 700 alumni in the community.
“The goal is not to perpetuate Leadership Unlimited, but to push people out into the community to find something they find important that they can participate in,” said Sharp. “Be it as a board member of a nonprofit, running for a political office, volunteering or serving on a school board, some issue they see in the county or some opportunity they see that they become passionate about.”
Sharp also touched on a program called Inside Richland County that started seven years ago as a two-day excursion into the county rather than a 10-month program from September to June, as is the case with Leadership Unlimited. Inside Richland County runs on two consecutive Wednesdays in May and whisks program members to various locations around the county. Sharp said this year the program would be spending quite a bit of time in Ontario.
“It’s a quick look at Richland County and it’s a great opportunity for someone who’s not sure if they want to commit to the Leadership Unlimited program to have just a taste of it, to stick their toe in the water and see what it might be like,” said Sharp. “Most of all it’s an opportunity for people to get a sense of what’s happening in Richland County.”
OGA Vice President Steve McKown thanked Sharp for his attendance and noted the association is still looking for guest speakers in the future.
“If you know somebody or if you want to speak about your business, we’d definitely like to have that,” said McKown. “It’s great when people like Bill come and talk about what they do, but we also like to showcase what the businesses within our group do. If you want to speak and let people know a little bit about what goes on, just contact me.”
In other business, the OGA discussed their upcoming Annual Banquet on April 26 as well as the 4th of July Festival later in the summer. Ontario Mayor Randy Hutchinson shared information about the upcoming “Litter Clean-Up Day” on April 16 starting around 12:30 p.m, with approximately 50 youth venturing out in the community to clean up various areas.
“We’re going to hit the big areas where trash collects a lot,” said Hutchinson. “Being the first year for this we’re trying to kick it off and do it every year, so anyone who wants to participate let us know.”
Hutchinson also touched briefly on the city’s economic development, particularly the acquisition of the new FedEx facility in the Ontario Industrial Park.
“Things are looking real good out here, FedEx has read the papers and are finalizing that. They’re ready to start digging as soon as we sign the papers,” he said. “They want to start digging before we close on the property, so they’re getting pretty excited about it.”
