Young Professionals Building from Strong Foundation of Founding Members
This is the first of a 12-part series featuring young professionals in the Blue Water Area. Each month, individuals from different industries will be spotlighted.
Written by: Audrey Sochor
His doctorate of chiropractic degree fresh in hand, Dr. AJ Armbruster moved back to town in 2009 and set out in search of groups to join. He soon found out that while he was excited to return to Port Huron, many of his contemporaries left to find opportunities outside of the Thumbcoast communities hit hard by the recession.
For months Armbruster tried connecting with the Blue Water Area Chamber’s young professionals group, but didn’t have much luck. “Eventually I contacted the president of the chamber and she told me the group was out in limbo, but in transition and kind of spinning their wheels,” he said.
Shortly after the chamber president called Armbruster again and asked if he would be interested in heading the charge of restarting the group. He accepted the challenge and recruited Jackie Hanton to help him. A Michigan State grad, Hanton moved to Port Huron from Lapeer in 2005 to pursue a career in banking. She has since taken on the vice president role at the Community Foundation of St. Clair County.
“I said yes in a non-leadership capacity, funnily enough, and then ended up as vice president of the organization,” Hanton said, who acted in that capacity until she aged out in 2017.
The first meeting of the newly established Blue Water Young Professionals took place in September 2009. In 2011 the group broke off from the Chamber and incorporated into its own 501 c(4) nonprofit.
“I don’t think either one of us had a real good grip on how any young professionals were in the area, were there really any willing to be active,” Armbruster said. “Our first meeting we had maybe eight people and it was mostly our friends and people we had been involved with previously on other things. We had no idea really of what we were getting into. I know in the first couple years we’d be happy with twenty to twenty-five young professionals, getting them active and that would be great. Who knew we were going to turn into a group of one hundred and thirty people, but here we are.”
“I think that was the exciting thing,” Hanton added. “Our first meeting in the basement of [Shaw Chiropractic, where Armbruster works], it was mostly our friends and from there it blossomed.”
One thing helping the growth of BWYP membership was the concerted effort to connect with community leaders and key organizations, Hanton said, like St. Clair County Community College, the Economic Development Alliance, the Chamber and the Community Foundation. Soon employers started to notice the young professional scene and they wanted their employees involved.
THE VANGUARD
Community involvement is nothing new to Laura Godwin, and she was one of the first to join the group when it formed.
She joined BWYP because she saw Port Huron’s potential. Doing so allowed her to be with like-minded individuals with new, fresh ideas and she wanted to be part of helping people to hear them. “For me it made complete sense why people would want to be here. I wanted to be involved with showing off the reasons why it is an awesome place to be and bring more people back.”
Like Armbruster, the Marysville native left the area to pursue higher education. She came back in 2008 as a qualified funeral director and aftercare coordinator for Pollock-Randall Funeral Home.
Getting into funeral homes was unplanned, although it runs in her family. Both her grandma and grandpa on her mother’s side were funeral directors, as well as both her parents. “I’m a third generation, and third generation of woman, funeral director,” Godwin said. “I think there’s only one other funeral home in the country that has three generation of women, so that’s something cool.”
When Godwin went to Alma College in pursuit of her bachelor’s, she knew she wanted to study science, but it wasn’t until taking classes there she realized she was more interested in the human side of science than the biological. She also knew she eventually wanted to get her master’s, but in what?
“I had gotten into dental school, I just wasn’t super excited about it,” she said. “I was just feeling like any of the things I was considering wasn’t what I was really called to do.”
With her science-focused bachelor’s it would only take one year for her to get her mortuary license at Wayne State University, so she figured why not. “From the first day at mortuary school I was like this is what I want to do, I really like this,” she said. “As much as I didn’t want to feel that way. Long story short it combined my interest for science, but also getting to develop deep relationships with people because you’re helping them at such a horrible time.”
To enhance her role at the funeral home, Godwin later went on to earn a master’s in counseling from Oakland University. She also works as a licensed professional counselor at Colonial Woods Christian Counseling Center, where she leads the grief share support group.
During her college years, Godwin also worked on the Huron Lady and stayed on after graduation to become captain. She still pilots the boat from time to time.
“I was always drawn home,” she said. “I think it’s just in me. My mom always said our ancestors from Scotland were seafaring people, and I just love the water. I couldn’t imagine living somewhere else away from the water. For me, I knew I was going to come back just purely for that entertainment and that beautiful water.”
The Port Huron of her childhood was different than the up and coming city of today, she said. There weren’t as many nice restaurants, and storefronts saw a lot of turnover because the crowds were drawn to the mall in Fort Gratiot instead. Now the trend has reversed and young people are moving back downtown.
“It’s just neat to see the next generation, and all the things happening around downtown due in part because of the young professionals,” Godwin said.
I WILL STAY IF…
When Armbruster and Hanton created BWYP they knew they didn’t want another social networking club, but also realized they needed to let membership dictate what the group should focus on, so they held a lot of brainstorming sessions. The biggest took place in 2011 with I Will Stay If, where about 300 people joined them at Vintage Tavern.
They got a lot of good information and they used it – the group’s focus areas of nightlife and downtown enhancement, and arts appreciation and growth were born. Placemaking became a priority.
Soon the group took on events like Port Huron Art Hop, Chilly Fest Bed Races, Real Estate Roam, Kegs N Ks, as well as their biggest undertaking and longest-running project: improvements along the Black River Walk.
“We were doing that really before the downtown resurgence, and it’s awesome being able to see some of the things that people were saying [back then] and now those have come to fruition,” Godwin said.
Before BWYP took on projects like the Black River Walk and Art Hop, Hanton said the group focused on supporting existing events and other organizations. The group is also a way for young professionals to get their foot in the door and find their niche, Armbruster added. One focus of the group is getting members connected to organizations and getting involved in the community at a board level.
“It can be an intimidating environment when you walk into a boardroom with 30 other people and you’re the only one under forty – or under fifty sometimes,” he said. “So the YPs were a great avenue for a lot of people to find their way in this community.”
That sentiment is something Godwin agrees with. Young people today are focused not just on their jobs, but giving back as well. Different groups will have different perspectives and focuses, she said, but BWYP especially is good at polling the interests of the community and bringing new ideas on how to achieve goals.
“It’s important to develop a network of people who are at the same point in life,” Godwin said. “I encourage young people to not be afraid of doing new things.”
“The Rise of Young Talent in the Thumbcoast” will continue in November highlighting young professionals in the sector of non-profit and philanthropy.
