From its flagship adult program to the ever-expanding network of area high schools participating in its three youth programs, local nonprofit Leadership Toledo has a far-reaching impact on the region.

“Anyone who cares about our community and wants to be a person of impact should participate in Leadership Toledo,” said board member Sara Best, who graduated from the program in 2009. “[Class members gain] just a better sense of the community as a whole and how all the key elements are interrelated and must be collaborative. It’s a chance to see a bigger picture and you recognize, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s so much good going on in Toledo.’”

The program is also great for networking, said Best, who is director of the Board Catalyst Institute at Aly Sterling Philanthropy.

“It’s great exposure for companies,” Best said. “I got to meet a lot of really cool people. It created a great learning environment.”

Leadership Toledo’s annual fundraising breakfast, set for March 15, is expected to draw more than 600 community leaders. Best will speak along with Executive Director Dave Schlaudecker, Director of Community Impact Kristina White and Notre Dame Academy student Jenny Kim.

“Because we charge no tuition for any of the youth programs, it’s imperative we raise the funds necessary to offer the students in every one of our high schools in the Northwest Ohio area the opportunity to participate,” Schlaudecker said.

A portion of funds raised by Restaurant Week Toledo, held Feb. 2 through March 2, was donated to Leadership Toledo’s youth programs.

Best’s 15-year-old son, Noah, a sophomore at St. Francis de Sales High School, is part of this year’s Youth Leadership Toledo class.

“Like a lot of the kids in the program, he’s a high achiever, gets good grades, is good at sports and a natural leader, but I can tell he is being pushed outside of his comfort zone quite a bit,” Best said.

“They are really learning how their life fits inside of a much bigger picture and how to maximize it. I see him chewing on this stuff and applying it where he’s never thought of applying it before and that’s a good thing.”

Leadership Toledo offers four programs: one adult program and three youth programs.


Students in Action
Students in Action (SIA), a component of the national Jefferson Awards for Public Service, recognizes area students for community volunteer work.

Since starting in four local schools as a pilot program in 2008, the program has expanded into 31 schools. Participating students have logged 213,000 service hours this school year.

“One of the things I think is really neat is a group of our Students in Action school leaders formed a council to get together about once a month to talk about what they’re doing and share ideas,” Schlaudecker said.

“That was their idea, their initiative and it was new this year. It’s not about competition amongst schools. It’s about all the schools getting together to do the best they can to serve their communities.”

Lake High School senior Trevor Walsh and Maumee High School senior Grant Buehrer came up with the idea for the advisory board after talking with White.

“For its first year, it’s definitely been a big step forward,” Walsh said. “It’s a growing process. It has its flaws, but every meeting we’re bringing up something new and eventually we’ll have a strong board that’s meeting on a regular basis that will create a bigger impact on SIA and at those different schools.”

Walsh, who is helping organize Lake’s first schoolwide service project in April, got connected with local nonprofit Food for Thought through SIA and now serves weekly.

“When I first started the program I knew I wanted to volunteer. I just didn’t know how,” Walsh said. “If there’s any school that doesn’t have SIA, I think they need to get it. It really is a great program and it really is getting kids involved.”

St. Ursula was recently chosen to represent the Toledo region in Washington, D.C., at this year’s national Jefferson Awards. Springfield High School represented the region last year, finishing third. The year before that it was Lake.

“I was totally blown away. It’s a huge honor,” said Kevin Shannon, St. Ursula’s director of campus ministries. “Service has always been a part of our school. It’s who we are; it’s what we do. Like Leadership Toledo, we believe very strongly it’s key that young people have leadership roles in doing service. To be recognized for something that is so important to us, on a national level, is amazing.”

St. Ursula senior Marla Kumor said her favorite part of serving is “seeing the looks on people’s faces when you help them out.”

“A little act for them can change their whole week,” Kumor said. “You don’t always know the impact you’re having on them, but it’s something.”

“[Helping people] gives you a feeling that you actually did something with your time as opposed to just sitting at home or hanging out with friends,” added St. Ursula freshman Colleen Matthews. “It’s more of a lasting feeling.”

SIA schools often see a “culture shift” occur, with service becoming something students want to do rather than have to do or introduces them to service for the first time, Schlaudecker said.

Students in Action/Youth Jefferson Awards expanded into Toledo Public Schools in 2011. Waite High School principal David Yenrick said Waite has always been a community service-oriented school.

“We’ve always tried to instill giving back to the community,” Yenrick said. “I was always raised that it’s better to give than to receive and I think it gives students a good feeling of self-esteem when they do something good. We’re celebrating our 100th anniversary next year and the theme is “100 Years of Loyalty, Tradition and Service,” so we think highly enough of service that it’s included as one of the three words to describe our school.”

The drive to serve stays with students after they graduate, said St. Ursula President Mary Werner.

“It’s laying the groundwork of what these girls will do in the rest of their lives,” Werner said.

Youth program
Youth Leadership Toledo (YLT) is a nine-month program for select high school sophomores that focuses on developing leadership, teamwork and problem-solving skills with an emphasis on exploring and resolving issues faced by the local community. This year’s class includes 53 students from 32 regional high schools working on eight service projects. Since 1998, 697 students have participated.

“What we see is a tremendous amount of individual personal growth,” Schlaudecker said. “They come to understand and appreciate their talents to be leaders.”

Kim, a 2012 YLT graduate, said she gained confidence and met a group of diverse but like-minded students through YLT.

“It was an amazing opportunity to meet more people from other schools who were passionate about the things I’m passionate about, like helping others,” Kim said. “That was what really drew me in. They’ve pushed me to be better at what I do and inspired me a lot.

“Not every single leader is going to be the same. Leaders can be outspoken or soft-spoken,” Kim said. “YLT pushed me to strive for bigger leadership positions in school rather than settling for the safe route.”

Schuyler Stupica, a sophomore at Notre Dame and member of this year’s YLT class, said she enjoyed the program from the start.

“I realized that I am a part of a very unique and empowered group of teenagers,” Stupica wrote in an email. “The first meeting was so enjoyable that the minute it ended, I already started looking forward to the next one. It was really refreshing to see so many teenagers energized to make a difference in their community, and I know I am going to learn a lot from my YLT class. I know this is going to be an amazing and unique experience, and I can’t wait to see how my leadership skills improve because of YLT.”

Kurt Elfering, a sophomore at St. Francis de Sales, said he’s learned etiquette and job interview and public speaking skills through YLT as well as met new friends.

“Everyone who has the opportunity to do it should definitely do it because it’s an awesome experience,” Elfering said.

YIPEE
Youth in Philanthropy Encouraging Excellence (YIPEE) is a program for high school juniors and seniors who are graduates of YLT. Twenty-seven students from 17 schools have spent the school year identifying issues and raising money to donate to local nonprofits. Last year, the program raised $17,500; this year’s goal is $20,000.

YIPEE offers a chance to apply skills learned in YLT, Kim said.

“It seems kind of impossible that the fundraisers we planned have as much impact, but they do. The small things kind of pile up. It’s been an eye-opening experience,” Kim said. “It’s rekindled the love and passion I have. It’s neat to see how much it’s going to impact other people and these few hours we give every other week will change so many people’s lives. It’s just so powerful.”

Adult program
The adult program is a nine-month curriculum that hones leadership skills with an emphasis on exploring and resolving local issues. This year’s class has 45 participants representing 39 organizations and working on projects with seven local nonprofits. Since 1980, 1,351 adults have participated in the program.

Kimberly Minke, a professor of psychology at Owens Community College and a member of this year’s class, said the program is a perfect complement to her role as director of Owens’ Leadership Academy.

“There’s a lot of parallels between the two programs,” Minke said. “Ideas have gone both ways. I’ve been able to bring things from the Leadership Academy to Leadership Toledo and things I’ve learned in Leadership Toledo I’ve been able to take back to the Leadership Academy.

“It’s been absolutely amazing,” Minke said. “It seems that each meeting we’ve had just exposed one new treasure in Toledo after another. Leadership Toledo is learning about all the jewels we have in our community.

“It’s a lot of time and involvement, but it’s been so worth it,” Minke said.

Applications to join the 2014 Leadership Toledo class are now being accepted. The form can be completed at www.leadershiptoledo.org or by calling the office at (419) 241-7371.

For more information, visit www.leadershiptoledo.org.

When one of your longtime suppliers tells you they are halting production of key components used in your city’s water distribution system, a mechanical infrastructure that requires on average 40 to 50 replacement meters per year, what are you supposed to do?

If you are Joe Camp, Maumee’s director of public service, you and your team put out a request for proposals for a new metering system — and you snatch up enough of those last replacement parts to see you through the transition.

That request went out in 2012. Today, licensed and bonded subcontractors are crisscrossing Maumee’s 11.2 square miles, installing new two-way electronic water meters in homes and businesses. Those new meters, from North Carolina-based Mueller Systems, use a radio frequency transmitter to send data via an external system of “repeaters” and “collectors” mounted on city property to a secure, central computer hosted by the manufacturer.

At his office beneath the landmark water tower on Dussel Drive, Camp is able to pull up on his desktop computer hourly data from daily readings transmitted from the nearly 1,000 newly installed and functioning meters.

That up-to-date data has obvious advantages. Assistant Water Superintendent Todd Walborn related how the computerized system alerted him one morning in early March to a residence where 20-gallon-an-hour spikes in water usage had been recorded the night before. Walborn contacted the homeowner and arranged a visit. On site he found a toilet in the home’s basement that had an internal leak. With the old system, based on quarterly meter readings for residences, that leak, if undetected over three months, could have amounted to as much as 45,000 gallons of water wasted, city officials calculated, not to mention a whopping water bill for the unsuspecting homeowner.

The price paid by the City of Maumee for the new system was $2.6 million, of which $1.3 million came from the sanitary sewer account, Camp said. Maumee is in the process of issuing 10-year bonds to cover the balance. In addition, the city will pay Mueller Systems $19,000 annually for hosting the meter data at a secure facility and Mueller Systems will also operate the computerized system that Maumee officials say will improve their ability to manage the municipal water infrastructure while at the same time allowing customers to budget and conserve water through its Web portal. According to Camp, the annual fee “is a very good deal for us.”

Camp said the installation of the new meters — 6,500 in total — is expected to be complete sometime this fall. At that time the customer Web portal will be activated. That feature allows customers to use their computers, smartphones or other device to monitor their water usage as a way to spot leaks and help conserve water in general. For example, Camp suggested, the system can alert a customer if water is being used in their absence, which could mean a leaky toilet or a sneaky neighbor stealing water from an outdoor spigot.

The Mueller metering system now being installed represents an upgrade that effectively leapfrogged other technological improvements in use around the country, Walborn said, including handheld electronic meter readers and so-called “drive-by” systems, both of which still require labor. Maume’s new system will put an end to water meter readers in the city. Still, no employees will lose their jobs, Camp emphasized — just a part of their job descriptions.

When asked whether there were any health concerns associated with the automated system, which uses 900 megahertz radio frequency signals once a day to transmit data from the installed devices, Camp said city officials looked into the matter and are confident no risks are involved. He referred a reporter to a World Health Organization fact sheet issued in 2006 that concludes: “Considering the very low exposure levels and research results collected to date, there is no convincing scientific evidence that the weak RF signals from base stations and wireless networks cause adverse health effects.”

Maumee’s new system is “the best way to go,” agreed Don Moline, Toledo’s commissioner of the Department of Public Utilities. Moline, whose department sells Maumee its water — more than 745 million gallons last year — said Toledo also has switched about one-fifth of its 100,000 water meters to the “radio read” type.

While Toledo also serves a number of outlying districts as far afield as Wood and Fulton counties, and Monroe, Mich., Moline said Maumee is one of the city’s biggest water customers. “We have a longterm and good relationship with the City of Maumee,” Moline told Toledo Free Press. Indeed, Moline confirmed Maumee is in the second half of a 40-year contract with Toledo for bulk water. Long contracts are the norm in a sector requiring such extensive infrastructure, Moline said.

In today’s era of advancing technologies, Maumee’s now state-of-the-art system has another built-in advantage: It is upgradable. Mueller Systems Vice President Matt Thomas said his firm, which has been in the water metering business since 1859 and has been making electronic metering systems since the 1990s, is already developing add-on features such as acoustic network leak detection and pressure management.

Thomas has spent more than three decades in the sector. He said Mueller Systems supplies utilities in some 500 cities across America and counts among its customers American Water, the largest publicly traded water company in the United States.

With this single technological upgrade, Maumee’s water meter readings will go from hen scratchings in meter reader notebooks to a mainframe in a secure facility in Atlanta, serviced by multiple powergrids and “mirrored,” or backed up, by a second facility in San Francisco. “Utilities take security very seriously,” Thomas said.

Maintenance of the Mueller equipment in Maumee will be done by Camp’s team. The meters come with a 10-year, “bumper-to-bumper” warranty and an additional 10-year pro-rated warranty, Thomas said.

Camp, who likes to say he works with 2 million gallons of water sitting above his head, said Maumee currently only bills for 90 percent of the water it purchases, meaning that 10 percent of the water is lost to leaks or “slow” meters. While Camp said the 90 percent figure has been deemed acceptable in the industry, he expects the new system to boost that to 99 percent. Camp allowed some residents may end up with a bigger water bill but only because with the new meters they will be paying for all the water they are using. When mechanical meters get old they tend to slow down, that is, allow more water flow than they register. Camp said it is only fair to pay for what you use. The new system offers customers ways to monitor that usage and help them conserve by alerting them in a timely fashion of usage spikes.

A local family in the market for a new home decided to call on a reality television series for assistance.

Jordan and Allie Darr had been renting a home in Sylvania before deciding it was time to buy. Facing some difficulties in finding the right house, they turned to the Home and Garden Television (HGTV) network’s “House Hunters” to guide them through the process.

“We signed up online to be on the show, then we did a phone interview and a video interview, and then they picked us,” Allie said. “They asked about what we were each looking for in a house.”

Finding a home suitable for all of the couple’s needs was indeed a challenge. The Darrs are parents to three boys, all under the age of 3. Additionally, both Allie and Jordan do a significant amount of their work at home — Jordan is in sales and Allie is a photographer.

Darr Family

“Jordan and I disagreed on the size of the house, and it was very hard to find a house that fit our needs for a home office for Jordan, a photography studio for me and then also room for our three boys to homeschool,” Allie said.

Kathy Willis, a Realtor with the Danberry Company, was hired by the Darrs as a buyer’s agent. Willis was eager to assist them in their effort to be accepted on the show, despite some initial anxiety.

“When Allie first asked me to be on ‘House Hunters,’ I was in shock and so excited,” Willis said. “Then panic set in as we had to do an audition tape.”

Willis realized that appearing on the show with the Darrs would be a valuable experience.

“Being a real estate agent and being asked to be on the No. 1 real estate show is pretty exciting. It was fun to see how they put a show together,” she said.

After the Darrs were accepted, filming began. The entire process of auditioning, house hunting and filming took about two or three months, Allie said.

The couple, originally from Columbus, focused on the Perrysburg area during their search.

“We like the atmosphere there,” Allie, one of the WNWO Moms on the Go, said. “We like how cute the downtown area is.”

During the process, the couple focused on a few houses that would potentially suit their needs.

“Our Realtor worked within our budget to meet our criteria,” Allie said. “I like old and vintage, and my husband likes something more functional. He likes smaller; I like bigger. He likes simple; I am looking for something more unique and unusual.”

Willis added that the filming of the show did not distract them too much from the task at hand.

“The camera wasn’t ever in the way,” she said. “Sometimes we would have to do things over a couple times, just to get the right shot of things as we went through the houses.”

The end result of the Darrs’ search cannot be revealed until after the show’s airing, sometime toward the end of March, but Allie hinted that they may be back for another appearance on HGTV.

“They do a ‘where are they now’ episode. They come back and see where the house hunters are, because sometimes [the show] leaves the viewers hanging. Right now, we’re in the process of getting on that show.”

For more information, visit the Web site www.hgtv.com/house-hunters/show/index.html.