Interview with MDARD Director and Former U.P. Legislator Gary McDowell

In this episode, David Haynes sits down with Gary McDowell, current director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development. Gary also served three, two-year terms in the Michigan House of Representatives. He grew up in Rudyard, MI, where he still resides, and is a farmer by trade.

Transcript

David Haynes:

Morning, welcome to this edition of Rural Insights Podcasts and zoom videos. Today, we’re really pleased to have the Michigan Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gary McDowell. Welcome, Gary. Glad you’re here.

Gary McDowell:

Thank you so much, David. I really appreciate this opportunity and it’s great to finally hook up with you and have an opportunity to discuss.

David Haynes:

We had a little technology problems. We’ve talked on the phone. So Gary and I have known each other for years and years and years. So Gary, tell us in a couple of minutes, you grew up in the UP, and why don’t you tell our viewers about that. You grew up and you worked, and you spent your professional life and then went to the legislature.

Gary McDowell:

Yeah, I did. I lived in the UP my entire life. I still live here in Rudyard, grew up on a farm just southeast of town, oldest of 10 children. And, we still… I’m not quite involved in the farm operation anymore, but I was up to a few years ago, but two brothers still operating it and still farm the 80 acre farm, now. We grew up to approximately about a thousand acres. Kind of cutting back now, though, looking at the next chapter [inaudible 00:01:21]. Then we went up to State and met some of my… Well I didn’t meet Mitch [Irwin 00:01:26] there, but we were… Rich grew up right here in Rudyard, childhood friends. Same age, went to school together. And some of the other group up there, very active in the young Dems back at that time, back in the early ’70s, and Mitch and Pat, they went on and elected to public office.

And I ran for the Chippewa County Board of Commissioners, served 22 years on the board, the last years as chair. And then from there, I did run for state representative. Fortunate enough to win and served my three terms. I was term limited out of there. Ran for Congress. Some of you might remember that. Very close race. Lost by less than a half of a percent actually. And then been farming and just kind of taking it easy. And then this opportunity came up when Governor Whitmer got elected. I was asked to consider the job of Department of Ag. I did and went through the process and I was selected. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since, for the last two and a half years. And it’s been quite an experience. I’m really enjoying it. And it’s great opportunity to learn not just about Michigan ag, but everything that we can do to help the citizens of Michigan. Got a great boss. She really cares about Michigan, about rural Michigan. So we’ve been able to do some great things and just take some questions, I guess, David, from there.

David Haynes:

I’m ready. So the governor proposed an Office of Rural Development, I think, earlier this year. And, is that in operation? Is it funded? You and I talked about that once before. There was some concerns about funding.

Gary McDowell:

It’s not.

David Haynes:

Did it go through and did it get funded?

Gary McDowell:

No, at this time the office isn’t actually in place yet. This actually came out of the pandemic, because we’re looking at how we pivot pandemic, post-pandemic and lessons learned and we’ve seen, and especially we really came to the forefront was the lack of broadband in rural Michigan. It was… children were home. Schools were shut down. Parents, both of them working from home. And it really put us at a big disadvantage here in the rural part of the state. And we just looked at broadband is not the only thing we’re falling behind in a lot of things in rural Michigan. When you look at average incomes, we’re lower than the state level. Education levels were lower. And just the lack of opportunities in rural Michigan. So we just thought that this would be a great opportunity to actually establish an Office of Rural Development, housed in the Department of Ag and Rural Development.

We’ve had a very small role in rural development. It only was severance from the mine, the Eagle Mine in Marquette county. Those funds there was created a rural development fund, which we administrate. But we can do so much more if we look across the rural part of the state. And having this office that focuses strictly on the rural part of the state. And when we start talking about the roads, the infrastructure, schools, hospitals, everything that goes into building up the rural part of the state, we think this office will be focused just on that. And right now there is legislation working its way through the process. We’re very fortunate, Senator McBroom is taking the late in the Senate. Right now, we’re just working on the details on that bill. And once we get the office officially established, then we’ll be looking for the funding portion. And if we get the office established with the help of Senator McBroom, I believe that won’t be an issue.

But we’re just really excited about this. Think it’s a great opportunity. There’s a lot of federal dollars that are going to be coming our way and working very closely with USDA Rural Development and all of our state agencies. We will be that one office where if you’re a community in the UP, and a lot of our smaller communities, especially, just don’t have the resources. We want to work with you. We’ll navigate that maze of organizations and what you have to get through to accomplish what your goals are. And, we’re hoping that we will be that office, that go-to.

David Haynes:

I was just looking at some data from the federal government and a think tank that did a county by county review nationally on the number of people who are behind in their rental payments as the federal government deals with the eviction problem. And in very, very prosperous counties like Marquette and Chippewa, it’s above 8%, so people, I think, more than several months behind. And I think up in the Houghton area it was 11.8. And then you look at issues like childcare costs. Rural Insights, we did a study on that in the UP and 6, 7, 800 a month per kid in rural areas, excuse me, in the UP, we didn’t look at other rural areas. Although some of the types of things we could help people, besides economic development, would it help people with poverty issues and work issues and rental issues and food shortages? Would that be the kind of thing also the office would help average citizens with?

Gary McDowell:

Yeah. We don’t have any set what we’re going to be working with. It’s just issues that affect the rural part of the state. And just like with ag, we were looking at, it’s so hard to get help in the ag sector. And one of the reasons that came up is housing. We do not have sufficient housing in the rural part of the state. And that just goes for… We talk about other industries in the rural part of the state, our tourism industries, manufacturing. Housing is a big issue and it’s a statewide issue, but it really seems to be an issue in the rural part of the state. So we put together a task force at the Department of Ag a year ago, of course, when the pandemic hit, a lot of things got put in the back shelf, but we continued the whole town hall meetings across the state on this issue.

And we did put together a white paper. We haven’t got it fully submitted yet, I don’t believe, but it’ll be coming out soon, as different recommendations. And one of them that was to set up a fund just for this, to help communities, investors get that initial grant wherever they need it, to get the projects up and going. And the governor did include a portion of that in her budget. It was in Misha’s budget there. So, we’re working on that. That’s a big issue, of course. We’ve talked about evictions and that, with already when they have such a shortage of housing. We were just talking about that this morning, me and my wife, when we were sitting here having coffee about this Saturday, this moratorium was going up. And if you imagine being in that situation, where you don’t know where you’re going to be staying, where are you going to be living.

I’ve just been very fortunate not to have that situation, but think of all the people who are in that situation and what can we do to help. I mean, we just… it’s just one of those things I just can’t imagine is not actually having safe, affordable housing, especially when you have children. I mean, this is just, it’s a real crisis coming. I really hope that… come up with a solution. They can continue to extend that moratorium. That’s what the immediate need is right now.

David Haynes:

Well, during an interview that we did on Rural Insights Podcast with the City Manager of Sault St. Marie, Brian Chapman, he talked about this and the Soo does not have enough available housing, middle income and lower income housing, he said. And Marquette city just produced a study about it’s a problem there, also. Middle income and lower income. And, then we add in, we keep talking about this with legislators and others, rural areas have a homeless problem like urban, and we have a high rate of veterans that are homeless. So that would help coordinate, this office could help coordinate all these issues and help communities, especially smaller rural communities and larger ones like the Soo and Marquette and Houghton, Iron Mountain. Right? Is that sort of… would it be like the coordinating office as well?

Gary McDowell:

Yeah, we would. And we’re going to start out small, but we know the need is there. And as we continue to see the need and show results, that we’ll be able to continue to grow this office and help more areas, help with more different issues, like you talk about housing. And you look at the cost of new construction and it’s so expensive. You talk about medium wage-earners, lower wage earners. They have to have help. There’s just no way that you can possibly do it on the means that you have. So we have to provide affordable housing, and we have to do that collectively as a state, as a nation. And, if we want your communities to grow, you have to have housing that people can afford to live in. So definitely.

David Haynes:

I was talking to some of my neighbors in Big Bay where I live, and they were talking to some folks up there that were told by contractors that with all the shortage and everything, there’s a four year delay, a stack of jobs, but it’s now $400 a square foot for just a medium structure, everyone’s observation, we were all sitting around over coffee, actually it was over cocktails. Everyone was saying, middle class or lower income or anybody, that’s an expensive housing in today’s market. How could you ever get to that point, if you’re a middle-class family and want to build your first house with you and your two kids.

What about the issues of minimum wage? The federal minimum wage has been the same thing for a zillion years. A minimum wage obviously impacts rural areas very much where it’s at, from both a business perspective and a worker perspective, who can’t make a living, $10 an hour, if you’re lucky enough, $10 an hour, that’s $20,000 a year. That’s got to be very hard in the UP. Other than the myth, you can live very cheaply in the UP. Everyone believes that except people who live in the UP.

Gary McDowell:

Yeah. I agree with that. You talk about the cost of living. I think the only thing that has been lower, has been housing. And that’s no longer an issue. It’s very, very expensive to go filling your car up in the UP, typically you pay more, to heat your house through the winter or whatever. We have high cost here. It’s not necessarily a cheaper place to live anymore. And, living on, like you talking about, I’m not sure what the state minimum wage is. I know it’s higher than the federal minimum wage, I guess like maybe 9, $10 an hour, but still, like you said, $20,000 a year. How do you get by on that? And then if you’re lucky enough to work, to have transportation, very little public transportation in the UP. The cost of daycare is the same. It’s very, very high. And then when you work for those types of wages, I don’t see how it’s possible to make ends meet.

David Haynes:

On the other side of the spectrum, we have the economic development forces in the UP, as well as everywhere else, looking at how to adjust the UP economies to the new economy, I guess would be the way to say it. And people working at home, small high-tech operators, there’s a big push for people to move to rural areas, so both employers and from regional. Any comments on that, on the issue of economic development in rural areas, and helping small [inaudible 00:14:15] big business, but helping small businesses survive during this new economic cycle.

Gary McDowell:

That’s one of the things that had come out of the pandemic, looking post-pandemic, just in the Department of Ag. We’re looking at hybrid situations where employees can work from home and some want to come back in the building. Some are more effective at home, but we found that we could operate our department very effectively, right across state government, from working from home with the technology. And of course with the UP, we do have the situations because of the internet not being what it needs to be, but you’re going to see more people being able to work from home. I have my youngest daughter. She’s down in Charlotte, North Carolina, and she works for a large financial institution. Been working from home. My two youngest daughters actually live there, but the one now, her and her husband just had their first child, are talking about moving back to the UP and she’ll be able to maintain her job that she has there, but she’ll be working from close to home, which they want. They both want to move back.

Her husband’s from the Soo and big family. We have a big family. And she said she wants her children to have the same thing that we had up here in the UP. She’s going to have that opportunity, it looks like. So I think that’s just going to be spreading across to other companies, people who are self-employed will be able to work from home. Yeah, it’s a great opportunity for the UP and the rural parts of the state. If we have the infrastructure to make sure that they can do that. But I think that’s a real area that we need to look at for growth.

David Haynes:

What about issues, any thoughts on issues about rural healthcare? You know, I know University of Michigan is up in Alpena now. There’s talk about them having a relationship with War Memorial in the Soo. There’s talk about it in Marquette. Still, we have rural areas outside the cities of the Soo and Marquette, Houghton, Iron Mountain, where you get deeper in, healthcare is still… Availability of healthcare and immediate access is a difficulty. Any thoughts or issues with the department you can think of that [inaudible 00:16:33] rural issues?

Gary McDowell:

Yeah. You kind of get to know all of our bandwagon there. You’re starting to talk about health care now, but there is, with the affordable health care act, right here, close to us, we have two fully qualified health care centers that provide healthcare to people in the lower incomes. And this has been a big help here. And there’s several across the UP. It’s the same thing. It’s the distance to see a doctor, to see a specialist. We’ve always had a shortage of providers. And then with the distances that are included. There’s been progress made there. And I continue to think that that’s going to continue to go forward. I know it’s a struggle for our smaller hospitals, has been for years. You see a lot of consolidation there, but we’ve been pretty fortunate to keep in our smaller communities, to still have hospitals because of the critical care portion of Medicare, which has allowed that to continue.

And I’m sure that our representatives in Congress will continue to support that program. But it’s just like everything in the UP. We have our unique struggles. And most of it is because we’re such a big peninsula with a small population. And you find that very quickly in Lansing, that you say you’re from the UP, and they’ll say, “Well, I know somebody from the UP.” And, “Well, I’m the Eastern end. This person’s in a different time zone, 300 miles away.” They kind of see us as just one neighborhood up here. Well, here we are. We’re such an expensive peninsula, with all our unique problems across the peninsula.

David Haynes:

Yeah, with only 33% of the land and 3% of the population. And in many ways, I suppose, the internet and technology helps close that, but it’s still a problem, in terms of getting things. Is there anything you want to tell us as we get to closing? I promised we’d try to keep it 15, 20 minutes so that anything you want us, our listeners and readers to know, and viewers to know about the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development [inaudible 00:18:50] you need to tell us?

Gary McDowell:

Just Department of Ag, like myself, I’ve learned so much since I’ve been there, growing up on a farm in Eastern UP and our big crop is timothy hay. You come to find out that Michigan is a real powerhouse, when it comes to agriculture. We lead the nation in many different crops. We have approximately 300 commodities grown in Michigan that are for sale, putting us right in the very top in the country, after California. And it’s a big part of our economy. Ag last year was a $104.7 billion contributed to Michigan’s economic growth. So, it’s big. It’s big in Michigan. And, we’re in so many different areas that we do. We’re mostly a regulatory agency, but I guess a good example of it is, just trying to put it in perspective. I first got the job, we had that real cold snap across the state and a state of emergency was called in Michigan, and the governor had an exercise after and what each department, what our role was.

And she picked us, MDARD first. I think she was surprised when our emergency manager got up and he said… Well, during this period of time, there was a flood actually, then with that cold snap, with the ice buildup, she said, we immediately, we had to look to make sure that our fertilizers were safe, our pesticide storage were safe, that our gas stations would be able to function with a flood, because that’s when MDARD reinspect the gas stations. We licensed all your food established through Michigan, not just your restaurants through our local health departments, but all your food processors. We had to make sure that the food supply system was safe. If you had a pet that you lost or whatever it was, making sure that the animal shelters were prepared for this, because we also inspect and regulate them. It was just if there was any like big manure lagoons and those types of things, making sure that they were safe, there’s no overflows.

It just went on and on, what our role was in this. We’re a very small department, but we have such a big role. We impact almost everybody’s life in some way every day. And, then MDARD, it’s always been truly customer service, making sure that we maintain the food and safety of animals and human health in this state. And we’re just totally committed to that. And I’m just so impressed with the 500 employees we do have at MDARD and the job that they do every day. It’s just something we all can be very proud of.

David Haynes:

Well, thank you, Gary. I always say this when I interview legislators and folks like you who are appointed to high-level positions, that it is a sacrifice on all your parts and it’s in an era when people are so questioning of government, and people who serve, it is great to hear this kind of news, especially on the day following the death of one of the great public servants. Somebody you and I were very good friends with, United States Senator Carl Levin, it reminds us how important public service is, like you’re doing. So thank you very much. And if you don’t mind, we’re going to come back to you in a couple of months and get an update on where it is with the Office of Rural Development.

Gary McDowell:

Well, thanks so much, David, thanks for the opportunity. And yes, we lost a great Senator yesterday. And like I said, we all got to know him well. He was such a personal person, and he is the true example of what public service is.

David Haynes:

That’s true.

Gary McDowell:

He was the best example.

David Haynes:

Well, thank you. I’ll let you get back to work. Get back to your family. Have a wonderful weekend. Supposed to be nice and sunny in the UP. And we’ll talk to you soon.

Gary McDowell:

Thanks so much. Bye now.

David Haynes:

Bye bye.