#03: Community Engagement and Leadership

Steve Gasser (00:00.93)
Welcome to the remarkable podcast. I’m Steve Gasser and today I am thrilled to introduce my guest Mary Hodson Mary is a former chamber president who brings sparkle and energy everywhere she goes She recently launched launched her own business Hodson Solutions And I’ve had the privilege of calling her a good friend for over 15 years together We’ve started initiatives like leadership 2.0 a two-year

Well, a second year version of the successful, long-running chamber leadership programs. Mary is one of those people who always makes you think and sometimes stirs things up. I like to, I’m going to call her an instigator and we’ll talk about that as we’re getting into this podcast a little bit more. So let’s dive into her story and learn a little bit more about, a little bit more about Mary. All right, Mary, thank you for being here.

Mary Hodson (00:52.793)
Thank you, I just want to wake up every morning and have you introduce me to the world. Can we do that? I would love that.

Steve Gasser (00:58.886)
that be nice? You probably even sparkle more every day.

Mary Hodson (01:03.683)
Well, I sparkle more times than others.

Steve Gasser (01:06.276)
Yeah. So for our listeners, tell us a little bit more about who you are and kind of your journey.

Mary Hodson (01:11.983)
Yeah, so Steve, as you know, I was the president of the Hutchinson Chamber for 12 years. And I came to that very organically. I had been part of nonprofits for a while. And then the opportunity arose for a group of humans to hire me. I love saying that because I know you’re one of them.

Steve Gasser (01:35.27)
There’s some remarkable people that hired you. Boy, they made a good choice.

Mary Hodson (01:38.275)
There were remarkable people that hired me. And one of them said, we don’t want a five-year Mary. We want a 10- or 15-year Mary. So I cut the difference in half and went for 12 years. But in that, knew there were things. I knew it was time for me to move on. I just knew that. That wasn’t a question for me. But what I was going to do next or what I’m going to do as I grow up, that was a question. I didn’t know what that was going to be, right?

Steve Gasser (02:03.91)
is still figuring that out. Yeah.

Mary Hodson (02:05.343)
Still figuring that out. when it was time, I wanted to take the things that I love doing and find a way to make those continue to happen for me because I love connections and relationships with people. And I found that the business environment was one I really enjoyed working in. I love watching entrepreneurs, nonprofits. I love aha moments. I love adult aha moments.

when they, if we’re in a training, which we’ve been in so many together, and for adults to get aha moments is pretty special because kids get aha moments all the time, but adults don’t always. And so I think it’s in particularly gratifying when I can help them get to those points. maybe a little bit about me. I really want to be able to help nonprofits and other organizations be bigger, stronger, faster.

And many times that means kind of going back and reclaiming their mission or understanding what their mission was to begin with and if that still fits or if it’s something that they need to do a little tweaking, a little massaging of.

Steve Gasser (03:17.19)
So when you’re operating at your best, what are you doing?

Mary Hodson (03:21.295)
I’m, I want to know what you think I’m at my best. When do you think I’m at my best? I think I’m at my best when I’m in front of a group of people and I’m giving them nuggets of information. That’s what I think I’m at my best. There’s an energy of a room.

Steve Gasser (03:23.814)
is I see Marietta best.

No, no, no, we’re interviewing you.

Steve Gasser (03:42.918)
sharing that merry brilliance.

Mary Hodson (03:50.279)
and I love feeding off of that energy. And I’m thinking about one particular chamber I was helping recently. And like, there were people who were like, who is this? What do we know about her? Is she real? And I love reeling people in.

and knowing who I can play off of and I can you know you get that verb with people and you reverberate off of each other and then other people who are like These are always the ones that the ones who you think this person does not care for me This person doesn’t have any time for my energy my what I have to say and then you they’re always the people who you hear back later from go That was really amazing They just don’t

show that the same way I do, right? And that’s one of the things that you and I have talked about so many times is having so many different people in the room, in different personalities.

Steve Gasser (04:46.918)
So what inspired you to start Hudson Solutions?

Mary Hodson (04:51.737)
knew that I wanted to be able to do this for some time. kind of thought this would be my retirement part-time gig. And so when the opportunity came to

give the chamber over to somebody new, it just became time to do this. I really like being able to do more of this full time and be with people on a regular basis. At the chamber I did a lot of administrative stuff and yes, I know I can do the administrative stuff. It’s not my 70%. And if you know Steve, you know what 70 % is. If you don’t, I’m sure you’re gonna learn, but my 70 % is really being in front of people and helping people.

Steve Gasser (05:37.446)
So you are in that 70%. That 70 % is just life-giving. You’re just unconsciously competent at it.

Mary Hodson (05:43.577)
Yeah. Or like I like to say, Steve, I’m unconsciously, competently regurgitating everything I’ve ever heard.

Steve Gasser (05:53.254)
Why do everywhere you go you bring sparkle? Where did that come from?

Mary Hodson (05:57.423)
gosh. A long time ago in a land far, far away, I was the Minnesota Honey Queen. So I represented honey producers across the state, you know, five years ago. It was a really long time ago. But somehow…

Steve Gasser (06:03.373)
Alright.

Steve Gasser (06:14.95)
I’m sure I heard this story, but I’m excited to hear the rest of it again.

Mary Hodson (06:18.383)
But somehow, over the years, know, that, Wayne, you are the former, you are a husband, nobody cares that you are a commodity queen of any kind. But one of my employees, Gina, back when I worked with her at the hospital, you know Gina from the chamber, but Gina was with me at the hospital for a while. She found that out and she made a Queen Mary folder one day for me in this pretty little script. And then all of sudden it kept catching. It kept catching. It kept catching. And so now I have bags and…

Mary Hodson (06:52.751)
Honey bee, honey queen stuff. And so then that sparkle of the crown kind of just kept coming up. And then you kept repeating it. Therefore, whenever Steve says something and it’s repeatable, that means it must mean something. So here we are sparkling. But interesting, Steve, I went through an exercise with a group of people recently. And we were supposed to come up with our culture symbol.

a symbol, an image that is a reflection of our culture. And I have been recently gifted in my retirement from the chamber a massive crown. I don’t wear it very often unless I need to prove a point. I don’t need to prove a point today. It’s really heavy. The crown is heavy to carry. It’s a burden.

But that became my culture symbol. Not because I sparkle, but I want to help other people realize that everyone sparkles just in a different way and help people find what makes them sparkle.

Steve Gasser (07:57.658)
Yeah, I love that.

Mary Hodson (07:58.419)
And for some people, that might mean their hands are in equipment or they might be doing something. You know, they might be doing hair, they might be doing mechanic work, they might be welding. You can tell that I work with trades a lot. Whatever it is that you do, everybody sparkles. And Steve, you sparkle. You sparkle remarkable all over the place, right? But that’s really kind of where I came down to. It really was a reflection of that.

Steve Gasser (08:18.64)
Thank you.

Steve Gasser (08:28.102)
We’ve had some, the way we look at things is very similar. I use the word remarkable, you use the word sparkle. So I was teaching Leadership 2.0 last week and I had mentioned that Mary wasn’t gonna be in this session. And they said, well, she brings the sparkle. And Mary, it has become part of your brand that you bring the sparkle everywhere you go.

Mary Hodson (08:49.785)
Thank you.

Steve Gasser (08:52.922)
I want to get into the community. You’ve done quite a bit throughout the Hutchinson community. You’ve been able to engage people in the community. I’m just going to read my question here, is that we all need voices engaged in the community to make a positive impact. How do you get people excited to participate in the community?

Mary Hodson (09:15.119)
A couple of things come to mind. One, the Leadership Institute.

We’ve been talking about it for quite some time. So I’ve been part of it for 13 years. And one of the things that we’ve seen over and over again, we talk about our own community as being extremely collaborative and that our community is unique. Not all communities are as collaborative as ours. And so one, we’re planting seeds that we get to see proof of growth later, right? And that means people stepping up to help.

do things, but everybody’s step up looks different, right? And so sometimes people just need to be asked personally. Sometimes you need to put an all out call and other people come running, because they’re like, I want to do that, or I like that idea, or I want to be working with somebody that’s involved in it. And so I think as a convener, people tell me that

Mary Hodson (10:18.425)
People tell me that if I ask, it must be authentic and genuine enough that they want to say yes. Now, not everybody says yes to Mary. Trust me, not everybody says yes to Mary. But I think that when people know that you’re genuine, you’re authentic, and you have a common purpose involved, and it means something to people, that’s when they get involved.

We can put out a map of our community of Hutchinson, Minnesota. And we can put our fingers in all sorts of places where we know other people have left their fingerprints and their handprints on the community because that’s how things get done. And the city, if you meet with the city, the city is going to tell you, how do things get done in our community? Because residents and community members say, we’d like to see this happen.

Steve Gasser (11:07.718)
You’ve really been key in getting everybody communicating from the city to the EDA, the chamber, the schools. Yeah, we’ve done a really good job communicating.

Mary Hodson (11:16.355)
We’ve really worked hard to make sure that we support that word collaborative. Our city is branded as a city on purpose, and we purposefully work together. We purposefully encourage people to help wherever they can.

Maybe you really enjoy art and want to be part of a mural project. Maybe you really enjoy part of adult education and you want to be part of leadership. Maybe you want to support businesses downtown. Maybe you want to start a dog park. I mean, those things come about. River Song, a huge festival, came about because it was somebody’s idea. And a bunch of people said, you know what? That could be good for Hutchinson. Let’s try that. And now they just had their 15th.

I’m just saying.

Mary Hodson (12:13.999)
I love how you like.

Steve Gasser (12:16.454)
trying to ponder this next question and how to phrase it, but there’s something that you’ve kind of, I’m going use the word instigated here in Hutchinson that has brought a lot of excitement and it’s brought a lot of beauty into the town. You probably know what I’m talking about.

Mary Hodson (12:18.562)
Ooh!

Mary Hodson (12:37.987)
Yep, the mural project.

Steve Gasser (12:38.0)
How did you, where did that come from?

Mary Hodson (12:41.883)
You really want the whole real story? You want the real story. Okay. I love art. I have an art degree. I like to create. I like to craft. I like to make things, right? I love murals. I think it is such a great way to beautify a community in an otherwise gray cement world.

Steve Gasser (12:44.024)
I want the real story.

Mary Hodson (13:08.064)
I’ve seen it so many times build up a community. And you know, you know this because I was watching a show on HGTV.

Steve Gasser (13:20.602)
That’s right, yeah.

Mary Hodson (13:21.987)
This is not sponsored by HGTV, but I was watching Hometown Takeover with some of my favorite hosts, Ben and Erin, and several other people from their network went to a community called Watumpka, Alabama. And anybody can look this up online. And they showcased how they do murals, because in Laurel, Mississippi, where the original show is based, the…

Steve Gasser (13:26.426)
Mm-hmm.

Mary Hodson (13:47.705)
The Erin is an artist by trade and has created lots of murals that have been painted in Laurel. Welcome to Laurel, historic Laurel, all these things. They did the same thing in this other community and they showed people from all over the community helping, from the high school kids to art teachers to residents. And they were doing this, you know, in Alabama, in a rural community of Alabama. Shared with a friend of mine, Deb.

Savior.Town and she sent me a link to New London, Wisconsin and in 2020, not planned to be a COVID year, none of us planned COVID, they had raised a lot of money and they created a mural project and I reached out to them.

They gave me all the information and then I think I literally sent you and Beth both, your wife, a message and I just went, I just saw this and we’ve got to do something like this.

Steve Gasser (14:51.332)
And you made it happen.

Mary Hodson (14:52.889)
Yep, thanks to the Blandin Foundation with a rural boost grant and the community foundation here in Hutchinson and also the IJ Burich Family Foundation, we were able to make it happen and it’s still happening actually. it ended up going into two years, possibly three now with the transition, things slowed down for a little bit. But you know, we’ve got 20 new murals in our community and a mural stroll and people popping

Steve Gasser (15:07.502)
It’s so cool to see everything popping up all over town.

Mary Hodson (15:22.785)
populating on other websites like quirky Minnesota places and it’s just been really fun. It’s been really fun.

Steve Gasser (15:30.79)
Just that one spark, that one inspiration. Look at what’s happened. So there’s got to be something else. Anything else you’re instigating, you’re planning, you want to see happen here in this next year?

Mary Hodson (15:32.995)
That one inspiration. Yeah.

Mary Hodson (15:41.871)
There are a few things that are on the down low. I did just finish our second book for the Chamber Foundation. So people don’t know I wrote a book called Good Night Hutchinson that came out in 2020 and then

Steve Gasser (15:47.462)
Okay.

Steve Gasser (15:57.634)
sure those are in the show notes.

Mary Hodson (16:01.515)
Also, I just finished right before I got done at the chamber, Good Morning Hutchinson. So it’s a follow up to that. I don’t make any money on it. It’s my time and the money goes to the foundation for adult and youth business education, So something that I’m so passionate about. So that money goes there.

Steve Gasser (16:27.654)
Very cool. All right, so what is one piece of advice you’d give somebody who’s thinking about starting their own business?

Mary Hodson (16:37.391)
Remember that you know how to do your thing, but you need to educate yourself about business. Don’t make assumptions. Ask the questions and then ask the questions that you don’t know. So whenever you’re talking to someone, what are the other questions I should be asking you that I haven’t? Because we don’t know what we don’t know and you want to make sure that you’re doing things correctly and make sure you’re finding out what resources are available to you.

Steve Gasser (17:04.262)
There’s so many resources out there that people don’t take advantage of.

Mary Hodson (17:07.039)
Small businesses right now are so fortunate. There’s so much support that you don’t even have to pay for. So reach out to locals who know what your local resources are because not everybody’s going to be watching this from Minnesota. I could list you off a whole bunch. But there’s a lot in every state and they’re different from state to state in some cases and some are similar or some are the same because they’re on a national level. So don’t think that you have to do it alone.

and make sure you do all of the education on the backside. If you don’t have a business plan, you will not have a business in five years.

Steve Gasser (17:46.054)
That’s right. You’re planning to fail without it.

Mary Hodson (17:49.583)
planning to fail without it. Yeah.

Steve Gasser (17:52.39)
So what’s next for Mary? To summarize this, what’s next for Mary?

Mary Hodson (17:54.659)
Well, know, honestly, what’s next for Mary? Well, I’m also in the process of working for Goldman Sachs as a business advisor for their 10,000 Small Businesses program. And Steve, it’s just amazing. And I love to continue to learn. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m continuing to learn while I.

mentor people through. Working on a women’s professional retreat. Looking forward to doing a beta test early quarter one of 2025. And then, you know, Steve, I’ve learned over the years that God had dreams a bigger plan for Mary than Mary can dream for herself. just getting this business established and then finding out what happens after that.

Steve Gasser (18:41.094)
I’m so excited to see where things go. Yes. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Any final words of advice before I let you go?

Mary Hodson (18:43.097)
Thank you.

Mary Hodson (18:47.413)
Thank you.

gosh, there’s just so many. I couldn’t even begin to pick a thing, right? I can’t, what, what? It’s…

Find your own way to sparkle. Find your own way to enjoy your community. Anybody who says there’s nothing to do here, then you’re right. And if you’re one of those people that says there’s endless opportunities here, you’re right. So get up off the couch, make a phone call, call a friend, and get involved somewhere. Your community will always be better and your life will be so much richer.

Steve Gasser (19:22.854)
Thank you so much. I’ll post some links to Mary’s bio to more information on how you can get a hold of Mary too in these show notes. Thank you again for being part of the remarkable conversation. You are truly remarkable.