Denny McConnell, Project Management Team Member, Piġuqtuq Entrepreneurial Inspiration Project
As our world spins at a dizzying pace, human lives try to keep up. Bigger lives, bigger expectations, more energy, bigger projects, all striving and jostling for that next great thing. And while thinking big and significantly achieving can be a great goal for some, there are lessons to be learnt from the gradual and steady.
SEF had the privilege to speak to Denny McConnell of NW Electric Inc, up in Kotzebue, Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, whose experience in business, community and family has thoughtful implications for business, entrepreneurial development and community power. Hearing from Denny, there is an encouraging case to be made for starting small and growing with the community, in honesty, in good work, in relationship. In coming alongside entrepreneurs who may not yet be confident in themselves, in slowing down just enough to see the incredible skills and talents people have that may be just beneath the surface.
Speaking with Denny, SEF was able to see a way of doing and growing business, expanding with a solid foundation, withstanding shocks and upsets, to serve, be profitable and benefit the community concurrently. Good business and commercial success with a community heart for the long term. This is what Denny has been about and has shown to be possible.
His business ethos was simple, through doing a solid, good job on every call-out, through word of mouth and the community, his reputation was built. People started calling him back. Repeat work turned into even more word of mouth and so after two decades, the tiny shop has turned into a whole lot more.
However Denny’s business approach is not insular but also turned outward. He was also kind enough to lead us through why he chose to be a part of theProject Management Team in the Piġuqtuq Entrepreneurial Inspiration Project , why supporting the next wave of entrepreneurs is smart business for established companies and hopeful communities.
He shares that he is incredibly proud of his community, to know and see his friends and family with such talents, and the potential that is ready to burst into action. He has a heart to see small businesses created, to see people that have that same little seed of idea, to start a business, just like he did twenty years ago, to take that small first step to believe they can do it.
Being on the Project Management Team is Denny putting his time where his heart and brains are, to see entrepreneurs and their businesses grow, by being supported by people like him, to help champion their success.
This is the backbone of a rock-solid entrepreneurial development program, that SEF has always been led by, the community supporting its own, to see entrepreneurs through the tricky first stages of business, to know they aren’t alone, and together see entrepreneurs and small businesses in the community flourish.
Many wish for more small businesses in their local community but don’t know how to help. It is through communities coming together and by being a part of a Project where people, like Denny can leverage their knowledge, passion and skills to help fuel the flame of opportunity that is within the entrepreneurs of the community.
Often it’s such tiny things that can get in the way of building entrepreneurs to create a business. Sometimes it’s bigger things. But as SEF has found out through decades of entrepreneurial development, the magic of business creation can be an entrepreneur getting help with a handful of logistical first steps and voila, then there’s no slowing them down. Denny empathizes that it can be daunting starting, to not know the right steps when starting up, and that support is critical. Being there.
Speaking with Denny, SEF was encouraged again that many are on the same wavelength. Being a support, sitting with entrepreneurs, being a presence to brainstorm and tweak ideas, connecting to others in the community who have skills in a needed area, all of these components can make such a huge difference.
Denny shares that seeing entrepreneurs and businesses grow, to be a part of that excitement, to see them flourish, to help promote their services and champion their efforts, this is all part of being in the Project Management team and it's beyond worth it. To see an entrepreneur and their business thrive is not to just see individual success, for there’s no knowing how wide the benefits of that small business will reach, from the initial increased local economy to community benefit of increased goods and jobs. tng into the region from miles and miles away.
As Denny continues to share with SEF, common themes are evident. He shares how his business has developed to serve across the State of Alaska. While at times being more difficult than sticking close around a localized area, Denny and his team have gone the extra mile and worked electrically in schools, clinics, doctors and nursing stations and health related facilities across the State. And yet, important to his business and personal code, NW Electric, Inc. has and continues to work on very small businesses that need quality and safe electrical work.
What Denny and SEF want to see for his community and any future projects is that small ‘magical’ step bravely taken, of people who have an idea, a passion, to make something or provide a service, to have the confidence to say, yes, this is a business idea, and I can and will be an entrepreneur. SEF has always been in the business of inspiring ‘I am passionate, I can do, I can succeed’.
Anyone can be an entrepreneur. Denny and SEF are encouraged and excited to be a part of the Piġuqtuq project, and to consistently show up for entrepreneurs, so that anyone who has a small idea can believe they are an entrepreneur. They will make a difference, and they can do it no matter what, that success may be over a few hills, but they are walking hand in hand with a multi-talented community that has their back.
And suddenly it’s not magic at all. It’s having people in the community know and believe in what you are doing. It’s having people you care about and trust sitting alongside you to take the next step. It’s working with the passionate team of SEF to get unstuck and to see that the next step in making a business is totally do-able and worth it.
Denny is a gift to the Piġuqtuq Entrepreneurial Inspiration Project in the Northwest Arctic Borough.