The Bluegrass and Beyond

Kentucky kicks ass. Often, unfortunately, its own.

To stay with anatomical metaphors, Kentuckians are good at shooting ourselves in the foot. We consider creative people to be a thorn in our side, because new ideas can be a pain in the neck.

So I wasn’t surprised at the Kentucky Department of Travel and Tourism’s tone-deaf response to three 30-something advertising men from Lexington who suggested that “Kentucky Kicks Ass” would be a more effective state marketing slogan than “Unbridled Spirit.”

The suggestion came from Kentucky for Kentucky, a little company formed two years ago by Griffin VanMeter of Bullhorn Creative, Whit Hiler of Cornett-IMS and fellow Lexington native Kent Carmichael, who works for Energy BBDO in Chicago.

Kentucky for Kentucky began as a hobby — an online platform for celebrating the young men’s pride in their state, its people, places, history and “general awesomeness.”

They started with a Facebook page and website. Then, in the fall of 2011, they drew national attention with an unsuccessful online campaign to raise $3.5 million for a commercial promoting Kentucky on the Super Bowl telecast.

Their kick-ass branding idea was unveiled last month in a cheeky YouTube video that also attracted national attention. In the video, Hiler and VanMeter argued that the “Unbridled Spirit” slogan state government has used since 2004 is, well, lame.

(Maybe so, but it is a big improvement over “It’s that Friendly,” which appeared on Kentucky license plates from 2002-2005 along with a smiley-faced sun that looked like it belonged in a Walmart ad.)

The Kentucky for Kentucky guys hired Lexington artists Brian and Sara Turner of Cricket Press to design a cool Kentucky Kicks Ass logo, which they have printed on T-shirts and other merchandise for sale on their website, Kentuckyforkentucky.com.

They also created some sample tourism ads that cleverly promote Kentucky’s places and culture while minimizing the word they acknowledge may offend some people.

State tourism officials were not amused.

“We certainly would not sanction or endorse that phraseology,” spokesman Pat Stipes told a USA Today reporter. “These guys are Kentucky natives and they love the state. But they have a different constituency. Which is no one.”

For these ambitious marketers, that fuddy-duddy response was a gift.

“We couldn’t have asked for anything better,” VanMeter said. “It really gave this a lot more legs than it had.”

The controversy generated even more press coverage — and a lot of orders for Kentucky Kicks Ass T-shirts. VanMeter also has received emails from organizations within Kentucky, and as far away as Arizona, seeking creative help for their own rebranding efforts.

State Tourism Commissioner Mike Mangeot sent the guys a letter offering congratulations for a slogan that has “generated a lot of buzz about Kentucky and all our beautiful Commonwealth has to offer.” But he insisted they clarify that state government neither sought nor sanctioned their work.

The Kentucky for Kentucky guys replied to Mangeot with a letter from their lawyer, Scott White, saying they never meant to imply such a thing.

The letter also included an open-records request for all “emails, notes, written correspondence, memoranda” and any other communication with state government discussing his clients and their slogan. White said state officials had not responded as of Friday.

When I called tourism officials for comment, spokesman Gil Lawson offered only this statement: “We applaud the creativity and efforts of these three gentlemen. It’s great that they support their home state of Kentucky.”

I hope that when the Kentucky for Kentucky guys receive a response to their open-records request, it will include internal communication among high-ranking state officials that goes something like this:

“Our strategy worked perfectly! By playing the role of clueless bureaucrats we generated a lot of free publicity for Kentucky. Of course, we can’t actually endorse their slogan. We would rather be boring than take the chance of offending anyone. But what can we do to quietly support this kind of home-grown creativity?”

Mayor Jim Gray often talks about Lexington aspiring to be a “great American city.” But two centuries ago, that is exactly what it was. Many visitors hailed Lexington as the most vibrant and cultured city in what was then Western America.

The reality and myths surrounding Lexington’s so-called Athens of the West era are explored in a new book of essays published by the University Press of Kentucky, Bluegrass Renaissance: The History and Culture of Central Kentucky, 1792-1852.

The book is already in stores, but it will be formally launched at a signing party Sunday, Sept. 16, at 4 p.m. at the Hunt Morgan House, 253 Market Street. The event is free and open to the public.

Bluegrass Renaissance grew out of a series of lectures in 2007 organized by the University of Kentucky’s Gaines Center for the Humanities and others. Book editors James Klotter, Kentucky’s state historian, and Daniel Rowland, a UK history professor and former Gaines Center director, compiled essays by 15 historians and writers, including my older daughter, Mollie, and me.

The book begins with essays by Klotter and Stephen Aron that place Lexington in the national context of the time and discuss the city’s quick transition from frontier outpost to cultured metropolis.

Gerald Smith and the late Shearer Davis Bowman write about slavery, the “peculiar institution” that built the region’s wealth and would eventually play a big role in both economic and moral bankruptcy.

Randolph Hollingsworth writes about the role women played in early Kentucky, while Maryjean Wall looks at the origins of the signature horse industry. Mark Wetherington and Matthew Clarke profile several influential characters, while John Thelin explores the role higher education played in development and civic pride.

Nikos Pappas writes about musical culture, and Estill Curtis Pennington explains how outstanding portrait painters helped bring artistic culture to Central Kentucky and left what little visual evidence we have of that era’s key players.

Patrick Snadon writes about how Lexington’s leading citizens embraced early America’s most accomplished architect, Benjamin Latrobe. He was commissioned to design six Lexington buildings. Only one survives: Pope Villa, one of the most avant-garde pieces of architecture built during America’s Federalist period.

Mollie and I wrote about Horace Holley, a minister lured to Lexington from Boston, and his role in transforming Transylvania University into one of early America’s most highly regarded universities. Transylvania played a central role in Kentucky’s early education accomplishments and Lexington’s “Athens of the West” reputation.

The book’s dates are somewhat arbitrary: 1792 is the year Kentucky became a state, while 1852 is when Henry Clay, Lexington’s most famous citizen, died. In reality, Lexington’s heyday didn’t begin until after 1800, and its economic, if not cultural, fortunes started waning around 1815. By the end of the 1830s, Lexington had begun a long slide into mediocrity and provincialism.

Lexington’s early prosperity was the result of rich soil, slave labor and the city’s prime location as a hub for early Westward migration and trade. But the city began to struggle after the invention of steamboats allowed two-way commerce on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, which favored river cities such as Cincinnati and Louisville.

Slavery became a huge economic and social liability for Lexington beginning in the 1840s, limiting economic innovation and sparking increased social and racial strife. By clinging so long to slavery, a huge amount of Lexington’s economic capital was wiped out by the Civil War; racism and violence that followed stifled growth and new ideas.

Lexington had lost its economic edge and pioneer spirit. With a few notable exceptions, such as the creation and growth of the University of Kentucky, the city remained intellectually and economically stagnant for nearly a century.

In a short essay that ends the book, Gray makes the point that the past informs the present, and history provides valuable lessons for those who seek to shape the future.

Mollie and I certainly discovered that while researching and writing our chapter. The spectacular rise and fall of Holley at Transylvania in the 1820s reflected issues and attitudes that have shaped two centuries of Kentucky history.

Holley saw huge potential in Kentucky and its people, but was bedeviled by religious disputes, power struggles and petty politics. He finally gave up and left Kentucky, frustrated by an anti-intellectual governor who saw more political advantage in building roads than investing in education.

This book’s title is something of a misnomer: “renaissance” means “revival.” The Athens of the West era was actually Lexington’s “naissant” period. Achieving renaissance is our challenge, and we would be wise to learn lessons from the past.

More than 400 local business leaders packed a Lexington Center ballroom last Tuesday to hear lectures encouraging entrepreneurship in Kentucky from two of the state’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Jim Host, the founder of Host Communications and now chief executive of iHigh.com, and Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech, told their personal stories, talked about why Kentucky needs more entrepreneurs and offered their personal tips for success.

I know how much business people love lists of success tips, so I will share those later. First, though, I want to discuss why, beyond their obvious success, Host and Lyons are worth your attention.

Both are classic, hard-charging entrepreneurs. They are keen observers of business and society. Not only do they embrace change, they try to anticipate and drive it. They know that people always want better ways to satisfy their needs and desires, and in that space are great business opportunities. They know how to make things happen.

Jim Host

Host is a home-grown success story. He moved to Ashland as a boy and has spent most of his life in Kentucky, including serving in state government and running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor early in his career.

Host created world-class companies in travel, sports marketing and communications. Now he is trying to create the future of television. Host never felt he needed to move elsewhere to succeed. More importantly, he never allowed his vision to be limited by Kentucky’s cultural aversion to change.

Most recently, Host led the effort to build Louisville’s KFC Yum Center arena, despite being a blue-bleeding University of Kentucky alumnus and fan. Working in Louisville underscored for him the foolishness of allowing intrastate rivalries to obstruct progress.

Host, 74, has become an evangelist for Louisville-Lexington cooperation. He was founding chairman of the Bluegrass Economic Advancement Movement, a new effort led by both cities’ mayors to bring more advanced-manufacturing jobs to Kentucky.

Lyons’ story is different. Born, reared and educated in Ireland, he came to Kentucky in 1974 because he thought it was a great place to start a business.

Pearse Lyons

Alltech began with the idea of developing and making all-natural animal nutrition supplements. Now, the company’s goal is no less than figuring out how to feed the world using natural ingredients and breakthrough technology, not to mention making good beer and whiskey on the side. Privately held Alltech now has 3,000 employees in 128 countries, including more than 500 in Kentucky.

Part of what makes Lyons worth watching is that he has figured out how to embrace and build upon Kentucky’s strengths without feeling limited by its traditional shortcomings. He is bullish about Kentucky’s potential. He took a “Kentucky Proud” road show to England’s Windsor Castle. Alltech is selling Bourbon Barrel Ale in China and, soon, in Ireland. Alltech just launched the Lyons Farm brand of premium meats, which have a distinct Kentucky marketing flavor.

“If you can’t sell Kentucky as a place to do business, then you’re not in any shape or form a salesman, because it’s an easy sale,” Lyons said. “I’ve been around the world I don’t know how many times, and I’ve never found a place as conducive to doing business or rearing a family as Kentucky — y’all.”

Now, about those success tips. Both entrepreneurs stressed the importance of having a positive attitude, passion for your work, a willingness to take risks, a confidence in self and a good sense of humor.

Among Host’s success tips:

■ Be prepared. Eighty percent of any sale is preparation; 20 percent is presentation.

■ Under-promise and over-deliver.

■ Do not lie or misrepresent to a client about anything. “You build great companies on integrity and character,” he said.

■ Write down the five most important things you need to do each day, and do the hardest one first. That will clear your head for creative thinking.

■ If you focus on creating excellence, profits will follow.

Among Lyons’ success tips:

■ Take a chance, any chance, to start a business. And, if possible, go it alone. You can never truly align partners’ dreams with your own.

■ Be curious and add to your expertise, both through your own education and by hiring great people.

■ Avoid negative people, whom he called “energy vampires.”

■ Be prepared to change your business, but not your core values.

■ You have two ears, one mouth; listen more than you talk, and take notes.

Proud Kentuckians, left to right: Col. Harland Sanders, Kent Carmichael, Griffin VanMeter, Whit Hiler. Photo by Tom Eblen

Three 30-something marketers who launched an Internet fundraising campaign to sponsor a Super Bowl commercial about the greatness of Kentucky fell considerably short of their $3.5 million goal.

The trio aren’t giving up, though. They plan to drop back and punt.

When the 60-day deadline on their Kickstarter.com fundraising drive expired Monday morning, Whit Hiler, Griffin VanMeter and Kent Carmichael had received 576 pledges totaling $112,287.

Not bad, but not nearly enough to place a commercial on the nation’s most expensive television buy. Because the project didn’t meet its goal, none of the pledges can be collected through Kickstarter.com.

VanMeter said the three plan to produce a commercial anyway and launch a new, smaller Kickstarter campaign to buy time on Kentucky stations to show it in or around the Super Bowl telecast on Feb. 5. They also will put the spot on their project’s Web site: KentuckyForKentucky.com

“All the marketing and branding people jumped on the idea and thought it was great,” VanMeter said. Many volunteered video production resources that will come in handy for making the commercial.

One thing that came out of the campaign, VanMeter said, was how many people are proud to be Kentuckians, and what a good brand Kentucky for Kentucky could be for T-shirts and other merchandise. So far, their website has been a compilation of little-known facts about great Kentuckians, contributed by the site’s users.

“It was a breath of fresh air that energized people,” VanMeter said of the fundraising campaign. “We know Kentucky is a great brand.”

Click here to read my Sept. 14 column about the effort. Here is the project’s website and Facebook page.

It is an idea so crazy, it just might work.

Griffin VanMeter, Kent Carmichael and Whit Hiler are 30-something marketing guys. They also are native Kentuckians who are proud of their state and think everyone else should be proud of it, too.

A year ago, they had this idea: Let’s produce a television commercial promoting the “brand” of Kentucky and get it on the Super Bowl telecast.

“We want to show how much character and influence has come out of Kentucky and is still coming out of Kentucky,” VanMeter said. “It’s a big story we’re trying to tell, and we want to put it on the biggest stage possible. It would be the most talked-about Super Bowl commercial ever.”

The trio began in April by creating a Facebook page called Kentucky for Kentucky. Since then, more than 1,950 fans have contributed to lists and photo galleries of great Kentucky people, places and products.

Kent Carmichael, left, Griffin Van Meter, center, and Whit Hiler. Photo by Tom Eblen

Then, on Thursday, they went public with their Super Bowl idea using the hot crowd-funding Web site Kickstarter.com. An Internet video promoting the effort has gone viral, and media attention has come from, among others, the big tech news site Mashable.com and Advertising Age magazine’s Web site.

Their goal is to raise $3.5 million in 60 days. After five days, more than 200 backers have made online pledges of more than $41,000, in increments as small as $1. They have received two $10,000 pledges — “We can see who they are, so we know they’re legit,” said VanMeter, a partner in the Lexington marketing agency Bullhorn.

An effort like this would have been a lot harder before Kickstarter.com, which lets people pitch creative projects to a huge online audience. Backers pledge as little as $1 or as much as they want, but their credit card isn’t charged unless the idea reaches its fund-raising goal by the specified deadline.

Backers will get prizes: bumper stickers, T-shirts, maybe even a cameo appearance in the commercial. But unless the $3.5 million goal is met by Nov. 7, nobody is on the hook.

“Once we get this groundswell of support, some of the big people will get behind it,” VanMeter said. “Besides, this whole idea is so much bigger than a Super Bowl commercial.”

So what is the idea, really?

“The short answer is that it’s about Kentucky pride,” he said.

“As brands go, Kentucky is an awesome brand,” said Hiler, who works for Cornett Integrated Marketing Solutions in Lexington. “It’s a lot cooler than Doritos. We’ve got years on them.”

He has a point: Kentucky was America’s first Western frontier and has produced the likes of Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali and George Clooney. It is the namesake of two of the world’s best-known brands — Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Kentucky Derby. Kentuckians have created everything from bourbon whiskey and bluegrass music to the traffic signal and the high five.

But, Carmichael noted, any Kentuckian who has lived elsewhere has heard the jokes about going shoeless and marrying your cousin.

Kentucky has more than its share of problems, including too much obesity and too little education.

“People need to believe in Kentucky, and that can help solve a lot of problems,” VanMeter said.

“There’s no agenda, no reason for anyone not to like this idea,” said Carmichael, a Lexington native and a copywriter for Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Boulder, Colo. He said the three of them don’t plan to make any money on this project and are not fronting for any company, political group or “official” anything.

If they raise the money in time to reserve a commercial spot on the Super Bowl telecast Feb. 5, what will they do?

“The least of our worries will be getting the commercial made,” Hiler said.

With $3.5 million worth of public momentum, the three marketers said, they think Kentucky producers, directors, writers and actors would rush to help them make one awesome Kentucky commercial. Are you listening, George Clooney, Jerry Bruckheimer and Ashley Judd?

And if they don’t make it to the Super Bowl? Well, they already have drawn a lot of positive attention to an outrageously creative idea coming out of Kentucky. And that’s sort of the point.

I am increasingly impressed with the leadership of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. Rather than just taking care of business, it seems to realize that improving life in Kentucky will help create economic prosperity.

That was apparent at last week’s annual meeting in Louisville. The agenda focused on substantive discussions of two of Kentucky’s biggest issues, coal and education.

For example, the keynote speaker on coal was journalist James Fallows, whose Atlantic magazine cover story last December was one of the best things I have read on the subject. “Coal is inevitably going to be a major part of the world’s energy solution for the foreseeable future,” he said. “But that role will be and has to be different.”

While Fallows characterized his remarks as a “good news speech,” it was nothing like the hot air we usually hear from the coal industry and its cheerleaders.

No matter how successful the world is at developing alternative energy, coal will remain a vital fuel for decades, Fallows said. But he stressed that global economic, scientific and political trends will require that coal be mined and burned in more environmentally friendly ways. It is smarter to lead change than be trampled by it.

Solutions built around market incentives — such as the ill-fated “cap and trade” proposal — would be better than regulation because they would encourage business creativity and flexibility, Fallows said. But if business wants market-driven change rather than regulatory change, he said, “high-level industrial leadership is important.”

Fallows was followed by Michael G. Morris, chairman of American Electric Power, whose remarks were titled “Coal Under Attack.” While saying that coal must get “cleaner,” his rambling presentation was filled with the usual clichés about new environmental rules being unfair and unreasonable.

Morris bragged about how much less pollution coal-fired power plants emit now than they used to — as if that were the result of industry leadership rather than government regulations that most utilities fought every step of the way.

Morris repeated an earlier claim that new regulations will have a “devastating effect” on AEP, shutting down 6,000 megawatts of generating capacity. But as another speaker pointed out later, two-thirds of that capacity was going to be retired anyway because of a 2007 pollution settlement with the Bush administration.

I was impressed that so many chamber members seemed wise to Morris, even ignoring most of his attempts at applause and laugh lines.

Morris was followed by Rodney Andrews, director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research. He gave an excellent but rushed presentation that echoed many of Fallows’ points and made a persuasive economic and environmental argument for making coal-fired power plants more efficient. I would like to have heard more from him.

The chamber announced some initiatives that could have a big impact. The New Agenda for Kentucky Campaign focuses on action plans in five areas: improving schools, modernizing government, remaining competitive in energy resources, doubling international exports within five years and improving Kentuckians’ health and wellness.

Perhaps the most impressive effort is the Kentucky Leadership Institute for School Principals. AT&T and other companies are giving money to send many Kentucky school principals to the respected (and expensive) Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina to get the kind of high-level leadership training that business executives receive.

The chamber also unveiled a follow-up to its 2009 “Leaky Bucket” study, which underscored how huge increases in state spending for public employee health care, Medicaid and prisons were contributing to a short-change of education.

That report provided encouragement — and political cover — for landmark legislation earlier this year to rewrite Kentucky’s criminal code. It will reduce the number of non-violent offenders in jails and prisons, send more drug offenders to treatment and save a lot of taxpayer money in the process.

The chamber’s new report, called “Building a Stronger Bucket,” offers more suggested policy changes, including moving new state employees to a 401(k)-style pension plan.

Too often in the past, Kentucky has fallen behind the rest of the nation when narrow economic or political interests wielded too much power. Building a better future will require that many perspectives be considered and many voices be heard.

Still, no single group can do more to make this state a better place to live than a progressive organization that represents a broad spectrum of the business community. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce seems to be stepping up to the challenge.

Journalists are often not popular. People love to fuss about their local newspaper.

But you would not have known that Saturday night. A dozen Latino groups and businesses threw a fancy dinner party that packed the Bell House to pay tribute to Andrés Cruz, editor and publisher of La Voz de Kentucky.

The bilingual newspaper, which publishes more than 8,000 copies every other Thursday and online at Lavozky.com, has covered Central Kentucky’s growing Latino community for a decade.

Tertulia Latina de Lexington, a social club whose members gather each month to share food and culture from the many Latin American countries of their origins, organized this impressive outpouring of affection.

“He does a lot of wonderful things for the community,” Tertulia member Rosa Martin said, “so we decided to do this for him.”

There were performances by amazing musicians who had immigrated from Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and Ecuador. There were award presentations and remarks by Latino community leaders and Mayor Jim Gray.

La Voz means “the voice” in Spanish. “He really is the voice of our community,” Freddy Peralta told the crowd.

Cruz is a physically small man, lawyer Joshua Santana noted in a formal toast, “but his intellect, passion and courage have allowed him to cast a huge shadow within the city of Lexington and beyond.”

“I don’t know what to say except thank you,” an emotional Cruz said after the tributes were over. “Thank you for helping me to feel useful.”

“Useful” has been Cruz’s watchword for La Voz since he bought the newspaper in 2003 from Alejandro Gomez, a Mexican immigrant who started it two years earlier.

Cruz, 42, came here from Costa Rica in 1993 to study history at the University of Kentucky. “I got to UK and fell in love with Kentucky,” he said. After school, he did translation and literacy work for several years, then La Voz captured his imagination.

Cruz said the newspaper has allowed him to use his training as a historian to chronicle the dramatic growth of Central Kentucky’s Hispanic population. “Being able to witness all of this has been an incredible privilege,” he said.

Hispanics accounted for more than half of the nation’s population growth from 2000 to 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau reported recently. Kentucky’s Hispanic population more than doubled, to 132,836. Hispanics represent 3.1 percent of the state’s 4.3 million people, well below the national level of 16 percent. The Census counted 20,474 Hispanics in Fayette County — 6.9 percent of the population — with more than 15,000 of them of Mexican heritage.

La Voz’s coverage focuses on Hispanic businesses, community resources, education, the arts and sports — especially the local baseball and soccer leagues that are meeting places for Latinos of all nationalities.

By publishing all articles in Spanish and English, La Voz aims for wide appeal — recent immigrants trying to make their way, and Anglos looking for a better understanding of their new neighbors.

Because Cruz sees La Voz as a community voice, he has not shied away from advocacy on immigration issues. He has urged passage of the DREAM Act, which would give undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children a path to higher education and citizenship. After La Voz helped to organize a huge immigrants-rights rally downtown in April 2006, Cruz said, he received several death threats.

Illegal immigration remains a controversial problem with no easy solutions, but La Voz tries to reflect the contributions documented and undocumented immigrants are making to Kentucky.

“I have come across incredible stories, incredible people,” Cruz said. “There is an incredible desire in this community to work, to get an education, to better ourselves.”

The weak economy has been hard on La Voz, as it has been on all newspapers. Cruz now runs La Voz out of his home in the Kenwick neighborhood with help from friends. His wife, Jennifer, who is from Elliot County, works as a nurse.

“At La Voz, we have a responsibility to help make Lexington a better place,” Cruz said. “I don’t make a lot of money, but it’s a great way to live my life.”

I heard from readers when I wrote about the pioneering solar home that Lexington architect Richard Levine built for himself in the 1970s and recently upgraded with new technology.

I heard from more readers when I wrote about Warren County’s new “net-zero” school, designed to generate as much power as it uses.

Many readers wanted to know this: How could they use solar power and innovative design to help the planet and lower their utility bills?

As solar technology gets better and cheaper, it is becoming a viable alternative for more Kentucky homeowners, said Andy McDonald, director of the Kentucky Solar Partnership, an advocacy organization in Frankfort. Options range from solar-powered water heaters to super-insulated “passive” homes.

Because Kentucky isn’t sunny year-around, McDonald said, “Many people believe that solar is not viable here, but that isn’t true. Germany leads the world in solar energy, and Kentucky has better solar resources than Germany does.”

The difference, McDonald said, is government policy and incentives. The United States lags many countries in policies promoting renewable energy, and Kentucky lags many states in incentives. But help is out there.

Since 2004, Kentucky homeowners have been able to hook solar generators into their local utility, getting credit for power they feed into the grid to offset power they draw at night and on cloudy days. It is possible for homeowners to break even – and even earn a profit if their utility’s power comes from the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The federal government since 2005 has offered tax incentives for installing solar and other renewable energy systems. The state also offers some incentives, and the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development has flexible loans for some systems installed in Eastern Kentucky.

The most popular systems are solar water heaters, like the one Dave Kollar had installed in his Madison County home two years ago. The water heater is powered by two small solar panels on his roof that charge batteries. When the sun isn’t shining, the water heater can run on regular current. Solar water heaters in Kentucky typically produce about 70 percent of a home’s hot water over the course of a year.

Kollar said the system cost him about $5,000, after incentives. With what he is saving so far, he estimates it will pay for itself within 12 years. “For me, though, that’s just part of the equation,” said Kollar, chief engineer for Fox 56 television.

“I don’t know that we’re saving the planet, but fossil fuel is a finite resource and it seems silly to waste it,” said Kollar, who also supplements his home’s furnace with a wood stove. “Besides, I didn’t want to go through another ice storm without hot water and heat.”

For homeowners wanting to do more than heat water, there is one key thing to understand: Success is not so much about how much power your solar system can produce; it is about how energy-efficient you can make your home so it uses as little power of any kind as possible.

The first step toward lower utility bills is weatherizing an existing home or designing a new home to minimize energy loss and take advantage of natural sunlight.

Basic design principles include having a home’s long axis facing south, with windows that let in winter sunshine but are shaded against summer heat. Likewise, minimize windows on a home’s west side, which gets a lot summer sun, and the north side, which catches winter winds, McDonald said.

While Kentucky may be behind other states in solar incentives, it is ahead of most when it comes to green building design. Levine, who last year received a “pioneer” award from the American Solar Energy Society, runs an architecture practice that is bringing European “passive” home design to Kentucky.

So-called passive homes are so heavily insulated that little energy is lost. They use only about 10 percent of the energy needed to heat and cool a well-built conventional home. Because these houses are so air tight, they are equipped with special ventilators that bring fresh air in from the outside with minimal heat and cooling loss.

Levine’s firm, CSC Design Studio, is designing five passive “net-zero” homes for Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. intended for sale to middle-income people. The first is under construction near Williamsburg.

CSC also recently designed a net-zero home for a client who will begin construction in July along the Kentucky River, said Michael Hughes, an architect who works with Levine. Power needed for these passive homes will come from solar panels on the roof.

Passive homes can cost as much as 25 percent more to build than conventional homes, but Hughes thinks prices will fall as more builders learn how to build them and domestic companies step in to compete with European manufacturers of super-insulated doors and windows. “I think it’s the future of homebuilding,” Hughes said.

Solar Resources

• The first step to lower utility bills isn’t solar technology – it is making your home more energy efficient. A good place to get more information about that the Kentucky Housing Corp.’s Web site:  KyHomePerformance.com
• The Kentucky Solar Partnership’s Web site is a good place to find information about solar home technology, from a list of contractors to available incentives. The organization is planning a training session in August for contractors interested in learning how to install solar systems.  Kysolar.org
• Additional information about incentives for energy efficiency and solar technology can be found at: Dsireusa.org and Solar.calfinder.com/rebates/Kentucky
• The Rural Energy for America program offers grants to some farms and rural businesses for installing renewable energy systems: Reapgrants.com
• Information about solar and other renewable energy options: SouthFace.org
• Several magazines offer resources, including Home Power at HomePower.com, and Solar Today at SolarToday.com
• CSC Design Studio in Lexington designs custom passive and solar homes: CSCDesignStudio.com

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When a search firm approached Gene Woods six years ago about applying to become chief executive of St. Joseph Health System, he hesitated. It was in Kentucky.

Woods and his family were living in Washington, D.C.. They had never been to Kentucky, and the 40-year-old son of an African-American father and a Spanish mother wondered if they would fit in and find community.

While interviewing for the job, Woods and his wife, Ramona, explored downtown Lexington and stopped in Natasha’s Bistro & Bar for dinner. “It was really a welcoming environment,” he recalled. “We thought we might like it here.”

The Woods were back at Natasha’s a week ago Saturday, and the place was packed. Everyone was there to hear the farewell performance of The City’s lead singer and guitarist: Gene Woods.

Woods is leaving Lexington next month to take over a much larger Catholic hospital network in Dallas. Christus Health has facilities in 60 cities in eight states and Mexico and employs 30,000 people, including 8,000 doctors.

“I’m going to be focusing on my day job for a while,” Woods joked last week when we met for coffee. I wanted to get Woods’ perspective on Lexington, based on his relatively short but eventful time here.

Woods is proud of St. Joseph, which on his watch has built four new facilities, invested $80 million in technology, saved millions by streamlining processes and won awards for patient care. St. Joseph also has begun partnership talks with University Medical Center and Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare in Louisville.

Living in Lexington has been personally fulfilling for the Woods and their sons, ages 10 and 16. “We’ve made some phenomenal friends here,” he said. “My kids absolutely thrived.  I had heard that Lexington was a great place to raise a family, and, boy, is that right.”

Woods served on several boards, including Berea College and the Blue Grass Community Foundation. The family was active in the arts, including Romana’s work with Actors Guild and Gene’s performing with The City, a band whose other members have day jobs that include architecture, business and journalism.

Woods said the civic work he is most proud of was helping with restoration of the Lyric Theatre, an icon in Lexington’s African-American community. “I really believe strongly that the vibrancy of any community is its support for its arts,” he said.

Community spirit has grown during his time here, Woods said, along with support for the arts and cooperation within the business community. “It has been a period of significant change,” he said. “And the World Equestrian Games in some respects put a cherry on top.”

Woods said Lexington has so many assets to build on, from excellent public and private schools and universities to a magnificent rural landscape. Early on a recent morning, Woods was running near his home and noticed horses grazing in a misty field.  “I just stopped and took it all in,” he said.

“I have lived in places, such as the Virgin Islands, that were physically beautiful, but Lexington has as awe-inspiring a beauty as any place I’ve ever lived,” he said.

Woods said this city has most of the building blocks for future success. “This is a very easy place to live,” he said. There is little crime, it is easy to get around and people are friendly. But he said that while Lexington has done a lot in recent years to encourage and promote diversity, more could be done.

“I have always felt extraordinarily welcomed and comfortable in this community,” Woods said. “But I think it’s something you have to keep focused on. In order for Lexington to be perceived on the national stage the way it wants to be, I think there needs to be a continued commitment to diversity.”

When recruiting minorities for St. Joseph, Woods said, “What I heard most was, ‘What social networks am I going to get connected to when I come to Lexington?’ There have got to be forums where people can feel a part of the community. And things to do.”

Woods said a good start would be having more events downtown like last fall’s Spotlight Lexington concert series.

“What was interesting to me when I walked around downtown was you had folks seemingly from all walks of life,” he said. “People were enjoying each other, and I don’t recall one negative incident. That speaks to the culture of this place. It’s something you can build on - and other communities wish they had.”

LOUISVILLE —The weather forecasters were wrong, thank goodness.

The sun was shining bright on a perfect spring afternoon as a record crowd of 164,858 stumbled over the words to My Old Kentucky Home before seeing Animal Kingdom win his first race on dirt to take the 137th Kentucky Derby.

Brief periods of rain earlier in the day didn’t faze the biggest Derby crowd in history. The field was wide open, and, as always, horses were just part of the attraction. The Derby is a big party, a peerless networking opportunity and a colorful pageant of women in tight dresses and bodacious hats.

For hours leading up to the so-called greatest two minutes in sports, Kentucky’s captains of horseflesh and industry wined and dined those lucky enough to receive invitations from them.

“It’s such a selling opportunity for the state,” said Alltech founder and President Pearse Lyons. He and his wife, Deirdra, sat on Millionaire’s Row with John Petterson, senior vice president of Tiffany & Co., who said construction of his company’s new plant in Lexington is on schedule for completion in July.

“The whole state of Kentucky has been good to us,” said Petterson, attending his first Derby. “This is a wonderful place to do business.”

Executives from Mexico and India were among those being entertained by state officials hungry for investment.

Proeza of Monterey, Mexico, owns three automobile parts factories in Kentucky that employ 1,200 people. “We hope to increase employment,” said CEO Enrique Zambrano, who was loving his first Derby. “We come from a family that loves horses, and this is an experience.”

Across the table from Zambrano was Rewant Ruia, director of Essar of Mumbai, India. “I think it’s a fabulous event,” said Ruia, who said his conglomerate employs 10,000 people in North America, including coal miners in Kentucky. “To be honest, I did not expect the Derby to be so big.”

Across the track and far below the luxury suites, the infield crowd had arrived early to set up tents against the predicted rain. They partied the day away, progressing from $7 breakfast Budweisers to $10 mint juleps.

“The atmosphere, the people, the party,” said Ken Keske of Charlotte, N.C., when I asked why he keeps coming back every year. His Derby outfit included a furry viking helmet.

Nearby, Karolyn Cook of New Jersey and two girlfriends from New York and North Carolina were sporting lovely dresses and elegant hats. They sat on a blanket in the infield, snacking on potato chips. “My mother is stationed at Fort Knox, so this was the thing to do,” Cook said.

Tim Rask came from Iowa City, Iowa, for his seventh Derby, his fifth wearing a bowler hat topped with a tall arrangement of red roses that required almost perfect posture. “All that finishing school paid off,” he joked.

Rask keeps coming “because it’s the greatest time to be had in the country,” he said. “It’s great fun to make a fool of yourself once a year.”

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, who took office in January, was enjoying his first year as Derby host. “People love coming here and they all leave with a smile on their face,” he said. “It’s fun to be part of that.”

When I saw Fischer, he was shaking hands on Millionaire’s Row and introducing people to Lt. Gen. Ben Freakley, who is overseeing a big expansion and mission change at Ft. Knox that in the past year has expanded the base’s payroll by $45 million.

“You see these beautiful ladies in these fabulous hats and then a dude in a T-shirt,” said Freakley, who was attending his first Derby. “This is America. We’re all celebrating what we are as a country. It’s pretty neat.”

It’s also a pretty neat day to be a Kentuckian, said Central Bank President Luther Deaton.

“It showcases Kentucky and what a great place we live,” he said. “We’re the luckiest people going.”

Martha Lambert of Louisville comes to the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event every year. So when she heard tailgating spaces would be available for the first time, she quickly reserved one and started inviting friends.

“This is the best idea they’ve had since they started the Rolex,” said Lambert, who competed at the Rolex three times in the 1990s. “I wonder why they haven’t done it before?”

Lambert was one of more than 100 people, companies and organizations that paid either $275 or $325 for a space along the crest of the meadow where much of the cross-country course was built. Each spot included eight admission tickets. Only a handful of spots went unused.

“There was an excellent response,” said Vanessa Coleman, ticketing director for Equestrian Events, the Rolex’s organizer. “We’ve already had people say ‘you need to make this a tradition.’”

It certainly helped to have a picture-perfect day — lots of sunshine and temperatures in the 70s, following a stormy month that dumped more than a foot of rain on Lexington.

“Yes, we’re responsible for the weather today, too,” Coleman joked with tailgaters as she walked from spot to spot to check on things.

Lundy’s Catering took advance orders, but also sold a lot of last-minute food as tailgaters saw what their neighbors were having. “I think it’s going to be a hit,” said Alissa Lundergan, one of the company’s owners.

But most tailgaters brought their own food and drink — impressive homemade spreads, served with plenty of champagne. Chad Ross of Frankfort loaded a big gas grill into his pickup truck to cook brisket and pork tenderloin for his family and friends from Missouri.

“We come to the Horse Park as often as we can,” said Wendy Long of Huntington, W.Va. She and her husband, Larry, are such horse sport fans that their license plate reads: Jump Over. “This is such a nice way to enjoy the Horse Park and the Rolex,” she said.

Becky Coleman of Tifton, Ga., comes to Rolex every year to photograph the competition. Her husband, Tony, isn’t a horseman, but he agreed to come this year and was happy to have the tailgating spot as a place to relax. “She’s big into it,” he said of the Rolex. “I figure if Mama’s happy, everybody’s happy.”

Practical Horseman magazine had a spot to entertain supporters, as did the Irish Draught Horse Society of North America. Society members were there to cheer on eight competing horses with Irish draught bloodlines.

Land Rover had the most elegant tailgating space — six spaces, actually, with six brand new Land Rover and Range Rover models. Their tailgates were lifted to display a spread of gourmet food for Land Rover owners and other customers to enjoy.

“This was perfect for us,” said Kim McCullough, the company’s brand vice president. “People naturally tailgate with a Land Rover.”

Land Rover, the event’s vehicle sponsor, also was operating an off-road demonstration course. While the company doesn’t actually sell vehicles here, dealers report the efforts have produced many good leads, McCullough said.

Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, had a tailgating spot to do some marketing for its equine studies programs, which have 110 majors, and equestrian team. About 30 students were attending Rolex.

“We hope to attract potential students,” said Lucy Cryan, who directs the university’s equine program. “And we decided to get the word out to alumni to stop by and say hello.”

Most tailgaters said they hope to get a spot next year — and for many years to come.

“It is awesome being able to do this,” said Randi McEntire, who comes each year with a group of fellow horse enthusiasts from Charleston, S.C. “We’re already talking about next year and how we’re going to improve on our setup.”

The group was tailgating under a University of South Carolina Gamecocks tent and digging into the smoked chicken, cold cuts, fresh vegetables and ample liquor selection that Kent Gramke had assembled.

“Good company, good weather, good food — that’s what makes the event,” Gramke said. “And horses,” his friend Sherry Lilley quickly added.

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Demographics is destiny, which is why Kentucky’s business and political leaders should be taking a close look at data released this month from the 2010 census.

Here are a few of those demographic trends from the census and other recent reports that are worth keeping in mind:

Diversity and age: Kentucky’s population grew 7.4 percent between 2000 and 2010, bringing the total number of state residents to 4,339,367. Almost all of that growth was among minorities, especially Hispanics, whose numbers more than doubled.

“Immigration is a positive, not a negative,” said Ron Crouch, research director for the state Education and Workforce Development Cabinet and one of Kentucky’s most respected demographers. “Without immigration, we would be a state in decline.”

The population of Kentuckians younger than 18 grew at only one-third the rate of older residents. “We’re not going to have a growing work force unless older people work longer,” Crouch said.

What’s more, minorities accounted for all of the overall growth among the state’s younger people. To keep its economy strong, Kentucky must do a better job with education, especially considering the achievement gap that often exists in schools between minority and white students.

Health and well-being: Crouch said one alarming trend is the continued rise in births to unwed mothers. Almost 42 percent of children born in Kentucky in 2009 were to single mothers — up from 36 percent in 2005 and 8 percent in 1970.

“A growing portion of our families are at risk,” he said, because most of these unmarried mothers are already poor, and single motherhood is a big factor in keeping them and their children poor.

When looking at government transfer payments in Kentucky, Crouch said, the big money is in retirement, disability and rapidly rising health care costs. Those costs will increase as the overall population continues to age. By comparison, he said, “Welfare, food stamps and unemployment insurance are drops in the bucket.”

Another concern is that, in many Kentucky counties, large segments of the population are chronically jobless, a situation that doesn’t show up in traditional unemployment measures. Because these people haven’t paid into Social Security and Medicare, taxpayers will face even bigger costs as they age and require medical care.

“The Medicaid crisis today is going to get much worse,” Crouch said.

Location and economy: While much of the nation’s Northeast and Midwest are in decline, and the Southwest faces serious issues, Kentucky’s location in the growing Southeast offers economic growth potential. The state’s abundance of water will be an important asset in the future, Crouch added.

Kentucky’s population growth was primarily in the center of the state — especially inside the so-called Golden Triangle of Lexington, Louisville and Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati — and along interstate highways.

The Golden Triangle counties have the highest per-capita income, while the lowest is in parts of Eastern Kentucky. “But if you have a job in Eastern Kentucky, you are making wages at or above the rest of the state,” Crouch said. That is mostly because of health care and retail jobs, he added. The coal industry, where employment has fallen dramatically in recent years, plays a much less significant role.

Bowling Green outgrew Owensboro and became Kentucky’s third-largest city, thanks largely to its location along Interstate 65 between Louisville and Nashville.

The Elizabethtown region also experienced strong growth. It is likely to continue to become a more significant player in the state’s economy as growth follows the Army’s decision to move more support personnel to nearby Fort Knox.

While Kentuckians continued the trend of moving from rural counties to urban and suburban counties, most of the state’s rural counties saw less decline than those in most surrounding states, such as Illinois and West Virginia.

Since consolidating some of Kentucky’s 120 counties will likely never happen because of politics, the growth of urban regional economies will make cross-county planning and cooperation more important than ever. And booming suburban counties will have to do a better job of managing sprawl to protect quality of life.

Overall, Crouch thinks, the state’s trends show promise for good economic growth, but it will require more investment in education, infrastructure and health care to keep Kentucky competitive.

If we can learn anything from recent headlines, it is that powering our economy and lifestyle will only get more difficult and expensive, at least in the near future.

Japan is struggling to avert catastrophe from an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant. The crisis has the rest of the world taking a second look at the safety of its nuclear systems.

Kentucky outlawed nuclear power in 1984 until the federal government came up with a plan for storing spent fuel, which it has yet to do. The ban was prompted by a leaking radioactive dump in Fleming County that took years to contain. The state Senate voted last month to repeal the ban, but the bill died in the House.

Should Kentucky reconsider nuclear power, which now provides 20 percent of this nation’s electricity? Maybe so. We’re in no position to ignore any source of energy. But Japan’s disaster reminds us nuclear power is an imperfect, unforgiving technology that can be dangerous and costly.

I spent the early years of my career covering another example, much closer to home.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to parts of Kentucky and six other states, narrowly averted a nuclear accident in 1975 when one of its reactors in Alabama caught fire.

By the time I started covering TVA in 1981, the utility was raising electricity rates and writing off billions of dollars in investment because officials realized the agency was building too many nuclear reactors.

Then, in 1985, TVA shut down all its reactors after its own nuclear engineers secretly came to me and other reporters with evidence that raised questions about whether those plants had been built safely. That led to years of repairs and billions in additional cost.

Coal provides half the nation’s power and more than 90 percent of Kentucky’s power. Electricity has been cheap in this state, because many of the health and environmental costs of mining and burning coal have been ignored. That is changing, because it must.

The Environmental Protection Agency last week proposed tighter rules for how much mercury, other toxic substances and particle pollution coal-fired power plants can release into the air. The EPA claims the rules will save 17,000 lives a year, and the $10 billion cost of making plants cleaner would produce $100 billion worth of health and environmental benefits.

Utilities will fight the new rules, just as they fought many previous rules that made coal-fired plants much cleaner and safer. Expect opposition, too, from many politicians, especially those in the pockets of industries that fund their campaigns.

They will say we “can’t afford” to protect public health or the environment, and higher standards will “kill jobs.” Change is inevitable, though, because research shows that pollution and climate change are killing a lot more than jobs.

Many of those same politicians have fought against fuel-economy standards for vehicles, leaving us all the more vulnerable to political instability in the Middle East and rising demand for oil in developing nations such as China and India.

Increasing domestic oil production in ways that harm the environment isn’t the answer, because that would barely make a dent in the price or supply of what is now a globally traded commodity.

So what is the answer? There isn’t one, but many.

We must invest in research and technology to mine, drill and burn coal and oil more cleanly and efficiently. We must incorporate whatever lessons are learned from Japan’s crisis to make nuclear power safer.

We must develop renewable energy sources — solar, wind and biomass — that will be able to sustain civilization long after coal and oil are gone. Government must play a significant role in this research where private industry cannot or will not.

Perhaps more than anything, we must get serious about designing buildings, vehicles and gadgets to use less energy. Conservation isn’t as difficult as many people think. Take, for example, Kentucky’s many new energy-efficient school buildings, including one in Warren County that will generate as much power as it uses.

We have a choice: ignore the headlines and fight inevitable change, or learn from them and get serious about balancing our needs and desires with those of future generations. Anyone who thinks we can maintain our energy status quo is a dim bulb.

Strike up the band: Lexington’s music man will be 90 years old Thursday.

Some people remember Don Wilson as the drum major of the University of Kentucky Marching Band. He and his oldest daughter, Donna, were the baton- twirling stars of the halftime show from 1949 to 1955.

But Wilson’s most enduring legacy might be the generations of children in Central and Eastern Kentucky who got the chance to play in a school band or orchestra because his store rented or sold them an instrument and kept it repaired.

“I’ve had a great life,” Wilson said last week as we sat in his office at Don Wilson Music Co. on Southland Drive and paged through a thick notebook of photos and newspaper clippings.

It all began when Wilson’s parents gave him a saxophone for his ninth birthday. By the time he was old enough to play in his high school band in St. Joseph, Mo., he had discovered another talent.

Wilson soon became the band’s drum major. He thought he was pretty good until he went to Kansas City and saw another drum major wow the crowd with baton twirling.

“I went home and taught myself to twirl a baton,” he said. “I wore the grass off my folks’ yard practicing.”

By the time Wilson graduated, he was the state champion drum major and baton twirler. He went on to perform with the band at what is now Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville.

Wilson spent World War II touring the South with an Army band, playing three parades a day and four dances a week. Each military band picked one member to be trained to repair everyone’s instruments. Wilson was chosen.

After the war, Wilson decided he could make more money fixing horns than playing them. So after further training, he and his wife, Mary, moved to Lexington, where her brother lived. Wilson became the repairman at Shackleton’s music store.

The director of UK’s marching Wildcats soon found out about Wilson’s baton-twirling past. He asked him to become the band’s drum major, even though Wilson wasn’t a student.

Wilson might have been the band’s oldest member, but he was always being upstaged by the youngest. By the time she was 7, Donna Wilson was wearing the grass off her folks’ yard. She became as good a twirler as her dad.

“She stole the show,” Wilson said. “I became known as the father of the little girl.”

The Wilsons accompanied Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s UK football team to the Cotton Bowl and Sugar Bowl. It was quite a run. Donna returned for an encore during her years as a UK student. She is now retired in Florida.

Wilson spent his free time for the next three decades performing with American Legion and Oleika Shrine bands. “Every vacation involved a parade,” daughter Peggy Wilson said. “Fort Lauderdale, Washington, D.C., and I don’t know how many he did in Chicago.”

After Don Wilson worked 10 years at Shackleton’s, the store decided to get out of the band-instrument business. So Wilson opened his own store with borrowed money and help from Mary, his wife of 64 years, who died in 2005.

Sales and repairs were important, but the key to Don Wilson Music Co.’s success was horn rentals. Instruments are expensive, and parents are hesitant to buy them until they are convinced their children will stick with band.

“He always rented good-quality instruments in good repair, which we needed to make our bands great,” said J. Larry Moore, director of the Lafayette High School Band from 1973 to 1980. “He and Mary supported us any way they could.”

Arthritis ended Wilson’s baton-twirling career long ago, but he comes to work at the store every day. Peggy Wilson runs the business with help from her brother, Gary, and several longtime employees. Another sister, Sally, lives in Georgetown.

“This is his baby,” Peggy said of the store that has played such an important role in Kentucky’s school band tradition. “We have kids come in all the time with a parent or grandparent who says, ‘I got my instrument here, too.’”

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FRANKFORT — When the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce decided to renovate and enlarge its headquarters to create more public space, chamber president David Adkisson said, “I kept saying I wanted something really Kentucky.”

He considered asking architects to design the 7,000-square-foot addition to look like a fancy Bluegrass horse barn, or even a bourbon distillery warehouse.

“They convinced me that wasn’t the way to go,” Adkisson said, as he gave me a tour of the beautiful, but conventional, new space.

What is happening instead is a better reflection of Kentucky’s uniqueness: the Chamber is filling its new building with a diverse collection of original art and furniture by the state’s contemporary artists and craftsmen.

Since the new space opened in April, it has been a big hit, with members of the business advocacy group and with other Kentucky organizations that have used the new meeting rooms, Adkisson said.

He said the project has more than achieved his goal of making the Chamber’s headquarters, near the intersection of Interstate 64 and U.S. 60, a prominent “front door” to Frankfort.

“We’re in the business of showing off the best of Kentucky, so this was a natural,” Adkisson said. “We made a conscious effort to create a gallery-like atmosphere that would showcase the artwork. Now, when groups come here, the art immediately becomes the focus of attention.”

The project also has been a significant boost for Kentucky artists — and not just because the Chamber has so far spent about $50,000 buying and commissioning pieces. Louisville distiller Brown Foreman gave $40,000 toward the art project, and most of the rest so far has come from building-project money, Adkisson said.

Lori Meadows, executive director of the Kentucky Arts Council, worked closely with the Chamber to identify artists and pieces for the building.

“It’s incredibly important for the Chamber to recognize that to complete a building, you need art,” Meadows said. “A lot of time went into the selection of pieces to make sure they were appropriate for each spot.”

The additional space was built onto the front of the Chamber’s existing 10,000-square-foot building. The two sections are connected by a new, light-filled lobby. The upper parts of the tall lobby walls are covered with panoramic Kentucky scenes by Jeff Rogers, a Lexington photographer best known for his two Kentucky Wide books.

The Chamber’s new board room is dominated by a round conference table designed by Brooks Meador of Interspace Limited in Lexington and produced by furniture maker Shawn Strevels of Faulkner Fain in Nicholasville.

The board room’s largest wall displays four large seasonal landscape paintings of Kentucky wilderness by John Lackey of Lexington. Light from a corner window illuminates a leaded-glass sculpture by Dan Neil Barnes of Lexington.

The building’s largest meeting space — the AT&T Teleconference Room — has a 10-painting suite by Lexington artist Dan McGrath, depicting scenes of commerce across the state.

The new addition also features paintings by Chris Segre-Lewis of Wilmore and Darrell Ishmael of Lexington, and mixed-media pieces by Kathleen O’Brien of Harrodsburg. There are decorative platters made by porcelain artist Wayne Bates of Murray, and a coffee table in the reception area made by Mark Whitley of Smith’s Grove.

“Our goal is to buy one new piece each year,” Adkisson said. After a few more pieces are purchased, he said, the Chamber plans to publish a brochure for visitors, telling about each artwork and the artist who created it.

“I think it’s exciting that they are realizing the value of art and supporting it,” said Ishmael, who in addition to being a successful artist is an executive with East Kentucky Power Cooperative in Winchester. “I think it’s really refreshing, and I wish other businesses would do it.”

Meadows said the Chamber’s collection has inspired several executives to contact her for help in acquiring original Kentucky art for their companies’ buildings. “That’s exactly what we want to see happen,” she said.

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Wait for others to do it, and it won’t get done. That old saying might not have the same ring to it as “United we stand, divided we fall,” but it could just as easily be Kentucky’s motto.

Increasingly, technology- enabled entrepreneurs are taking a different path. Rather than waiting for big companies, government or established organizations to figure out how to build a 21st-century economy in Kentucky, they’re trying to do it themselves.

They received some encouragement last week from one of the nation’s popular entrepreneurship gurus, Saul Kaplan of the Business Innovation Factory in Providence, R.I.

During a whirlwind 28-hour trip, Kaplan met with city and business leaders in Lexington and Louisville. He talked to entrepreneurs and business students in both cities, and to some who drove in from as far away as Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.

Kaplan created the non-profit Business Innovation Factory in 2005 as a laboratory for entrepreneurs working on “areas of high social impact,” such as health care, education and energy. Before that, he was a strategy consultant in the health care industry and executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp.

Kaplan’s trip to Kentucky was organized by Eric Patrick Marr of The Lexenomics Group, a non-profit economic development organization. Kaplan donated his time, and Randall Stevens of the Lexington business incubator Base 163 paid for his travel.

“The visit was fantastic,” Kaplan told me as he was leaving to fly home Tuesday. “I was pleasantly surprised by the momentum here. There’s definitely the makings of a very entrepreneur-oriented economy.”

Kaplan’s message was that innovation and entrepreneurship must be central to any economic development strategy. And like any consultant, he loves buzzwords. His favorites are: connect, inspire and transform.

“You need to get innovators from across all the silos in your community to communicate and collaborate more effectively,” he said. The next step is inspiring creative people with stories of successful entrepreneurs. Finally, he said, dramatic transformation is required to create a robust, sustainable economy and address many of society’s biggest challenges.

“Incremental change isn’t going to create the economic future that this community wants and needs,” he said. “How can you turn your community into a real-world lab oratory, a place that celebrates experimentation, where people are willing and able to try new things, to try new ideas … to determine what works and what doesn’t work?”

Elder care in Kentucky is one area ripe for innovative problem solving and entrepreneurship, Kaplan noted. The state has an aging population and a growing health care infrastructure. Plus, Louisville is home to the nation’s largest elder-care companies.

“We know that the majority of the elder population want to age in place in their own homes with dignity, but the system wasn’t designed that way,” he said. “How can we create a new set of solutions and new approaches to do that? Those solutions could create new jobs and businesses.”

Kaplan said he sees several assets Kentucky can build on. First, the Lexington-Louisville-Northern Kentucky region is big enough to have a critical mass of important assets, but it isn’t too big.

Second, he said, “It has incredible quality of place. I could see it the minute I left the airport. And quality of place is the best asset any community can have. Everything should be viewed through the lens of how do we enhance and protect that quality of place, and at the same time figure out how to unleash entrepreneurial innovation.”

Finally, Kaplan said, the recent elections of Lexington and Louisville mayors with innovative business backgrounds offers a unique opportunity for economic transformation.

“Having spent time with both mayors, I think they get it,” he said. “I think they want to catalyze the kind of entrepreneurial economy and community we’ve talked about here over the past couple of days. If I were living here, I would be optimistic.”

Kaplan said top-down economic development planning — the “bring in the big outside company” incentive strategy that Kentucky has failed at more often than it has succeeded — isn’t the way of the future.

“Bring the entrepreneur and the innovator to the center of the economic development conversation,” he said. “And tie that conversation to solving real social challenges within the community.”

For a century, Kentucky seemed to have a virtual lock on two signature industries: horses and bourbon.

We have heard a lot about what is happening with the horse industry. Other states are luring away Kentucky’s Thoroughbreds with breeder incentives and higher race purses, mostly subsidized by casino gambling.

Things have been different with bourbon. The past three decades have seen a bourbon renaissance with big Kentucky distillers successfully selling new premium-priced brands to a growing international market of spirits connoisseurs.

But just as craft brewers are taking a bigger slice of the beer market, craft distilleries are the hottest trend in liquor. Kentucky’s spirits monopoly is threatened because many of these small distillers are setting up shop elsewhere.

The Kentucky Distillers’ Association has taken a couple of steps to support craft distillers in the state — and to try to attract more of them. “Our craft distillers are very important to what we’re doing as a state and as an industry,” said KDA President Eric Gregory.

The association decided, after 131 years, to admit craft distillers as members. The first is Alltech, the biotech company that brews Kentucky Ale and recently branched into distilling. Alltech last year began selling a malt whiskey, Pearse Lyons Reserve, named for the company’s founder and chief executive. It also makes a bourbon-and-coffee drink called Bluegrass Sundown and is working on a bourbon.

Later this year, Alltech will begin construction of a distillery building beside its brewery, off Maxwell Street west of downtown Lexington. It also has created a charming visitors center in a former ice house.

A few blocks west on Manchester Street, Barrel House Distilling Co. is making Pure Blue vodka and waiting for its bourbon and bourbon-barrel rum to age. Corsair Artisan Distillery in Bowling Green makes a range of spirits including Vanilla Bean Vodka and Pumpkin Spice Moonshine. MB Roland Distillery near Hopkinsville makes corn whiskey, spiced rum and flavored moonshines. It also has a bourbon on the way.

The KDA also wants to help craft distillers — and its other members, too — by cutting the industry’s state taxes. Kentucky has the nation’s highest distillery taxes.

“That’s the big issue,” said Bill Samuels, president of Maker’s Mark Distillery in Loretto. “I know most of the craft distillers around the country, and they just laugh when you talk about Kentucky.”

Kentucky is the only state with an ad valorem tax on spirits aging in barrels. Distillers don’t want to repeal the tax because the money goes directly to counties where they operate. But the KDA is backing legislation to provide a credit to offset the tax.

“The main thing it would do is give us a fighting chance to compete for craft distilleries,” Samuels said. “If you’re starting off a craft distillery and you have problems with cash flow anyway — where you make it and you don’t sell it for five, six, seven years — the last thing you need is for it to be taxed like a finished product when it’s not a finished product.”

Kentucky has lost 20 percent of its total manufacturing jobs since 2000, but distillery employment has grown by 6 percent during the decade, to more than 3,200 direct and several thousand more spinoff jobs. That’s according to an economic impact study the KDA commissioned last year by University of Louisville economist Paul Coomes.

Samuels said Maker’s Mark employment has grown more than 40 percent in the past three years, from 80 to 117. Multimillion-dollar facilities expansions are underway at Maker’s Mark, Heaven Hill, Jim Beam and Wild Turkey distilleries.

“I think the legislature needs to think about us as a signature industry rather than a demon,” Samuels said. “And then I think we could continue to serve the commonwealth with lots and lots of jobs and taxes.”

Kentucky now makes 96.5 percent of the world’s bourbon whiskey. “If we don’t get a lot of these new craft operators, it’s going to be a whole lot less than that,” Samuels said. “When something gets going, people are willing to take risks and invest. And bourbon’s going. So why not keep it here in the commonwealth?”

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GEORGETOWN — There are two kinds of community leaders. The first is obvious: mayors, county judge-executives and the heads of companies, civic groups and non-profits. Then there are the “connectors.”

Connectors are people who bring others together for the common good but often don’t attract much public attention. They are grass-roots dreamers and organizers who know how to engage the right people, gather the right information, connect the dots — and get things done.

You will soon hear a lot more about connectors because United Way of the Bluegrass is coordinating the Bluegrass Connectors project to identify them in the area.

The project’s goal is to identify the key 100 or so connectors in the region, based on analysis of nominations from the public. Those connectors will then be connected with each other, which should naturally increase communication and cooperation across city limits and county lines.

The project also could help empower a new, more diverse group of people to join the ranks of that first group of community leaders. That would be good, because leadership initiatives in Central Kentucky too often resemble the old movie Casablanca — we just “round up the usual suspects.”

This social-networking project grew out of a meeting last week at Toyota. Nearly 100 of the region’s first group of leaders were invited by Lyle Hanna, a local human-resources executive, to listen to Karen Stephenson, a cultural anthropologist who has taught in the design and management schools of Harvard and UCLA.

Over the past three decades, Stephenson has developed a lucrative international consulting practice, working with organizations to improve performance by identifying their internal networks of communication and trust. After 9/11, she even helped the Pentagon try to figure out the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Stephenson achieved a degree of fame after Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, wrote an article in the December 2000 issue of The New Yorker magazine about her work with furniture manufacturer Steelcase to design more productive offices.

Since then, Stephenson has donated time to several cities, including Louisville and Philadelphia, to apply to communities the “connector” research that she has done for more than 500 companies.

“In every community, there are these people who work hard for the greater good, but they don’t always have the time to connect with everyone else,” she said. By asking the public to identify and recognize these citizens, she said, “It gives people an opportunity to think differently and find those people who have been overlooked.”

Louisville’s connectors project was organized in 2008 by Leadership Louisville. “We have never done anything like this before that has had so much impact on us and the community,” said Chris Johnson, who has been president of Leadership Louisville for two decades.

The Louisville project chose 128 key connectors from among more than 5,500 nominations. Many were executive-level leaders with recognizable names — including former Mayor Jerry Abramson and new Mayor Greg Fischer. But others included small-business owners, educators, a librarian and an administrative assistant. (People can’t nominate themselves, and Stephenson’s computer analysis tries to weed out “ballot stuffing.”)

“Word has really gotten out across the community that connectors are resources,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to dig deeper and ask them about issues they care about, issues that are under the radar.”

The nine-county United Way of the Bluegrass, with help from the Blue Grass Community Foundation, is facilitating the Bluegrass Connectors project so it won’t be viewed as Lexington-driven. Some previous efforts at regionalism have failed because leaders in counties surrounding Lexington resent Bigfoot.

Hanna, United Way president Bill Farmer and others who arranged for Stephenson’s help don’t know exactly what will result from the Bluegrass Connectors project, but they have high hopes.

“There are a substantial group of people who are getting things done in our communities who we don’t notice because we are often focused on the executive level,” Farmer said. “Because of the economic reset, we recognize that things have to be different if we are to maximize our potential.”

To watch some video clips from the session, click here.

A new think tank has been created to study Kentucky issues and analyze the public policies being developed to address them.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy is a project of the Berea-based Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, which has a long track record of producing quality research on issues affecting Eastern Kentucky and Central Appalachia. The center’s Web site is at: www.kypolicy.org.

The center’s first report looks at how $3.4 billion in federal stimulus money shored up Kentucky’s budget — and how the state will be affected now that stimulus spending is coming to an end.

“Kentucky relied heavily on Recovery Act dollars to plug holes in the 2009-2010 state budget and to craft a balanced budget in 2011-2012,” the center’s director, Jason Bailey, said in a news release about the report.  “Those funds dry up this year, however, at a time when the economy remains in a deep hole.”

Click here to download the report. You can sign up to receive future updates at the Center’s Web site.

Expect the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy to provide some progressive balance to the conservative Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, based in Bowling Green.

When researching my column today, I missed an important change in the state tax reform proposal that  Rep. Bill Farmer, a Lexington Republican, has made for each of the past several years.

Previously, Farmer said that by eliminating the state’s personal and corporate income taxes and extending the sales tax to most services, enough revenue could be generated to lower Kentucky’s 6 percent sales tax rate, perhaps to 5 percent or 5.5 percent.

Rep. Bill Farmer

But the version of the bill Farmer filed for this legislative session calls instead for raising the sales tax rate to 7 percent. Why the change?

“The economists missed badly last year” when estimating the tax revenues that would be produced by the changes he was proposing, Farmer said. How badly? About $1 billion.

Farmer said he still isn’t sure the changes would require an increase in the overall sales tax rate at a time when lawmakers would be taxing more services and removing exemptions in order to eliminate income taxes, but he is trying to be conservative. “It’s easier to start a little high and go low than to start low and have to raise it at some point,” he said.

Not that it is likely to matter. Farmer said he has little hope that any meaningful tax reform will happen this year — his plan or anyone else’s. And he is skeptical that Kentucky politicians will ever be willing to eliminate income taxes.

As I wrote in my column today, many business leaders and politicians like Tennessee’s tax system because they say that taxing consumption rather than income is more attractive to businesses and high-income workers.

But the tradeoff for Tennessee has been some of the nation’s highest sales taxes. That leaves poor and middle-class people paying a bigger share of their income in taxes than higher-income folks. The last commission Tennessee lawmakers appointed in 2002 to study that state’s tax system proposed fixing that problem by — you guessed it — creating a state income tax.