ONE ON ONE | Julie Michael Making the Valley's economy her business

Tell me about your job. What does the governor's economic development office do?
On behalf of the governor's office, I represent him and the Ohio Department of Development on economic issues in this region, which is Ashtabula, Mahoning and Trumbull counties. My main focus is to work with businesses looking to locate or expand or maintain operations in the area and create employment opportunities for residents of the Mahoning Valley. Mostly we do that through offering business incentives and technical assistance.
If you weren't doing this, what would you do for a living?
I would probably stay in a similar field. I enjoy working with businesses on their development projects, so I would probably go into some type of consulting.
What do you like most about living in the Valley and what do you like least?
What I like best about living in the Valley is the people. We have tremendous people here. We have tremendous human resources. We have great cultural assets in this community. I now have the great fortune of serving on the Youngstown Symphony board. I'm enjoying that a great deal. What I don't like about the Valley is our parochialism, our negativism within our own community. We have great resources and assets in this community, but we're challenged by our inability sometimes to marshal together these resources and to move our community forward.
Do you think people around here have more of a negative view of the Valley than those outside of it? Do you think we're a little too hard on ourselves?
I think we are. It always surprises me to hear people speak poorly of this community. At the same time, these are people who get very upset when people outside our community speak disparagingly of the Mahoning Valley.
It's interesting to me that there are a number of people in our community who speak poorly of our community. Sometimes we view ourselves as victims and we're not getting past that mentality. We still talk about the decline of the steel mills and what happened 20, 30 years ago.
While that certainly is true that all that did occur, I think we need to learn from that and move forward. I also have to say I do see that we are making strides to develop better and stronger relationships in our region.
What about the governor makes you laugh? Is he a funny guy?
Sometimes, sometimes he is kind of funny.
Whenever he laughs that deep laugh of his, it makes me laugh.
Yes, because he's a tall man and he does come up with that big belly laugh sometimes when it's almost unexpected and it kind of catches you off guard. I enjoy when he was here for the OhioReads billboard unveiling and they took him up in that big cherry-picker. He's holding on. He's white-knuckled and he came down. I asked him, "How was it, governor?" He said, "It was fine." I said, "Who are you kidding? I saw you. You were white-knuckled." He said, "I know. I know." He does have a sense of humor.
Who has had the most influence in your life?
In my professional life, there are two individuals who have had the most influence. One is Bill Binning [who also works in the governor's regional office and is chairman of Youngstown State's political science department] because he placed me in my internship at Mahoning Valley Economic Development Corp. and then he's been along with me in the development of my career.
He has had a lot of influence. Also, Don French from Mahoning Valley Economic Development because I basically grew up there. I started there as a college student and continued through graduate school and stayed there until I got my position with the state. He gave me a lot of flexibility to develop my interests and pursue a number of different programs and really design my position at MVEDC. On a personal level, my father has had a great influence on my life. He's faced a number of challenges and he has always succeeded. I've always admired him for his strength and character.