The Community, Connections & Commerce Podcast, presented by OUE & St. Clairsville Chamber - Community, Connections, & Commerce Bonus Epsode with Brandon Ludwig

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Music Welcome to Community Connections and Commerce. I'm Drake Watson along with Wendy Anderson. Wendy, good morning. Good morning, how are you? I'm doing well. It's a great morning and we have a great guest on this morning. Brendan Ludwig. Ludwig, thank you for coming on this morning and giving us your time and your insight on a couple different things. You're the village administrator of Caddis. Some things involved with the Caddis Business Association, Sallie Buffalo Park Board, a bunch of different things.

So we're certainly thrilled to have you on and are gonna appreciate the conversation that we have this morning. Good morning. Good morning, Wendy. Good morning, Drake. Thank you guys for having me on. I've heard about this in the early stages.

I think this is a great thing and I'm just excited to be asked kinda in the the first season, you guess you'd call it. Sure. Yeah, it is the first season. So I guess to start off, we know about the, you know, you're the village administrator. I want to know kind of your backstory and how you got started in that and, you know, how your beginnings have led you to where you are now. Yeah, so I'm a graduate of Harrison Central way back in 2005.

I know that's not way back, I guess, but to me it's- Oh, you're talking to me. It's not way back. To me it's way back. Drake probably has a different opinion on that. But I graduated from Harrison Central 2005. I went and got my Associate's Degree's degree in criminal justice and then went to the police academy and I was fortunate enough to get a job working in my local town in Caddis.

Worked there for about a year and then had an opportunity to go work for the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections for the state of Ohio. Did that for about four years and one of the part-time jobs I had you know in summer going through college was was working for the village working at the street department working at the Parks Department and I just always had a knack and itch to work there and I really enjoyed my time working there. Had an opportunity to come back full-time work for the village. I took that opportunity kind of took a leap of faith, leaving a really good state job,

but coming back and working in the town that I live in. I was fortunate enough to work 10 years in the streets department. And then back in 2000, I'm going to say 2014-15, we had a chance to put a committee together to pass the school levy at Harrison Central. And I did that with my closest friends, who've, most of them have gone on to be successful in the private sector and in the government as well. We passed that school levy,

we were able to build a $60 million facility. Good. That has just kept growing and expanding and getting better and better every year. I really was passionate about that. It felt good. It was one of them feel good stories and it was one of those things that how can you keep doing that.

So, CADIS at the time was also transitioning from a council and Board of Public Affairs, which handles their water and sewer. And they eliminated that Board of Public Affairs and which handles their water and sewer. And they eliminated that Board of Public Affairs, and they implemented a village administrator. We had two. They had very short stints. They were more big city minded. They came from larger areas.

I just honestly feel that it didn't mesh with a small community like Caddis. When the second one left, I basically sat down with my best friend, Dan Millison, and I wrote a letter from the heart, basically why I felt like I wanted to be in that position, and a lot of key points on basically somebody from the community that cares and wants to take the job seriously, not just as a job, but for the betterment of the community and how can we make Caddus better.

I got an interview from that standpoint, got offered the job. I just, today is my three-year mark. Happy anniversary. I just now realize that I started this job three years ago. And here I am today, and I take every opportunity to promote Caddis and promote the things that we're doing

That's why I jumped on this opportunity cool I wish we could say that we knew that and we had that planned that would have been neat to do but but I'm glad that that works out that way and and of course, you know, congratulations, but as as village administrator You kind of touched on a few of the things that you are involved with as a village administrator, you kind of touched on a few of the things that you are involved with,

but could you go into a little more detail on kind of what a day to day is like for you and your role? Yeah. So I, I oversee the village municipal building and the operations up there, the street department, the water and sewer department, and the parks department, uh, the way a village is structured. The police department is overseen by, uh. So I work for the mayor and I work for six councilmen. I basically run day-to-day operations. I implement policy and procedures. I work with our fiscal officer and we set the budget every year and basically I take every opportunity I can to let Caddis be heard.

Is there anything that you could point to that would be, I guess this is a two prong question, that would be your favorite part of your job, and I'm sure promoting the community and helping that out is one of those, but then also what a challenge is in your role? Yeah, I think Caddis is in a unique position and to answer that question kind of I can answer that directly. Caddis faced along with I'm learning every year every small community in the high valley

struggling with this is our infrastructure. Everything's you know water and sewer upgrades, electric upgrades. We've noticed that a lot of companies come in and upgraded their internet and fiber, but CADIS, our biggest thing has been water and sewer. We just now are in our phase two of our sewer infrastructure upgrade where our collection system is going to be completely rehabilitated. Along that journey and that process, we've been able to get a lot of funding

through state agencies, Army Corps of Engineers, and things like that. The biggest challenge with that is, a lot of people don't like seeing their town tour up every day and driving through detours and things like that. And I think every small community's facing that challenge right now.

So be able to balance the good on that side of, a lot of people don't notice the stuff underground that's being repaired, and you don't have to mess with for 30, 40 years once it's done. And dealing with it right as it's going on, and a lot of the complaints that come in every day, and people don't like that their water bill's gotta go up to pay for that.

Nobody's fault, but it's when you put those things off for the amount of years that a lot of communities did, a lot of times it's all gotta be done at once. Being able to balance that has been something that I try to learn something new every day about. I hear you, I live in Bridgeport, or Brookside. So we're right now in the middle of some kind of construction and I'm also a councilwoman for a Brookside council So I know it's that double-edged sword you have to have it done

But you also have to make it inconvenient for the residents and the people that come through now The Blaine bridge is closed. So it's only one way in and out. So you deal with traffic. And in Bridgeport, you never had traffic. So I get it. And then the residents, they don't understand it. And you're right. They don't see what they can't understand what they don't see. I can't understand what I can't see.

So I know it's a tough situation. We talked about that with Wheeling here, just not too long ago, and how it was torn up and everything, obviously for different reasons, but how it's so important for the residents and the people of the community to see that long-term goal, and to see that, and to understand that this is a short-term sacrifice

for a long-term reward. And I think a lot of citizens, you know, I think it's a battle that you can go back and forth and I see both sides of it but I think what Wheeling did in the long term was a great idea. Oh I thought it was, it's a great idea. I know businesses were impacted. Yeah. But when they're done, like, they won't have to worry about their downtown for a very, very long time. No, at least they shouldn't, no. And a lot of times, you see these,

you'll come in, you'll repair a water line, and then six months to a year, you're tearing the road back up for something else. To see what Wheeling did where they just, they tackled it all at once. I mean, I wish I could do that in my community. We don't have the funds, but I really see a lot of value in the route that they went with that.

Yeah, I get that. I totally understand that. So the purpose of the Caddis Business Association, what is the purpose of that? Yeah, so way back when, there's a Harrison County chamber but there's also a Caddis Business Association. I've never took the time to figure out why. Yeah that's... But I'm also I just took over as president of the Caddis Business Association. Our current president had some health issues had to step down but

as vice president I took over that but I never really, I guess I've never really thought if I spend more time focusing on promoting both, why go back and try to see why they separated? But I'm also a big advocate of like, don't compete against each other. So I, as President, and working with the Executive Director for the Chamber, I try to always like, let's do things together, let's be on the same page.

And it's worked, It's worked a lot But for the cast business Association our big main goal is promoting the businesses in caddis Providing opportunities for businesses to succeed with different events One of the things we had a new business come into town last year cowgirl and me She came to a business CBA meeting and she wanted to do these uptown events, kinda like first Fridays, second Saturdays where community set up, vendors and everything.

One of the biggest things I've always stressed is a lot of people don't like change. So trying to get people to understand sometimes change is good. A lot of people didn't like that idea of a bunch of vendors and stuff uptown, but I would say after the second event, it kind of just took off on its own and it's kind of a monster that's succeeding every month. So that's one of the positive things that we've been able to do. We try to sponsor as many things as we can. We have a monthly luncheon every month. So that's one of the positive things that we've been able to do. We try to sponsor as many things as we can.

We have a monthly luncheon every month and we try to always have a speaker. You know, we've had new businesses come in and speak when they've opened up. We've had a lady from Ohio Southeast kind of partners with Jobs Ohio coming and talk about small business grant opportunities and things like that.

So I will say that during COVID, it kind of disbanded a little bit just because people couldn't get together the way they wanted to. And a lot of people that were involved kind of stepped away and a lot of new people came in. So we are continuously growing and trying to get back to that where we were, you know, pre-COVID. And one of the things, the biggest things we pride ourselves on is our Christmas parade,

which is the first weekend in December. I remember working, back when I worked at the street department, we'd have to close the roads down. It seemed like the amount of time it took to shut the roads down, the parade didn't last as long. But I will say this, in the last two to three years Janet who's in charge of the tourism for the county and and Chief McCann they've

kind of took that parade by the horns and I think last year we had a 40-minute parade so like to see those numbers increase in such a short time is a really good thing to see. That's a great parade amount of time. That's great. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I know we have ours is 60 minutes. This year's gonna be 90 minutes, but for years it's always been just 60 minutes. So for you guys, that small community to have it for 40 minutes, that's huge. Yeah and kind of letting people know that you know a Saturday typically a Saturday in the evenings you don't see a lot of those uptown businesses open you know the

normal businesses but to let them kind of know that that weekend is going to be the streets are going to be filled you know you're gonna have an hour you know between the time that people are getting there and hanging around afterwards and we have Santa. Santa makes a visit at the fire department and sits with the kids. So it kind of lasts more than 40 minutes. It's probably a two-hour ordeal from start to finish. That's awesome.

That's awesome. Now, we did talk before that some of the businesses in CADIS are not necessarily retail. They're just regular title companies, lawyers, insurance companies, whatever. But how do you get them to buy into what you're trying to do? Yeah, I think that's the biggest struggle. And the biggest struggle I see see and I try to balance it out. You know, I got a full plate every day with just operations, but I also feel that my position with the village, you know,

I also need to be involved even if I wasn't the CBA president, be involved with businesses and helping them understand that, you know, you might not benefit like a retail place would with a couple hundred people for uptown caddis, but the long-term effect of your business being involved and having recognition and people, I come from an atmosphere, if you really enjoy where you're at, you're gonna remember that and you're gonna take that

with you and when the time does come where you need a business like that you know hopefully that that business stuck in your head because they were involved and you know they were open had their doors open welcomed you in treated you great I made an impression on you yeah because you need that support from everybody in the town and you're gonna get some naysayers, but you're gonna get, I mean, the benefit is gonna outweigh some of those people who have the naysayers. Yeah, and I think learning from your own mistakes

and not making the same, but also having the networking, and I hope I just made a network here with you. Yeah, you did. To be able to understand and see what other communities are doing and also share what we're doing. Yeah. I've never been about,

Caddis is number one, but number two right behind that is Harrison County in the Ohio Valley. I love this valley and I wanna see the whole valley succeed. So to be able to work with other communities and not just draw our people to their community and their people from our community but seeing people come from outside the valley to travel to see these things because they're growing and they're successful and you know we've we've seen

that a lot with with our stage. So it's not about just Caddis and it's like it's not about St. Clair's Oh that's why we call ourselves the area chamber, because we encompass the whole community, the whole area. So we are the Ohio Valley. So it's not just Wheeling or Moundsville or Cadiz or Jefferson County. It's all of us because we are the Ohio Valley. So together, I mean, can you imagine if we all got together on the same page and had like, you go here for this event, you go here for this event, you go here for this event, we all bring it together? Man, we would be one amazing Valley.

Yeah, and a lot of times, times you know when we reach out to businesses one of the things that we promote is we might be a small community of 3,500 people but go 10 miles outside what do you draw and go 20 miles, go 30 miles and I have this conversation all the time like people in Columbus they'll drive from one side of the city to the other which is a 30-minute drive to go somewhere. Sure. Cadiz to St. Clairsville's 20 minutes. Yeah So to be able to promote you know things to do You know it doesn't have to happen in caddis it does doesn't happen happen anywhere as long as we're promoting the valley together

It's a positive thing and I think I think everyone can benefit from it Yeah, and opposed to as opposed to competing against one another, you're almost like, we know we're all kind of together in this thing, and you just hope you're doing enough to kind of pull your weight, I guess. Yeah, one of the things every day I'm diving into is the community calendar. And we try to plan something extra on what's already going on.

And the biggest thing I promote is, you know, this has been an event that's been going on for 10 years. Let's not go the same weekend as them, you know. Everyone goes to that, everyone supports it. Let's find an off weekend. Give them their space and we'll have ours. Yeah, let's support them and then turn around

and get the support from them as well for our event. I think you brought up a good point a little bit ago and you kind of answered, halfway answered one of our questions about how you attract people from outside of the area and you brought up the park. If you could speak to us about Sallie Buffalo and even the new stage and kind of what impact you've seen that have on the community

in the last couple of years. Yeah, so Sallie Buffalo Park to me is probably one of the most valuable assets that not only the village has, but the county has. We have a unique campsite, campground community park that's made up of about 225 campsites roughly, but also a community park area with shelters, playgrounds, swing sets, things like that.

We also have a lodge that we can rent as well as a barn. But about 10, 12 years ago, we had a gentleman by the name of Mark Pushkarich came in and started a Blues for a Cure event to raise money to help support cancer research and all that good stuff. We had a little rinky-dink stage right behind the lodge that they did not complain about. They played on every year. All the campers supported it.

The local community supported it. Sell tremendous support from local businesses. The gas and oil boom came. The current mayor at the time, Mayor Zitko approached Mark and said, you know, I think we can do something more, we can do something bigger. And it was a collective partnership with a lot of hands in it at the time. But I was fortunate enough to come in right when the bidding process went out to build it and Mark spent so much time between private donations and state grants and local businesses supporting it every year that right now we're probably looking at a million dollar facility that

sits inside Sally Buffalo that we've been fortunate enough to have by local sponsors every year support our concert series the last two years. We've had an average of like 10 to 15 events. We're seeing that expand, not just musical events. Our local church had a movie night for kids out there, had some food trucks. Our first responder 9-11 event has utilized that facility. We've had Dearsville

Theater come in and use it for open mic night one night so we actually had an Ohio State game on the video board after the game so like we've seen that thing not just become a music venue place but but also just a community event space for for everyone to kind of utilize and and we're able to bring food trucks in for all of our events, local food trucks. We've had some really decent sized concerts we opened up with Neil McCoy. We had about 3,000 people.

And that's one of the things I try to tell when I work with the commissioners and I work with other local communities. I know that when they're coming from, and we're hoping to draw from Pittsburgh and we're hoping to draw from Pittsburgh, we're hoping to draw from Canton, New Philadelphia, Tusk County and all that. They're driving through these communities that come to us. I want them to stop and fill their car up and get their beverages before they come, maybe stop. We don't have all the restaurants that we want,

but other local communities do. I hope people get in their mindset, like, let's stop outside of Caddus and eat before we go or you know we know the food trucks gonna be there let's come support that so that's when I talk about the stage I don't talk about it benefiting Caddis I talk about benefiting Harrison County yeah and the communities that surround it but I think we did have at some point just a few months ago somebody from a couple from I want to say Heath Newark area that was a huge fan of one of the one of the acts I think it might have been Brittany Kellogg whoever it was there's a ton a ton of good ones out there and they said they just couldn't

say enough things about how much they loved it and they loved you know their journey out to to Caddis and being in Harrison County and at Sally Buffalo and then of course the show and you know it's kind of a it shines a nice spotlight on the the positive aspects of this community. Yeah that was a very unique and special weekend that we called it Girl Power Weekend. Friday night we had Brittany Kellogg who's got about a couple million TikTok followers. She promoted the stage every chance she could and then Saturday we had two girls from Nashville that came up as part of our food truck

festival and then Sunday we had a church service led by a woman pastor so we kind of you know we had a nice girl power weekend and that they came from Heath one of our councilmen who is always out there helping set set the stage up and run the events ran into him to start a conversation they absolutely loved her we were able to take them backstage and meet her. They loved the park so much that they stayed the night. They ran into a hotel. They came back the next day and supported the Food Truck

Festival and was able to watch music all day again before they left. And we've seen that numerous times. We actually ran into a couple from Indianapolis that came in for the Donnie Iris concert They stayed at they stayed out on 250 On tapping okay one of the lakeside cabins, so you know that goes back to you know They're coming and supporting us but they're also staying in in Harrison County and support and other businesses and to see to hear those stories every time I hear a story and

And my memory is not the greatest with this job because I feel like I got a hundred things, but I always try to take notes on that stuff and I always try to pass that on to council during our meetings and let them know the impact. You know, it's not only providing these free concerts for local residents, but we're also seeing a lot of people come into the community and praise the things that we have and it makes you appreciate what we have. So I think when I hear what you say I understand exactly what you're saying. Take notes.

You take it back to the people that really are the decision makers and you need to keep telling them. You need to keep filling them up with these are the good things that's going on We understand there's bad things we understand that but the good will outweigh the bad and to have that many people come in enjoy What you have there at Sally Buffalo is amazing because you can keep that up and now it'll just keep growing and Amazing because you can keep that up and now it'll just keep growing and

Who what do you have in plan for do you have anything planned next year? Like do any any secrets that you could give or anybody that you know is coming. We don't have a We have our we have our locals that we that we love and we always want them to come back every year We're starting to see that certain bands draw just those those local crowds and they get great support and you know we tell them a 90 minute set they end up playing for two two and a half hours which which we don't turn them away from that you know we think it's great. The stage committee we've sat down this year and one of the things that you know the big conversation is is you know can less be more. I think two years ago the first year we had 16, 18 events.

And every week, every week, it's great bands, great artists, but do we downsize the events and get better events and have three acts maybe in one day? We haven't decided anything yet and I think the biggest push right now is, you know, do we get away from that opening concert at the beginning of the year and maybe go end of year and build it up the whole year?

And we're looking at a way to bring in a really big artist. We haven't decided what level yet, but actually what capacity we could even hold because we've never really filled that place up. We've estimated three to 4,000 people for Neil McCoy. There was still room. There was still room, and I know Drake was there that night, and there's still room back behind that for the venue,

and what level can we handle? And we want to take that leap and try to make something happen I do know that I love it I know one of the conversations that was had is you know if you're doing a show Every Friday and Saturday throughout the summer you get a lot of shows there, then you get folks that think Well, you know I'm kind of busy this weekend weekend so I'll go next weekend. Yeah I know it's going to be there next weekend. Right it's kind of a commodity at

that point and you want to you know just increase the value of each show by having less and I think when I first heard about that I thought that was a brilliant idea and it makes for a more special occasion every time there's a show. Leave them wanting more. Yes. And that's what they they are excited for more. Yes. And that's what they

they are excited for the next event. And we haven't really narrowed down, you know, the first year we tried everything. We had bluegrass, we had you know 80s, we had a lot of country. I think we're we're finding out that the valley and Harrison County likes you know that older 80s music and country, so we've kinda geared our concerts to that. But we've seen a lot of success with our bigger concerts being more country themed and geared. When you have the Jamboree in the Hills

in the Valley for so long, I know people miss that, and I know that the Duttons are doing the same, the great thing, and I completely support that and that's one of those things where we had our opening concert the same night they had theirs and that was the biggest conversation of us. We don't want to compete with them. We want them to succeed because we know that they want us

to succeed and both of us doing well is good for both of us. Sure, it's good for the Valley. Yeah. Yeah, I want to talk talk just touch on real briefly, Luddy Lawn and how that kind of came to be and and just what your involvement is and I guess your reason for getting that started. Yeah, I mean I guess I kind of started in high school. I had a teacher that asked if I could mow or grass for the summer.

That led to her neighbor wanting their grass mowed and it kind of developed into just that summer high school job that I could kind of control my own hours and things like that. I always kept, you know, so many. I went through a wave where I kind of in college I built up to 20-30 accounts and then when I took the job with the state I kind of backed that down but when I really you know went all in all goes

when I took that leap of faith and left the state and took a job with the village I was able to finally have day shift and weekends off probably the first time ever you know almost 30 years old and you know just getting weekends off and evenings so I took that opportunity and just created branded a name and just kind of ran with it and you know I did a lot of work for the baseball little league softball associations Had their accounts was able to work a deal out to her. It wasn't you know beating down their checkbooks But I was also able to provide them a service that was affordable to me

Built that upgrade and then you know, I always bring up Kovac but kind of kovac, you know Made me realize what I want to do. And I was able to kind of have some young kids work for me that were able to go start their own businesses in lawn care, and I support that. They were great at what they did, and they've taken that opportunity, and they've kind of been successful on their end. But what I noticed, and I value my time more than money, and they've taken that opportunity and they've kind of been successful in their end, but

When I notice in I like I value my time more than than money that's when I kind of started to downsize and And things always line up the way they should and the same time I did that I was able to get this job as village administrator. So everything kind of worked out the way it was supposed to and That's wonderful. We are. Yeah. Well, it was a pleasure having you on. Absolutely. Really appreciate the conversation.

I think a lot of what was covered today is, is important for just what it means to, to be involved in the community and to promote the community. And it's in our name. It's literally, it's, you know, just all about the community and the connections that you can make and everything else like that. So if there's nothing else anybody has to add. No, I just I think this is a great thing you guys are doing. My biggest thing is transparency. I learned that from the school levy. You know, being upfront with people, they might not like to hear what you say, but

communicating to everybody and getting your message across, but also listen to them at the same time. At the end of it, I think it's a good thing and and I really hope that this continues and you guys keep doing what you're doing Yeah, yeah, we're on tap to do a second second season. Yeah from what I hear We hope we'll bring you back and we'll see how things have transpired since your first visit I'll take any of the invitation you guys offer. This has been great. Alright sounds good. Thank you for coming on Luddy. Thank you Wendy and thanks to the listener and we hope everyone enjoyed and have a good rest of your day.