INNOVATE INDIANA

Exhibit C-4
captured three-fourths of the world market
in 1914. Post-war production dwindled after
consumer tastes shifted to store-bought
clothes.
South Bend’s industrial golden age carried
it through the tough times of the Depression.
Vincent Bendix, a groundbreaker
in the auto and aviation industries, started a
company in 1924 that employed more workers
in the area than Studebaker. A college
education wasn’t needed for a good job.
Manufacturing grew to more than half the
city’s employment, so the slow ebb at Bendix
and the sudden stop at Studebaker hit hard
by the 1970s.
It’s often reported that South Bend lost
a third of its population in the following decades,
but local historians tell a different
story. Many people moved to Granger at a
time of suburban flight, staying in the county
but putting distance between their families
and the city’s problems, and unemployment
actually stabilized within two years of Studebaker’s
closure. The worst sting from Studebaker’s
demise was psychological.
Mayor Buttigieg says a part of his job
is to convince people that a company like
Studebaker is not coming back — and that’s
fine. “Frankly, I’d rather have people working
200 at a time at a hundred companies, so that
if some come and go, we can absorb that,” he
says. “I think South Bend is getting its groove
back. You can just feel that people believe in
the city again, and that’s contagious.”
Major challenges loom as the city celebrates
its 150 th anniversary this year, but
Buttigieg says the city’s defining quality has
been “taking what we have and fashioning it
into something new.” Ignition Park and Ivy
Tower are part of a tradition, he says, that
includes the East Race. Filled with debris
for years, the waterway that once powered
South Bend factories was transformed into
North America’s first urban man-made kayak
course in the 1980s. The East Race now
draws thousands of tourists a year.
Buttigieg often carries an antique pocket
watch to make his point. He explains that the
1909 beauty was made by South Bend Watch
and features the city’s name on its face “because
the name South Bend was a byword
for workmanship and excellence” — a brand
powerful enough to sell products. The company
folded by 1930 because “they persisted
in making the best pocket watches of the
early wristwatch era.” They didn’t adapt. But
they didn’t need to start making iPods, he
says. They just needed to evolve with what
they had. “That’s innovation, South Bend
style.”
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT | SECTION 19
IN THE SPRING OF 2012, Professor David Murphy took a few dozen
aspiring entrepreneurs on a tour of South Bend’s Union Station, which houses
computer servers and a range of high-tech businesses.
A few weeks later, the same group of Notre Dame graduate students in
Murphy’s Engineering, Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Excellence
Master’s program (ESTEEM), took a spring break trip to North Carolina’s Research
Triangle. In Durham, they marveled at a buzzing startup incubator called America
Underground, located in a former Lucky Strike cigarette factory that had been
transformed into a mixed-use development of restaurants, entertainment venues,
housing and green space.
Seeing budding potential and bustling product in quick succession inspired
the students to ask whether they could help South Bend emulate Durham’s transformation.
That idea snowballed into enFocus, a nonprofit talent incubator that offers
ESTEEM graduates a one-year fellowship working with clients, from the city and its
public transportation system to schools and hospitals. Kevin Smith ’78, the owner of
Union Station, donated office space in his building and the services of a consulting
manager. Mike Bieganski, a former Bosch executive, offered office equipment. And
local developer David Matthews created a loft-style community apartment for the
fellows at his Emporium complex on the St. Joseph River.
Each enFocus fellow leads a project, with a local business leader as a mentor.
The community in turn reaps the benefit of talented and motivated consultants at
an exceptionally low price.
In the first year alone, enFocus’ seven consultants were able to identify $3.2
million in unrealized savings opportunities within public funds. These ranged from
an optimization of the city’s solid waste fleet that could save up to $500,000 to
an analysis that helped the Notre Dame Federal Credit Union receive a beneficial
designation for serving a low-income community. The enFocus program was so successful
that in 2013 it won a $3 million grant from the Eli Lilly Foundation to help
it grow and replicate throughout Indiana over the next five years. Turning the area’s
brain drain into brain gain, the program’s retention rate over two years has been 75
percent, with some fellows turning down jobs at tech giants on both coasts to stay
in South Bend. Some hope to open new businesses, one has become the program’s
executive director and another has become the city’s chief innovation officer.
Expansion plans call for the program to relocate from Union Station to Studebaker
Building 113, a two-story structure in Smith’s “Renaissance District” that will
be renovated before the much larger former auto assembly factory to which it’s
attached.
— Brendan O’Shaughnessy ’93
S U M M E R 2 0 1 5 13
REGIONALCITIESOFNORTHERNINDIANA.ORG |
B A R B A R A J O H N S T O N
371
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE REGION ENGAGED CURRENT TRENDS
STATE OF THE REGION
& QUALITY OF PLACE
VISION & STRATEGY PROJECTS
STAKEHOLDERS, EXECUTION
& STRUCTURAL CHANGES
BENCHMARKING
& MEASUREMENT
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT