I think there is a back-story here in the Big Easy that neither the media nor New Orleanians themselves seem to know how to get out. And it has everything to do with their creating and even attracting a future market for employers and the jobs they bring. It’s all about the quality of the people that employers everywhere want to hire.
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. v6 o& `1 ~; |$ S2 VOver and over the last three days I’ve been meeting and learning from people who came back, never left or just showed up and, not only did their job, but they did everything else they had to do to make their families, their neighborhood and the larger community viable.
, a* V8 S* b& j5 N' _Their back-stories are lost in the hopefully receding images of devastation that most media- even the local N.O. media would have us look at over and over (but on the ground, here in the city, it is harder and harder each day to emphasize the problems without being distracted by the hammering of one more NO native who stopped waiting for the insurance to arrive, or the politicos to agree or for the government to actually come up with the money they claim to have approved but which few have seen and has simply gotten on with what needs to be done). These back-stories are about people who are working with their neighbors and taking responsibility for putting their small corner of the world in order- money in hand or no money in hand

The people I see in large numbers in New Orleans today aren’t letting any of their anger over insurance or disappointment with various local and federal agencies slow them down. One step at a time, one decision at a time, one nail at a time, they are simply putting their houses in order…literally and figuratively. They may not agree with each other totally about the direction to go but they are working the problem every day and, most important, making visible progress. Most of the people I met were reluctant to address it but the window is closing on the folks not ready or willing to return. Right or wrong, Big Easy’s expats will lose their voice in the city’s future unless they return now because the "new" New Orleans is being claimed by an new mix of age, gender, race and ethnicity willingly investing their sweat equity without any guarantees. It’s happened before…lots of times. It’s happening now in the downtown, the uptown, the wards, the Bywater, the Westend and in all the surrounding parishes. It is these back stories about the “can do” attitude of people who are transforming their region that the mayor should be engaging, that the N.O. Times Picayune should be writing about and that the community of neighborhoods and neighboring parishes ought to promote to present a common front.
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0 @- _0 o* A3 e2 I5 D5 VWe should be hearing more stories about people like Tom Zaunbrecher, a Spherion franchise owner who is having the best year ever in permanent placement and we would learn more than the facts that his employees are busy putting semi-skilled and skilled labor to work or that the average hourly rates are up all over the state as much as 40%. Within days of Katrina and then Rita, Tom, who commutes from Lafayette, nearly 2 hours from the edge of the city where his office was flooded 4 feet up, brought friends in to help him gut the walls and rework the electricity so his employees could have a place to work and his clients a place to contact. Tom was up and running by September the 12th with cells phones helping old and new clients get back on their feet with workers he was able to find and bus in from miles away. 6 months later his offices had to be totally redone professionally but, by then many companies that never before gave him a chance to show what he could do, were now loyal customers who appreciated that he was there when they needed him. Tom’s employees were visibly proud they made a difference to their clients during the toughest of times.

Or, Mark Rose, general manager of NOLA.com, a New Orleans job board that is a part of Advance Publications and a part of the Newhouse family publishing empire (which also includes the Times Picayune). Their business has soared since Katrina but it is his back story that underlines their success. Mark just returned to his pre-Katrina home this week. A year ago, within hours of last year’s storm with water rising in their house Mark and his wife took care of their first priority- getting his kids into a new school. A combination of networking connections, cold calls and persistence had them signing-up their kids in an undamaged neighboring parish school several miles from the edge of the damage almost before the storm abated. Then, while helping the newspaper and his job board relocate to stay in business and keep the community informed, he and his wife searched for a home to buy, tracked down real estate agents and lawyers, got inspections conducted, arranged for finance and more under the most trying circumstances…and closed last November.7 v% f+ u3 X  `* c
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It isn’t enough to have a Katrina anniversary that celebrates stories rehashing the heroism of the first days. A year later a new class of hero is emerging by the tens of thousands from the crucible of an entire year under the heat of Katrina’s aftermath.  These folks are tempered by the experience they’ve been through and confident like few others can be about their ability to accomplish almost anything. The confidence they demonstrate should begin to supplant the media’s emphasis about neighborhood arguments, political parties, racial divide and divisive economic interests over visions, agendas and dollars. These things may be real on one level but, in the scheme of things, they are an unbalanced representation of where most people are living day-to-day in the region. Rather than turn off the rest of the country by highlighting the complaints...and make it impossible for employers to even consider the region as a viable place for a branch office (let alone a “center of excellence” or a company headquarters) the community should be pushing a contrasting image to the rest of us that New Orleans and surrounding parishes are peopled with folks who “can do”. Tens of thousands of local small businesses struggling for the tourist dollar or serving the people who service the tourists is not tapping the full potential of the new New Orleans and their citizens.

Tom and Mark and the other folks I’ve been had the opportunity to speak to this week along with Libby Sartain like Bill Roussell of Bright moments, Lee Crean from the University of New Orleans, Teresa and David Lawrence from Delta Personnel, the wait staff- Daniel, Yvette and David all exhibit that tested in the fire attitude that convinces me they can do just about anything.
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; m' p! z  C& ~; c' q/ y) NNew Orleans still needs to demonstrate it can handle a 25,000 person convention but the city will have that opportunity this Fall. The downtown never looked as good as it does now even though the tourists are not there in large numbers (occupancy rates fluctuate in the largest hotel between 30 and 80%). There are a few large firms like Entergy, Lockheed and Capital One who could show the way for other Fortune 500 firms interested in the area but they will have get out more. I’m still reluctant to encourage an outsider to relocate to the area unless they can spell “entrepreneur” or have family connections but New Orleans and the LA region hit hardest by two back to back devastating hurricanes last year is well on its way to creating a new image for its workforce…N.O. can do.