Inland Business Catalyst - May/June 2007
By SSYP Board Member Bethany Luck-Hutson

I recently met a gentleman in his early 30s whose company had just transferred him from Seattle to Spokane.  He told me that initially he was disappointed by the transfer.  But once he got to here and started to discover all that Spokane has to offer, he was pleased with the change.

For young professionals, it is vitally important to live in a city with an excellent quality of life – great restaurants, exciting nightlife, arts and cultural experiences, good shopping, recreational opportunities, diversity.  They want to live somewhere safe with good schools where they can settle down one day and raise a family. 

Young, talented professionals bring a lot of talent to the table and they want to be compensated for it and feel appreciated for it by the organizations that employ them.  Young professionals want to work in an environment that is encouraging, supportive and that does not stifle creativity.  The young professional wants to feel valued. 

“Brain drain” is the result of these young talented professionals emigrating to other cities, or even other countries, due to a perceived lack of opportunity where they currently live.  Brain drain used to be a problem facing other countries.  Now it’s a big problem for many U.S. cities, particularly mid-sized markets like Spokane.

Young Professionals Organizations, or YPOs, across the country have found that nearly three out of four young professionals will first pick a city to live in, then find a job in that city.  Some of these young professionals are Gen-Xers, but the majority belong to Gen-Y or Generation-e and it is important for employers to remember that they have a “live first, work second” mentality when recruiting these young, talented professionals. 

Employers looking to recruit young professionals from other cities need to learn to sell the region first and the job second.  Show them why they should choose to come to the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area.  They should come because of the quality of life: the fabulous outdoor recreational opportunities, the unique restaurants and bars, the arts and culture experiences. 

Spokane has another selling point – a vibrant young professionals organization. The Spokane Society of Young Professionals, or SSYP, exists to connect young professionals in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area to each other and to our community. 

SSYP creates opportunities for young professionals to connect with one another through networking events and social gatherings.  SSYP also helps connect young professionals to their community through volunteer opportunities, civic engagements and recreational opportunities.  When young professionals feel connected to other young professionals and to their community, and when they feel like they can make a difference in their community, they are much more likely to stay.

SSYP was formed in the fall of 2004 after Jenny Harvey, Rachel Fabrikant-Botnick and I went to lunch to discuss a problem.  We were tired of hearing other young, talented professionals say that they wanted to leave Spokane because there was nothing to do or there was no one else like them here.  After recruiting Charlie Archer and Ryan Moede, and Chad Hutson as an advisor, the group formed a board of directors and applied for non-profit status.  Our goal for SSYP was to create connections and engage our community’s young professionals.

Two weeks later on November 4, 2004, after a barrage of emails to everyone in our contact lists, the Spokane Society of Young Professionals held our first event at Catacombs Pub in downtown Spokane.  The board was hoping to have at least 20 people show up, but nearly 120 young professionals crowded into Catacombs.  At one point the line was all the way up the stairs and out the front door. 

The response to the Spokane Society of Young Professionals has been overwhelming and it proved to the board of directors that there was a real need for the group in the Spokane region.  Their theory was validated – young professionals in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area were desperate for a way to connect to each other and to our community.

We didn’t know it at the time, but Spokane was on the cutting edge.  In 2004, SSYP was one of the first young professionals organizations of its kind in the nation.  Now, however, there are YPOs in almost all first and second tier cities. 

The goals of these young professionals organizations are the same: to keep young talent in the community by connecting the young professionals to each other and to their community through networking events and exposing them to volunteer and civic opportunities. 

Managers and supervisors should support their young professional employees who choose to join SSYP because their membership in SSYP has the potential to lower the turnover rate by making those employees want to stay in Spokane because of their connection to other young professionals and their sense of ownership in the community.

There are several reasons companies should support SSYP, regardless of whether or not they employ young professionals.  SSYP’s goal of connecting young professionals to each other has the potential to create valuable business partnerships.  Plus, these young talented minds make great additions to non-profit and government boards, councils, committees and commissions because they bring new energy and new ideas to the table. 

Additionally, one of SSYP’s goals is to introduce Spokane’s young professional community to new restaurants, attractions, arts and cultural experiences and recreational opportunities in the Spokane region with the hope that these young professionals, who have a more prolific amount of buying power as a whole than nearly any other generation in history, will become repeat customers for these businesses, thus broadening their economic impact in the community.

Ultimately, it is important for employers and community leaders to remember that these young professionals are the business and community leaders of tomorrow.  It won’t be long before these young professionals are the key decision-makers in our community.

We have reached a critical time.  Cities around the country and abroad are entrenched in a battle for the brains – all fighting for the same young talent.  The Spokane region needs make sure to retain its young professionals to prepare our community for future successes.  Now is the time to make a place for these young talented professionals at the community’s decision-making tables.

We need to take care of the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene community.  It has a rich past and it is dynamic in the present.  And if we properly nurture our young talent, our community will have a bright and successful future.

Just imagine for a moment what our community would look and feel like if all the young talented professionals moved out of the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area and took their vibrant entrepreneurial spirit with them. 

For more information about brain drain and the young professionals movement that is sweeping the nation, visit www.ypcommons.org.  For more information about the Spokane Society of Young Professionals, visit www.ssyp.org or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Bethany Luck-Hutson
Luck-Hutson works in the Destination Marketing department at the Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau.  She was born and raised in Spokane.  She is a graduate of Mead High School and Eastern Washington University.  Luck-Hutson has been employed in public relations and marketing in the Spokane region since receiving her BS in Communications in 2002.  She currently serves as the President of the Spokane Public Relations Council and as the Communications Chair for the Spokane Society of Young Professionals.  Luck-Hutson lives in north Spokane with her husband Chad and her two beautiful stepdaughters.