Episode 16

Blazing Trails with Stephen Cohen

About BizCast Greater La Crosse

We bring you news from the business community. From startups to experienced problem solvers, you’ll get in-depth insight on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Greater La Crosse. Our show is a collaboration between WIZMNews.com and BizNews Greater La Crosse ( GreaterLaCrosse.media ).

Full Transcript [ generated by AI]

[00:00:00] Stephen Cohen: I love my community that I live in. I plan to live here for a long time, so my goal is to make it a better place.

[00:00:08] Vicki Markussen (2): Welcome to Biz Cast Greater La Crosse. I am your host, Vicki Markussen, and we’re bringing you news out of the business community. This is brought to you by Biz News. My guest today is Steven Cohen. This is gonna be a different format. Business leaders and individuals make a lot happen in this community. And you are certainly one of those great examples. So let’s start out with, I know you’re involved in. Three organizations tell me what your role is and what those three are.

[00:00:37] Stephen Cohen: Yes. First of all, great to be here. Thanks for thanks for having me. And yes, firstly I’m the West Salem Business Association President and I’ve been in that position for about a year now, and I’ve got about a year left before we rotate out. So it’s been a great experience leading monthly meetings, getting speakers to come and talk with our other business owners about relevant issues as well as many different projects in the community.

[00:01:02] Stephen Cohen: In addition, I’m on the board of ORA, which is Outdoor Recreation Alliance. And basically they help facilitate trail building in Lacrosse County mainly Hickson Forest and so forth. But expanding to different places as well. And we’ve got some exciting projects. The third thing that that I’m involved with would be, Explore La Crosse, and I have been a board member of Explorer Lacrosse for a couple years now.

[00:01:31] Stephen Cohen: Once I joined the Business Association, I got on there and started getting involved in, what was happening in the tourism industry, in La Crosse County. And my goal of being on that board is to do a good job of including West Salem in that experience. As a resident of West Salem, I think it’s important to to, to use those tax dollars appropriately and bring visitors and and outside money to our community.

[00:01:55] Vicki Markussen: What we didn’t cover is what’s your day job that makes all of this volunteering possible?

[00:02:00] Stephen Cohen: Of course I’m a financial advisor. With Edward Jones and my office is right in West Salem, which is great, just a few blocks away from home. So that’s great for me and my family, my wife and three children. Usually we get to enjoy lunch together because I’m so close to the office.

[00:02:15] Stephen Cohen: But it also gives me a great sense of of our community just because I don’t I don’t commute out to to, to another place. And a lot of my people I deal with daily are local residents and business owners. So I think I’ve got a good thumb on the pulse of West Salem. What made

[00:02:29] Vicki Markussen: you want to get involved in multiple organizations?

[00:02:33] Stephen Cohen: I think that it’s important to have a positive impact on your community, and I find organizations like ORA for example, as a way for me to be used as a tool to do bigger things. And I think that they magnify my ability to to achieve things where if I tried to go on my own and build a trail or do a project, it would.

[00:02:53] Stephen Cohen: Very difficult, an uphill battle. But organizations like Look, Explore La Crosse and ORA, and the Business Association gonna give me an outlet for that energy, but also allow for partnerships to do even better things. I

[00:03:05] Vicki Markussen: can’t remember which of the organizations is where I really met you first. But I know through the West Salem Business Association you were really interested in pushing that organization to new heights.

[00:03:17] Vicki Markussen: What’s, what was your vision and how is it coming

[00:03:19] Stephen Cohen: along? I’d say quite frankly, when I first joined the organization I felt that there was maybe an underwhelming amount of businesses that were actually part of the organiz. Said a different way. I think our our membership was a little low compared to the number of businesses we had in town.

[00:03:34] Stephen Cohen: And so my objective was to, continue to grow that membership. One of the ways that we have been able to do that is improving our website and and our database and our, and the way we communicate with our businesses. And we’ve found that by just allowing some of those techno, some of that technology to, to be in place.

[00:03:52] Stephen Cohen: People are joining on their own without any effort from us. And that’s a big deal. But I think also, like anything it takes a while to get your footing and to actually make a change. So consistency is important in these scenarios where you just have to be slow and steady with with the changes you’re making and be consistent.

[00:04:11] Stephen Cohen: And

[00:04:11] Vicki Markussen: there’s probably 40 people that attend those meetings on a regular basis. So great engagement, great way to connect with what’s happening in West Salem. Let’s move on to Explore La Crosse. So you hold a special role there in terms of you are there to represent West Salem particularly. And we had AJ on here talking about room tax dollars and how those flow in and how those get used and.

[00:04:38] Vicki Markussen: What do you see as your role on Explore La Crosse?

[00:04:42] Stephen Cohen: I would say as a resident of West Salem it’s important to me how room tax dollars are being spent. We have one hotel in town and some of our some of the room tax that comes from that hotel goes to Explore La Crosse. So as a resident of West Salem, I.

[00:04:55] Stephen Cohen: I’m on that board to just be informed and to answer any questions to other citizens or business owners in West Salem about how that’s working and shaping the future of how those dollars will improve our community.

[00:05:08] Vicki Markussen: And there is a plan for how those will get spent, correct?

[00:05:10] Stephen Cohen: Yes, indeed.

[00:05:11] Stephen Cohen: I just believe that Explore La Crosse does a great job of managing those tax dollars and giving us so much value for what we’re giving them.

[00:05:19] Stephen Cohen: I know that we would not be able to achieve what they are doing. Marketing wise on our own. And so that’s where the partnership is really important. But the dollars that that we remain here in West Salem, we have three projects that we’re working on currently. So we have three projects that we’re working on currently with our room tax dollars, and we’re meeting regularly to keep those projects at the front of mind and progressing.

[00:05:43] Stephen Cohen: I’ll just go through those three. The first one is that we’re working towards improving our banners downtown, which would be hanging on the light posts. A after some years they get weathered and it’s important to refresh them. And we wanna make sure we’re focusing on the events that we hold every year and getting the right people in the room, in the conversation to, to to have good information on those.

[00:06:03] Stephen Cohen: Secondly, we’re working on improving the advertisement that happens on the highway. You’ve got those signs that show tourism related activities. And, the big one we have in town is the the speedway where we hold the La Crosse County Fair.

[00:06:17] Stephen Cohen: But they do many other events and races throughout the summer. That’s a big one that would draw people in and give ’em a reason to stop for stop at the gas station or to, to. To get a lunch or to visit any of our shops downtown. So we’re just trying to leverage the the assets that we have in town.

[00:06:33] Stephen Cohen: And third and finally the project that I’m working on with the room tax committee is to build a new trail head. On the west side of town, which is adjacent to Veterans Memorial Park. So it’s on village property, but there’s a little trail that connects to Veterans Memorial Park, which is a county park.

[00:06:50] Stephen Cohen: And so we want to get a map there that shows people what West Salem has to offer, how to get there and provide a place to have some information as well as a fix-it station. So if anybody’s riding their bike and needs to make a small adjustment, they’ve got some tools at their disposal.

[00:07:05] Vicki Markussen: Fantastic.

[00:07:05] Vicki Markussen: That’s a great segue into your involvement with Outdoor Recreation Alliance, which always seems to be moving and shaking literally ground and property. So , what do you have working with ORA?

[00:07:17] Stephen Cohen: I actually started with ORA a couple years ago when I had an idea to build a bicycle playground in West Salem. And if you’re familiar, we have a couple of these already in the county. There’s one at Lueth Park here in La Crosse, and then there’s one up on top of the bluff at Upper Hicks.

[00:07:33] Stephen Cohen: We’re planning to build a blacktop pump track, which will be great because it’ll be low maintenance, it’ll be easy to ride in, in, in many different seasons, whereas with dirt, you have to wait for it to dry out. But the location of the park is gonna be at Lewis Point, right in West Salem on the Lake Neshonic.

[00:07:50] Stephen Cohen: We’re excited for that location. It is very natural looking space. It’s gonna be, be. I know a lot of people go down there and just enjoy nature, and we’re gonna hopefully enhance that. And actually, one of the bigger parts of the project is less related to bikes and really just a long path to allow people.

[00:08:08] Stephen Cohen: To get from the parking lot out to the point. Right now it’s a grass path right there. It’s not even a path right now. It’s just a grass field. So what we’re doing is we’re gonna put a chip and seal path where wheeled traffic could get out there, whether it’s on a bicycle or maybe you’re dragging your cooler with some wheels.

[00:08:23] Stephen Cohen: To for your picnic. But I think it’s gonna enhance the scenario and it won’t even really be focused on bicycles. But then to the west of that is where we’re gonna have a couple pump track or bike park loops for for kids and for adults to enjoy, to build confidence in their skills and to enjoy nature.

[00:08:40] Stephen Cohen: And

[00:08:40] Vicki Markussen: this has been a long time coming, it’s been talked about for, I think I’ve known about it probably nine months and it’s finally coming to fruition. Mm-hmm. So the other project that’s moving and shaking with ORA is the farmland that they are looking to purchase off of Highway 33. What’s going to be in that property?

[00:08:57] Stephen Cohen: That’s correct, yes. This is an exciting project that has been in the making for a couple years, but really came to a head just a couple months ago and we’ve got an purchase offer.

[00:09:06] Stephen Cohen: In place, ready to buy. We’re just a few weeks away from taking ownership of that property, and we’re excited about the po the potential. There’s numerous things we’re gonna be on there, whether it’s trails for hiking or nature Center or Prairie Reserve nature Preserve. And we’ve got, cross-country skiing and downhill mountain biking.

[00:09:28] Stephen Cohen: Just a whole slew of natural experiences for many different people. And it’s meant to be open for everybody to the public. And in addition, we’ve got a goal to build our trails such that they could. Used by maybe somebody who couldn’t ride a normal bike, but maybe was on an adaptive bike.

[00:09:46] Stephen Cohen: And we wanna make sure that we can be accommodative and to be honest, build some more of those green trails. The ones for more for beginners, getting people into the sport and we’re. We’re really trying to keep a low barrier of entry, like a a zero entry pool. Really just want people to dip their toes in and get out in nature.

[00:10:04] Stephen Cohen: That’s the important thing. Get outside. So that’s, those are the things we’re aiming for. Lot to come still in the middle of the design phase as far as trails go. We’ve got a nice map generated of what we want to do, but we’re honing in on all those details

[00:10:18] Vicki Markussen: and of course all the fundraising that comes along with that to make it all happen.

[00:10:22] Vicki Markussen: Indeed. So we, you’ve covered this, your passion shows and how you talk about the projects, but what makes you passionate about volunteering and helping the community?

[00:10:33] Stephen Cohen: I love my community that I live in. I plan to live here for a long time, so my goal is to make it a better place.

[00:10:39] Vicki Markussen: Fantastic. You’ve been listening to Biz Cast News coming out of the business community with my guest, Stephen Cohen.

[00:10:47] Vicki Markussen: We’ll catch you next week.