Tod Minnich: I’m Tod Minnich, president and CEO of the Honeywell Foundation and our mission is to provide arts, education and entertainment for all. And that all is an important part of what we do. We really serve not only Wabash or Wabash County or even Northeast Indiana, but really all of a much greater region of Northern Indiana.

I grew up in Indiana, not far from here in Portland, Indiana and had a great upbringing and great education, but I just always wanted to see the larger world. And for me, music was a passion and so I headed to Nashville, one of the music centers and completed my education there and worked on Music Row for a decade before heading to Manhattan, another music center and overseeing offices in New York, LA and Nashville. Moving back to Indiana, I just didn’t seem like there was a career option for me, but I just wasn’t fully aware of all of the different opportunities that were available in Northeast Indiana. And so it was exciting to be able to continue my career here. And I’ve been at the Honeywell Center for the past 21 years. Everybody has something they’re passionate about and for me, music was that passion and so I decided that I wanted to do something in and around the music industry. Right from my internship in college, I’ve been in a high growth organization.

And so I brought that same work ethic and philosophy to Honeywell and then surrounded myself with others that really believed in that mission. At Honeywell, it was really about building a team. 21 years ago, we were a much smaller organization, so we’ve grown from 13 employees to now 51 employees and putting together a really solid entrepreneurial, passionate group of people that can help achieve our mission and really grow not only the mission of the organization, but grow personally with us is a really important part of what we do.

You know, when I was in New York, it was a big city and had a lot of great people around me, but it seems like the people, when I’m back in Indiana, so many people have invested not only in the organization, but in me and in the staff that we have. We’ve got great board members and past board members that really mentored our organization and helped us grow. In terms of challenges, presenting live entertainment, running a large conference facility, an entertainment complex and then adding additional facilities to it, it really is a challenge in any market, but especially in a small market. And so for us, we just continue to meet those challenges head on with creativity.

Entrepreneurship is a huge part of what we do in our space. We like to think it goes back to our founder, Mark Honeywell. He was an entrepreneur and built a global business out of Wabash, Indiana and left his personal learning to start this foundation. Mark Honeywell dedicated the building as a plaque on the wall and he dedicated its people to Wabash, Wabash County in the state of Indiana, which to me was very regional thinking for 1941.

And the only other thing he added was may it ever be useful to them. And that really became a filter for us in all of our new ventures and the things that we do. Is this going to be useful? Is this going to benefit people? Is this going to make our town a better place to live, our region a better place to live and to work? And I like to think he’s very proud of the work we’re doing today. The business climate in Indiana is really fantastic, but the thing that I found most impactful is just finding people to really work together, not only within the organization, but outside of the organization. It seems like it’s about win-win, not win-wins here. There’s room for everybody to win. And I just found it to be a really helpful collaborative environment. 

James Khan: Pioneer Celebrates Here.

Tod Minnich: Pioneer Educates Here.

Cathy Brand-Beere: Pioneer Chocolatiers Here.

Cote Godoy: Pioneros Comienzan AquÍ.

All: Pioneer Starts Here.