1. Advanced Manufacturing Institute
510 McCall Road
Manhattan, Kansas 66502
Phone 785-532-7044
www.ksu.edu/ami
December 2, 2015
To Whom It May Concern,
In 2011, four Kansas state senators representing the 17 most southeast counties of Kansas,
initiated a large-scale regional economic development initiative across a region that has long
had concentrated poverty and unemployment rates significantly higher than the state average.
Likewise, public health indicators across the region are chronically among the poorest in the
state. Additionally, 10 of the region’s 17 counties are “digital deserts” having insufficient access
to the high speed internet connectivity required to support business growth, community
development, and regional connectedness in today’s increasingly interdependent world.
As a result of AMI’s work in rural regional development since 2004, AMI was engaged to serve
as an interim backbone support organization in this large-scale regional development project.
AMI worked with an initial coalition of 21 legislative/civic leaders and partner organizations
from across the region to host a series of community meetings and engage the public in a civic
conversation around these chronic challenges. Citizens from within the region agreed that the
economic challenges, poverty, and health issues that have plagued the region for so long had to
be addressed with a different approach if there was to be revitalized, broad-based economic
opportunity and prosperity throughout the region. The outcome of this initial engagement was
the creation of a regional change platform known as Project 17. Rather than a traditional top-
down driven change program, Project 17 is a network-based, grassroots supported, platform
that: enables all to participate through active recruitment of volunteers and partners; tackles
socially complex problems; focuses on linking and leveraging regional assets; places priority on
strategic doing over strategic planning; and launches multiple experiments across several
project pillars in an effort to seed large-scale change.
The Project 17 Executive Director Ms. Heather Morgan, an AMI employee, lives within the region and
interacts with over 1,800 engaged volunteers across the region each quarter in various formats. Of
these, over 1,000 have attended adaptive leadership training in an effort to strengthen local leadership
to address the region’s most pressing wicked problems. This is the environment and project which Ms.
Mackenzie Lutz joined AMI as the Project 17’s Executive Director Administrative Intern.
In order to sustain this level of engagement, Ms. Morgan serves as convener, network weaver,
facilitator, arbitrator, motivator, organizer, tactician, and strategist. Obviously not all these functions can
be effectively executed without a high degree of organization and logistics management. It was for this
purpose that Ms. Lutz was employed during the period of 1/19/15 through 9/15/15 providing over 525

2. Advanced Manufacturing Institute
510 McCall Road
Manhattan, Kansas 66502
Phone 785-532-7044
www.ksu.edu/ami
hours of administrative support to a fast paced, large-scale, socially complex project. During her
internship, Ms. Lutz served in multiple capacities such as back office communications coordinator, social
media liaison, special events coordinator/planner, conference planner, graphics designer, and database
manager. The role Ms. Lutz filled was critical and her performance was exemplary.
Specific examples of her efforts include her constant shadowing of all of the Executive Director’s
personal communications within the region in an effort to ensure no critical activities or constituents
were not responded to in a timely manner. This required sensitivity to and responsibility with
confidential communications. Ms. Lutz also was the primary social media agent for Project 17 during
her internship and worked to consolidate communications management across multiple social media
platforms. Finally, Ms. Lutz was the primary organizing, planning, and executing resource for a regional
innovation conference working directly with the lead sponsor in the region and following through on all
the necessary details.
I am certain that the service learning that Ms. Lutz experienced on such a large-scale, socially-messy
project was both insightful and informative. Translating the concepts of non-profit activity from the
classroom to the field is challenging, even more so when one is dealing with chronic challenges and an
all-volunteer effort.
Project 17 is having an impact, but the region did not get into the situation it finds itself in overnight, nor
will it be solved overnight. Unfortunately, in the future, in many of our rural spaces there will be more
and more challenges similar to those being addressed by Project 17 as the economic conditions in our
rural regions continue to lag the structural changes of our economy. Having qualified adaptive leaders,
who have gone through developmental experiences such as the internship Ms. Lutz recently completed,
will be critical to helping others help themselves in overcoming such wicked problems.
We greatly appreciated the insights and professionalism that Ms. Lutz brought to this internship
experience and are hopeful that she too was rewarded through participating in Project 17.
Regards,
Jeff Tucker
Executive Director