October 26, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Leaders grow on trees in Mt. Airy
Mt. Airy scores well in Leadership Philadelphia survey
by KRISTIN PAZULSKI

Mt. Airy's Ken Weinstein is one of 16 "connectors" in the neighborhood.

As if Mt. Airy needed any more convincing, a list of 101 “Key Connectors” released by Leadership Philadelphia on Oct. 14 proved that Mt. Airy is a community of energetic activists that like to make connections.

Of the 101 Philadelphians named on the list, 16 live in Mt. Airy, second only to Center City, where 18 of the connectors live, according to Leadership Philadelphia.

Leadership Philadelphia is a nonprofit leadership development and civic affairs training organization. Its Key Connectors program defines unique leaders as “great thinkers, innovators and doers — people who turn great ideas into reality … and who have a concern for the common good and would roll up their sleeves to see this work through to the end.”

Liz Dow, president of Leadership Philadelphia, said the “connectors” know a range of people throughout the city and they use the passions they have in life toward good in the community.

“They work across sectors for the common good,” Dow said. “It’s our effort to shine light on connections so that people who learn about them will act like them too.”

The project was inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, which studied social change and used “connectors” to describe the type of person who “knows large numbers of people and makes a habit of connecting them.”

One of Mt. Airy’s connectors is Marc Stier, who teaches at Temple University when he is not advocating for the community. He said he was surprised by the designation and joked that he saw himself more as one of Gladwell’s “mavens,” which Gladwell describes in his book as “one who accumulates knowledge.”

“[As an advocate], you are always thinking ahead to the next project, so you don’t usually look back to see what you have been doing,” Stier said. “I guess I didn’t realize I have created such a circle of connections.”

Stier is involved in many advocacy organizations, among them a coalition that lobbied the governor to designate funds to help a financially failing Septa in 2004 and another that he said helped to raise the minimum wage. He also helped found of Neighborhood Networks, a group that assisted in planning the press conference that pushed Mayor John Street to name nominees to the ethics committee last week.

He is also a co-founder of Neighborhood Defense.org, a coalition of Philadelphia community organizations fighting for its right to influence zoning decisions.

“It’s always nice to be recognized for the work you do,” Stier said. “But what really gets me is that the buildings on Johnson Street that I helped save will be there for my kids to see, and the 400,000-some people who will be paid $2 more per hour by 2007. That’s what makes this gratifying.”

Stier plans to bring his activism to public office and said he plans to run for City Council in the next election.

Mt. Airy has been known for years as a community of activists and a neighborhood brimming with diversity, and recently its community revitalization has brought the unique area even more attention. Two of the movers and shakers in the area’s commercial and community development have been Farah Jimenez and Ken Weinstein.

Though she lives in the Fairmount area of the city, Jimenez is involved directly in issues involving the Mt. Airy community as executive director of Mt. Airy USA. Her efforts range from attending smaller community meetings to supporting residents in zoning hearings.

She’s also developed community initiatives that have helped improve Mt. Airy’s community life — the most recent being the Neighborhood Partnership Project, which is designed to help neighbors envision improvements they would like to see on their street, block or neighborhood, and to bring these ideas to reality.

Jimenez said her seemingly inextinguishable energy is sometimes compared to that of a pit bull.

“If I want to do something, I stick to it and I won’t take ‘no’ until it’s unquestionably confirmed and all options exhausted,” she said. “Some people therefore say I’m a bit of a pit bull.”

She noted that while she was chosen as a key connector, her organization’s efforts extend beyond her, and that the success of Mt. Airy USA is partially a result of its unique community.

“I’m identified as a leader, but everything Mt. Airy USA achieves is through teamwork,” she said. “I tell everyone when they say how great [my efforts] have been that I’m the lucky one. I’m one of the ones [members of the Community Development Corporations] that choose a great community.”

Weinstein, one of the Mt. Airy connectors on the list, is owner of the Trolley Car Diner on the Chestnut Hill/Mt. Airy boundary and is heavily involved in the Mt. Airy community where he also resides. He has helped initiate the commercial corridor’s business improvement district, expected to be approved by City Council this fall, and is currently working on developing a parking foundation for Mt. Airy.

He said he wasn’t surprised by the number of Mt. Airy residents included in the list.

“It just goes to prove what many of us have thought for years, that Mt. Airy is an activist community,” he said.

The key connectors, he added, are a group of people who are actually making things happen in the city.

“There is a common wisdom out there that elected officials, business and civic leaders are the only ones who get everything done, and this effort challenges that assumption,” he said.

To illustrate the connectivity of these 101 figures, Weinstein said he knew about two-thirds of those on the list, including State Rep. Cherelle Parker (of the 200th District), who said she knew about the same amount.

Parker, a resident of Mt. Airy, was elected into office a year ago and previously spent 15 years working as a staff member in City Council. She said she considers the Northwest one of the most progressive regions in the city and was not surprised by the number of connectors in the area.

She was surprised, however, when she was named a key connector.

“You kind of just do what you do, but to know that people view you in that type of role is humbling,” she said.

The connectors were determined by a web-based survey and analysis program developed by Karen Stephenson, chief executive director of NetForm Software and a former Harvard faculty member. Surveys were sent to about 4,800 people in the area asking for people they considered fit the connector description. Leadership Philadelphia received about 4,300 names, from which the 101 were extracted.

Stephenson’s mapping technology has been used in corporate settings, but Dow said this is the first time the technology has been applied to a larger, urban setting.

The list of 101 ranged from political figures, such as Governor Ed Rendell and former councilman and mayoral candidate Michael Nutter, to the city’s school district CEO Paul Vallas and Jane Golden of the Mural Arts Program.

Weinstein added that he could name many other connectors that were not identified on the list.

“Whenever there is a list group, it still leaves out tons of key people,” he added, “including people that I work with all the time that have done great things in the city.”

Leadership Philadelphia’s Connector Project team is in the process of interviewing all the named connectors to learn how they work, lead, influence and interact with others. Their findings will be pulled together in a “competency model” to be shared with universities, schools and businesses.

Dow said she and Laura Shubilla, head of the Philadelphia Youth Network, are planning to develop a school-based curriculum to teach young people how to become future leaders.

Contact staff writer Kristin Pazulski at 215-248-8819 or Kristin@chestnuthilllocal.com.