CAZENOVIA — On July 13, Innovation Collective (IC), in partnership with Cazenovia College, presented its final “Fireside Chat” at the Lincklaen House.
This session highlighted the stories of two local leaders, Village Mayor Kurt Wheeler and Cazenovia College President Dave Bergh.
IC is an Idaho-based grass roots startup community with a goal of “creating ecosystems that activate human flourishing.” Through curated events, mentorship, skills training, corporate partnerships, placemaking, and software, IC works to help individuals start and grow innovative businesses.
Cazenovia College partnered with IC in 2021 to tap into its network of entrepreneurial and business innovators and experts, access to financial investors for business ventures, and ability to help people make connections for mutual benefit.
According to the college’s website, the institution sponsored IC’s presence in Cazenovia with the goal of generating ideas for new academic offerings, unique educational enrichment experiences, and potential business endeavors to benefit both the college and the surrounding community.
“These include helping students get their business ideas off the ground, exposing them to new industry mentors, and assisting in bringing top-notch resources and information to community-based business startups,” the website states.
As part of its multi-faceted work within the community, IC organized a series of monthly Fireside Chats, evenings of storytelling and inspiration intended to serve as a connection point for community members, to provide a consistent message of hope and encouragement, and to make an innovation economy feel accessible. Typical Fireside Chat speakers are local entrepreneurs, civic leaders, politicians, and even unknown citizens.
During the July 13 event, Wheeler and Bergh shared insight into everything from their childhoods and first jobs, to their successes, setbacks, and visions for Cazenovia’s future.
The conversation was facilitated by Jenn Farwell, who served as IC community lead throughout the college’s one-year partnership with IC.
Seated on stools in front of a dining room fireplace, Wheeler and Bergh took turns responding to a series of questions posed by Farwell.
Personal background
The son of a firefighter and a nurse, Wheeler was raised in New Woodstock, attended New Woodstock Elementary School, and graduated from Cazenovia High School.
He studied at Harvard College on a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps scholarship and then served four years on active duty in the United States Marine Corps. After spending some time in the business world, he decided to go back to school to pursue a master’s degree in teaching.
After about 11 years away from home, Wheeler returned to Cazenovia in 1996 and began teaching at Cazenovia High School.
Bergh was born in an Elmira hospital to a United Methodist minister and a high school English teacher who, at the time, resided in Watkins Glen.
“I consider myself a Central New York native, [but] being a minister’s family meant that we moved periodically,” said Bergh.
His formative years were spent in Jamesville, and the bulk of his schooling years were spent in the Jamesville-DeWitt Central School District.
A year of his adolescence, however, was spent in southwest rural Georgia, where his parents were on sabbatical, volunteering with the then-fledgling organization Habitat for Humanity International. Stationed in Americus, GA, his parents were part of a group tasked with meeting with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter — who resided in the nearby Plains, GA — to convince them to engage with Habitat for Humanity, with the goal of raising the organization’s profile.
After the year in Georgia, Bergh and his family moved to Malone, NY, in the northernmost part of the state, where he graduated from high school.
He has been at Cazenovia College for six years and held his current position for the past six months.
First jobs
Wheeler’s first paid job was unloading wagons of hay at age eight for 25 cents per load. His most interesting job as a young man was hand-digging graves in the New Woodstock Cemetery.
“It paid $35 per grave, and it went up to $40,” Wheeler recalled. “If I worked really hard, I could do it in about four hours, and at that time $8 or $10 an hour was a fortune. [It was especially interesting] when you had to go there after your full day of haying and do it at night with a kerosene lantern at the head of the grave. . . I’ve always told people that all the jobs I’ve ever had since then, nothing compares to working on a farm or digging graves when it comes to level of difficulty.”
Bergh said his first job was mowing lawns as a pre-teen for eight hours a day over his summer vacations. He also had summer jobs working in a field at a local farm and at a state park, where he worked his way up from cleaning bathrooms to becoming a park ranger.
Greatest professional and personal accomplishments
Wheeler said his greatest professional accomplishment has been being able to positively impact and mentor young people throughout his 25 years of teaching and coaching.
His greatest personal accomplishment has been raising his four girls, the youngest of which will begin her senior year of high school this fall.
For Wheeler, another great source of fulfillment has been serving as a foster parent.
“I still see kids that we’ve fostered out and about in the community, and [it’s nice] to know that you maybe helped those kids through tough times,” he said.
Regarding his greatest professional accomplishment, Bergh pointed to becoming president of Cazenovia College.
“It’s quite an honor and a privilege to be charged with stewardship of such an important institution — important to so many generations of [students and alumni] but also to the community,” he said. “That’s a distinct honor.”
Bergh said the greatest accomplishment of his personal life has been marrying his wife.
Something that hasn’t worked out or gone as planned
In response to the prompt, Wheeler expressed that rather than fixate on and lament past mistakes, he prefers to learn from his failures.
He went on to say that the greatest challenge he continually faces is wanting to accomplish more than is possible in a day.
“You want to be the best husband you can be, you want to be the best parent you can be, you want to be the best teacher you can be, the best mayor you can be, and, at the end of every day, [I] feel like I didn’t do any of those things as well as I wanted to,” Wheeler said. “So, it’s not any one single [failure], but it’s just this constant nagging, wishing there were 28 hours in every day.”
Bergh began by noting that he believes it’s important to talk about failure, because it’s an important part of life and growing.
He then shared a story about losing out on a job opportunity.
While he was working at another institution, a mentor nominated him to participate in a national program for individuals who might consider a college presidency in their future. Although Bergh was not dead set on becoming a president at the time, he participated in the program for the experience and professional development. After working at that institution for nearly two decades and becoming invested in the community and the future of the college, he had the opportunity to apply for the presidency. Ultimately, he lost out on the job.
“It was an incredible disappointment,” he said. “I quickly came to see afterwards how it just, for many reasons, was not the right time or the right place, and that things do often work out for the best in the long-term. At the time, at least, it felt like a real blow, and it felt like a real personal blow, because I was an internal candidate. . . It was not personal by any means, but it kind of stung in that regard. . . I think that that made me a better person, going through that experience.”
Definition of success
Wheeler defined success as being part of something bigger than oneself and having positive human relationships.
Bergh stated that, in his career specifically, the thing that makes him feel successful is knowing that he and his colleagues are making progress towards their major goals and steering the college in the right direction.
“It can sometimes feel like two steps forward, one step back, but I think progress is often success in my book,” he said.
Advice to others
Wheeler advised everyone to find a job that they love doing.
“You need to have enough money in life to take care of the necessities, but no one, I think, ever is on their deathbed wishing they made more money or wishing they’d spent more time at the office,” Wheeler said.
Bergh’s advice was to keep showing up, to keep learning, and to stay curious. He added that he believes the desire to keep learning often leads people to their true passions.
“If it’s not readily apparent what you want to do with your life or what your interests are, just keep exploring, keep traveling, keep reading, and you’ll start to find some themes emerge naturally,” he said.
Best advice ever received
Wheeler shared advice he was given by one of his mentors, Cazenovia resident Bob Hood, who has repeatedly encouraged him to take care of family first.
Bergh recited the following quote: “Everything is important, nothing is really important.”
The message, he explained, is that every job, role, and act of kindness has value and importance, no matter how mundane or insignificant it may seem. The second part of the quote, he said, is a reminder to keep things in perspective, to control only what can be controlled, and to let the other things go.
The most innovative person they’ve ever met
Wheeler spoke of a teacher who served as his mentor while student teaching outside Boston. Although the teacher was already 32 years into his career, he continued to connect with his students on a personal level and reinvent his lessons and teaching methods.
Bergh recognized Habitat for Humanity Founder Millard Fuller for his ability to come up with an idea, invest himself in it fully, and then develop a model that has now been replicated hundreds of thousands of times.
Books everyone should read
Wheeler, who identifies as a person of faith, first listed the Bible. His second selection was “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.
“It’s all about the sanctity of the individual and the importance of liberty,” Wheeler said of the novel.
Bergh recommended three historical nonfiction books: “Grant,” a biography of Ulysses S. Grant by Ron Chernow; “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin; and Goodwin’s “No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt, The Home Front in World War II.”
He also listed his favorite novel, “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt.
Keys to an economically vibrant Cazenovia
According to Wheeler, ensuring an economically vibrant future will require both collaboration and innovation.
As examples of collaboration, the mayor pointed to his productive working relationship and regular communication with Bergh, as well as the work of the Cazenovia Area Community Development Association, which is an independent, non-profit community-based organization formed to assist local organizations, governments, and residents by helping them accomplish goals and objectives through consensus building, cooperative efforts, grant writing, etc.
Wheeler also discussed the importance of maintaining the natural and historic qualities of the village, while also making it more attractive to young families.
“That’s kind of what drives me, thinking about if I was 30 years old and moving here with my family, what would make it attractive?” Wheeler said.
Bergh similarly commended the Cazenovia area for its dedication to preservation but also noted that he believes part of the challenge moving forward will be navigating how to continue down that path while also embracing change and making the community more welcoming and hospitable to young people and a more diverse population.
Following the structured Q&A session, Wheeler and Bergh invited questions and comments from the audience. Much of the conversation focused on ways residents can individually work to help make the community more inviting and accepting.
For more information on Cazenovia College’s partnership with IC, visit cazenovia.edu.
