Duane Dreiling will leave Emporia on Friday to join his family in Carl Junction, Mo., just as he has most weekends since last fall. This time, however, he won’t have to be back at work on Monday.
Dreiling will end five years as executive director of the United Way at 5 p.m. Friday.
His wife, Lori Scott Dreiling, had resigned as human resources department manager for Camoplast in August and moved to Joplin to take a similar job at a Modine Manufacturing plant that was under expansion there. In October, their two children, Jake and Katie, joined her.
Since then, Dreiling has been a weekend and holiday commuter, with Lori and the children sometimes coming to Emporia for visits. The couple bought a newly built home in Carl Junction and moved in just in time for all of them to celebrate Christmas together in Joplin. Then Duane Dreiling drove home to Emporia.
“We’re really looking forward to living together,” he said.
Dreiling had committed to completing the 2008 United Way campaign before he would move to the Joplin area. The economic downturn in the fall, however, tightened up the job market.
“With the economy the way it has been, you really hate to quit a job before you have a job,” Dreiling said. “We have a great board of trustees and they have been very supportive during this time. I really appreciate their willingness to work through this transition.”
This month, the right job offer came from TAMKO Building Products in Joplin, a firm with a broad product line that includes composition shingles, sealant products, composite decking, railing and other longer-lasting home building products.
“This would give me an opportunity to look at something outside the non-profit community,” he said. “This is my first venture into the corporate world, and I’m really excited about that new challenge.”
He previously had worked in public relations and marketing jobs for Emporia and Kansas Main Street and The Farm Inc. before accepting the directorship of the United Way of the Flint Hills.
Leaving Emporia, he said, would be difficult. Since coming here in 1993, the town has become home.
“I literally moved to Emporia in ‘93 not knowing a single person except the Main Street board of directors,” he said.
He met and married Lori Scott in Emporia and their children were born here. The family became deeply involved in community and church activities, serving on a variety of boards and as volunteers.
“The lifelong friendships, that’s something you don’t find every day,” he said. “To come into a community and feel like it’s a second home.”
He hopes for that for his replacement, Jami Reever, who will be in Emporia this week and will start her job as executive director on Aug. 3.
“I believe everything happens for a reason,” Dreiling said. “... Everything fell into place.”
Reever has experience and education that are unusual for a small United Way to attract.
“I think United Way is very fortunate,” he said. “She has tremendous experience, and also the rarity of being able to find somebody who has a master’s degree with concentration in non-profits.”
He is satisfied that the transition plans for changing directors have been in place, just waiting to be executed when needed.
The United Way is in a stronger financial position now and has developed different methods of operation.
“I think we’ve made great strides in the way we do things at the United Way,” Dreiling said, reflecting on changes the organization has undergone in the past five years. “I like to leave an organization stronger than it was when I came in.”
The board and Dreiling have been strong believers in accountability to donors and to the agencies the United Way helps support.
Funding, once based on requests from agencies, now is based on specific programs and results. Agencies propose the programs and their goals to the board, and funding now is based on those proposals.
The United Way also has made a point of educating donors about where their money will go and what programs will be supported and why, Dreiling said.
“We’ve also shifted to post-campaign allocations,” Dreiling said.
Five years ago, allocations were made before the campaign, with goals based on requests from participating agencies. Post-campaign, the board knows how much money it will have to give to the programs, in full or in part.
“... This was just a way for us to clearly define how those funds were being used,” he said. “It’s kind of like spending money before you know what you have. To me, that just makes more sense. It allows us to more accurately budget for the entire year.”
The agencies themselves have diverse needs, with some needing funds to operate camps for youngsters with serious health problems and others needing funds to match clients with volunteer mentors.
“That’s the one thing I feel was the biggest accomplishment — educating the community and agencies, making people see the value of United Way and what we provide to the community,” Dreiling said. “We are not a pass-through agency.”
Dreiling said that the organization’s reserves are stronger now, despite the lag in the nation’s economy.
“While we maintained funding levels, or increased, we also were very good financial stewards of those funds and have replenished reserves to where we can weather financial storms,” he said. “During economic downturns is when community needs increase.”
Dreiling experienced an economic downturn first-hand, and coordinated a community response after Tyson Fresh Meats eliminated its slaughter division here and cut one shift of its production operations.
Part of the response led by United Way involved organizing not only its agencies, but bringing in state agencies and private companies to handle the immediate and future needs of the people involved in the layoffs.
And, though the city was still in the aftermath of the layoffs, annual drive chairperson Connie Cahoone, Pacesetter chairman Jennell Tebbetts and the United Way board and volunteers managed to raise $553,000 for the 2008 campaign.
The campaign theme this year, Dreiling said, will be “The Faces of Change.”
“How do we fund agencies to improve people’s lives every day, and that truly is the ‘faces of change’ in the community,” he explained.
Tebbetts will take over as this year’s campaign chairperson, with Dean Hollenbeck taking over as Pacesetter chairman.
Dreiling may return occasionally at first, if help is needed, but he will be working in Joplin and living with his family during the campaign.
It will take some readjusting, he said, to get back to the old routine in Emporia, where Duane and Lori Dreiling worked as a team to get the children to their activities and church lessons and sports practices and games.
“Lori’s done an outstanding job,” Dreiling said.
Jake has gone through soccer, basketball and baseball seaons and is preparing to move into football. For the first time, the Dreilings will not have a youngster involved in soccer. Katie is giving that up to focus her attention on dancing and other activities.
Dreiling is ready to become involved in the kids’ and the community activities at his new home.
“We really are ready to get back into our regular routine,” he said. For almost a year, contact has been limited to weekends visits and innumerable phone calls; during some of those visits, Dreiling also needed to take care of “the list” — jobs that required his skills set to complete. The list won’t be gone, but it may be more manageable.
“Now, that list won’t be as long,” Dreiling said. “I can get some things done during the week.”