If the Dale Carnegie people wanted to design a crash course to groom the next chairman of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, they’d do well to consult with J. Barry Griswell.

Griswell, the Partnership’s incoming 2004 chair, had not served in a key leadership position with the organization until the fall of 2002, when he took a seat on the board after succeeding David Drury as chairman and chief executive of Principal Financial Group Inc.

Since then, Griswell has been vice chairman of the Partnership, chaired a successful $17 million fund-raising campaign and co-chaired a task force aimed at revamping Greater Des Moines’ social services structure.

“So maybe I earned my stripes in one year whereas it may take some other people two or three years,” quipped Griswell. He will accept the gavel from attorney Steven Zumbach as chair of the regional economic development organization at the Partnership’s annual dinner on Thursday.

With Principal’s 125th anniversary this year and construction scheduled to begin this spring on the Riverwalk project spearheaded by Griswell’s corporation, Zumbach said it’s “symbolically … a perfect time for Barry to chair the Partnership.”

“What I admire about Barry is he’s not only a person who gives corporately, but also personally, and to a wide range of causes,” Zumbach said. “As a result, I think he moves into the position with a tremendous amount of credibility and respect, and that’s a great platform to lead from.”

Both leaders agree that 2004 will be a year of action for the Partnership, as bricks-and-mortar projects that include the Science Center of Iowa, the Iowa Events Center and the Principal Riverwalk begin to to take shape downtown. At the same time, the Partnership will announce a new round of projects that were shaped by five community task forces associated with Project Destiny, the group’s next long-range economic development plan.

“I think 2004 will be the year where we really put our shoulder to the wheel and we really start making good progress on execution,” Griswell said.

Among these projects will be an attempt by the Partnership to assume a direct role in coordinating the delivery of social services in Central Iowa, as well as an effort to enact a 0.5 percent local option sales tax to increase revenues for local governments and school districts. Other initiatives include projects to fund more public art and build more trails.

“I think the real sea change here,” Griswell said, “is a more holistic view of economic development that includes bricks-and-mortar projects, office space and that sort of thing, but it also includes trails, art, human services. I don’t know if it’s the softer side, but it’s reality. People want to live in a community where it’s vibrant, where there are things to do.”

Both the existing and the proposed projects are designed to provide a foundation for the Partnership’s core mission: attracting businesses to Central Iowa and retaining existing enterprises. One of its goals is to generate $1 billion in additional investment from businesses expanding in or relocating to Central Iowa within the next five years.

That may not be far out of reach. According to statistics kept by the Partnership, companies have invested $789 million in new buildings and improvements in in Greater Des Moines in the last four years.

Looking back at his past year as chairman, Zumbach said completion of the Project Destiny plan was one of the Partnership’s two most significant accomplishments. The other, he said, was the successful completion of the $17 million fund-raising drive despite an overall weak economy. The proceeds will fund the Partnership’s operations for the next five years.

“To a large extent, this capital campaign was merely a matter of [businesses] reinvesting and in many cases upping their investment,” he said. “But there is a growing sense that the Partnership is the right idea, that we do better if we speak with one voice and collectively put all our assets in one place.”

Further evidence of the Partnership’s success, Zumbach said, is the fact that it was able to broaden its base of support by attracting 24 new companies as contributors.

Looking ahead, Griswell said he sees his role as that of an implementer.   “What that looks like is making sure some of those large projects that have been begun — the Wells Fargo Events Center, the Science Center, the new library, the Riverwalk project, certainly, Gateway West, the East Village — that all of those projects that have been begun really get done and turned into successes.

“We also have, secondarily, to pull from those Project Destiny reports those projects that are most key to our future and make sure they, too, get launched.”

Another of his goals is to ensure a good handoff between the Partnership’s current president, Teresa Wahlert, and her successor, Martha Willits, who begins her duties next month.

“I’m very pleased with Martha, and I think the transition will be much more smooth than if we had gone outside our community,” he said.

As a leader who has stepped in recently from outside the organization, “I think I have perhaps a different perspective than someone who’s been mired down in the detail that’s gotten us where we are,” Griswell said. “Someone might argue I don’t appreciate the beauty of what we have, but I think I do because I see in other communities that they haven’t gotten to this place yet.”

That is cause for being “incredibly optimistic,” he said.

“When I look back a year from now, what I hope people say, and I hope to say to myself, is that in the year 2004 we really took some major steps forward in completing some of these projects we’ve been talking about. And that people think about 2004 as a very important year. … And that it was a year that we gained a lot of momentum.

“And that it was a year that I lowered my golf score,” he joked.

DESTINY PROJECT BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR PARTNERSHIP

The Greater Des Moines Partnership’s board of directors is expected to announce this week a dozen new initiatives based on recommendations made by Project Destiny task forces that met through 2003. The Partnership has identified four areas of focus. Those four focus areas, and the projects likely to be announced within each area, are:

1. Improve quality of life

– Development of a $9 million public art program within the Principal Riverwalk and the Gateway East and West projects during the next five years;

– Riverfront development centered around the Principal Riverwalk, tying into more downtown housing and commercial and recreational development, with elements including water activities, a technology plaza, an adventure-recreation park, a historic park and additional park spaces;

– Coordinate and promote the arts through the hiring of a cultural director to develop and manage a Web site that ties together all area arts, recreational and cultural offerings;

– Expansion of trails and green spaces throughout Greater Des Moines.

– Develop a system for unified land-use planning.

2. Transform the human services delivery system.

– Form a Greater Des Moines Human Capital Council to provide coordinated oversight of human services from nearly 200 non-profit agencies in Greater Des Moines;

– Create a Circles of Support pilot program to build integrated social networks to reach 200 families through networked volunteers;

– Establish a pilot program of early childhood initiatives to reach every child whose family’s income is at 200 percent of poverty level or lower.

3. Streamline and reinvent local government.

– Eliminate redundant and duplicative operations and streamline service delivery through formation of a regional planning authority, endorsement of the city-county charter and support of state initiatives that simplify streamlining of local governments;

– Diversify local government revenues through adoption of a 0.5 percent countywide local option sales tax until 2010, increasing to 1 percent in 2010 when the school sales tax expires, with revenues shared by municipal governments, the school districts and the county.

4. Engage the community in lifelong learning.

– Create a central educational research institute that will serve as a public policy center.