Steve Brown is the new CEO of NUBRIC as of September. Brown has a background as a developer and contractor and hopes to bring these skills to help New Ulm’s business community.

NEW ULM – In September, New Ulm Business Resource Innovation Center (NUBRIC) welcomed Steve Brown as the new CEO.

Brown’s background is a developer, engineer and contractor. He was working as a restaurant entrepreneur, owning several. He got into contracting by building his own restaurants and helping others build their own.

“I’ve been my own boss since 1985,” he said. “A lot of this position has to do with encouraging entreprenuers.”

Brown was living in Reno, Nevada but was convinced to come to New Ulm by a Mojra Hauenstein, a colleague from Reno who moved to New Ulm a few years ago when she and her husband purchased the Old Hauenstein Brewery. Brown was asked to help remodel the brewery.

Brown said during his visit he came to like New Ulm and decided it was time to change. Hauenstein informed him about the NUBRIC position. He applied and was hired.

NUBRIC in a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering economic growth, innovation, and entrepreneurship in New Ulm and the surrounding areas.

In taking over as CEO of NUBRIC, Brown believes workforce development should be a main focus as well as business support. He said one of the greatest workforce struggles in New Ulm is finding adequate housing. Employees who want to work in New Ulm struggle to find a place in the city.

To remedy this problem, NUBRIC is working on a project to quickly expand workforce housing in the city.

“We’re trying to develop a workforce housing project that will support short term rentals,” Brown said. The idea is create housing for professionals coming to New Ulm for work. The workforce house would only be temporary housing, a few months until the business contract is up or until the employee finds more permanent housing.

NUBRIC is currently working to obtain real estate to create pro-type workforce housing. The idea is create a small scale version of workforce housing to show the community in hopes of expanding the idea later.

Brown said this project had been in the works at NUBRIC before he came on, but is now taking shape with help from the city and other community partners. Brown believes this is a viable community project to combat limited short term rental options.

“There are very little short term leasing or rentals available besides a hotel,” Brown said. “That’s not real attractive to a young professional.”

Brown said this work force housing project would involved in the creation of smaller apartment size houses in a village like setting.

New Ulm is not the only community taking this approach. Brown said there are other communities creating small home villages to help grow the workforce.

He said in Reno, this type of workforce housing is common. They are typically well maintained with full occupancy and have helped with workforce shortages.

Brown said the plans for New Ulm’s prototype village are complete, but a location is still being determined. Once a spot is found, he believes it is possible to have some of the housing built relatively quickly.

Brown said each lot in development would be around 900 square feet. The home would be a single story with a second floor loft bedroom. He hopes to create 20 of these little houses for the protype.

The hope with the pro-type village is to get the community on board and possible expand the project.

The mini home villages are not designed to compete with any of the other housing developments such as River Haven or the George’s development. Brown said those developments are more longterm rentals, the mini village is short term. In fact, the mini home village could serve as temporary housing for the employees working on other development projects.

“There are a lot of nurses who come here for three months, or a person who comes as a specialist at a plant but they don’t have a place to stay,” Brown said

He believes there will be a demand for workforce housing to reduce the commute time for workers already coming to New Ulm.

“I was amazed to learn how many people commute here to work,” Brown said. “Thousands. It is a very big commutator town where people drive 45 minutes to work. That’s hard spending an hour and a half in a car.”

Another NUBRIC project in the works is the redevelopment of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center. NUBRIC was involved with the initial start of the CTE Center, but now they want to get more community involvement in the center to train more employees.

“We see it as an under utilized asset in the community,” Brown said. The CTE Center was created through community investment and NUBRIC wants to expand its use.

“New Ulm doesn’t have another vocational school,” Brown said. NUBRIC wants to explore using the center for adult education and additional learning possible.

The center is owned by the school district and NUBRIC is trying to work with the school to expand programming. When the CTE Center first opened there were after hour welding classes at the CTE Center and a robotic course that was done in partnership with Big Ideas, but these projects went away. NUBRIC wants them to come back.

Another longterm NUBRIC project is the business incubation Center. For the last few years, NUBRIC has been trying to establish a location to grow startup businesses; especially businesses with a focus on robotics. The idea was to give a new business a location to start. Once the businesses is established, it moves to another location and a new startup business moves into the incubator location.

Brown said NUBRIC is still trying to get the business incubation center off the ground. A feasibility study for the project was completed, confirming it could work in New Ulm.

Brown said they will use the study to apply for grants and find a location to build the incubation center.

In addition to these ongoing projects, Brown wanted the public to know NUBRIC is available to help consult with any business working on a project or to help formulate an idea.

Brown said it is a free service NUBRIC offers.

“Anybody who wants help with their business, we’re there to help.”

Brown said in the few months since taking over as NUBRIC CEO, he is impressed with the New Ulm community.

“I am very impressed with how much people in this community love it, support it and donate their time,” he said. “There are so many volunteers on multiple boards who are passionate about making the city work. Everyone is involved and that’s really great.”