Nate Welch, former director of marketing for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), talks with Dave Roetman at Caribou Coffee about paying a price for being forthright. A fifth-generation South Dakotan and former KDLT and KSFY reporter who later led the Vermillion Chamber and Development Company, Welch was GOED’s marketing director during the Freedom Works Here campaign. He says he was explicitly told the office needed him to recommend the firm that won the $5 million contract, a company he considered not suited to the job and not local. He refused to make a statement he did not believe was true and was told to leave. Welch describes testifying before the Legislature’s Executive Committee, praises the transparency legislation passed last session and Attorney General Jackley’s work, and argues state employees need protection when they speak up.
Topics: Governor’s Office of Economic Development, Freedom Works Here, $5 million marketing contract, government transparency, Legislature’s Executive Committee, protections for state employees, RFP process, Attorney General Jackley, brain drain
“The challenge that really happened was, as I had talked when the Executive Committee of the Legislature had asked me to answer some questions, I had left GOED prior to, or right as the $5 million contract was signed, and they went with a company that, quite honestly, from my professional opinion, just absolutely was not cut for it, and wasn't even a local company.” - Nate Welch
Ex-GOED director: Officials pressured to give ad firm Freedom Works Here campaign
Legislative leadership grills GOED over ‘Freedom Works Here’
Former GOED marketing director said state had mind made up on Freedom Works Here campaign
Full transcript
About this transcript: It was machine-transcribed in-house and then edited for readability. Filler words and false starts are removed, and the meaning is unchanged. [?] marks a word or phrase we’re unsure of. Timestamps are approximate.
[00:00]
Dave Roetman: This is the Making Waves Podcast. My name is Dave Roetman. We’re here with Nate Welch. Welcome, Nate.
Nate Welch: Hey, thanks so much, Dave. Glad to be here.
Dave Roetman: We’re here at Caribou Coffee. I hope that did we could edit out the background music I don’t know.
Nate Welch: I was thinking it was a walk-up music for me. I was kind of excited about that.
Dave Roetman: Tell us a little about yourself, Nate.
Nate Welch: You bet well, hey, I’m a fifth generation South Dakotan and I was born and raised right here in Sioux Falls, where we are. Went to college at the University of Nebraska studied broadcasting and sociology I wanted to be a reporter ever since I was a sophomore in high school ever since April of my sophomore year I went on a job shadow and just loved it. I went down, studied, came back up after school, and got to live that dream.
I was a reporter for the NBC affiliate, KDLT, and then KSFY later. This was prior to the days of it being Dakota Now News, and these were when they were separate. Absolutely loved it, but ended up leaving the business just to get a little bit more involved. In the community in some different ways and then was lucky enough to have a pretty eclectic career. I went off to do professional sports, marketing, get back to some of that history that I had, did some development.
Even was an insurance agent for a while and then ultimately found my way where I was the president and CEO of the Vermillion Chamber and Development Company where my wife and I and our kids, we moved down to Vermillion and that’s where we still live. And now I’m back up here working up in Sioux Falls in different economic development projects.
Dave Roetman: After your time in the Vermillion Chamber and Development Company, you did work for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. You talked a little bit about that. Give us a little background on what the Governor’s Office of Economic Development does.
Nate Welch: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so Governor’s Office of Economic Development ultimately helps to promote and coordinate the state’s responsibilities or opportunities to be able to collaborate in bringing and attracting businesses. And not only attracting businesses to the state but helping those businesses that are here already, helping them grow. When you think about it, that’s a pretty wide net that has to be cast. Ultimately, what really helps make that successful are those local communities that are then focusing on what those communities want, how they structure their infrastructure, what kind of businesses are they attracting, how are they doing on housing, that kind of thing.
The Governor’s Office of Economic Development looks at it at more the 30,000 foot level and sometimes trying to attract larger ones or maybe larger projects growing. I went there after my time in Vermillion with the Vermillion Chamber and Development Company. Again as a fifth generation South Dakotan, and you have multiple generations of people who have been blessed and asked enough to serve their state in different ways anytime your state asks you to serve.
You want to do it. There really is a sense of pride to that.
Dave Roetman: One of the ongoing issues in South Dakota is transparency in government. Could you tell us a little bit about, as a former government employee, struggles with transparency in working for the government?
Nate Welch: Yeah, if you really think about it, especially in economic development, you are trying to work in business as well. So there is a responsibility and a balance that you really have to do in being able to move a project along to an appropriate level and still honor the responsibility that we have to be transparent when we are serving from the state and then on to the constituents and to our taxpayers. The challenge is, number one, the timing.
That and I think in all honesty sometimes the intention that comes along with that are you the intention that you have of how transparent you are or open are you to the openness of what we’re responsible for.
Dave Roetman: And you paid a price for trying to be transparent.
Nate Welch: Yeah, obviously a lot of people know about, the challenges that we had. I was the director of marketing during the time of the Freedom Works Here campaign. And honestly, that campaign really is a good one. The challenge that really happened was, as I talked when the executive committee of the legislature had asked me to answer some questions, I had left GOED prior to or right as the $5 million contract was signed.
And they went with a company that quite honestly from my professional opinion just absolutely was not cut for it and wasn’t even a local company. The challenge was that I was pretty explicitly told that they needed me to recommend them. And I do believe that as a state employee, we have responsibilities to serve those with authority. Absolutely agree with that. The challenge was I was pretty open and honest in saying, you have the authority to tell me who to sign, I’ll sign them.
[05:00]
But I cannot make a statement that is not true. And the statement of recommending was just not an option for it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I really fit in with the team by that point, and I was asked to, or I was told to leave.
Dave Roetman: You were asked by the legislature to testify to this matter. Could you tell us what committee that was and what was the result? What did you say?
Nate Welch: Yeah, so the committee was the executive committee of the legislature. Ultimately the... I don’t know all the logistics of that committee’s authority, but ultimately an oversight committee. And that campaign obviously had started to get... A lot more press that was not intended for that campaign when they were realizing that there may have been some creative aspect of it that really didn’t come from that company that that ultimately did it. A number of those legislators asked really what that process was.
I’m not sure if they were getting really direct specific answers. One of the questions that the executive committee members asked was who was all involved and that’s when they of course listed my name and so the executive committee had asked me to appear in front of them. And again, you go back to being a South Dakotan and I’m beholden to the truth. Whether or not you’re serving the state right at that moment, or you served it, the responsibility was that they deserved the answers of any questions that they were asking.
That’s, I think, the responsibility and the honor that we have in serving. And so when they asked me to come and answer questions, I did. Again, I get that there’s politics. I get people have agendas. And I also get that, quite frankly, there’s a lot of people out there that are in positions where it’s really hard for them to... Maybe speak up or maybe hard for them to stand up against it.
And again, in all honesty, I think that there’s some people who maybe stand up for silly reasons, some people who make a deal out of nothing that really doesn’t have to be. And so the responsibility that I had was members of the legislative Executive committee asked me to come and answer questions of my experience and again I just didn’t, that’s my commitment to my state whether I’m an employee or not. So they asked ultimately what that process was, how did we come to the decision, what was the selection process like.
Ultimately at the end of the day really nothing happened from that committee. Whether or not it could have gone farther I think you know there’s probably some legislators who certainly think that it should have or could have but I think one of the nice parts about it was it at least offered the opportunity to be able to really look at what that process is for those RFPs and really try to decide whether or not it’s well.
It’s well-defined because at the end of the day you know you have a lot of great state employees who are taking direction and they sometimes agree or if they do something one way or another and I think that as the employer to those employees, I think those employees deserve good direction. And so, I just tried to answer questions ahead.
Dave Roetman: I imagine you have very strong opinions about transparency in governments that cost you your job.
Nate Welch: Yeah. It was a bummer, partly just because I really liked a lot of people that I worked with. And again, like I said, I was honored to get to work for my state. I mean, I grew up hearing about the brain drain that we would have in South Dakota. I’m a millennial in that low 40s age. I grew up here. People were leaving the state and I’ve been blessed enough to have opportunities to leave, but I never did because I love my state so much.
I love the opportunities that we have and honestly, to really just feel like you kind of got tossed out on the curb that one hurts you know. It’s just a bummer. And so that part is, it certainly is kind of feel like you have a kick in the stomach for it. But at the same time too, this kind of going back to my journalism days, I do believe in transparency.
Now I don’t, I probably I don’t know if I’d last right now in the big national aspect of journalism because I think that that is quite frankly, often just really too extreme and it actually doesn’t get into the right details or we don’t focus on the right details. But the transparency of the responsibility that we have as a taxed population and where and what we do with those dollars. I think it’s something that is exactly what we were literally founded on.
It’s that taxation without representation and having the ability to be transparent in this stuff and quite frankly having the opportunity and responsibility to hold your morals and ethics high without having it to cost positions I think is, I think and I hope.
[10:00]
That we can continue to get better at that.
Dave Roetman: What do you think about the latest legislation that has been passed recently about transparency, strengthening the auditor, and do you think there’s a positive movement in South Dakota’s government and laws to make our government more transparent and give more give them good employees a [?] sense that they’re going to listen to what it comes to talking about the things that they feel that need to be brought to the public’s attention or to the legislature’s attention.
Nate Welch: Yeah, I, you know, I really do. I know a number of legislators all worked on that, and obviously Attorney General Jackley certainly had, was often the tip of that spear for it, not only because he was investigating current ones, but he also has been saying, okay, here’s how we can investigate more, here’s how we maybe would not have gotten to this point had we had these. And so I really do admire and think the legislation that was passed, especially this last session, I think were fantastic steps forward. And again, I think that we, even as just a society, I think we often are wanting to do a gotcha, wanting to do a cancellation, wanting to just do, off with the hand [?] kind of a thing.
And so we kind of live in this deny or catch them and toss them out type of thing. And I think that part of what this legislation really did was it put in protective barriers for those who at least Like I said, if they don’t have the authority to do something, but they have seen it, they now have a better opportunity to be protected by at least literally just saying what they think is right?
I mean, you can go back to even my own experience, and this isn’t me playing a fiddle for myself, but there was never a time I was not supportive to our organization. To move in the continued right direction. I gave what I was hired to do and give my professional opinion and also offer up to the point of where my moral line would go. And I communicated that on and that just wasn’t part of what they wanted, right?
I think that those who handle dollars, those who are watching and doing all this transaction, We need to be able to have good protection for them because also, if you think about it, we also don’t want to have a fat government. Well, one of the ways that you can put more protection in for that type of stuff is you’re going to do layers on layers. Well, we as South Dakotans, the conservatives [?], we know we don’t need that.
So I think we need things that can help us protect our integrity to do the right thing. And I think those laws that were put in, I think those were fantastic steps forward.
Dave Roetman: Neat. Final thoughts?
Nate Welch: I’ve always got thoughts. I don’t know how they get to be the final ones, but you know... I just I want to say thanks again for having me you know we’ve gotten to know each other a little bit and this kind of a conversation I think is just what we I hope it’s beneficial to those out there if anyone’s listening on it I don’t like to people who probably follow my social media or anything I don’t promote the stuff that I had to go through.
I don’t really promote all that. I don’t stand on a thing and shout with a bullhorn because to me, I still think that we are good people who can have conversations and get things done one step at a time. My hope is that we continue to do that as opposed to having to shout in that bullhorn and try to just knock each other off any pedestal there is. I think just talking through it and if I can share my experience and my perspective in that and also you know continue to say I still love my state you know I still really admire and appreciate a lot of people I worked with maybe I don’t agree with them in different things but As my grandfather always taught me, they’re still your neighbor.
No matter where they live, they’re still your neighbor.
Dave Roetman: That’s a great attitude.
Nate Welch: Yeah, appreciate that.
Dave Roetman: Nate, thank you for being with us.
Nate Welch: Thanks for having me.
Dave Roetman: This has been the Making Waves Podcast. My name is Dave Roetman. We’ve been here with Nate Welch.
