Great opportunities for ICCA, new leader

As the Iowa Cultural Corridor Alliance (ICCA) welcomes a new executive director, there is an excellent opportunity to reiterate the organization's founding commitment to help grow and sustain a regional vision for our communities. When the Cedar Rapids Area Cultural Alliance and the Johnson County Cultural Alliance merged in 2005, ICCA was touted as a model for collaboration across the Corridor.

Since that time, ICCA has largely stood alone as a single organization that serves the wider community. More troubling, however, is a recent spate of what might be called post-flood parochialism. We're concerned that some area leaders have lost sight of a simple idea that was steadfastly championed by former ICCA Executive Director Joe Jennison: Together, we're so much stronger than we ever could be alone.

That idea might be said to be ICCA's guiding philosophy; it would be wonderful to see it serve as the Corridor's guiding philosophy, as well.

As Abby Ballain begins what we hope will be a long tenure as ICCA's executive director, we renew our call for a commitment to cultivating deep and abiding collaborations among like-minded organizations and individuals throughout the Corridor.

Marcia Hughes

Cedar Rapids

2010 president

David Kilpatrick

Amana

2009 president

ICCA Board of

Directors