For most of this summer, I’ve been planning on moving to Omaha, Nebraska.
Inspired (apparently) by my decision to go back to school and earn my MBA in 2007, Hope had decided it was time for her to go back to school, too. She settled on Law School, took the LSAT, rounded up here recommendation letters and applied to schools in cities where we would be interested in living. The school whose interest best matched ours was Creighton University (in Omaha).
Early in the summer I made a field trip to Omaha with the idea that if I found a job we’d make the move and she’d start in the law class this fall. I started my search by contacting Jeff Slobotski at
SiliconPrairieNews to ask him what he knew of the local entrepreneurial community. Jeff knows pretty much everything that is going on and everyone who is doing something. Jeff referred me to several folks, who then referred me to several other folks and suddenly I was very connected in the community.
I booked a quick flight and spent just about 24 hours in town and was able to schedule seven different meetings that were all fruitful.
A few weeks ago, we decided to remove the earlier qualification and go whether I found a job or not. I scheduled another flight, met with my newfound network again, and felt pretty good about the situation.
Then last Friday, things changed. I left work thinking about moving to Omaha and running the move scenarios in my head. When I got home, however, I found out that Hope had just received a phone call from the old 515 area code. It was the Drake University Law School asking her to join their law class rather than Creighton’s. Wow.
We spent the weekend discerning the question and decided that Des Moines was the better place for us (more on that in the next post).
I’m excited for Des Moines but a little disappointed that we won’t be moving to Omaha. Having been on the ground there a few times and having met lots of great people, I was very excited to join the community. I’ll definitely keep up on Omaha's goings on in the future and I’m hopeful that I’ll get the chance to be there often since I’ll only be a couple of hours away.
I want to thank the many folks who welcomed me, took time to meet with me, and got me so excited about what was going on in Omaha: Jeff Slobotski, Dusty Davidson, Dave Milligan, John Gustafson, Joe Olsen, Tom Chapman, Brody and Niki Deren, Eric Paisley, Matt Helt and several others.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 3:25PM