Holland Young Professionals

By STEVE RALPH
The Holland Sentinel
Posted May 10, 2008 @ 06:00 AM

Holland, MI — Teams of four must stay together. Travel by foot — no cars allowed. Purchase from only Tulip Time vendors.

Pretzels, cotton candy, lemonade and caramel corn are 10 points each. Elephant ears, corn dogs and French fries are 15 points; fat balls are 45, and a plate of Thai food is 75.
Be back at New Holland Brewing Co., 66 E. Eighth St., by 7:30 p.m., sharp! The team with the most points wins … if they can still walk.

That’s the game Holland Young Professionals plays each year at its HYP Junk Food Scavenger Hunt, held this year on Thursday, May 8, to introduce Tulip Time to area newcomers and provide some fun for regular members.

“It’s always got this connotation of being more for older crowds, but really, Tulip Time is just about having a good time,” said Holland Young Professionals co-founder and President Barry Rice.

“You don’t get a lot of chances to go downtown and eat junk food,” he said.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Shannon Biros, 29, of Grand Haven, a chemistry teacher at Grand Valley State University who had never experienced Tulip Time before she and her friend, Megan Olson, 27, were invited to the scavenger hunt.

“I didn’t know there was a downtown in Holland,” said Olson, a student at Baker College in Muskegon.

After an hour racing up and down Eighth Street, Biros and Olson thought their work was done, but their teammates — Yednesh Parnaik, 30, an engineer at Johnson Controls, and Hilary Macay of Holland, a Holland Young Professionals regular, were bent on securing the all-important 75-point plate of Thai food.

Unfortunately, the only vendor offering it was on Chicago Drive past Sixth Street and Raman’s Party Store — a good hike, which the team took at a sprint.

When they finally arrived back at New Holland at 7:30, out of breath and stuffed to the gills, they awaited the announcement of the winning team, confident that their 410 points would catapult them to the top.

Alas, another team ate enough fatty, sugary stuff to amass a whopping 450 points, and won the top prize of four $15 gift certificates to New Holland Brewing Co.

“And, of course, the glory,” said event organizer and game judge Colleen Huddas.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

By Myron Kukla

The Grand Rapids Press

HOLLAND — Jim Lilly wasn’t sure how many of his old friends would still be around town after he had been away for six years for college and work.

A Holland native and commercial banker with National City Bank, the 26-year-old found much had changed in his time away.

“The young people I knew had moved on to other places and new jobs. For me, it was like moving to a new town even though it was home,” Lilly said.

But he didn’t have to wait long to find new friends and professional acquaintances. He became a member of the Holland Young Professionals, a loose-knit social and professional organization targeting 21- to 35-year-olds for networking and fun.

“It was great to come back and have a social network of young professionals to plug myself into,” said Lilly, who has been a member of the group since 2006.

Holland Young Professionals is in its fifth year, with more than 400 members.

The momentum for Holland Young Professionals “came out of the Cool Cities initiative Governor (Jennifer) Granholm was promoting to make Michigan cities more vibrant and attractive to young workers,” said Barry Rice, one of the organization’s founders and the club’s current president.

“Right from the start, HYP took off faster and grew quicker than any of us had expected. One day there were three of us talking about an idea and it seemed like a month later we had a hundred members,” said Rice, business development manager for the Worksighted computer networking firm of Holland.

He said the group’s mission is to develop growth opportunities to attract and help keep educated young people in the area.

“HYP helps young people become part of the community. They get to meet new people, expand business contacts, stay up on current trends and have fun with their peers,” said Mat Nguyen, Worksighted’s president.

He was a co-founder of Holland Young Professionals with Rice and Robyn Wennersten-Vriesman of Fifth Third Bank.

Similar non-affiliated groups have sprung up in Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Kalamazoo.

Among Holland Young Professionals’ regular activities are e2e events with economic development agency Lakeshore Advantage, bringing in monthly business speakers to discuss various topics.

The group also partners with the Holland Area Chamber of Commerce and encourages its members to take part in the Leadership Holland program.

Among social functions the group hosts are monthly Unwind gatherings at restaurants. Other events have included an Oktoberfest celebration and golf outings.

“We try to have a community-service aspect to most of our events,” Nguyen said. “Like the past New Year’s Eve party we held at the Park Theatre. It was not only a party, but also a chance to promote this developing downtown venue and raise money for its improvement.”

The gathering raised $3,000 for the theater’s renovation fund.

That type of activity is important to Lilly.

“When I was growing up here, Holland had a reputation of not having a lot to offer young people,” he said.

“But now, I see a lot of exciting things happening here — like HYP — that helps create an exciting local culture that makes the town more inviting.”

Holland, MI is the focus in a new article by the New York Times entitled,”2 Outcomes When Foreigners Buy Factories”.  Click the link to go to the article.

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BY STEVE RALPH - HOLLAND SENTINEL
Creative “right-brained” thinking will be more important in the future than the more traditionally valued analytical “left-brained” thinking. Businesses that recognize this will prosper and grow. Schools that embrace it will prepare our kids for success in the emerging global marketplace.

That’s the message best-selling author Daniel Pink delivered to a nearly sold-out auditorium of local educators, business people and artists at Harbor Lights Middle School Tuesday.

Read full story

Published in Holland Sentinel on Sunday, January 6, 2008 

By STEVE RALPH

Holland Young Professionals isn’t merely a social club. The local nonprofit has served the community in many ways in its first four years.

“We plug ourselves directly into things that are already happening,” said Mat Nguyen, group co-founder.

The most recent example — Park Theatre’s third annual New Year’s Eve party, which HYP (pronounced “hip”) helped sponsor and organize for the first time in 2007.

“We had just over 100 people there, more than any other year,” said Katy Nguyen, HYP board member and former Park Theatre general manager. “We raised $3,000 for the Park Theatre.”

HYP’s involvement made the difference in the event’s success, she said.

“Our goal was to create a community for young professionals in the area. So far we’ve been pretty successful,” said Barry Rice, president and co-founder.

Through networking, professional development seminars, social events and a scholarship fund, HYP hopes to attract young professional adults to the area, which members say is key to keeping Holland a vibrant, attractive, economically sound place to live and work into the future.

A central element of that mission includes serving the community. The group pairs social and networking events with philanthropy. The Community Action House is one beneficiary of HYP’s efforts.

Read Full Article at Holland Sentinel

Article courtesy of the Holland Sentinel - February 23, 2004

Barry Rice had high hopes when he helped start Holland Young Professionals.

The first event — held at the Firehouse Bar and Grill in Holland Township — drew about 40 people.

What happened next surprised even Rice.
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