Lexi Hagan, a 2024 Northern Michigan University business management alumna and one of the first NMU Rural Leadership Fellowship Program participants, is the new executive director of the Menominee Business Development Corporation. Her role is to attract new businesses to the area, retain existing businesses, and help them identify available grant opportunities.
“When I learned about the position with the Menominee Business Development Corporation through InvestUP, I felt as though my prayers had been answered,” Hagan said in an email, as reported in an Eagle Herald feature on her appointment. “While I am still new to this field, I am driven by an eagerness to learn, grow, and connect with local businesses to make a meaningful impact in Menominee County.”
The article also referenced an email from Mayor Casey Hoffman, who reported that Hagan came highly recommended.
“[She] is talented, well-trained and shares my tenacity for expanding and diversifying Menominee's economy,” Hoffman wrote. “I support her 100%. Ms. Hagan is the shot in the arm Menominee's economy needs. In addition to her competency, I think residents and small business owners will appreciate Ms. Hagan's finely tuned emotional intelligence. She is kind, easy to do business with and embodies Menominee's small-town values.”
Hagan said she is excited to help local businesses identify grant opportunities available to them. She has also established connections with bigger resources such as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and other economic development organizations in the area.
“Even before my official start date, I was already building connections with other Economic Development Organizations by attending events like the InvestUP CEO Summit in late January to lay the groundwork for essential potential partnerships,” Hagan said.
Hagan recently met with the Central Upper Peninsula Small Business Support Hub, based out of the Lake Superior Community Partnership in Marquette, about their small business grant program.
“A big goal of mine is to get more Menominee small businesses to apply to this grant,” she said. “In the last grant round that they had, only one business from Menominee applied. It would be a gold mine to be able to raise awareness about that.”
As an undergraduate Rural Leadership Fellow at NMU, Hagan received a scholarship-supported, project-based internship with the City of Manistique to update its five-year recreation plan in conjunction with the implementation of a Michigan DNR Spark Grant of $800,000 to support city parks' infrastructure.
“I discovered how rural development not only aligns with my desire to help others, but does so on a much larger scale than I ever imagined,” she said of the program, a public-private partnership between NMU and InvestUP.
Read the full Eagle Herald article on Hagan's new role in Menominee here.