City Launches Campaign to Woo Back Ex-Dubuquers

Folks couldn’t flee this Mississippi River city fast enough in the 1980s when farmers lost their land to foreclosure and businesses closed their doors.

Times have changed, though, and community leaders want those wayward Dubuquers to come back and give their hometown another chance.

Civic leaders are spending $75,000 to reach them by mail, on the Internet and through their alma maters.

“We need Dubuquers back, and this is an all-out call for them to come back home,” said Michelle Rios, a consultant for the Greater Dubuque Development Corp. “Once a Dubuquer, always a Dubuquer.”

The reason for the come-home campaign: a glut of jobs, something that was unimaginable during the farm crisis of the mid-1980s.

The crisis began when farmers overextended by buying land with variable interest rate loans. The interest on their mortgages soon doubled, and farmers lost their land.

That had a ripple effect across Iowa, which saw businesses close and unemployment soar. During the 1980s, Iowa lost more than 280,000 people.

Dubuque County’s population dropped from 94,000 in 1980 to 86,000 in 1990. Last year, the county population was estimated at 88,000.

“I remember one of my predecessors saying on national TV, ‘The last one out of Dubuque, turn out the lights,’ ” Mayor Terry Duggan recalled.

But like the rest of Iowa, the city of 63,000 has rebounded. With an unemployment rate of just 3.9%, employers have more job openings than workers to fill them--and that’s not even counting a planned 925-acre industrial park.

Just before last Christmas, the development agency and other sponsors launched a recruiting program called, “Come Back to Your Future, Come Home to Dubuque.”

Tom Pape did.

Pape, who grew up in the Dubuque County town of Balltown, was a dairy farmer when he left in 1989 to be with his future wife in Illinois. Later they moved to Green Bay, Wis. Now an accountant, he decided to move back two months ago with his wife and three sons, ages 6, 7 and 8.

“It wasn’t an easy decision,” his wife said. But “we’re near family and the job opportunities have really opened up in Dubuque. We feel pretty comfortable about that.”

About 48,000 invitations to come home have been sent to alumni of the three colleges in Dubuque--Loras College, Clarke College and the University of Dubuque.

Development officials and other sponsors also have launched a Web site that has registered nearly 400,000 hits from 28 states since it was established Dec. 17. The Dubuque Internet Job Site lists 96 employers. Visitors can find 50-word summaries on each company and even apply online.

So far, 18 people--half of them former area residents--have been hired as a result of the Web site, Rios said.

Rios also searches the Internet every day to find companies that are laying off. She figures she sends two dozen “Come Home to Dubuque” packets out each week to such companies.

Paul McDonough, a 34-year-old lawyer in Westerville, Ohio, said he is tempted to come home. McDonough, a 1981 graduate of Dubuque Hempstead High School, has called the development corporation for more information.

“As a native, I’ve always kicked around the idea of moving back to Dubuque if the circumstances were right,” he said. “I’m sure there are a lot of moms in Dubuque like mine who would love to see their children move home.”

He added: “I can’t think of a better way to get people to move home than to pull at their heartstrings.”

Even non-Dubuquers are intrigued.

John Russo, 56, recently took early retirement after working 34 years at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y. He found out about Dubuque’s worker recruitment program at a job fair and is now thinking of moving to Iowa.

“I’m pretty confident I want to come out there. They seem like friendly people,” he said. “I think people from the eastern part of the country are cold, hard to get to know.”