When Quentin Huston moved to Des Moines early in 2007, he settled near West Des Moines and worked in the East Village.

He decided to join the Young Professionals Connection (YPC) Impact Downtown Committee. He figured that because he worked close to downtown, he might as well get involved.

After spending 2008 participating in the organization and 2009 as the committee chairperson, he gained a new perspective on how important it is to be part of the downtown community.

“It has inspired me to move and want to live downtown,” said Huston, a chiropractor at Pulley Chiropractic Health Center. “I got rid of one of my cars. My wife works across the hall from me. We now both walk to work every day.”

Huston’s attitude reflects the outlook that the Impact Downtown Committee is trying to develop.

“Our belief is that a strong downtown core is going to serve the whole Central Iowa region better,” said current committee chairperson Shawn Harrington. “It’s really to strengthen Des Moines and the surrounding area. Most specifically what we look to do is to keep young professionals connected with the downtown community, not just professionally but in their social life.”

‘Challenging them to challenge us’

The committee, which has been part of the YPC for five years, organizes events such as morning meetups and happy hours, and helps with the annual 80/35 Music Festival.

The heart of what the group does, though, involves taking on challenges from members of the Downtown Community Alliance (DCA).

“We’re challenging them to challenge us,” Huston said.

The challenges stemmed from the idea that the organization wanted to provide members with more of a connection to downtown CEOs. The concept was to get area business leaders to sponsor challenges for the Impact Downtown Committee to carry out.

“We always want it to root back to that someone in the business community is working with young professionals, issuing us this challenge to kind of create that working relationship,” Harrington said.

To date, the committee has completed three challenges, the first being issued in 2008 by Joe Young, a member of the Children and Families of Iowa Board of Trustees and at the time a vice president at Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. The challenge was for YPC members to get involved with troubled teens through Children and Families of Iowa.

The second challenge, presented by Rick Tollakson, president and CEO of Hubbell Realty Co., started in October 2008. The Impact Downtown Committee conducted a survey to see how downtown could better attract young professionals outside of working hours.

The third challenge took place throughout 2010. Issued by Davis Sanders, president of RDG Planning & Design, it pushed the committee to take on a “Green Challenge.” YPC members made an effort to make 1,000 trips by carpooling, using a bus or bicycling, and they succeeded. They also coordinated an after-party for the downtown Trash Bash on Earth Day.

“Through the DCA we’ve worked with Nationwide, we’ve worked with Hubbell, we’ve worked with RDG; those are all in the downtown area,” Huston said. “I think it’s vital that we all continue to work together, because if you have 12 or so people doing something, it only has so much of an impact. But if you can get other members involved … then you can really have great things happen.”

Hubbell CEO Tollakson said he decided to issue a challenge based on the group’s willingness to accept it. Because a large target demographic of people who might live downtown are young professionals, using YPC for the study made sense.

“They’re the ones who are interested in downtown,” Tollakson said. “The young professionals, depending on what their backgrounds are, a lot of them come in and they work downtown; they see the social atmosphere of downtown. It appeals to them.”

Hoping to have a true impact

Huston concedes that he’s an extreme example of someone who changed his lifestyle because of the Impact Downtown Committee. But he thinks the panel is having a positive impact in getting young professionals involved.

“There are a lot of people who are just moving into Des Moines, who are constantly asking us what are we doing to better the community,” said Harrington, who moved to Des Moines from Rochester, N.Y., in 2007. “We’re able to provide them with a lot of information just from these challenges.”

The committee is in the process of narrowing ideas for 2011 challenges. Possibilities include:

•Focusing on downtown skywalks. “We’re looking if there’s a way we can get involved through entertainment in the skywalks … promoting it, all kinds of stuff like that,” Harrington said.

•Developing a downtown rain garden. The committee is looking at new ways to use the rainfall runoff from downtown buildings to grow a garden.

•Developing a rush-hour concert series to keep people downtown after work.

“Those are all in brainstorming discussions right now,” Harrington said.

Impact Downtown Committee meetings are open to the public, and Harrington encourages public participation. The more young professionals get involved, he said, the better.

“It’s critical,” Harrington said. “A lot of businesses, if you talk to their managers, their owners, one of their things is they need to find good workers, and they need to retain them. If you look at YPC’s mission – attract and retain young professionals in Des Moines – we’re looking to serve that.”

Business leaders are noticing.

“I think we continue to see (downtown involvement) growing,” Tollakson said. “As (young professionals) have the ability to work on things together and do things together and the networking improves, you will see more of them get involved.”