At The Core: Spotlight On David Toland
ABOUT LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR & SECRETARY OF THE KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE DAVID TOLAND
Seventh-generation Kansan David Toland is the current lieutenant governor of Kansas. He also serves as secretary of the Kansas Department of Commerce, where he’s become a dominant force in the state’s economic development.
Toland has twice garnered the most private sector investment per capita of any state in the nation, and broken every previous record for capital investment and job creation in state history. His efforts have brought in nearly $20 billion of business investment since 2019.
Toland’s rigorous overhaul of the Kansas Department of Commerce is defined by an emphasis on growth in rural communities. This includes improving Kansans’ quality of life through historic investments in infrastructure, broadband, housing, childcare, tourism, community vibrancy, recreation, workforce training programs and apprenticeships.
Toland also led the state’s successful recruitment of the largest economic development project in state history: the $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery plant in De Soto, which will open in January 2025 and create 4,000 jobs.
He has extensive experience in urban and rural economic development, having worked at the local level in Washington, D.C., as well as in his hometown of Iola. Toland holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Kansas.
Martin: I’m excited to introduce David Toland, the lieutenant governor of Kansas. David, many people in the community know you as a politician, but might not know a lot about you as a person. I want to start by asking you about your favorite childhood memory.
Toland: I had a really idyllic childhood growing up in southeast Kansas in Iola, with a lot of freedom and flexibility. We were what you now call free-range kids. It was a normal childhood where you’d spend the day roaming around on your bicycle and doing all the things that are part of a healthy childhood. I feel fortunate to have been raised in a really caring community.
Martin: Did you ever see yourself ending up where you are now?
Toland: I definitely didn’t see myself doing what I’m doing today. I grew up wanting to be a lawyer like my dad and grandpa. Then I thought I wanted to be a city manager and got my Master of Public Administration with an urban policy emphasis. I’ve done almost everything but be a city manager. I’ve worked a lot in public service as well as in the private sector. Now I’m at the state level, but the path here was unpredictable and kind of a spaghetti bowl of twists and turns.
Martin: Were there any influential people who helped you along the way?
Toland: My folks raised me to give back and serve my community. I’ve also had many professional mentors. At my first job in Reno, Nevada, I worked for a very demanding but also really caring city manager named Charles McNeely and his deputy Stuart Peters. They pounded on me to always be better. I was 23 years old and still pretty wet behind the ears. Then I went to DC and was thrown into some challenging professional environments. I worked for DC government as one of the mayor’s fellows, at a time when the district was not a well-respected place to be, frankly.
I wanted to go there and learn. I didn’t care whether it was a top place for people in local government, I just wanted to get my hands dirty and learn how you turn around a government and a city. As I look back on my career, it’s people like Mayor Williams, Planning Director Ellen McCarthy and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Eric Christ who have influenced my professional decisions and how I lead my team. I want my team to have high standards and a sense of urgency about the work we do. We want to break down barriers and make it easier for people to access government services.
Martin: You’ve served for many years as our lieutenant governor, as well as our secretary of commerce. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Toland: Bringing Panasonic to Kansas with a $4 billion investment that created 4,000 jobs, and all the ancillary development that comes with it. I’m certainly proud of that and it was an incredible team effort led by the governor, the president of the senate and the speaker of the house. Kansans came together across party lines to make that happen. The things I get most excited about are when we go to a small town and turn the second floor of a building on Main Street into a loft, so that there’s a new housing unit. Or when we get a grant to save and restore a building so that it’s economically viable again. These smaller projects make economic development real for folks, and show that things can get better. We’ve done nine of the 10 largest economic development projects in Kansas history under Governor Kelly’s leadership.
Martin: Has it been challenging to get people to notice the benefits of smaller projects?
Toland: The Department of Commerce is like an iceberg. You can see the tip of it above the water, but there’s all these other programs under the water that are not as prominent but still key to making the Kansas economy run. We didn’t have many resources when we joined the department in 2019. Since then, we’ve secured funding to invest in broadband, invest in water and sewer systems, upgrade electrical systems and support new industrial development for our Kansas communities. We just did the DOC (Digital Opportunities for Connecting Kansans) program reviews. We also have the barn grant, which supports converting old barns into event spaces that bring agritourism and new economic opportunities to the state. The growth has been astronomical and challenging to keep up with.
Martin: What is your superpower?
Toland: My superpower is the level of dissatisfaction I have with the status quo and always believing we can do more. I have a hard time finding satisfaction with where we are at any given point, which is why we’ve set the state record for new economic development every year. I want to do more. But it’s also kind of exhausting for me, and I know it’s exhausting for my poor team, who always step up and drive us to new heights. The only way you get anything done is with your team, and I have the best team.
Martin: Where would you say that drive comes from?
Toland: Understanding the potential of people, places and Kansas. I see what’s possible. The key is helping other people see that, too, and showing them the path to get from here to there.
Martin: There are currently hundreds of Kansas state government positions available. Tell us how people can get involved.
Toland: We’ve got over 700 jobs available in state government right now. This is down 20% from where we were a couple of years ago, so we’re making progress. The type of people we’re looking for are folks who believe in public service, especially if they never thought of themselves as state government types. Maybe they’ve always worked in the private sector but are looking for a way to give back. What we need are people who believe in making services accessible and available.
Martin: What’s something you wish you had known earlier in your career?
Toland: I wish I would’ve known to always say yes to new opportunities. I was probably too conservative and risk averse. When I was 19, it was the summer after my freshman year of college and I’d had this idea to go and work on a fishing boat in Alaska. There were all these ads targeting college kids to spend their summer making a bunch of money on a fishing boat, and that sounded like an adventure. Yet I had an opportunity to go back home and work for $7.25 an hour as an assistant manager at the same grocery store where I’d worked in high school. The grocery store was a job I understood, and I thought it’d be a good leadership opportunity for me. I wound up doing the safe thing instead of having an adventure on the fishing boat in Alaska. I have always regretted that. I encourage people to do something different and take a risk.
Martin: What advice would you give to someone who wants to go into public policy?
Toland: I think people need to really search their soul to make sure it’s what they want to do. Make sure you’re going into it for the right reasons. If you want to get into public service because you want to make people’s lives better or be part of the solution, that’s the right reason.
Martin: What do you do for fun in your spare time?
Toland: One of the challenges of having two high-pressure jobs is that there isn’t a ton of time for myself. When I’m on a trade mission, I make some time to see places that are off the beaten path and allow me to experience the full richness and culture of a place. When I’m out to dinner and see local folks sitting around, I pull up a chair, introduce myself and ask them about what’s going on. I think face-to-face interactions are part of how we can heal ourselves as a society.
Martin: What does legacy look like to you?
Toland: I don’t have time to think about legacy. Our administration has the blessing of a second term, so I’m already a year and a half into that second four-year term and hear the clock ticking every day. I want to get as much done as I can, at the highest level of quality possible, during the two and a half years that remain. I’m going to do the best work I can and let history judge what we accomplished in this administration.
TK
