Redefining Downtown: Zach Yentzer’s Vision for Urban Family Living in Tucson
Dive deep into a unique perspective on urban family living with the one and only, Zach Yentzer. This week, Tom Heath sits down with Zach to discuss his vibrant vision for Tucson and the downtown we all know and love. Can a bustling city center also be an oasis for families? Zach thinks so! Whether you’re a Tucson local or just curious about the evolution of city living, this episode is packed with fresh insights that might just change the way you look at downtown spaces.
🌟 HIGHLIGHTS 🌟
- Revitalizing Tucson: How Zach envisions turning our beloved city into a haven for professionals, young and old, while keeping its unique identity intact.
- Breaking the Urban Stereotype: Why Zach believes that downtown isn’t just for singles or the nightlife crowd, but can be an ideal spot for families too.
- Chamber of Commerce: Discover Zach’s collaboration with local bodies to usher in this transformative change.
- Work, Play, Live: Balancing professional growth with family life in an urban setting. What does that look like in Tucson?
Dive in, give it a listen, and let Zach’s passion for Tucson inspire you!
End Note: If this conversation strikes a chord, don’t forget to explore our diverse library of podcasts. Each episode captures the heartbeat of Tucson in its own unique way. And hey, if there’s a topic or personality you’d love to see featured, or if you have some fresh ideas for show topics, Tom Heath is all ears! Drop him a line and share your thoughts.
Happy listening and until the next ride along the streetcar track!
Transcript (Unedited)
Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the Old Pueblo and you’re listening to KTDT Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community sponsored all volunteer powered rock and roll radio station. This week we’re going to speak with Zach Yenser who recently took on a new position as vice president of business advocacy with the Tucson Chamber of Commerce and we’re going to talk about that role and also his family’s decision, the family of five, to move into the heart of downtown Tucson. Today is October 22nd, 2023. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar. Each and every Sunday we focus on social, cultural, and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core and shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From a mountain to the University of Arizona and all stops in between, you get that inside track right here on 99 .1 FM streaming on downtownradio .org. Also available on your iPhone or Android when you go over to
Tom Heath
your app store and get our very own Downtown Radio Tucson app. On the show, if you want to interact with us, we suggest you head over to Facebook and Instagram. And if you want information about us, the book, maybe some past episodes, or just to contact us, you can do that on lifealongthestreetcar .org. And of course, you can listen to our podcast on all kinds of platforms, like Spotify, iTunes, and others as well. Well, we are towards the end of October, which means a couple of things. One, Halloween is coming up, so all them crazy parties are about to happen. But two, it’s an anniversary for us. We launched this show mid -October, I think it’s October 17th of 2017, which means we’re celebrating a six -year anniversary with this show, which is episode number 270. Now, if you do the math, we don’t quite have 52 shows per year because we did take a break during COVID. but we’ve been out there talking to over 200 individuals. We have 270 interviews and shows. It’s been a really fun ride for
Tom Heath
us and I’m hoping to have another few years left in this, but we need your help in identifying stories and things that we should be covering as part of the Urban Core. So please continue to interact with us in that way and help us out. But thank you to those of you that have listened, to those of you that have supported through the podcast or purchased the book, My Life Along the Streetcar, which came from the show. And a huge shout out and thank you to all the team at Downtown Radio. And I say this a lot, it’s all volunteer powered. The DJs, the show hosts, the board of directors, the people that make it work, they’re volunteers. They do this because they love the community and they love sharing this knowledge with them. So it doesn’t happen without them. So I appreciate all of you and I look forward to many more years. One of our guests that’s been on our show a few times is Zach Yencer, he’s had different roles within the community, and he just took on a new position with the Tucson
Tom Heath
Chamber of Commerce as the Vice President of Business Advocacy. And when we talk about that role, you’re gonna see that every interview we’ve done with him has actually led us to the point where he’s perfectly qualified for this position. But he also recently moved into downtown. He’s married, he’s got three kids. So this family of five living in Tucson was interesting to me, and I really wanted to talk about that aspect of it as well, because we don’t talk a lot about family life in the urban core, and I thought he would be a perfect candidate for that conversation. So this is an interview I’d recorded with him by phone just a couple of days ago with Zach Yentzer. Zach, welcome back, and tell us about what is going on. I’m always good to be on, and thanks for having me back. So what I understand is you took Tucson Young Professionals, you grew it like a million times, got it to some unprecedented level, and you’re like, eh, okay, I’m going to move on from here now.
Zach Yentzer
No, no, not at all. The first part is true. And so an incredible few cohorts of boards, and then myself in this executive director position, really over about a four and a half year timeframe, really took Tucson and professionals to some exciting new heights. We had about 120 members when I got started. And as of now, I think we’re at about 900 members. And it’s a group of 21 to 45 year old young professionals in Tucson across a diversity of industries. And we were also able to grow about 30 organizational partnerships with companies and nonprofits around town who were supporting their young professional employees to be a part. And we had grown around our advocacy capabilities to really speak to the three issues, a year over year that young professionals see as areas of opportunity and challenge in Tucson, and was, was having an absolute blast in that in that position. And this was a situation where the next thing kind of crossed my path and the opportunity to join the chamber as a vice president of business advocacy kind of emerged and as hard as it was to step away from Tucson Young Professionals, this made sense for me and it’s kind of cool, Tom, you’ll appreciate this because you’ve known me for a while. The vice president of business advocacy role at the chamber oversees three functions. One is strategic communications and there’s a radio show included in that. It supports our workforce development initiatives. So there’s a lot of TYP, you know, still in there. And then it is really a government affairs role to work with our cities and towns and local jurisdictions and government officials and others to be the voice of business in in the region. And so I was like, man that’s like the last 10 years of my Tucson life all in one role. So I’m really, I’m having a blast and it just made sense. So yeah, TYP is in great hands and excited about their new executive director. Was sad to leave, but yeah, this was a good, I think a good thing for everybody.
Tom Heath
Do you think some of the growth or did you quantify how much of the growth was due to a growth in population of young professionals in Tucson as we’re attracting more and keeping more or was it more marketing to those that just hadn’t joined previously?
Zach Yentzer
Right, I mean I think it’s a little bit of both. I would say less on the side of more young professionals moving here. We did see more members join us who said, hey I just come to Tucson or I’ve been in Tucson just a short period of time. So we did see some growth from that, but it really felt more so we were just getting really good at being a convening point for great young people and great young talent in Tucson who maybe had their heads down in their work and didn’t quite know what was available in the community. We said, hey, come be a part of this amazing platform that works on keeping great people here, growing professionally, but then also advocating for the best possible version of our community for ourselves and for our families. And so I think once we got really good at telling that story and working with organizational partners. And that’s what really helped us up to scale. So a little bit of both.
Tom Heath
So then the chamber comes and said, hey, we need this weird position of someone that understands communications and radio and workforce development, the young minds of the economy here and someone that’s also skilled enough to talk to legislators and public officials. But where are we going to find all of that? And then there’s this embarrassment of riches called Zach Gensler that is out there. Yeah. And they swooped you up, huh?
Zach Yentzer
They did. You’re very kind, Tom. They did. Yeah. It’s been, yeah, it’s been a blast. When did you start with them? End of July of 2023. So as we’re recording this, it’s almost three months.
Tom Heath
I didn’t realize it was that recent. Holy smokes. Uh -huh. It just seems like a lot longer ago when that announcement was made, but so are you, are you really, did you just jump in both feet just kind of running or are you taking some time to get a kind of accustomed or acquainted with all the responsibilities?
Zach Yentzer
A little bit of both. There’s always a lot to do and things happen very fast in certainly the world of kind of issues and policy. But under, I think a lot of your listeners will know Michael Guyman, the president and CEO of the Tucson Metro Chamber. He really had this vision to pull together into one team those three functions that I mentioned. And so we have a really young, kind of fresh team overall on the government affairs side of the house at the chamber being all one team is new and and so in that sense there has been a little bit of kind of being my feet wet and trying to understand you know the how all those pieces fit together and kind of some of the issues and the different committees and efforts the chamber has been working on. But it was really fun, you know, I did a morning talk show in Tucson for almost five years and I’m finding that a lot of the people that I’m working with now, a lot of the issues I’m working on, whether it is around housing, economic development, transportation,
Zach Yentzer
you name it, I’ve kind of been working on those issues for a while and talking with those people for a while. So that felt pretty seamless. that was really easy to jump in and just kind of continue with a different hat on.
Tom Heath
Yeah, Tipping Point was a favorite show that I enjoyed listening to as well. Your show that you had on a daily basis. With The Chamber, are you doing like a daily show, or is it a weekly, monthly? Tell me more about this.
Zach Yentzer
Yes, so it is a weekly show. It airs on Sunday mornings, and you can go on our website, tucsonchamber .org and on the homepage if you scroll down and you can click to see more information of where to listen to it and when. It’s also a podcast as well that goes up early in the week but the cool part of this Tom is for a while the podcast has been mostly, or the radio show has been mostly an interview platform to interview our incredible members. We have 1 ,400 of them that represent 160 ,000 employees and workers and families in the Tucson area but it was mostly kind of an interview show and it’s still an interview show but when I came into the position I sat down with the team and said what if we also made this a platform we can talk about the issues and policies and solutions that we at the chamber are working on and advocating for. So if you go and listen to the last few episodes you’ll actually hear us talking about Proposition 496, which is if you live in the Tucson Unified School District,
Zach Yentzer
it’s a $480 million bond that will be on the ballot. We’re talking about our support of Vail incorporating Proposition 402 if you’re in the Vail area. So in that sense, Tom, it’s kind of fun because once a week I get to be a part of what I was doing daily before, which is interviewing great people and then also deep diving into the issues and talking kind of some policy and hopefully an easy way that isn’t complicated, that kind of story tells what we do at the chamber.
Tom Heath
Yeah, and for one show a week now, instead of having to program and produce five shows, you’re probably like, this is, I can like go really deep on topics here and a lot of research and don’t have to work so hard to get a guest every day.
Zach Yentzer
It’s fantastic. That was not easy. I have respect for people who do any kind of daily show. It’s a lot of work.
Tom Heath
Amen, that’s why this is a weekly show because I saw what you’re doing on Tipping Point and I wasn’t going to have any of that. Well, we’ll be back to the rest of this weekly show with Zach Gensler in just a moment as we talk about the switch roles and we’re going to talk about his family life in downtown Tucson. But first, I want to remind you that you are listening to Life Along the Streetcar on Downtown Radio, 99 .1 FM and streaming on downtownradio .org.
Tom Heath
So just before the break we were talking with Zach Gensler about his role, his new role as Vice President of Business Advocacy with the Chamber and how his previous lives in several different areas had kind of combined to make this a really good opportunity for him and for the Chamber as well. Now I’m gonna switch gears a little bit and talk about his decision with his family to move downtown and kind of what that means when you have a family in downtown Tucson. We don’t talk a lot about that and wanted to get that inside story on family life with Zach Yentzer. I want to switch gears just a little bit because you talk about this transition professionally, but one thing that was really interesting to me is, and I’ve seen this on your Facebook posts and such, you’ve always lived in the downtown area and you were in Menlo Park, but recently, maybe coinciding or similar to this position, you actually moved your family into the core of downtown. And by family, I mean, you got kids. It’s not like, I mean, you got three little ones, don’t
Tom Heath
you? I do. Six, four, and just turned two. Oh, congratulations. Not to you, but to the two -year -old.
Tom Heath
But tell me about this, because I hear all this time that, you know, downtown is for, you know, if you’re retiring or if you’re a partier, and then there’s a few of us that are sort of in the middle that just enjoy the urban life, but you don’t hear too much about families in downtown, and yet here you are. Are you an isolated case? Are you running into others that are doing this as well?
Zach Yentzer
Sure. Yeah, running into others more and more who are doing the same. And I think, Tom, the quick conversation we had recently that spurred us having this conversation together was, I think I said, five, even five, but certainly 10 years ago, having and raising a family in the urban core was either a joke or a worse nightmare. I mean, just to be fair, it was not something you did or thought about or thought would be wise to do, but it’s been really fun to experience that and to do that. And even in the place where we live, we’re seeing more families with young kids there. We’re seeing a diversity of young professionals, older individuals, professors, a lot of racing on some of those core industries who are living in the urban core and where my family is living, it’s 100 % filled. And so it’s cool to see the demand there. And what is really fun about it is both my workplace, my wife works from home, my daughter’s school and the church we go to are all about a nine minute walk away from each
Zach Yentzer
other. That’s fabulous. And so, I think what has made a huge difference downtown is trying to become this place where it makes sense to live downtown. And what I mean by that is, you know, services, food, retail, transportation, work life, it all makes sense. And they’re all connected together. And I would love to see that experience mapped out across the entire community. um and but it’s it’s a real joy to be able to do it in downtown um we feel safe um downtown has its challenges but uh it feels like a safe community um i love being able to you know take my oldest daughter out our whole daddy daughter date go get ice cream somewhere um you know we are able to use some of the green and open spaces in the downtown area there could be some more park space but it’s not bad um yeah it’s a really great experience My wife loves it. She feels safe. It’s pretty cool.
Tom Heath
Well, Zach answered all my questions. I had all these questions I wanted to ask you about, you know, whether your kids were going to school downtown. What can I, what do you do for activity? He answered all those. So now I don’t even know what to ask at this point.
Tom Heath
But seriously, this thought where, I mean, do you own a car or do you just commute, do you walk everywhere?
Zach Yentzer
So we own one vehicle. My kids are getting to the age where they’re in sports. And so we have to, you know, we can’t fully, you know, walk or take public transit everywhere. And so we have one vehicle. And then and then here, get this Tom, this is out of necessity, but it feels big city. If I need a vehicle, I don’t have one, you know, I Uber and, and that that works for me. But no, we’re walking or taking, you know, public transit everywhere we need to go in the area.
Tom Heath
and that’s a cost savings as well. And how’s your daughter? I mean, she’s at, she’s, you said six, so she’s kind of at this age where things are starting to click for her. Is she getting this sort of, I don’t want to say life lesson, but is she getting this understanding
Zach Yentzer
this, this lifestyle? Yeah, the kids, the kids enjoy it too. It’s a, it’s an adventure for them. And, you know, it’s really interesting because I grew up in a pretty walkable community. It was a suburb in Pennsylvania. I didn’t grow up in the urban core, but we lived in an area where grocery stores and parks and things like that, attractions were, you know, 10, 15 minute walk away. And I just have these core memories of, you know, my dad taking us out to get ice cream or get a snack or something. And I was walking there. And that’s a cool experience to have as a kid, if you can have it. And I think my kids are starting to have it as well.
Tom Heath
Yeah, I’ve seen you out and about, you know, walking, I see a school bus, but you’re not on the bus, you’re walking right by that bus, taking your daughter to school, and then you head off to the chamber, which is also downtown. So I can see how that can be a very sort of freeing lifestyle when you have that much proximity and the ability to get everywhere with your feet, which is fantastic. So you had mentioned you kind of wanted to see this spread out through the community. Are you talking about this walkability or what were you referring to?
Zach Yentzer
Right. You know, it’s interesting. We, I get to talk to a lot of different kinds of people just in life, but in this role and all of that, you know, and for some, the way that I’m living now can be a prescription, you know, of, oh, you know, everybody should, it’s a car and walk and, and live in a dense space and use public transportation. And I’m just doing it because it’s convenient. I don’t have an agenda. I, you know, in a past life, I’ve lived in the Dove Mountain, you know, before I moved to Menlo Park, I had a pretty suburban experience. So a lot of people approach this and it’s an agenda or it’s a, you know, a life mission to walk and ditch the car and all that. I don’t have an agenda, you know, or a prescription for anybody per se to do what I’m doing. I think it’s a great life and anyone who can do it should do it. But again, it works for me because when we talk about environments where you can live, work and play, you actually have to live work and play. And Tucson is really
Zach Yentzer
spread out. Communities of our size elsewhere have nodes that connect and make sense. We don’t really have that yet in the Tucson metro area. If you wanted to, you know, easily transport between the identities of Fawadit, Dunwoody, Vale, and Miranda, it’s still pretty spread out. people, you know, a lot of the time live in environments that were built since the 1940s where where you work, where you live, where you play are very distinct and separate geographic areas. And what I would love to see in Tucson is the opportunity, not the prescription, not the agenda, but the opportunity, the freedom to be able to say, hey look, you know, I live in a dense, connected enough environment where I can walk to where I work and my kid’s school is in my neighborhood. And, you know, that is going to require a different way of thinking and planning and building in Tucson than sometimes we’ve wanted. But as Tucson grows, I think that that’s a great way to grow and would love to see, again, an environment
Zach Yentzer
where transportation, where you live, where you work, it’s all connected enough to where it makes sense. And I’ll end with this, the conversation in Tucson right now, certainly as we look to renew the RTA in the next couple of years, Regional Transportation Authority, there’s a lot of conversation right now around how do we make public transit something that is used more often. And it’s interesting, if you look, if you step back and look at Tucson, Tucson wants public transit to be used, but is often not willing to create a built environment where it makes sense to use public transit. People aren’t going to use public transit just because they’ve had a religious experience and that’s the way they’re gonna get around anymore. It has to make sense. And for a lot of people in Tucson, it doesn’t make sense to live how I’m living because it just isn’t built that way. So I think that is a conversation we need to have as a community and realize that you have to be able to live, work, and play
Zach Yentzer
in a tighter geographic area to enjoy the experience that my family and I are getting to experience.
Tom Heath
Well, Zach Yentzer, your background, as we kind of joked about earlier, the confluence of all of these different things in your life seem like you’re in the exact right spot as to where you need to be with the Metro Chamber, dealing with some of these issues, having these conversations and addressing them from both a personal and a business perspective. Honestly, I can’t think of someone that’s got a better grasp on on how those two meld together. So I’m kind of excited to see where this takes you.
Zach Yentzer
Yeah, I feel I feel like I’m in a great spot less to be here and love working with and supporting our 1400 really diverse businesses at the Tucson Metro Chamber. So if anyone is listening and they are a member, thank you and enjoy working with you and not yet
Tom Heath
member. I’d love to have you join the team. Well, I appreciate the fact that you think anybody listens to my show. Mom, did you hear that? If you want to join the chamber, Zach is all ready for you. Zach, I appreciate your time as always, sir. I look forward to seeing you out and about. Oh, thank you. Zach Yenser, the fairly recently installed vice president of business advocacy with Tucson Chamber of Commerce, always a polished guest as his radio background shows through. And he gets us through some of those awkward questions that I ask. My name is Tom Heath. You are listening to Life Along the Streetcar and Downtown Radio. We’re on 99 .1 FM and streaming on downtownradio .org.
Tom Heath
So this is episode 270 coming to a close here Six year anniversary ish show somewhere between last show on this show. I think we hit that six -year mark Thank you for all of your support. Thank you for everyone. That’s helped to make this possible It doesn’t happen without James Portis. You you probably don’t know him, but if you’ve seen the book there’s a picture of him and what he does in the the back of that he helps this show immensely behind the scenes and Everything you see on the website is is part of the work that James does he does so much more than that But honestly, we would not be successful without him and it’s a huge. Thank you also wouldn’t be successful I don’t think without our opening music from Ryan hood. They’ve been on our show every episode So they let us use Dillinger Days and we’ve just run with that and love that to open the show. It means a lot to me that they let us use that. I think it’s a very appropriate opening for a show called Life Along the Streetcar. So
Tom Heath
we always thank them for letting us use that. And as we leave today, I want to highlight Zach Yencer’s move into downtown Tucson with his family. And so we’ve got some music all the way back from the 80s with Holland Oates. It’s from an album called Oh Yeah, or Ooh Yeah. Here is Downtown Life. I hope you have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more life along the streetcar.
