Ben Trockman is also Evansville City Council President. The Orr Fellowship is quite successful in Indianapolis, and Trockman is leading the first chapter outside of that area.
He said it’s needed here based on the feedback of both local government and local businesses.
“Talent — attraction and retention — is 100-percent the most important thing we can do for creating better quality of place, better quality of life, and ensuring that people stick around and are interested in Evansville. You know, this is something that's happening all across the nation.”
Overall the organization recruits and matches university grads with high-agency roles in growing Indiana businesses.
Orr Fellowship and partner companies try to accelerate their careers, who can go on to live in and positively impact their community — ideally Evansville.
The fellows actually live here during the program. The inaugural class of 15 high-achieving recent grads was assembled late October. It’s a two year program, so there will be overlapping classes. Evansville is the first city outside of Indianapolis to adopt the fellowship.
"Is Evansville going to be a little different than Indy? Absolutely," Trockman said. "Because what I think we have to sell here in Evansville, is that, you know, our access for these young high achievers to CEOs to nonprofit presidents, executive directors is so much closer than what they have in Indy.
“And so when you're choosing Orr fellowship, you have a choice for Indy or Evansville. And my goal, and I've talked with this with my boss, is to make Evansville the more attractive option than even Indianapolis, and I think we have a good story to tell.”
Evansville will have about 30 fellows once another class starts while Indianapolis will have 70. The eventual goal is to have classes of about 20. Trockman said he doesn’t aspire to match Indianapolis in volume.
His job has three “buckets” as he describes it — recruiting graduates to participate, attracting businesses to hire these individuals and planning the programming that really comprises the fellowship.
“That is not only the social events, but most importantly, the development programs that is throughout the two-year tenure of the fellowship.”
Steven Emch is the president of Orr Fellowship overall. He said the people of Evansville are why the followship is agreeing to found a chapter here.
“My last job was at the State, and I got to interact with a lot of communities across the state, and Evansville just has this spirit of collaboration and community and of involvement that I think is really admirable.”
Emch said Trockman has a fair amount of agency in shaping the Evansville Chapter of the Orr Fellowship.
“We've been doing this for about 25 years, so we're pretty clear on what works and what doesn't,” Emch said. “But what we want to be really clear on, is that whatever we do down here feels and looks like it should in Evansville, not just Indy transplanted to Evansville. And so Ben will have a large stake in making that happen and making sure it takes on the culture of Evansville and like whatever way that means.”
Emch said he hopes this new chapter can do what they’ve done in Indy for 20 years — recruit best in-class talent, connect them with the best companies around, where they grow to be change makers and successful leaders that stay in the city.
“We believe success looks really different for everybody,” he said. “It's going to be relative. And so we want to equip fellows with the confidence, the capabilities and the community ultimately, to be successful in whichever way they define.”
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