 Hi, my name is Mariah Riggs. I'm the director of the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, and I'm your host for On the Waterfront. This month, I'm excited to be interviewing Owiza Makuku, who is the new CEO of Main Street Landing. Hi, Owizo. Hi, Mariah. So nice to have you here. So happy to be here. So really quickly, I just wanted to congratulate you and welcome you to Main Street Landing. Thank you. We're so excited to have you. Owizo is amazing, and I'm so excited because I get to spend the next 25 minutes talking to Owizo about her life a little bit more in detail, which will be great for me. Great for you. And also, you guys get to know the amazing woman that I get to work with now. So I'm so excited to show Owizo to all of you. So I guess I'm going to start. We're going to go back to the very beginning, because it's a very good place to start, not to quote Oscars and Hermitstein, but we're going to go back to the very beginning. So, Owizo, are you from Vermont? Originally? I'm not from Vermont. I'm originally from New York City. Ah, New York. Kind of jealous. That's kind of awesome. It was kind of awesome. It's a great contrast to Vermont. Now, and I guess this is sort of my personal interest, but I've always wondered, because you grew up in New York, do you think that led to you having an interest in urban planning? Maybe. I think that noticing, having a lot of a variety of situations to observe over time, probably led me to develop opinions, and I'm sure my parents had opinions that they expressed in front of me when I was a kid. I was watching, I just watched the movie Summer of Soul, and someone was upset with Mayor Lindsey, who was the mayor of New York City in the late 60s, and they called him a bum, and people in New York still call each other bum, still call politicians usually a bum. It's a New York City nomenclature, right? It's a real thing. For sure. And people tend to have a very active, engaged relationship too with their city administrators. Yes, active and engaged is a really great way to put that. And with their city, and the condition of the subway, the condition of the streets, whether the buses and trains are running on time. It's everybody's business, and they feel very personally engaged with it. We're all engaged in this beautiful, melting pot that is New York City. Yeah, it's definitely one of those places where you inherently watch people, and you learn to be observant, I would think, by growing up there. Yeah, I think so. Now, what brought you to Vermont? I mean, did you come here as a kid? And much, or did you ever come here? I actually spent summers in upstate New York, and I do remember coming across a couple of times, but I went to Middlebury College. And like many Middlebury graduates, I left and came back multiple times, and the last time it kind of stuck. Yeah, so Middlebury, basically you had such a great time in Middlebury. Now, you did do something after Middlebury. You went to graduate school in Boston for a while. I did, yes. And we have that in common. Yes, we were actually in Boston around the same time. Which is true. And Oizo actually went to MIT. What did you think of MIT? Because it has this weird halo of everybody's doing quantitative physics and hanging out in rooms, solving equations that deal with the cosmos, and all the sort of like... They are. They are, they are absolutely doing that. It's true. But the best thing about MIT, and I loved MIT, I loved... In retrospect, I loved even like the difficult parts of it, but just overall, I really loved being there. People are really open with their research. This may come later when you ask me about something that people don't know about me, but I used to love to volunteer to be a subject in different experiments. There's this, the main corridor at MIT is called the Infinite Corridor, and it's not infinite, obviously, but along the way, there are all sorts of postings for X, Y, or Z, whatever you're looking for. And anyway, that's where people would post that they were looking for subject for whatever experiment, but after you finished the experiment, so one, you got to be part of something that could be like groundbreaking technology, and two, afterwards they'd completely debrief you, and they're so excited to talk about their projects. And actually, even wandering around the hallways late at night when I was working on an architecture project, you'd walk through the basement that looked seriously like the bowels of the buildings. And if you stumbled into somebody's studio, they would tell you what they were working on. Like, everybody was really open and sharing, and it was really cool. I mean, that engages collaboration and real learning, too, though, which is great. It's notorious for, not notorious, it's known and renowned for being a place of very enlightened thought and discourse, so that makes a lot of sense that people would be very egalitarian with their sharing of what they're up to and what they're doing. Yeah, it was like a seriously like university-scale co-working space. That's kind of awesome, actually. I do like that. And so at MIT, you studied urban planning and architecture. Yes. Now, what led you to urban planning and architecture? So I first applied to the Master of Architecture program. I was in the Peace Corps before I was in grad school. And where were you in the Peace Corps? I was in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. Wow, that's amazing. That's pretty cool. Were you there for a year? Two years and three months, and they do not tell you that training does not count as part of your service. It just seems like a really long time when you're 21, 22 years old. That is a long time. That's a real long time. Now, did you learn Spanish when you were there? Well, I went to Middlebury, so I learned Spanish before. I knew Spanish before I went there, but I did learn Dominican and Spanish when I was there. See, I'm learning stuff too. I had no idea that you speak Spanish. That's amazing. That's an incredible resource. That's very cool. So your time in the Dominican, usually people when they're doing a Peace Corps, they have projects. Were you guys working on a particular project? I was an agriculture volunteer. Wow. Which I guess is another random thing that I'd forgotten, actually, at some point. And yeah, I was in a sort of an agroforestry program after there was a population boom in the Dominican Republic in the late 80s and 90s, and people were starting to move up into the hillsides in droves. And they were using the same farming techniques that they'd used in the lowlands. And so they were losing all of their top soil and their crop yields were dropping. And so over time, somebody said, hey, maybe if we could teach the farmers some agroforestry techniques like planting trees or other systems, terracing works also. The traditional terracing they use in Southeast Asia and stuff. Right, exactly. Then they won't be losing all of their top soil. So when they build it up, it's not all just going to wash away into the lowlands. And that was supposed to be my project, except that nobody really informed the host country nationals that the farmers that were getting a volunteer who looks typically Dominican because apparently I did not know that I looked typically Dominican until I got there, but I looked typically Dominican and I also looked like I was like 12, maybe 14 at the time. And so few farmers were going to take advice from a muchachita. Yeah, you know that much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I'm, yes, my husband's family speaks Spanish. So I'm well aware. Okay. Yes. And so I ended up doing a lot of work with the women's clubs and youth groups. Yeah. And so you weren't able to help them as much as you probably would have liked with them. Well, I taught them organic gardening techniques that I'd learned from some of my neighbors in Vermont. In Vermont. Yeah, my friend. So there is intrinsic agricultural value to living in Vermont? Absolutely. Absolutely. I had a little farm plot on Holiday Road at our house in Middlebury. And anytime I was doing something wrong, somebody driving by some nice neighbor would stop and tell me what I was doing wrong. And that was great because I really was like 21 years old. Well, it kind of was like Middlebury, but with agriculture. Yeah, exactly. And my friend Asher's mom was really helpful. She, oh my God, I just remember her just giving me seedlings. And I mean, I thought I was going to plant everything from seeds in June. In June. Yeah, so that's mistake number one, but she helped save my garden plot. Good, good. It's starting to March or February is preferable. Oh well. Yeah, you know, live and learn. So you brought skills. So you learned those skills at Middlebury and then were able to bring them into the Dominican Republic. Yes. Oh, that's great. And so when you say two, was it two years, three months? It was, how much of that was training? Three months. So you did three months of training, then you did two years. That's significant. Yeah. And did you ever, were you there consistently for two years? Or did you come back as your family? I went, I came back once for like a week or something. My brother was supposed to be graduating. But anyway, that's a different story. But now when it's funny, because by the time you get to the end, you sort of realize that two years almost kind of isn't enough. Yep. Because you've got to establish the, well, you've got to establish trust in the community, and then you've got to actually start the work. And by the time you're ramping up, it's time to leave for you to do your, yeah, close of service. And in a lot of communities, you know, I've heard this, I have other friends who've served as well. And that, that, that tends to be the biggest thing is people don't realize that it takes almost a whole year, like a full, you know, through the seasons, through the wet season and the dry season to get to a place where you're become a fixture of the community enough, that people are actually coming to you and engaging and talking to you openly. Yeah. And Peace Corps has three main goals there, to establish an understanding of the country that you're, where you're sent on the part of Americans, to establish an understanding of Americans on the part of the, or to establish, yeah, that cultural exchange. Two of them are cultural exchange, and one of them is technology exchange. Yeah. And so. So it is about a cultural. It's a cultural enrichment. It's more about the cultural exchange, I believe ultimately, than I think that we were Goodwill ambassadors. And I think that that makes a difference. It makes a difference in how the world perceives us. And it makes a difference in how, you know, people understand other countries as well. And all of those skills can be tied back to, you can eventually bring to Main Street. All of them I will. All of them. So anybody, if anybody's thinking about joining the Peace Corps, it's a great thing for you to do. You really should do it. Get on it because it'll serve you well throughout the rest of your career. Absolutely. It's a wonderful, wonderful program. So by going to, so we go to the, you know, we go to the DR, and you have a two-year experience. And by being there, that led you to want to do architecture and urban planning. Yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking, I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of time when you have, like, no technology. This is the 90s, like, yeah. You had to go to another town, actually, or into a more settled area to actually even get a telephone or fax machine. So, yeah, telephoning and faxing were big forms of communication, besides letter writing. But yeah, there's time to think about things. And I took some time and I thought about what I wanted to do. And one of the things that I noticed was that there were disparities between how kids treated other kids based on the type of housing that they lived in, whether you could collect the water off of your roof or had to spend more time going back and forth to the river to get water for your daily household needs. Made a big difference in people's lives and it made me think about the whole debate in the United States about what is good housing and I kind of wondered what that was myself. And so, I thought that learning something about architecture would help me down that path. And so, really the combination of urban planning and architecture helped me understand. Yeah, yeah, because they synthesize. Yeah. They synthesize and they create sort of a similar perspective on how to look at things. Exactly. I mean, you can't have cities without buildings, well, they're pit and parcel of the same thing. And we're not going to get into the chicken and egg discussion because that could last another 10 minutes. So, that's very cool. So, that's interesting. So, having that experience, I'm sure at that age too, was a big game changer for you to coming from New York, Middlebury and really kind of also getting out on your own like that in a place. Yes, although I will also say that, or reveal or whatever, I mean, some people may know this from my name, but my dad was from Kenya and essentially he was like, you know, you're from a developing country, right? If you want a developing country, you can go to Kenya. You don't have to go to the Dominican Republic. And it was like, it's not going to be the same thing, dad, this is something like, you know, kids do. Of course, you have to, I'm breaking off on my own, right? This is your own path, you're forging your own path, right? It's a real thing and it's different going to see family and relatives, you know, in that country. It's different because it's part of like your home. Yeah, I would assume that that presents a different thing and you wanted to break out of that. Yeah, well, I mean, I love, I had not met most of my family in Kenya at that point because I hadn't yet been to Kenya. I'd only met the people who would come over. So you had no prior experience before you went to the Dominican Republic? Yes, I grew up with the Kenyan father. What are you talking about? No, but you're in New York. I mean, I'm not like, you weren't like in like, you know. Well, there were a lot of Dominicans in New York. Oh, yeah. Although I was, I mean, but that's New York is New York. And New York has a lot of everybody, right? New York has everybody, but just why it's so awesome. But yeah, I mean, I mean, I assume you were up in the hills because there's the central highlands of the Dominican Republic. Actually, I was kind of on the coast. I was in the Northeast. Okay, so near Samara. Samana? Yeah. See, I totally don't say that right, by the way. Thank you. I was first in a community outside of a town called Nagwa, which is sort of at the entrance of the Samana Peninsula. And then I was diagnosed as being allergic to trees and grass. And so, yeah. And you live in Vermont. Okay, yeah. And I live, right. And then I actually ended up moving to the town of Samana, and I worked for the Secretary of Agriculture. Did you get to see the humpback whales? Because I did. It's kind of the only part of why I know about that. It's a certain bucket list thing. Because I don't know if you know this, but humpback whales go there to raise young. I think it's raise young and breed. So they go there to bear their offspring. Right. And then they head back up to Boston. They're the same whales from Boston. Yeah, which is during the summer. You guys are doing the same, you guys are on the same migratory pattern. But it is the nursery. It's the East Coast humpback nursery. So it's always been something I've always wanted to go check out. Kind of interesting. You should. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. It's very cool. So let's keep moving. We have to keep moving here. So you got it out of my tee. Did you immediately come back to Vermont after that? I guess my first real job out of grad school was working in the CEDO office in Burlington. There you go. So you did come back? I did. I mean, I worked for a few months for a tax attorney in New Jersey. Everybody had that job after school. So yeah. We all had that job. So yes, he worked at CEDO. That's great. And that was back in the day. That was like early 2000. CEDO came up here. And you've been on and off. You left for a while, but you've been in the Burlington area for a long time. I've been reminded by many people in this office today of your work in S-Extension. Yeah. Working in the municipal sector. How do you think that work will reflect your work at Main Street Landing? I think it'll just enhance everything that I do. I seriously try to take every experience that I have, and good or bad, you know, make something positive out of it or try to learn from it. I mean, especially in hindsight, everything can be better in hindsight, right? History is a great reflection. I think it makes everything shiny. But no, I value the relationships that I made in Essex, and I met some amazing people doing some amazing things, and I hope to connect them and potentially plug them in with some of what we're doing here at Main Street Landing. And that's a big part of Main Street Landing, as it's a, you know... So actually, I should get back to my questions. So this is my... When did you first hear about Main Street Landing? Was it in the CEDO office? Yes, but actually, I first met Melinda Moulton. Our current CEO. Yes. Who was leaving at the end of the month. We're going to miss her terribly. She is. She is. And I actually really wish that I'd had a chance to work directly with her for some period. That would have... I can't even imagine what shenanigans we would have gotten up to. I guess I have you now. So we have all sorts of fun, amazing, creative, interesting... Cool things we had done. ...venues to explore. So you did... So in the CEDO office, though, you were exposed to Main Street Landing and the work that they were doing on the waterfront. I was the waterfront coordinator for the city of Burlington. Oh, wow. Waterfront coordinator and housing special projects manager. So my first project was depot street housing. What's now waterfront housing? Yeah. It was a vacant parcel across from the Moran plant. Yep. And apparently an RFP had been issued just before I got... Like the year or two before I'd gotten there and got no responses. And so I reinvigorated it. And ultimately we've got 40 units of mixed income housing on that spot. And it's a great development. Yeah. Mayor Clevelle actually gave me a shout out at the ribbon cutting. Yeah, I was just there sort of sneaking in the background. And that was actually a very proud moment when he just said, That's pretty cool. Hey, here's this... So thank you for that because that is a wonderful waterfront development. And it does have mixed income levels, which is very important for development in Burlington. Yep. We do need to try to be equitable with our development in Burlington because we want everybody of every socioeconomic capacity able to live in Burlington and enjoy Burlington and... It's what makes places rich. Well, it's like... I mean, you know, I mean, of course, Manhattan, we're not going to get into that. But it's part of what makes great cities wonderful is the scope and textuality of their citizens. Yeah, and Manhattan is not New York City. All five boroughs are New York City. And so... But even in Manhattan, you've got... On Park Avenue are different sets of public housing. I mean, there's... Yeah. See, so there you go. I grew up around... So my mother worked at Mount Sinai Hospital, which is between Madison and Fitt. Sorry. Got it. It's right on Central Park East. Yeah. And it's... If Mount Sinai is here and the park is here, there was a public housing development right down the street. And I always sort of wondered, but, I mean, a long park... Oh, my God, the wealth that is just oozing from all of those buildings and lobbies and canopies and institutions is just... I mean, it's almost palpable. It's pretty hard work. And I always sort of was fascinated seeing the seam where all of these different groups kind of came together. Which led you to urban planning. Yeah. Because you kind of noticed that. You'd noticed those relationships and how they work together. I mean, I think being in that environment made you think about it probably more. Yeah. You know? Like, how do they relate to each other? You know, being a kid, like watching those relationships and stuff. Yeah. Like led you to that probably on some level. Yeah. I can imagine. So, I guess I have to ask you, why did you want to work at Main Street Landing? I think you've kind of already answered this, but I'm just kind of curious. Well, I'll turn the question on you. Why wouldn't I want to work at Main Street Landing? I'm teasing. Yeah, it's just the... It's one of the gems of the waterfront. I won't say it's the gem because I do want to work with everyone on the waterfront from Echo to the Sailing Center. We're a fabulous community on the waterfront. We love you all. Exactly. And I really... I'm not about division. I really want to bring people together, but having the opportunity to work with this amazing organization, it's just the... God, the buildings are so inspirational. The public spaces in them are just exemplary really. I mean, I hope that in my work, I get to help to enliven those spaces. I hope to work with you really closely. And with Owen and with the rest of our team and really just, you know... It is, I mean, from an urban planning standpoint, I mean, the reason why it's called Main Street Landing, I don't know if you know this, I'm talking to you guys, is because the end of Main Street, one Main Street is where our... is where we's our offices. It's also the train station. So it is the landing of Main Street in Burlington. So it has this sort of natural geographical anchor. To it. And Owezo is going to be the most amazing captain of our ship ever. Did I mention? And that leads me to my next question. How do you envision the future of Main Street Landing now that you have taken the helm of our trusty ship? I imagine it being even more vibrant, certainly after COVID when everything was shut down. I guess COVID sort of tempered a lot of expectations for anything interactive happening. But it did make us appreciate the outdoors. We've got amazing public spaces, as I said, inside and outside of our buildings. And I would love to work with you and the rest of our team to activate those spaces to really make it a focal point that life in Burlington or excitement in Burlington doesn't end at Church Street. There's from the Flynn down to Main Street Landing and along the waterfront, there's so much potential for just to attract people and make, well, enhance life for residents and for visitors. And with Amtrak coming in, it gives us a real opportunity to sort of... So I definitely have to ask you about that. I know many of our viewers are probably aware that Amtrak is coming. Do we have a date for Amtrak coming? And what do you think that means for the Burlington waterfront? So the word on the street is that Amtrak is coming on July 8th. So that'll be interesting. We might have to throw a party. We'll have to talk about that. I think we'll have to throw a party. It's pretty exciting. There will be much excitement throughout the land. There will be a party. So the 8th, I didn't realize that. That's it, people. If it's true, it has not been verified by any credible sources. So as of July 8th, you might actually be able to go down to the waterfront of Burlington, step on a train and go to New York City. That is going to be a game changer for Burlington. Yeah, I think so. I think it really will be. Very exciting. So the train's coming and just to explain our space, we actually are the train station. That place at the bottom of Main Street is the old train station where the train will be dropping off and picking up passengers. Historically, that's where the train came in before service ended. The state now owns the bottom level of Union Station, which is where passengers will embark and disembark from the train. We own the second floor and the third floor, but we own all of the public spaces around the building. We are our commercial tenants are at the gateway. Well, it's pretty cool. People can hop off the train, go ride a bike at local motion, and hop on the bike path and toodle around the entire city. I mean, it's all right there. And I think that's the other thing is, it's funny, we're called Main Street Landing, but as the train comes in, then we can actually become a transport hub. Yeah. Which I think is really an integral part of the historical function. Yep, we've got the College Street Shuttle that comes right around in front. Drop your car off. You know, if you're coming from Essex or Heinsberg or wherever, Huntington, drop your car off in the garage, take the College Street Shuttle down or walk down and hop on the train and have your adventure. Yeah. Son's car. We're excited. We're going to be a new gateway for Burlington. It's going to be super awesome. So all right, what do you like best about Main Street Landing? Now that you've been here for three months, what are you enjoying? I love our team. I do too. See? I do too. And we have this in common. Just to make the amazing personalities, just loveliness of everyone, just hardworking and dedicated and just beautiful people. I mean, it's just, yeah, it's such an amazing. They are amazing. We love you all. Big shout out. So I guess as sort of a closing question, what do you want your legacy at Main Street Landing to look like? I think I've been handed such an opportunity here. Melinda Moulton and Lisa Steeler are leaving these properties or this property in such amazing shape. I hope to do justice to their legacy and to build on it and to really make it just a gem of the waterfront but to build up everyone else around us on the waterfront as well. I mean, we are a collective whole. Yeah. Really make it do more to try to create a sense of waterfront community down there, which I think exists. I have not been there in the role that long, but one summer, it takes a summer. We're going to have a great summer. And Oizo, I can't tell you how happy and joyous I am. I get to work with you. Oizo is one of the most amazing, wonderful people ever. And we're so happy that she's with us at Main Street Landing. Congratulations. Thank you. We couldn't be happier. And if you have any questions, you know how to reach me. My contact information is on this broadcast. If you have any questions about me, the Performing Arts Center, or Main Street Landing, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Oizo, thank you so much. It's been a delight. Thank you. And thank you all so much. And have a wonderful month. And I will see you next month. Take care.