By Krystal Moralee

If you look at an orchestra, you’ll find individuals who are skilled at playing a single instrument, but the musical impact is dramatically increased when you put them all together with a common focus.

That’s kind of how the Blue Meets Green collaboration works.

Blue Meets Green emerged in 2009 as a loose coalition of stakeholders.  Its name, Marysville City Manager Quentin Bishop explained, is a play on words: the “blue” of the Blue Water region meeting the “green” of economic prosperity.

“Blue Meets Green is essentially a non-partisan, placed-based gathering of community leaders,” Bishop said.

Members come from municipalities, nonprofits, philanthropy, business, and other sectors, but together, he said, they form something of a “think tank” or “brain trust” for the region. They identify priorities and then bring the resources, expertise, and influence of their individual organizations in where they can have a positive impact.

Blue Meets Green doesn’t fund projects itself. In fact, it has no independent operating budget or formal authority. The Community Foundation of St. Clair County currently provides much of the behind-the-scenes administrative and logistical support, but it doesn’t own Blue Meets Green any more than a municipality, business, or other participating organization does.

“There’s no unit of government, there’s no business, there’s no organization that owns or controls Blue Meets Green,” Community Foundation CEO and President Randy Maiers said. “It is what makes it work.”

If Blue Meets Green is an orchestra, its members bring their own instruments, and as the regional collaborative moves through Phase 8, the music continues to evolve.

“I like that analogy because Blue Meets Green effort is about collaboration, and that’s what makes the orchestra successful,” said Sheri Faust, co-chair of Blue Meets Green. “Everyone wins when there is collaboration and cooperation.”

That collaboration dates to the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when local leaders recognized that economic recovery and development in St. Clair County would require people within the county to work together. What began as a response to a particularly difficult economic time has kept momentum for 16 years and through eight phases of regional work.

Those phases aren’t marked by hard stops and fresh starts. The work is more evolutionary than that. The participants in Blue Meets Green meet roughly quarterly, taking stock of what has been accomplished, what still needs attention, and what has changed. Completed projects come off the list. New needs emerge. Others may be paused as circumstances change.

Through it all, though, the three guiding pillars remain: People, Place, and Prosperity.

Phase 8 is the latest refinement of that continuing work. With the assistance of outside consultants, Blue Meets Green spent time re-examining how the region’s priorities should be organized and pursued. The framework also allows members to identify the areas in which their own expertise can be most useful.

Bishop, for example, has stepped forward to lead exploration of a countywide civic leadership development program.  The goal isn’t about preparing someone to become the next elected official. Bishop said it is about developing leaders throughout organizations and helping them recognize how their decisions intersect with other organizations’ priorities, make sound choices based on research, and make the best possible use of limited resources.

Elsewhere within Phase 8, a very different kind of expertise is being brought to the table.

Michael Hensley, CEO of the Blue Water Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, is helping lead work under Prosperity aimed at expanding large sporting events and tournaments in the region.

As the destination marketing organization for Michigan’s Thumb Coast, the bureau already works to bring vacationers, meetings, group tours, and events into the region. Now it is taking a more targeted look at sports tourism.

That begins with understanding what St. Clair County already has. The bureau is developing an inventory of fields, courts, and other facilities, while considering the types of traveling tournaments and events for which the area could become particularly competitive.

“What’s our niche?” Hensley said. “Is it fishing? Is it volleyball? Is it baseball? Is it hockey? Where are we really going to excel?”

The region has already demonstrated some of that potential. In August 2025, the area hosted the Major League Fishing Team Series, bringing professional anglers to Port Huron, Marysville, and the St. Clair River. But Hensley said the larger sports tourism effort is still taking shape.

“The first phase of what we’re really trying to figure out is, what are we good at, and how do we expand on that?” he said.

That is a perfect example of what Blue Meets Green is all about.

Rather than asking every member to work on every priority, the coalition creates a place for people to see the larger picture, recognize where their own organization’s work fits within it, and step forward where they can make a difference.

Phase 8 is also widening the lens on whose priorities are included in that picture.

Beginning in early 2025, Blue Meets Green began going into smaller and more outlying communities to listen to local leaders about what they wanted for their own towns. The Community Foundation subsequently expanded that outreach through its rural and small-town work.

Those efforts have identified roughly 70 projects around the region. Some are unlikely ever to be described as countywide development projects, but that doesn’t make them any less important to the communities that want them.

A small township, for example, may want a splash pad but lack the technical knowledge to determine specifications, navigate the process, or identify potential funding. Another community may have a trailhead or downtown improvement that matters locally, even if its reach doesn’t stretch across the entire county.

The intent isn’t for regional leaders to tell those communities what prosperity should look like.

“Every downtown is different. Every community is different,” Maiers said. “We want them to self-determine how they view prosperity and how we help them.”

Blue Meets Green can then provide something smaller communities don’t always have on their own: a larger network of knowledge, relationships, and advocacy. The coalition’s recognition of a local project can demonstrate broader community support when a municipality seeks outside funding, even though Blue Meets Green itself isn’t writing the check.

For Hale Walker, a Port Huron business owner and Blue Meets Green co-chair, that ability to help is central to the coalition’s purpose.

“We advocate, we try to pinpoint what those priorities are, and we try to help in any way we can,” he said.

There is no expectation that the work of Blue Meets Green will be finished. Rather, it will continue to evolve with the region.

Communities change. Economies change. Projects that once seemed important are completed or become less feasible. New opportunities arise. New problems demand attention. Every few months, the people around the Blue Meets Green table gather again and consider what comes next.

An orchestra, after all, doesn’t make its magic by asking everyone to play the same instrument. They work together to create a harmony that the audience can still feel, even when the concert has ended.

That’s the lasting impact of Blue Meets Green.