It feels good to write a story about success.

If you read the Daily Freeman Journal regularly, when you read through the pages of time, most of the stories in the past are about businesses expanding, progress in the community, sometimes there is a story that is looking back that seems funny, insightful, progressive or inspiring.

One day I hope today’s paper will be cited in the “Pages of time,” as the success of Dave Perin and his company are splashed across the front page.

It shows the spirit of entrepreneurship that happened when a bad news story eventually turned into good news.

His beginnings at Electrolux led him into a completely different path, as he started a business on the side, and made something so important, that today it caught the attention of another company in Europe.

Isn’t that amazing?

How many of us knew that when we were bemoaning the loss of a big industry in Webster City, another one was growing.

If you know Dave, you will know he is quite humble. You can tell he cares deeply about the employees who work with him. He sees this as something good for Webster City.

But it’s personal.

It’s letting go of something he built himself.

He comes from the era when young boys tinkered with motorcycles and lawn mower engines, where building and creating something out of nothing was exciting and notoriously troublesome to the parents who were trying to keep them safe.

And today he looks around at his employees with pride, and yet worries that they won’t understand.

With this move, this purchase, the company has a chance to grow and create jobs that will sustain not only today’s employees but a future workforce that is willing to learn the skills that it takes to operate highly technical equipment, equipment forged in other countries that makes a superior product.

It’s good for the employees.

It’s good for Webster City.

Dave has a few mixed feelings, but that is OK. It’s because he cares.

He is doing something every business owner in every community questions. “What do I do when I’m too old, or want to retire? Do I have a business I can sell, do I have children who want to take it over, is there someone in my workforce that might want to run it?”

Even though he wasn’t ready to retire, this is his next step. His business won’t just disappear; it will grow and change, and he will be able to look back at the work he did for many years with a great deal of pride.

It’s what happened with Osweilers’. When the Birkestrands announced their retirement, it was to their great pleasure that Sonia Sosa Rodriguez stepped forward. Another generation is taking on the challenge to run this very successful retail business and help keep downtown Webster City alive.

It’s what happened with Seneca Foundry. Kirk McCollough handed over the reins to Lori Mason last year, another employee who is taking the success of a family business that grew over 100 years of foundry work into another generation.

It’s what is happening at the Van Diest Supply Company, a company that started in a corn crib by a farmer. Today Jake Van Diest, the grandson of company founders Bob and Mary Van Diest, is now the company president.

It’s not always easy to figure out that plan. It used to be the dream that if parents started a business, children would take it over. From restaurants, grocery stores, retailers and industries, farmers and masons, parents used to encourage their family members to step into that role.

Instead many left for bigger cities, better horizons.

Starting a new business isn’t easy; taking over an existing business is a big leg-up, but it still takes energy, work and a good business sense.

For Webster City to grow into a better community, we need to help keep more of our talent here. The Webster City schools have graduated some exceptional young leaders and business people. Too many have left and never came back.

Some, like Amelia Oliver, have found the joy in coming home to a community like ours.

Today the schools are restarting the great workforce programs that disappeared for awhile. The students who take advantage will have a chance to explore careers right here. Iowa Central Community College has been providing tools to help students explore and build skills for jobs right here.

The grass isn’t greener, the weather isn’t really better, the politics aren’t any easier. The sun rises the same over the cornfields, the mountains and the beaches.

We need to do more to grow with our own young talented people, who are looking to make a difference.

Working together, we can create the dream community that we aspire to live in.

They can do it right here.

Kolleen Taylor is the community editor for the Daily Freeman Journal.