Brian Bozeman advocates for adopted region, supports workforce — and embracing tourism

By Andy Furman
NKyTribune reporter

Brian Bozeman said he was entering uncharted territory.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been a guest speaker before,” he said while stepping to the podium to address the Covington Rotary Club, at their weekly lunch meeting.

“I’m a Georgia boy who married a Kentucky gal,” said the man who serves as Vice-President/Business Development at Cincinnati’s Skanska. “Yet, I consider myself a Kentucky ambassador.”

Skanska is one of the largest, most financially sound construction and development companies in the United States, serving a broad range of clients including those in transportation, power, industrial, water/wastewater, healthcare, education, sports, date centers, government, aviation and commercial.

But today, at least for Bozeman, was for recreation – not business.

“The reason I’m here,” he told the Northern Kentucky Tribune , “started with a coffee conversation around workforce and talent attraction. I got the opportunity to visit Bentonville, Ark, in 2021, and realized Bentonville had vision.”

Their vision, he says, was a 2007 trail construction to reinvent the city as a destination and today it is the self-proclaimed ‘Mountain Bike Capital of the World.’

“Our region,” Bozeman said, “boasts over one hundred miles of mountain biking trails. For the past 25 years, mountain bikers have built mountain bike trails for mountain bikers.”

The Ft. Thomas resident – Bozeman met his wife while attending Georgia Tech – claims he loves Northern Kentucky.

“We have big-city amenities, without big-city traffic.”

His goal – to convince the mountain biking community of the benefits of the sport and the positive impact it will have on the people.

“We need to begin speaking the language of tourism, economic development and community vibrancy if we want to accomplish our vision,” he said.

More than ever, he says people have a choice where to live and work – as remote work is here to stay.

“Job opportunities seem endless,” he said. “We hear over and over, that we need more people in the region to fulfill the jobs and enhance the economy. We’re recruiting companies to our region without the talent pipeline to fill the jobs.

“We celebrate the economic development wins in our region, but then we must immediately begin to worry about how we will find the talent to fill the jobs created.”

He claims that our young talent is graduating from our local universities only to then take their innovative minds to other cities.

“They are choosing their home based on livability, and not on their career,” he said.

Bozeman believes that natural surface trails are a cost-effective catalyst to enhancing our existing outdoor infrastructure and are a significant piece to solving the prosperity puzzle and enhancing community vibrancy.

“On average,” he claims, “one mile of natural surface trail can be constructed for $50,000, compared to the average cost of one mile of paved trail at $1 million.”

According to the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA), of typical mountain bikers, 76% have at least a college degree with 53% working in professional or managerial positions and earning a median household income of $100,000. The majority of mountain bikers are aged 24-44 years.

“They are individuals that we are desperately trying to recruit to our region,” he said.

Brian Bozeman says tourism is the red carpet to residency.

“We believe we have a story to tell those we are trying to recruit from outside our region,” he said. “With over 115 miles of natural surface trails within the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region, we have the ability to attract people to our region who are seeking adventure, but no one is telling our story.”

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