Successful HS native visits home
A successful son of Hot Springs reflected on his hometown’s influence on his life and its character during his homecoming last week.
Michael Langley, founder and CEO of Minneapolis St. Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership, or GREATER MSP, came to the Spa City on Friday to enjoy a few days in his hometown. The homecoming preceded his attendance at the Futures Forum, which was put on Sunday in Little Rock by the International Economic Development Council, which he chairs.
During a gathering at noon Friday at Hot Springs County Club, Langley spoke to The Sentinel-Record about Hot Springs and the uniqueness of the town.
“It’s a great place,” Langley said. “Hot Springs has really kind of molded and helped me in my center. My integrity and my values as a person were built right here in this town.”
Langley’s time in Hot Springs spanned most of the first two decades
of his life. He was born in Hot Springs in 1952 and lived there through high school.
During his time in the Spa City, Langley attended Hot Springs schools. While there, Langley’s class transferred into Hot Springs High School’s current building and played on the school’s football team, winning the state title in 1970.
Langley described his graduating class as a “great group.”
“We had a lot of folks out of our class that have done really well in business, really well in government and politics and everything,” Langley said. “It was quite a good class.”
After graduating high school in 1971, Langley attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. He would serve in the armed forces as a naval pilot for 24 years after his graduation.
From the U.S. Navy, Langley was recruited into the business world. Langley said that prior to overseeing economic development, he held a corporate position with Westinghouse Electric and was president-CEO of a Westinghouse subsidiary in Florida.
It was through getting involved in real estate there that Langley found his current career.
“For the last 20 years, have been leading economic organization developments around the country — first in Florida, then in Pennsylvania, now in Minnesota,” Langley said.
Langley formed GREATER MSP in 2011. He said that his partnership is one of the larger economic development groups in the country, and that it deals largely with real estate expansion.
Langley said that, economically, Hot Springs “continues to evolve.”
“Obviously, tourism and hospitality is part of the city today, but it also still has a strong base of businesses here that want this place to be successful,” he said. “I applaud the chamber and the economic development group for continuing to work on the future of the city. I hope that as a native son of Hot Springs, to always come back here and see this as a prosperous place that continues to grow.”
Characteristically, Langley described Hot Springs as “an eclectic community” that sets itself apart from other Southern towns. He said that its disposition comes from a diverse group of people that have traveled from all over the United States to contribute to the town.
“It was really an aggregation of really smart people here over the years,” Langley said. “That that gave Hot Springs kind of a uniqueness within the state of Arkansas as a place where it always had a bigger image of itself than just a town of 35 or 40,000 people as it was when I lived here.”