3c hapter - Index of

Back to the Future 209
suppress the very thing that it was meant to be supporting in the
beginning. So why not come back to our markets? What do we do
to engage the market with companies again on a livable scale?”
Reengaging the Market
Those questions are being asked in communities across the country.
In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, an area best known for its Amish
population, one possible answer is quietly taking shape.
On a sultry, late- summer morning in 2010, I boarded a Keystone
corridor train bound for Harrisburg to see for myself. The
pastoral scenery gave little hint of the economic carnage visited
upon the state; Harrisburg, the capital at the end of the line, was
on the verge of bankruptcy. I disembarked in Lancaster, where
I was met by Trexler Proffi tt, a professor of organization studies
at Franklin & Marshall College, a liberal- arts college founded in
1787 with funding from Benjamin Franklin. In describing ourselves
so we could identify each other, Proffi tt had told me he was
“medium in every way.” Well, maybe not in name. And certainly
not in ambition. Proffi tt—who is indeed middling height with
neither- here- nor- there brown hair—is on a mission to create a
local stock exchange that would serve companies and investors in
the eight- county Lancaster region.
The exchange, which he calls LanX, will address a funding
gap for companies that have already tapped personal savings,
friends and family, and community development capital, but are
unable or unwilling to obtain private equity from venture capitalist
or angel investors. LanX will help such companies raise
between $500,000 and $5 million through direct public offerings
of stock or notes (debt), and provide a marketplace where they
can be traded. Proffi tt fi gures LanX could inject $10 million annually
into the local economy.
Proffi tt became captivated with the idea a few years ago after
attending a talk by Michael Shuman about local investing, but it
took on new resonance after the recession dealt a blow to many
communities and small businesses in the region. The need to get
capital to small businesses that fall between the cracks has always