Part of what Maiya LeGardye is consumed with when she walks into Factory Two, Flint’s makerspace, is simply magic.
“It is one of the biggest hidden gems in the whole city,” LeGardye said. “I’ve always been interested in designing my own clothes. I wish I would have had a place (when she was younger) that I could go get a membership for a week or be a part of a program to learn how to screen print. Or when my mom first got her house and needed to replace some drywall here, if we would have known there’s a place where you can go and learn how to use the tools to do that and then meet these amazing people who just do the things they love here. I love the community aspect of it. I love that everyone in there is willing to stop what they’re doing to help you accomplish whatever it is that you’re wanting to accomplish. There’s so many talented people here. I did not know we had leather craftsmen in Flint, if we would have known these things when we were kids, this is like superhero stuff. You can make a leather bag out of this leather roll – that, to me, before Factory Two would have been like, huh? I’ll walk back there and see somebody working on something and say, you made that from that? It’s just amazing. Factory Two is such a special place. I want to sing it from the rooftops.”
Luckily, in her new role, that is precisely what she’s supposed to do. LeGardye was recently named the new executive director of Factory Two. She will continue in her role managing Flint Local 432 as well. The Local, a historic all-ages music venue that has been around for four decades, exists as an arm of Factory Two’s nonprofit organization.
“My role with The Local is staying the same, but I will also be overseeing the administration and direction of the entire nonprofit,” said LeGardye, noting that Doc Shank, who has been at Factory Two in different capacities since 2016, is the operations manager and technical coordinator for the makerspace, handling many of the day-to-day operations there.
LeGardye succeeds Joel Rash, who announced his retirement earlier this year after The Local’s run of 40th anniversary shows, in that role. Part of Rash’s reasoning for retiring was his belief that LeGardye was ready to ascend into leading both organizations. She’s been working at The Local since 2018 and managing it since 2022.
“Maiya LeGardye is wonderful and doesn’t need my help,” Rash said. “She has the passion to keep The Local rolling, but also a much broader skillset. Maiya is a skilled sound engineer, which I could never do. She is a better graphic designer than I was. She has this great rapport, because she’s still in her 20s, with young acts that I used to have. And I lost somewhere around 2002, right? So it was the right time with her being the right person.”
How She Built Her Skillset
LeGardye is a Flint native who was first introduced to The Local as a student at Mott Community College when she was just 18. She enjoyed music production, but didn’t have traditional connections or exposure when she was growing up. The internship didn’t just give her a chance to learn about careers, it gave her direction.
“I was a music student. I’ve always loved music and wanted to get into music,” she said. “But the barriers to entry were a lot for me at the time because I had no connections. My family’s not musicians. I had never had any experiences with live music or performances, and I hadn’t even really been to that many concerts at that point of my life. So it (The Local) has been a huge teacher for me. Just being around everyone who does music, or people who are into the arts or even just people who appreciate music and the arts was life-changing for me.”
LeGardye interned with a studio called Soul Foundry, run by Ashley Peacock and located above The Local. Peacock was a beloved and integral part of Flint’s music community before he died in 2019. He and Rash played big roles in connecting LeGardye to other talented people in The Local’s wide community that she began learning from.
“Once I started interning at the studio, Ashley would bring us down here (to The Local) when he would have shows and he would have us help around the venue,” LeGardye said. “And from there I got to meet the whole crew and I really found a home. I did not know what it would turn into or what it would look like, but I just knew that I loved being in this environment and stuck around.”
As someone new to a beloved facility and community that was around for more than a decade before she was even born, learning the complex and detailed history of what The Local means to so many different generations in the Flint area can’t be done overnight. But the willingness of so many people to share their experiences with her was something she’s had great appreciation for as she’s learned that history.
“When I first took over as manager, I was still pretty oblivious to how rich the history of The Local was,” she said. “I would have people come and tell me stories. Even to this day, I still have people come and talk about different eras here. This place has been around much longer than me. The thing that it does for me is it makes me not carry the mantle (of overseeing the facility) lightly.”
Seeing a thriving music community outside of Flint also helped deepen her understanding of what exists here. Around 2023, she studied at 1500 Sound Academy, a famous music school in Inglewood, California, that has produced alumni who have gone on to work with people like Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, and Bruno Mars, among many others. The school and the environment directly resulted from people with a do-it-yourself mentality when it came to creating opportunities for themselves in music.
“I looked around at it and I was like, this is nothing but a big Flint,” LeGardye said. “We have the same thing, we just don’t have the same infrastructure to support it yet. And for the guys who started the school, going to Capitol Records or Interscope was not a reality, so they had to build their own infrastructure at the school. And then Interscope started to see what they were doing and got interested and then Universal got interested. But they really had to build it first. Going out there and seeing that really put a battery in my back. If we can just find a way to put each other on, everybody gets up on each other’s shoulders, and we start to make enough noise that the places with the infrastructure, the big companies, start to pay attention to what we’re doing and want a piece of what we’re doing in Flint, we can all benefit from that. I did not know that this world exists, this whole music community, to the extent that it existed. And once I got in it, I was hooked and once I saw what was possible, it just encouraged me to figure out what I can do to help elevate us to the next level.”
Protecting – and Growing – Flint’s Creative Scene
LeGardye has a proven track record during her time running The Local. She helped the facility emerge from the post-COVID-19 pandemic shutdown and return of live music. Under her leadership, The Local received a grant earlier this year that allowed the team to make upgrades to technology and equipment in the space. That will help usher in new initiatives, like recent experimentations with livestreaming certain shows and performances on stage to allow an even wider audience to connect with shows and provide exposure for artists.
She also continues to book a wide range of performers of all ages, experience levels, backgrounds, styles, and genres to get stage time, staying true to The Local’s historic purpose.
“I try to be very intentional about what we’re booking, respecting what this place is and how it has managed to survive through 40 years of every sort of everything against all obstacles: closing, moving, regardless of where your Local was, the essence of The Local I want to survive and grow,” LeGardye said. “I feel like it’s my responsibility to ensure that it becomes bigger and bigger and bigger while it’s under my watch. How can we improve it even more to make it even better with what we have now at our fingertips? The Local is not just a footnote in the history of the city, it is the city’s history. It speaks to the story of the city. So I want to respect and appreciate and celebrate those who have made it what it is now while also welcoming those who are going to continue to make it what it will be in the future.”
That’s the same spirit she is hoping to bring to her role with Factory Two: a deep respect for what many artists and makers in that facility already do combined with a desire to make it more accessible to even more people. Factory Two is a member-supported nonprofit that was founded by Rash and Mike Wright in 2017 and occupies a historic building on Grand Traverse Street that was once a Dort Motor Car Company factory. It provides access to and training for a wide range of professional tools, including woodworking, metalworking, and leatherworking tools, blacksmithing equipment, 3D printers, screen printers, and much more. Once trained to use the equipment, members have flexible access to the space for hobbyist or even entrepreneurial pursuits. There are also several classes that teach everything from safety basics for certain tools to gardening to sewing to stained glass.
“There are so many talented people that I meet at Factory Two that I am left in awe of,” LeGardye said.
LeGardye first saw up close the possibilities inside Factory Two while working as an instructor in Flint musician Julie Hugunin’s Flint Rocks Youth Empowerment (FRYE) camp. In that camp, kids spend a week learning the ins and outs of the music business: they form bands, write songs, learn how to use different instruments and equipment, design merch, and perform at the end of the week. The camp takes place at Flint Local 432, but the concluding performance is in Factory Two.
“So often, we’re told as artists, ‘Yeah, it’s great that you love this, but you’re really gonna wanna focus on something that is gonna make you money or is a safer bet,’” Hugunin said. “So when (the kids in FRYE) see these people at The Local and Factory Two that they know and respect still loving music and art, still playing regularly for people that they know and love, it reminds the kids that this isn’t necessarily a pipe dream, that your definition of success in the arts is variable and you can decide for yourself what you want, and you can have it right here in this community.”
Hugunin and LeGardye first worked together at the FRYE camp in 2018 (it was called Girls Rock at the time). Even at a young age, Hugunin could see that LeGardye had special leadership skills.
“It was very clear to me at that point in time that this is a woman who knows what needs to be done and will just get it done,” Hugunin said. “Maiya has been my sanity since then whenever I do shows at The Local. Knowing that Maiya is in the soundbooth means you never had to worry about anything. She is this incredible person who very quietly delivers beyond your expectations in the most wonderfully understated, calm, confident way.”
LeGardye’s biggest priority at Factory Two is simply sharing the magic she feels every time she walks in with as many people as possible.
“I want everyone to know that this place exists, kids, adults, elders in the city, I want everyone to know it’s here and it’s for them,” she said. “One of the biggest things me and Doc will be working on is memberships and getting as many new members as we can.”
LeGardye said they’ve discussed things like offering free classes to get people in the door, or even partnering with local businesses to teach classes there. Mainly, she just wants to maximize the many talents of teachers and professionals who work at The Local or Factory Two and connect the community to them.
“The biggest thing for me is when I walk into Factory Two, I want to see Flint represented,” LeGardye said. “I love seeing people from different cities who take time out of their day to drive 20-30 minutes to get here. But I want the people right in the backyard, across the street, to know there is a place where if you can imagine it, you can create it. That opens so many doors. It makes things that seem impossible possible. And I just love that about that space. Our goal as an entire team is to make sure that every person in the city knows that it exists and we are doing everything in our power to ensure that this is a tool that people are not priced out of, that people have an opportunity to actually utilize and be a part of.”
Watching Others Grow Up Where She Did
Throughout its history, many people who started attending or performing at shows at Flint Local 432 as teens have grown up at the venue and count it among the most important parts of their formative years. Now, LeGardye has her own Local story, starting there as a teenager and maturing into an adult with a professional career thanks to what she’s learned there.
One of her favorite things about both The Local and Factory Two has been watching new generations of kids get similar light bulb moments or opportunities, and figuring out how she can pay things forward to them the way her predecessors did for her. She said that in her transition into this role, Rash has made it known that he’s always available as a resource if she needs it, but is also confident in her vision and direction.
“I just met with a gentleman not too long ago, he’s 18 and just graduated high school, he came to do some work for us,” LeGardye said. “We have interns that go to Mott Middle (College) doing work here. My favorite thing is just thinking about how I can give them everything and more that I had here to learn. How can I make this as easy for them as easy as people like Joel made it for me? Because one day it will be them doing it all, and I’m gonna look back and say, ‘I’m glad you guys are doing it. Let me know if you need anything.’ I’ve spent my entire adulthood in this world of this nonprofit and got to grow up in it and learn and experience and make mistakes and go through the whole nine, but the thing that always remained was that those who started it have always been there to kind of pick me back up when I’m falling. It has always been supportive and how we learn and grow from those moments. I think it starts at the top and is a testament to Joel and Mike for the community and the environment that they built in these spaces that they brought to life.”
No matter what activity is taking place in each facility, the real value of both is simply the intergenerational exchange of information that occurs between people. Sometimes, that comes from more experienced people sharing their own life experiences and wisdom. And sometimes, the flipside happens: young participants in programs or performers teach new skills to staff and teachers.
“It’s beautiful to see the joy in exchanging that knowledge,” LeGardye said. “It’s almost like a passing of the torch. We have those shows where we have our older generation performing and they come in and see a younger generation. There’s nothing better. I think that’s why The Local has been able to survive 40 years and the reason why we’re about to hit our 10-year mark over at Factory Two. It’s that exchange of knowledge, the help that’s given. I don’t think you can manage to survive a decade or decades without having that intergenerational relationship play out in a positive, safe, healthy way. And that’s really a testament to everyone who loves these spaces because I think it’s the love that makes that happen.”
Witnessing that love firsthand inspires LeGardye to treat her role in stewarding it to the next generation with deep seriousness.
“Knowing how much this space means to our community, it makes me not be reckless with it,” LeGardye said. “It makes me really try to sit down and ensure that I am not just a footnote, but I am a chapter. This era is a chapter in the story of The Local and Factory Two. I want to continue that legacy. I want the artists coming through right now to, 20 years from now, be able to have that same feeling as we were celebrating our 40th anniversary.”
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