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Officials learn about attracting business, industry
Elected officials, Coastal Gateway Economic Development Authority and local economic developers from Monroe, Conecuh and Escambia counties attended Breakfast with the Consultants at Wind Creek Casino and Hotel Saturday morning.
Robert Pittman and Jennifer Tanner, senior principals with Janus Economics, shared their combined 35 years of experience in the field of business and industry site selection and community and economic development with those attending. Eric Henderson with The Aetos Group also spoke. Henderson has more than 10 years of experience in site selection, economic development and policy consulting.
Pittman encouraged the communities represented Saturday to identify the types of industry they can compete for and can attract to their areas.
“Education is extremely important,” he said. “Most companies will not hire without a high school diploma and many look for 2 years of technical training.”
He urged those in attendance to “know their communities.”
“Develop your product, your community,” he said. “Spend as much time developing your community as looking for new business.”
Pittman pointed out some characteristics communities should have to be successful in attracting new industry. Some of those characteristics are:
a strong, available labor force;
a good transportation network but not necessarily on an interstate;
have sites prepared for a building with utilities already in place;
have a good education system – Education is two-fold: 1) Need a group of potential employees with a reasonable skill level who are trainable; 2) Offer quality education for employee children;
prepare a prime marketing piece (website) that contains all property information. The information fields on the site should be complete;
have control of the property being offered;
offer a speculative building of 30-40,000 square feet.
The event was organized by Coastal Gateway and sponsored by Wind Creek and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Some of the local business and government leaders present at the meeting included members of the Atmore Industrial Development Board, Escambia County Industrial Development Authority executive director Marshal Rogers, Mayor Howard Shell, and Tim Martin with Creek Indian Enterprises.
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