| Patrick Malone will be the breakfast speaker at the summit. |
For the third year, the Castle Country Economic Summit is being planned and it will be held Sept. 21 and 22. This year’s theme is Spurring Development and the sponsors of the summit are committed to spurring development for Emery County, its business owners and residents.
The conference will begin on Sept. 21 with a tour of the Castle Valley Outdoors project, along with a Dutch oven dinner. Anyone who is attending will meet at the Museum of the San Rafael in Castle Dale at 5 p.m. to travel to Castle Valley Outdoors. Following the Dutch oven dinner, an evening of cowboy poetry will be presented. The cost for this evening is $20 and admission will be by ticket only.
The summit will begin in earnest on Sept. 22 with registration and breakfast from 7-8 a.m. at the Museum of the San Rafael. This year’s breakfast keynote address will begin at 8 a.m. The speaker is Patrick Malone who has served in a wide variety of Pacific Northwest nonprofit and faith-based organizations.
Malone has served as a business and community economic development professional, adjunct professor, public policy analyst, and executive leader. He is currently serving a six country region comprised of small towns and rural communities, Washington State University, and the WSU Small Farms Team.
He has extensive work experience with citizen and legislative bodies, elected officials, voluntary community boards and commissions, and ecumenical bodies. He also has extensive teaching, research and management experience in city planning, civic entrepreneurship, community design and development, community economic development, community leadership and organizing, ecumenical ministry, and nonprofit management.
| Jason Perry will be the lunch speaker at the summit. |
A short break follows the breakfast keynote, and then the breakout sessions start. The first breakout session will be from 9:15-10:15 a.m. The choices for the first breakout session are: Starting a Small Business-the Idea; Bio Diesels and Alternative Fuels; and Social Security, Your Personal Plan.
Breakout session two will offer: Writing Your Plan for a Business; Life Elevated, Marketing Utah; and Social Security and Your Employees. Breakout session three will feature: Financing Your Business Plan; Energy Training Center Intro; and Zion’s Bank Marketing Class. Between each of the breakout sessions, there will be a 15 minute break for everyone to visit the sponsors booths. The booths will be set up on the second floor of the county building.
Lunch will be served in the Museum of the San Rafael at 12:45 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., Jason P. Perry will be the keynote speaker. In March, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. asked Perry to join his cabinet as Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, which oversees economic development in the state of Utah, the Office of Tourism, and the Utah Film Commission.
Prior to GOED, he was Deputy Director of the Utah Department of Commerce, As deputy director, he also served as Enterprise Project Manager of the development of the Utah One Stop Business Registration; Utah Department of Commerce, Utah Department of Workforce Services, and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. As a graduate of the University of Utah College of Law with a Juris Doctor degree and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Brigham Young University, he began his professional career as an assistant attorney general for the state of Utah and was also a Special Assistant United States Attorney.
After the lunch keynote by Perry, local businesses are invited to take five minutes to tell about their successes, their tricks and some of the traps.
Anyone interested in the economic health of this region should plan to attend this summit. Business owners, students, farmers, employers, home based business owners, or anyone interested in starting a business should attend.
Registration deadline is Sept. 15 and can be done at the Emery County Economic Development office in the county building, or by calling 381-5576.
This year’s summit sponsors are: the Emery County Economic Development Council; Carbon County Office of Economic Development; the Department of Workforce Services; the Emery, Carbon, and Green River chambers of commerce; Vocational Rehabilitation; Rocky Mountain Power; Emery County School District; Emery County Progress; Living Utah, Castle Valley Ranch; USU Extension Office; Emery County Commissioners; Utah Small Business Development Center; and the Southeastern Utah Association of Governments.