The Emery County Economic Development Council is busy making plans for their first economic summit. The summit will be held on Sept. 14 at the Museum of the San Rafael and the county office building. PacifiCorp is the major sponsor of the summit. Information about the summit is being sent out to each business in the county and will be distributed within the week.
Deb Dull from PacifiCorp said the economic summit is a wonderful opportunity and she suggested gleaning ideas from previous summits. She described the planned breakout sessions as appealing to various interests. She said a lot of effort has been put forth so far in developing the summit and she looks forward to a successful summit. Dull was also approved by the economic council as an advisory member.
Bob King who works out of the Salt Lake office and is the Vice President of Innerwest Mining will be the morning motivational speaker.
Breakout sessions will include information on agriculture, recreation and customer service. Topics include: new markets for agriculture products, making silk purses from sow’s ears. People and resources to help make your dreams come true. Is there money to be made in your backyard? Keys to success-resources and partnerships. Totally awesome customer service. Expanding our opportunities.
Jon Huntsman Jr., republican candidate for governor will give the keynote address after lunch.
The economic development council is still looking for sponsors for the event and participation by local business people. There will be a session where local business people can make presentations on goals, complaints, accomplishments or any area of concern for local business people.
The council discussed ways to promote the summit and Linda Jewkes suggested someone attend all of the city council meetings in the county and present the summit to them and invite and encourage all councils to attend. The summit hopes to attract not only business people, but all interested individuals in the county. Marc Stilson, chairman of the council said that was an excellent idea and he would see to it that all of the cities are notified and receive the pamphlet that has been prepared.
The republican party chairman, Bill Dellos is hoping to attract the candidates for office for a meet the candidate meeting the evening of the summit since Huntsman will be in the county for the summit. Dellos will work on contacting the candidates to see if something can be arranged. The economic development council said this was OK with them, but the council is in no way politically affiliated with any party.
The council also discussed an economic summit in Sevier County the end of August and the rural summit on Aug. 12-13 in Cedar City. It was determined that two people from the economic council be designated to go the rural summit at the expense of the economic development council.
In other business, Stilson introduced the people involved in working and developing an informational booklet to promote Emery County. Skyler Tanner, Chandler Tanner, Shawna Rogers and Mandi Weihing are working on the recruitment booklet. When completed this booklet will be sent to businesses requesting information about the county as a place to locate their business. Stilson sees the booklet as a real tool to introduce the county to prospective businesses.
Brian Dawes was approved as an advisory member of the council as a representative from education. Dawes is the current principal at Ferron Elementary. He will begin work on educational camps which will be held during the summers to promote education in the county. These camps will be both fun and educational and give the children of the county learning experiences during the summer months.
Delynn Fielding, the Carbon County Economic Development Director, was also in attendance and stressed the need for the citizens of the county to take the survey concerning rural economic development. The survey is a web survey only and can be taken at http://utahreach.org/wingspan/surveys/
The information from the surveys will be prioritized and proposals will be made before the legislature in January as to what types of economic development efforts will be made and funded. Fielding said it is crucial that the county respond and have a voice in this survey. He said 200 responses have been collected so far and very vew of them are from anyone not involved directly in government. Fielding also mentioned a workshop they held in Price where information was presented on how to do business with the federal government. He said it was attended by only 15 people and the majority of them were from Emery County. He said it was a lot of good information. The Kellog Foundation has $8 million available in grants for economic development systems and ideas on how to fund efforts to develop entrepreneurship. The grant applications are due Aug. 13 and Fielding is involving seven counties in Eastern Utah to team up to apply for some of this grant money. Counties include Emery, Carbon, San Juan, Grand, Uintah, Daggett and Duchesne.
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