[0:00] And then finally, Senate and Chris Bes
is in his place. He came by.
[0:04] » I'm going to call the meeting. Uh,
August 11th
[0:08] EDA meeting to order.
>> Looks like we have a quorum. Eric, could
[0:14] you call the role, please?
>> Yes, sir. Bob Smith,
[0:17] » yep. Here.
>> Robert,
[0:21] » here. Gorge here. Lawson Roberts here.
>> Bond here. Tatum.
[0:28] St. Mary's
>> here.
[0:31] Stand by for invitation and pledge.
[0:38] Lord, we thank you for this day. We
thank you for the opportunity to come
[0:42] meet and
betterment of the county. Ask blessings
[0:46] on everyone here. Lord, we just uh give
you praise and honor. Amen.
[0:53] » Amen. And we do the pledge
of allegiance to the flag of the United
[0:59] States of America and to the republic
for which it stands. One nation under
[1:04] God, indivisible, liberty and justice
for all. For all
[1:15] you make uh
first of all, I want to welcome Dexter
[1:20] to our meeting.
Eric, did you you met David?
[1:25] » Yes.
>> Yep.
[1:29] So, uh approve or amend the agenda. I
have one item to to uh put in the agenda
[1:36] be uh after new business. It'll be the
EDA 101 that Dave is here to present.
[1:43] Want to make sure we get it on the tape
so if anybody has to leave early, they
[1:47] can uh watch it at their leisure.
And without objection, we'll put that in
[1:53] there.
Consent agenda.
[1:58] The minutes. Anybody uh have any uh
corrections to the minutes?
[2:06] » Passed out the uh under
the finance report. are passed out the
[2:14] the LGIP statement for the uh Union
County
[2:20] EDA.
We have $784,1556,
[2:27] but uh that's back in
July 31st. We haven't closed the the
[2:34] year yet. That's my understanding. So, I
think there's some bills that haven't
[2:39] been that have been paid but haven't
didn't show up on here. So, uh, I talked
[2:44] to Stephanie about that the other day.
She's working actually on that,
[2:49] but the stuff we get from the county,
uh, really doesn't have any meaning for
[2:54] us. We, uh, we operate out of this
account.
[2:58] And I bring that because later on we're
going to be approving the, uh,
[3:05] application for
[3:09] the grant from the back of commission.
and we have to put up some money for
[3:14] that. So, uh, any questions about the
the financial amendments?
[3:22] » Not. I'll entertain a motion to approve
[3:27] both.
>> I approve. Accepted. Minute.
[3:30] » Motion. Thank you. Second. Second.
>> Second. Go ahead. Second. You weren't
[3:38] here last. All
>> in favor? I I
[3:42] » oppose like sign. Thank you. Have any
public comments?
[3:47] Dexter, you got anything? Any wisdom you
want to give us?
[3:50] » No.
>> When it comes to wisdom, no.
[3:56] » All right. Mia County Regional Commerce
Park update.
[4:01] Uh, I was going to have Neil do that,
but since we can't hear him, I'll I'll
[4:07] take that.
>> Can you hear? move forward with uh
[4:12] the road entrance road design.
I still have problems with understanding
[4:19] why that's going to take eight months to
do. You ride right up uh 360 and the new
[4:25] uh entrance they just put off on the
north side. That's exactly what they're
[4:29] going to put on an hour. So, looks like
to me you just flip it. Yeah.
[4:35] » He wants to do that then it has to be
approved.
[4:38] Be that. What is it? It's going to be a
good year, I think, before we see any
[4:43] any.
You probably rode by there, noticed that
[4:47] uh they're paving 360 and they're
parking their vehicles over their
[4:53] property.
>> They were nice enough to open the gate,
[4:57] go through the gate instead of going
over. So,
[5:00] » I don't have have any idea how much
longer that's going to be. Like I told
[5:04] the board of supervisors, when you see
the the equipment out there, don't get
[5:07] all excited. We're not we're not ready
to go in there and put the interior
[5:10] roads in yet. You know, the
the back of commission grant for the
[5:18] well update that's going to be uh we
plan to do three wells and three
[5:23] different locations in the property.
It's uh we're going to apply for the
[5:29] grant for uh tobacco commission. It's
they're going to supply $192,000 and
[5:36] we're going to supply $192,000.
That's why I wanted you to see the LGIP
[5:42] statement. We have the money. It's not a
problem. And uh
[5:54] we have a draft resolution in here for
the board of supervisors. We're not sure
[5:58] whether we'll need it for the uh
for the back of company grant back
[6:05] the back of commission grant. Uh
but uh
[6:11] it's always good to have
resolution from the board of supervisors
[6:16] when you apply for a grant. So we have
that ready for their August uh September
[6:22] meeting,
August meeting. And uh so if we need it,
[6:27] we have it.
[6:32] That's all I have for the
[6:38] Commerce Park. And we talked about the
tobacco commission grant
[6:44] and the draft resolution.
GBC building update. That's still moving
[6:50] along very slowly. I'm sure Sam would
tell you very slowly.
[6:55] uh still on our plate.
Hopefully in the next month or so we'll
[7:00] have something for you.
[7:04] » Uh Gap Alliance,
we had a meeting on the 28th of July.
[7:11] » We've uh come a long way. David's here
to uh he's part of the rural resilience
[7:18] advisors. He and Liz put that together
and here the
[7:24] umbrella we've gone through to uh have
our redo our regional economic
[7:29] development organization
we've decided on a name which is gap
[7:34] allowance alliance if you look at the
map for uh
[7:39] state of Virginia
Powan and Amelia we're in white
[7:44] everybody else was affiliated so now
we're affiliated they this already told
[7:49] us they're good to redraw that map and
put us in there. So that'd be
[7:58] » we decided to get the the design firm to
work on a logo for us. They proposed to
[8:06] come up with six different logos for
$150
[8:11] and uh we can
choose the one. I'm sure we're getting
[8:16] pretty close to that now.
So uh all these figures I'm giving you
[8:21] are uh are max figure I mean the total
divided by three. So cost is $50 for
[8:28] that uh website design that uh price
came down from our meeting. So now $650
[8:37] with free hosting for the first year and
$99 a year after that if we wanted to
[8:42] keep hosting.
So that uh
[8:48] that's $650 for the medium.
[8:55] Establish a URL
www.gapallianceverirginia.com.
[9:00] We thank David for that.
Not been populated yet, I don't think
[9:05] last time I was there, but it's there.
Uh we're going to have an in-person
[9:11] meeting on September the 2nd with the
Virginia BEDP in Richmond. Uh each one
[9:18] of the counties is going to have a
little time to talk about what's going
[9:22] on in their county. We Neil was nice
enough to put together three slides for
[9:26] us. And uh I looked at those last night.
It looks pretty good.
[9:31] And the only thing it's going to cost us
down there is lunch. And uh I don't know
[9:36] how much that's $25 to $35 a piece. And
there' be two of us for a million. So
[9:41] $70 maybe. Can't imag $70.
[9:47] Um
I got a thing down here on finances and
[9:53] $50 for the logo, 650 for the web, a
total of $700.
[9:59] when we uh
agreed to join the U
[10:06] redo, I took that as tested approval
that we knew there was going to be some
[10:11] startup cost and that's why I went ahead
and and told her we we pay our fair
[10:16] share for that and I don't know if you
want to put a limit on what I can do on
[10:22] my own or you just want to trust me that
I'm not going to spend all your money
[10:27] but uh you don't have to decide that
today. I can't imagine anything coming
[10:32] up that would be
too expensive.
[10:36] Fact the startup is is the only cost
we've talked about.
[10:43] Really excited about
what we've done so far. If we all
[10:49] remember when we were talking about the
heritage thing out of
[10:54] Farmville, it was
I don't think they've still done a whole
[10:58] lot of stuff, but
a whole lot cheaper. At least 30, but I
[11:04] don't think we've ever gotten
this done. We've got six people on the
[11:09] board of directors and I don't think
they have 21.
[11:14] But that's a report. Anybody have any
questions about that?
[11:20] you do anytime, just uh give me a call,
send me a text.
[11:27] Any new business?
[11:32] All right, we'll move on to EDA 101 with
Mr. Denny. Where would you like to
[11:38] stand? Are you going to put something up
on the board?
[11:42] » I think I've got a slideshow.
>> Okay.
[11:44] » I've been sitting in a car too long, so
I'm going to stand up. location.
[11:47] » Well, I'm going to move down there
so I can see that.
[12:00] » Okay, put that there.
>> Um, well, first of all, thank you for
[12:04] letting me do this. This is uh kind of
fun as if I don't often get to uh to
[12:10] educate anybody or work with anybody on
new stuff. So, uh this is kind of fun.
[12:15] Uh, and I appreciate that and thanks for
showing up uh, today. Uh,
[12:21] just a little bit of my background, just
so you know, I didn't fall off the truck
[12:25] out of town.
>> Um, I am a native of Danville, Virginia.
[12:31] Born and raised in Danville. And um, my
dad was a banker, local banker. My mom
[12:36] was a housekeeper until we went to
college and she figured she better go to
[12:40] work, keep us in Washington and Lee. So
she did and she worked uh for Damble
[12:46] Concrete Products which was Danny
Marshall's uh operations mom and dad we
[12:50] actually grew up together and so she
worked with them in bookkeeping for a
[12:53] number of years and I went off to
college and got a degree in geology of
[12:58] all things and then got a master's
degree from Tennessee University of
[13:02] Tennessee and ended up in business. I
was actually working for a gold company,
[13:07] an exploration company because a lot of
people don't know that all the gold
[13:10] before the strikes out in cattle,
California in the 1800s came from this
[13:15] belt from Delana, Georgia all the way up
to Co Pepper, Virginia. It's called the
[13:18] Carolina slate belt. So, we were going
in looking at a lot of the old gold
[13:22] claims. And my job was to go out in the
field and do testing and take samples
[13:27] and stuff and try to avoid snakes
because there was a bunch of them where
[13:30] I was working. you get out of the get
out of the truck with your snake
[13:33] leggings and you could hear pop pop. So,
and I hate snakes, but you know, I had
[13:38] to live with them. So, I did that for a
while. Ended up in business and worked
[13:41] for engineering and architectural firms
for about 20 years, 22 years in
[13:46] different marketing roles, but also as a
senior project manager. I worked on
[13:50] infrastructure projects and site
development projects and that kind of
[13:53] thing. But I always had this love and
fascination about economic development.
[13:58] So I started we were living in
Blackburg, Virginia. We lived there for
[14:02] 22 years.
And I just got tired of of of being the
[14:06] overhead in a in a firm that every time
the economy turned down a little bit,
[14:10] they'd say, "Well, you're overhead.
Won't you get out of here?" So I decided
[14:14] I wanted to a work in economic
development and two work for myself. So
[14:18] that way I could look in the mirror and
yell at the boss all day and not get
[14:21] fired. But maybe not. So uh that's what
I did 24 years ago. started my own
[14:26] economic development and small business
practice, just consulting work, and had
[14:31] the opportunity um for 12 years to work
with a a regional actually a southeast
[14:36] regional economic development
organization called Sanford Holdouser
[14:40] Economic Development. And we did the
whole gamut of of pretty large projects
[14:45] uh in economic development, including
site location work for companies,
[14:49] especially foreign companies that were
looking for a domestic uh location. Um
[14:55] but again I got restless with that and
I'd known Liz Povar and many of you know
[14:59] Liz. I'd known Liz Povar for probably 30
some years and we had started working
[15:05] together because she started her own she
left VDP and we started working together
[15:09] doing some c consulting work and we both
had this feeling and this this desire
[15:13] and that was we want to work with rural
localities and economic development
[15:18] because as you know rural areas and
urban areas have the same desire when it
[15:23] comes to economic development. You want
to create jobs and opportunity
[15:27] investment. The difference is capacity.
And so what we try to do is to work uh
[15:34] with our rural areas in particular, but
adjust our uh our fees and adjust our um
[15:40] fill in with uh with with your your
staffing and that type of thing to add
[15:45] capacity and add uh you know some ump to
your program. So that's what we do.
[15:50] We've been doing it now for two years.
and uh we had this idea about a regional
[15:55] economic development uh organization and
uh great that we've got three great
[16:00] members including Amelia County EDA and
thank you for doing that. Uh and just as
[16:05] an aside, Bob, after this meeting, I'm
going to Richmond because Liz and I are
[16:09] meeting with three vice presidents at
BDP to talk about the GAP Alliance.
[16:13] » Good.
>> We did three last four last week. We're
[16:16] doing three in person this week. So, I
went up there for that meeting. So,
[16:20] anyway, thank thank you again. That's a
a long preamble. I don't mean to be uh
[16:24] too too too much with that, but um what
you do is extremely important. First of
[16:30] all, it it's a sacrifice. You take time
from your from your work, from your
[16:34] life, from your family, and but it is a
it is a noble thing that you're doing.
[16:40] Um, in Virginia, we have these economic
development authorities, which are by
[16:44] statute established, and you've got a
ton of different types of um of
[16:49] abilities that you have both borrowing
money, issuing bonds, uh, leasing land,
[16:56] uh, leasing buildings to to tenants, all
kinds of things that you can do. And the
[17:02] way I look at it, it's kind of a simple
analogy for me because sometimes I have
[17:05] trouble get my head around things. If
you think about it, the board of
[17:08] supervisors is almost like an architect.
They're coming up with a concept and a
[17:13] design and they're putting some some
specifications on this building they're
[17:17] trying to build, but they it doesn't
happen until they get a builder or a
[17:20] developer and you're the building
developer. You're where you're where the
[17:23] rubber meets the road and trying to
develop things. So, it's a it's a good
[17:28] partnership. It needs to be a good
partnership, but each has a role to play
[17:32] and your role is extremely important.
It's more like a public private
[17:36] partnership for lack of a better word.
So getting into this um oh got let me
[17:42] make sure I can make this work. That's
always the challenge whenever you do
[17:46] these things. They're all different.
[17:52] Oh, I probably hit it backwards.
Okay.
[18:00] » Trying to do something. Yeah, I'm trying
to make it make it move, but it's not
[18:04] moving.
[18:10] » USB out here.
[18:16] Try again.
[18:26] I can move over.
That's good.
[18:39] is trying to get through.
>> Ah, there we go.
[18:44] » Yep.
>> Are we going now?
[18:49] » Oh, yeah. Beautiful. It's a beautiful
thing.
[18:52] So anyway, what we'll uh what I'd like
to talk about today with you is uh you
[18:57] know the who, what, when and how of uh
economic development and kind of the
[19:02] context of it. Want to look at some of
the trends that are today and for the
[19:06] future because economic development is a
process and economic development is
[19:10] constantly changing. Uh but what are the
fundamentals? If you don't know the
[19:14] fundamentals, you can't go take the step
up and and kind of go with the flow when
[19:19] things change. And thi finally
partnerships roles and responsibilities
[19:24] are the next thing uh that we'll we'll
talk about. Um
[19:30] if it's if you're agreeable um we got
well quite a few slides. We've got a
[19:36] limited amount of time. So if you don't
mind let me cover the slides and if you
[19:41] got a question just jot jot it down and
at the end let's let's have a talk about
[19:45] and answer questions about those things.
Uh but if you feel compelled to jump in,
[19:49] just jump in.
Okay. But why economic development?
[19:54] Well, really there's three major players
in economic development. First, they're
[19:59] companies. And companies are all about
profit, sustainability. Where can I make
[20:04] money and how can I keep that com that
flow coming? But for the citizens, it's
[20:09] all about quality of life and wealth
creation. So, it's about having a good
[20:12] job. It's also about having the revenue
in your local government who can do
[20:16] amenities uh to really make it a great
place to live. And then of course for
[20:21] the government, it's all about services
for CIS citizens creating better and
[20:25] stronger communities.
So as you know, if you know company
[20:30] moves in or a person moves in, it adds
to your your burden on your services. So
[20:35] you're going to have to increase your uh
you know your water sewer service got to
[20:39] provide these different things. So, it's
all about trying to get those services
[20:42] for the citizens, whether they're new or
established, and create a better strong
[20:47] community.
[20:54] This is kind of the who, what, when, and
where. Um, it's really important to know
[20:59] that economic development is not a
oneall thing. It's not an announcement,
[21:04] even though, you know, it's great to
have an announcement. It's not uh you
[21:08] know putting just water in somewhere. It
is a process and it's uh it takes a lot
[21:14] of background work, a lot of hard work
especially when it comes to developing
[21:18] sites and buildings as you're already
already know about this. It's preaching
[21:22] to the choir. It just takes a while to
do this. And I came from Danville and
[21:26] and and I've seen it firsthand. It's
taken Barry Hill now is a successful
[21:32] » piece of property site but it has taken
them 10 at least 15 20 years to get that
[21:38] to the point where they attract these
types of big projects. So it does take a
[21:41] while to do that. So who leads this?
Well really it's as I said it's a
[21:46] process but it's also a team thing. It's
designated individuals. So it might be
[21:50] an economic developer local economic
developer. It might be the EDA but
[21:54] there'll be a designated uh individual
or organizations for that and again it's
[21:59] a process uh and influences the growth
and structuring of economies
[22:05] and it's not something again that
happens once. It is a marathon. It is
[22:10] not a sprint. It's a marathon. You you
put your plans together. You work
[22:13] together. You work with your partners
and you slowly surely you win the race.
[22:18] Um and it's done actually
internationally. It's done on a country
[22:24] level, state level, regional level, and
then local level. And each one of those
[22:30] levels uh are kind of to going towards
the same goal, but in different ways
[22:34] with different responsibilities.
And it's done through understanding of
[22:38] businesses um act proactively creating
healthy climates for business
[22:43] development. Having a vision and goals,
that's extremely important. You can't
[22:48] know where you're going to go until you
have a vision where you want to go. Um,
[22:54] and you've got to partner it. You can't
just do it all on your own. It all there
[22:58] are partners in anything you do in
economic development. And then the best
[23:01] thing to do is to measure results and
adapt your strategy. So if you've got
[23:05] that vision and strategy, monitor that,
see how you're progressing on that. And
[23:11] that can be something as simple as a
spreadsheet or it can be something as
[23:14] complex as a fiscal impact analysis. So
those are all things very very important
[23:20] to to understand. The economic
development process has got many layer
[23:24] layers of government including counties,
cities and towns. Um so again hope you
[23:30] can see it's not a it's not a simplistic
thing but it's it's something that uh I
[23:35] like to tell people this too. They're
very I don't think there's only there
[23:39] might be only one degree in the whole
country that you can get in economic
[23:43] development. Most people in economic
development like me, they come from a
[23:48] very background either in business,
planning, lots of different things, but
[23:54] they get into economic development. So
to be honest with you, in some ways it's
[23:57] pretty simplistic. The fundamentals are
kind of the same,
[24:02] but the the landscape changes and we'll
talk about that some too.
[24:09] Here's some of the changes and I'm not
going to go through each one of these
[24:12] but essentially on the left hand side
these are the traditional economic
[24:17] development uh components.
Um so and and they're still they're
[24:24] still fundamentals. They're still
fundamental to what we do but things
[24:28] have changed over the years and they
continue to change. You know, it used to
[24:32] be you just say, "Hey, we're open for
business and we've got a bunch of
[24:36] incentives and you know, it's all about
jobs, jobs, jobs and that's it." But now
[24:42] that has kind of morphed over. Yes, it's
all those things. But it also, yeah, we
[24:47] want don't want just jobs and then they
go away in five years. You know, how
[24:50] many how many times have you looked
around the Commonwealth and seen a big
[24:54] company? I mean, Dan Dan River Mills,
who thought Dan River Mills would ever
[24:58] go away? and it devastated my hometown.
And so you don't want to put all your
[25:04] eggs in one basket, but it used to be,
hey, just bring us jobs. We'll take it,
[25:07] you know, and then not look for the
future. Now it's all about sustained
[25:10] growth. Give us the jobs, but tell us
that you're you're sustainable and this
[25:13] and you can grow this thing. And it's
very data driven. Everything these days
[25:17] are it's data driven. Um, you know, in
the back in the old days, you could win
[25:23] things almost on a handshake or somebody
a company rep says, "Oh, I like these
[25:27] people. They're really nice. I think
we'll just we'll go there. Well, that
[25:30] doesn't happen anymore. It's very very
datadriven.
[25:33] Um, and it's about competitiveness and
productivity on the project deal side.
[25:39] You can read that. It's was really very
very t tactical transactional. You want
[25:45] to come here? Yes, we do. Okay. We got a
building over here. We'll sell it to you
[25:50] for this or hey, maybe we'll give it to
you. That type of thing. Very
[25:54] prescription, very bricks and mortar
oriented. And as I said, oneoffs and
[25:58] that's all changed. You yes, some of
those factors are still there, but
[26:03] they've morphed into again focus more on
sustained economic growth for the long
[26:09] term. And looking at human capital, you
know, do you have do you have the right
[26:14] human capital? Do you have the right
workforce? Do you have the not just the
[26:17] numbers, but you have the quality of the
workforce?
[26:21] And then finally, swing for the ble
bleachers.
[26:25] It used to be that everybody wanted that
big deal. You got to have that big deal.
[26:30] Uh and or what's the next big thing? You
know, is it chip manufacturer? I know we
[26:35] all went down the road in in uh Virginia
about chip manufacturing.
[26:39] Um and it never really panned out the
way they thought it was going to be.
[26:44] » And now it's all about, you know,
entrepreneurial ecosystems. Yes, it's
[26:48] all about trying to find a good big
solid project, but it's also about
[26:51] developing your own through economic
through entrepreneurial development um
[26:57] resiliency uh benchmark to focus
resources and regional and global
[27:01] growth. It's not just about my patch.
It's also about what's good for the
[27:06] region is good for us. We can all
benefit from that. So those are the
[27:10] things that that really have
transitioned to make it a more dynamic
[27:15] and and sometimes a more complicated
process in economic development.
[27:22] This is one that I I an issue that I
especially uh like I guess because I did
[27:28] come from from business and
I learned from some people who taught me
[27:33] that you got to have a business mindset
for a lot of things in your life to
[27:37] really be successful. So you know what
is a business mindset? Well, what are
[27:41] the costs of public services per
household in your community? So that's
[27:45] part of an equation, a business
equation. What are the taxes that are
[27:48] going to be paid in your community per
household? Whether that's bringing in a
[27:52] company that will add to that tax base
or and also adding, you know,
[27:58] calculating up what your households will
pay. And then what's the gap? And the
[28:03] gap between the cost of public services
and and the taxes collected is the
[28:07] primary reason we do economic
development is to keep that keep that
[28:11] balance or to keep that uh in the pro
side and the upscale side. Um
[28:19] so business taxpayers do fill that gap
very well. Um and then you want to
[28:24] figure out you know what types of
businesses can you attract to help fill
[28:28] that gap. you know, if you're only
looking at a low wage uh low uh
[28:34] investment type of project,
you need a lot of those to fill that
[28:38] gap.
But maybe if you don't want the 500
[28:43] employee, $100 million project because
you don't think you can support it,
[28:48] maybe the 50 million or 25 million with
50 employees or 100 employees is the way
[28:54] to go because still the formula, the
business formula still works.
[29:00] the business case still worked. You want
to fill that gap with some companies
[29:06] and a place like Amelia or other rural
areas need can probably help fill that
[29:11] gap through some entrepreneurial work.
Grow in place I call it. Uh there's some
[29:15] great examples of companies that started
out as you know three or four people and
[29:21] uh had an idea got some good support
from local folks and grew their business
[29:26] and they stayed and now they employ 50
100 150 people have been very
[29:31] successful. So, you know, in rural areas
in particular, you got a lot of folks
[29:37] with a lot of great ideas, and it's just
a matter of creating that ecosystem to
[29:41] help them develop themselves and grow
themselves in place.
[29:50] And speaking of rural aspects of rural
economic development, um
[29:56] you know it's
the factors are lower population
[30:01] densities obviously longer distances
between economic assets, stronger
[30:06] reliance on natural resources,
agriculture, manufacturing, tourism,
[30:11] smaller budgets. We all know about
those. The issue of brain drain and
[30:16] that's not just rural areas. It's also
some of the areas like again that I came
[30:20] from uh kids couldn't wait to get out of
high school and go somewhere sexy, you
[30:24] know, for lack of a better word. Um and
then you sometimes you have that issue
[30:29] of the come here's versus the from
here's. You know, the people who've been
[30:33] here, they don't want things to change
necessarily, but you got a bunch of
[30:37] people moving in. They don't think they
can just shake it up. And there's that
[30:40] tension sometime between those that that
needs to be f uh fostered a solution to
[30:46] try to make everybody feel like they're
they're from here eventually. Um and you
[30:52] got fewer institutional resources. So
you don't have a four-year college
[30:55] anywhere. Uh what's the closest
community college? Is it uh Southside
[31:01] over in Blackstone? I know they got a
facility over Blackstone, but
[31:05] » Right Point.
>> Yeah. So, yeah, that's close, but still
[31:09] it's not a large force
four-year college or or or training
[31:14] facility. Um, and then of course you've
got phil philanthropic organizations,
[31:21] you know, foundations like the Cameron
Foundation over in Petersburg or
[31:25] » John Randolph.
>> Yeah, exactly. You know, there's those
[31:28] foundations which can help you drive
from a financial standpoint, those are
[31:32] often missing, too. Um, so rural areas
have to devel have to rely on these
[31:39] relationships. It's really more
relationbased and that's why this
[31:43] regional organization that you decided
to join, I think is one of the reasons
[31:47] that Liz and I thought, hey, this might
be a good idea. U because right now
[31:53] you're you're kind of the flagship or
you're you're running it on your own and
[31:57] now you've got two more partners in this
and you're complimentary. you have
[32:01] complimentary abilities and a regional
organization has more uh influences when
[32:07] it comes to the state than you do
individually. Um so all of these things
[32:13] are challenges in many ways. Uh but it's
reality and in business or in any in
[32:21] economic development you have to deal
with reality. How do you overcome or
[32:25] work around or how do you turn some of
the realities into assets for yourself
[32:30] when you tell your stories? So
challenges but plenty of opportunities
[32:35] too.
[32:39] You know I talked about the business's
core needs and us all need need to think
[32:43] like a business. Uh very simple stuff.
Uh they want a suitable location with
[32:49] reliable infrastructure. That's where
that's where groups like yourself and
[32:54] your efforts really are so extremely
important because you're trying to
[32:57] provide that. That's why they call it
product. You know, in economic
[33:01] development, we say sites and buildings
are product because at the end of the
[33:04] day, we're kind of selling those things
to a company. You got to have that
[33:08] adequate supply of qualified workers.
So, it's not just quantity, it's got to
[33:13] be qualified. And that's where your
training programs, what's where your K
[33:16] through2 programs come into into play,
the CTE programs, uh gok if you're in
[33:22] goatee, uh it's another great way to uh
and rise is another one of doing
[33:27] workforce training. And you got to have
a businessfriendly environment. Uh
[33:34] I won't name the county, but we recently
we were trying to uh to do some
[33:40] consulting work in uh in a in a county
in Virginia
[33:44] and the contract was I mean minuscule
was like10 or $15,000 wasn't much but
[33:51] but they had a rule that we had to get a
business license to do and I got think
[33:56] about say well what about if you're a
contractor and you're coming in to you
[33:59] know do something or road do they have
to a business license, too. They said,
[34:03] "Well, you don't have to pay us anything
in taxes or anything, but you got to
[34:07] have a license." So, we had to pay a fee
to get a license. It was great. You
[34:11] don't want to be that way. You want to
make it as easy as possible, not give
[34:14] away the the farm, but you want to be as
easy as possible to get companies to
[34:17] come in and see that you're
businessfriendly
[34:21] » and reasonable cost of doing business.
you know that are your are your water
[34:26] rates, you know, uh reliable or they the
reasonable uh are are is a company
[34:33] paying its fair share and not being
targeted to pay more than its fair
[34:36] share. So those types of things and then
reliable and knowledgeable partners and
[34:41] that's where this uh we'll talk about
business retention and expansion is a
[34:46] service that we offer in economic
development and that's where this
[34:51] reliable knowledgeable partners really
comes to four because if you're out
[34:54] visiting with companies and companies
feel that you are truly a partner and
[34:58] looking out for them
it's going to be a successful uh
[35:02] marriage. So doing those types of things
[35:08] So again, think like the client, the
client being businesses.
[35:15] There's 16 key trends that are shaping
the future. We talked about kind of
[35:20] where economic development was and you
know what are the things that are uh the
[35:25] future of business of economic
development. Um and there's a list. The
[35:29] red ones are the ones that that are
really the the newest. they've happened
[35:32] in probably the last three years, two to
three years and and into the future. You
[35:37] know, again, I talked about I think CO
really was a stimulant for a lot of this
[35:42] entrepreneurial awakening. You had a lot
of people who couldn't go into their
[35:46] jobs or came out of CO and said, I'm
just disgusted with what I'm doing, but
[35:51] I got an idea. I really want like I want
to work for myself. I want to work I
[35:55] want to be my boss and and put the
pressure on myself. And there's a lot of
[35:59] that going on. a lot of entrepreneurial
awakening, a lot of companies, a lot of
[36:02] individuals uh that are that are
developing. And the other thing is
[36:07] workforce housing. And I think the
important thing about workforce housing,
[36:10] I mean, it used to be if you had a
prospect come in, you never talked about
[36:14] housing. They might ask, well, you know,
where can we're going to move Bill down
[36:18] from Miss Minnesota, can you get me in
touch with a realtor for a house? You
[36:23] know, they never thought about this. But
if you don't have good housing and a
[36:27] variety of houses, you're going to be
challenged with the workforce because at
[36:31] the end of the day, if you bring a
company in and you don't have enough
[36:36] local workforce, the workforce is going
to come somewhere. Well, one of the
[36:40] goals ought to be, well, let's get them
to come down here and buy a house and
[36:43] live here while they work in this new
factory instead of commuting down an
[36:47] hour or whatever it might be. And
workforce housing should not be
[36:51] construed as a uh as subsidized housing.
It it's it's about having houses that
[36:58] are not the upper end of the market or
the other end of the market but in the
[37:03] the market the area of the market that
workers who are working in a factor
[37:07] whether in management whether line
workers whatever they may they've got
[37:11] opt they've got enough quantity of
affordable houses that they can live in.
[37:17] child care is is something that's that's
relatively new in the in the mix when it
[37:22] comes to talking to prospects.
And I think back to uh time when we were
[37:26] living in Blackburg, I was uh working
doing some work or actually had an
[37:30] office at the corporate research center
there in Blackburg and they had a great
[37:34] idea. They said, you know, we've got all
these really smart people and we've got
[37:38] these spouses who've moved down with
their husbands. They're, you know, at
[37:41] tech and they have nothing to do. You
know, they they want something to do.
[37:45] maybe they they get a secretarial job,
whatever it might be, but they can't
[37:49] really do those things without child
care. So, Virginia Tech Corporate
[37:54] Foundation, which runs the CRC, teamed
up with a child care provider and they
[38:00] built the CRC built the facility and the
childcare operation
[38:05] operated it. And so, that was something
that they offered businesses that wanted
[38:10] to move into the CRC. And it was great.
And this was, you know, 10 years ago. So
[38:15] with child care is a big deal because it
it frees up workforce. If if if if
[38:20] parents know they've got good child care
in the area site develop ready
[38:24] development, you know, it used to be got
a green field piece of property. A
[38:29] company would come, they say, "Oh,
that's a great piece of property. Okay,
[38:32] buy that property or you give it to me
and I'll I'll set my place up here."
[38:36] That doesn't work anymore. They're
looking for site ready things. In
[38:40] Virginia, we have this Virginia business
ready site program and it has a tiered
[38:44] system by readiness. So one is just a
piece of land, a green piece of land
[38:49] normally that's controlled by who? A
public entity usually with number five.
[38:55] It's got all the infrastructure in it.
It's got I mean you can have a company
[38:59] up and running in 12 to 14 months
essentially a construction you know
[39:05] construction cycle. So it is ready to
go. So there's a lot of emphasis on
[39:10] trying to move these up and that that
that chain that re that that uh tier
[39:15] one, two, three, four, and five is a
great strategy or a road map for you to
[39:22] make each progress until you get to
number five. Um health care, you know,
[39:27] again, it's kind of like the uh child
care side of things. You've got to have
[39:31] good health care. Um and u you know,
that could that can be many things. That
[39:37] can be local clinics. That can be ready
access to a major hospital. It can be a
[39:43] lot of things. But Liz and I just
started a project over in the coal
[39:47] fields of of West Virginia.
And I never thought in a country that's,
[39:52] you know, as rich as we are that you'd
have counties that don't even have a
[39:56] doctor's office. They don't have a
dentist's office. They don't have eye
[40:01] specialists. They don't have anybody. So
if they want if they get sick and have
[40:05] anything or even routine stuff, they
have to get in a car and drive an hour
[40:08] and a half to Bluefield.
So you having some type of access
[40:14] is a minimum. Having good health care is
really essential. And then federal and
[40:19] state policies. So you know, I'm not
going to get into federal and state
[40:23] policies too much. You know, like now
they're all around energy. They're
[40:27] around tariffs. It's it's all the stuff
that affects how we are able to develop
[40:33] things and how we're able to attract
businesses. So that's the importance of
[40:37] it and that used to not really come in
at all. And then I've mentioned energy
[40:41] and there's just this whole issue about
energy about supply but also about
[40:45] turnaround times and getting substations
in all that stuff. So energy and then
[40:50] you know your mix of energy and is it
reliable or not. So these are all things
[40:54] that are are new that have to be
considered. Um, and things that aren't
[41:00] going to go away, they're going to
continue. The the list here may change
[41:03] over the next five years where other
things are emphasized and some things
[41:07] are less emphasized. But still, the
bottom line is that
[41:12] that it's ever changing
and just to be aware of what the changes
[41:18] are will help a lot, I think, uh, as you
move forward.
[41:24] Um, without a lot of commentary, there's
still f four fundamentals of economic
[41:29] development. And, uh, at the top of this
is the sexy one.
[41:37] You know, everybody wants that big
announcement to have the governor come
[41:41] down and do all that stuff. So, it's
business attraction. That's where you're
[41:44] trying to bring new companies into the
area.
[41:48] Second was grow your own. That's more
the entrepreneurial side of things.
[41:53] Um,
and we talked a little bit about that
[41:57] business expansion. And this one is is
extremely important. It goes back to
[42:02] what I talked about earlier, being a
good partner and understanding your
[42:05] local companies that exist and having a
good relationship with them and being
[42:09] supportive.
There was a stat statistic in economic
[42:13] developers have used for decades that
used to be that the the number was 80%
[42:20] 75% of your new new business your your
jobs and investment
[42:26] comes from u 20% of the businesses
[42:33] and now it's 80 you know it's 8020 now
we're 7525 so the majority of new
[42:39] business new jobs and investment come
from existing business, but it's not as
[42:43] sexy. The good news is it's a low it's a
lower cost. It's it's lower cost because
[42:49] essentially at the end of the day, it's
about time. It's having someone go out
[42:53] and sit down with companies and do
things for companies and have events for
[42:58] companies and all those things to build
that relationship and to help them if
[43:02] they're having issues, try to help them
with those issues or to learn that, you
[43:07] know, maybe they've got a supplier who
is not in your in this area. Well, why
[43:12] don't we talk about trying to attract
your supplier here to supply you, get a
[43:16] little closer, you both win with that.
So that's extremely important part of
[43:20] this and that's why it's bigger part of
the pyramid. And then the last part is
[43:25] placemaking and tal for talent.
And more and more um whether it's
[43:32] entrepreneurial or whether it's a higher
tech business whatever it might be the
[43:37] new workers the generational workers
having a great place lots of different
[43:42] amenities and activities and fun whether
it be outdoor stuff whether that be uh
[43:48] you know
events that they go to. That's it's
[43:53] important to have a place that your
workers who want might want to come in
[43:58] and work say, "Hey, this is a great
place to live. So, I won't commute 60
[44:02] miles or an hour or whatever to this. I
I'll go ahead and move there." And oh,
[44:06] by the way, they they have affordable
housing, so I can buy a house now. So,
[44:10] it's all interrelated.
Uh and just in kind of put this in
[44:15] perspective about cost and efforts. a
business attraction has the most time
[44:20] involved, the most cost involved, but
you usually get the biggest bang for
[44:25] your buck. You know, you you'll get more
attention and that helps attract other
[44:30] companies in. Also, grow your own. It
takes a lot of of handholding and stuff
[44:35] and sometimes uh unfortunately if if
those companies can make it two years,
[44:40] they're usually going to be okay and
then they can grow from there. It's that
[44:43] first two years which are are difficult
and they need a lot of support. So you
[44:47] may have support organizations like the
small business development center uh
[44:52] rise uh might be another one but and
then expansion the business expansion
[44:56] we've talked about that that's mainly a
time issue but less cost but you get a
[45:01] really big bang for your buck if you can
keep your companies happy and keep them
[45:04] growing and then placemaking for talent
that really is a shared thing with your
[45:08] chamber of commerce with your parks and
reccks uh with all kinds of different
[45:13] partners on that u and it just takes um
and it takes a little bit of money to
[45:18] get that moving forward.
[45:24] You know, I talked about um a little bit
about placemaking and talent attraction.
[45:30] Uh it fuels the econ's health. Uh it's
live here and work here, work there. It
[45:36] it allows you to live here and work
here. You can if you can attract and
[45:41] make your place making your talent
attractive. Um,
[45:45] and then I got some there's some uh
links on here and I'm just going to talk
[45:50] about get to Rono, the one at the
bottom,
[45:54] because I think Rono is an extremely
good example of how this can work. You
[46:00] know, Ron, Virginia was a railroad town.
That's why it was founded all actually
[46:05] was big at one point, but then the
railroad came in. So the railroad built
[46:09] it
and but then the railroad started
[46:13] pulling out and things didn't look that
great. Their manufacturing base was
[46:17] okay, but it wasn't that great.
They made a decision that they wanted to
[46:23] really emphasize their outdoor amenities
as a place.
[46:27] And um so they've got the river there,
they've got the mountains and they they
[46:32] started consciously that was their
vision. that consciously said, "Okay,
[46:36] we're going to start pushing ourselves
as a great place to come and live to
[46:41] attract the talent and also at the same
time we're working to bring new
[46:44] businesses in." So, this is a website
that they've created and
[46:52] essentially it, if you get a chance,
write this down, write that down and try
[46:57] to go look at it because it it's a
pretty amazing thing. They talk about I
[47:01] mean it's they've got lots of different
things on there, but they've got a site
[47:04] and explains why somebody should want to
live there. They've got tools for
[47:09] housing to find housing. They've got job
announcements from the area, you know,
[47:15] who's hiring, what kind of jobs are on
there. They show all the recreational
[47:20] activities and amenities around the
place, around the the the county and the
[47:25] town. They show all the cultural and
community events, etc., etc., et, etc.
[47:30] They really lay out why Rono is such a
great place for you to come in and work.
[47:38] And it is it has really turned that
place around. You go there now and it it
[47:41] it has a whole different feel to it uh
than when I used to visit my
[47:46] grandfather. He was a machinist at uh
Schaer's Crossing for 45 years on the
[47:51] North and Western and it has changed so
much since those days. So it's just an
[47:57] idea of that you can take for the future
is to really try to develop that place
[48:03] uh because it is important as you're
trying to attract the quality and the
[48:08] quantity of workforce as well as growing
your own. Another thing on the
[48:12] placemaking side and I'll just give you
a little bit of side. These are some are
[48:16] some localities rural localities have
really taken this to heart and been
[48:20] successful with it. And I'm familiar
with the Crooked Road because I lived in
[48:24] Southwest Virginia for 22 years and uh
work worked with some folks on Crooked
[48:30] Road stuff along with some uh tourism
related to the wilderness road.
[48:37] But what I don't how many people have
ever heard of the Cricut Road or been on
[48:41] the Cricut Road? Anybody? Okay. We had
all of these little towns and rural
[48:47] areas starting in Rocky Mount, Virginia,
and going up to Dickinson County to
[48:53] Chipwood, not Clintwood.
Um, Clintwood is the home of um, oh
[49:01] gosh, and it just lo just lost one of
the big blueg grass stars. He been
[49:05] around forever, but he's dead now. I'll
remember it at the end and I'll I'll
[49:09] tell you Ralph Stanley. Thank you. Thank
you. it just went away. But Reverend
[49:15] Reverend Stanley was uh was from that
area. But along the way, you had Floyd,
[49:20] you know, Floyd is known for its music
and it's got venues there for uh like
[49:25] Floyd Country Store every Friday night.
Go down downtown Floyd and it's it's
[49:29] amazing. Rocky Mount, you got the
Harvester, you know, the Harvester. I
[49:33] was Rocky Mount was one of my clients
when I was working for an engineering
[49:37] firm and I was there when they developed
the harvester. It's a phenomenal place
[49:41] to go to hear music. And there's all
kinds of bluegrass and country music and
[49:45] everything going along around town. So,
somebody had the idea, why don't we link
[49:49] up all of these different little towns
along this route and it goes up Route 8
[49:54] and then I think it goes up 58. But
anyway, it goes from Rocky Mount to
[49:58] Clintwood and they have uh all the music
venues, they have events going on, they
[50:05] have museums, they have just a lot of
different arts and crafts and they built
[50:10] everything, branded it around this
Cricut Road concept and what it's done
[50:14] for the lo localities that the that the
Crooked Road passes through is
[50:18] phenomenal. No, it's not, you know,
millions of dollars of investment or
[50:23] anything like that, but it gets tourists
coming through the area spending their
[50:26] money.
Who knows? You might have somebody who
[50:30] is a a bluegrass fan who owns a company
in the Northeast and is tired of the
[50:35] Northeast and they like what they see.
That happened in Radford, Virginia, many
[50:39] years ago. Um, you had somebody coming
down the interstate and he liked Radford
[50:44] when he stopped to have lunch, so he put
his factory there. it. So these things
[50:48] do work and you're familiar with
Virginia Civil War trails because I
[50:51] think the trails come through here. So I
can't really speak about how successful
[50:55] that's been from an economic standpoint.
Fields of Gold is another one though.
[50:58] It's it's in the Shannro Valley thing
and what they decided to do was they had
[51:03] all these small farms and big farms and
farm stands and ice cream dairies and
[51:09] all this stuff. So they put together
this this uh
[51:14] this organization called Fields of Gold
and it essentially is agurism
[51:19] and it's been and they've got websites
they got materials they things going on
[51:24] they've got members who join who are
farmers and and dairymen and that type
[51:29] of thing. And it's been extremely
successful in attracting
[51:33] tourists to the area who do nothing but
come just to go around to these
[51:36] different places and get homemade ice
cream and, you know,
[51:40] buy stuff. And so it's it's that type of
thing that really anybody can do as long
[51:46] as you got an idea, but it takes some
time to organize. But at the end of the
[51:50] day, it's all about trying to attract.
Number one is to help develop rural
[51:56] entrepreneurs who can be on these
trails. uh and supply different things,
[52:01] but it's also about trying to get
tourism into your area to build your
[52:06] local economies. Um
talked about business retention and
[52:11] expansion.
This is the high percentage of new jobs
[52:15] and capital investments come from
existing business. Um this is really the
[52:21] responsibility of the local government.
Uh the Commonwealth Virginia does
[52:26] actually have a a essentially a VR
program and they have regional folks who
[52:32] come down working with localities to go
visit companies. So it is a partnership
[52:36] between the state Virginia Economic
Development Partnership and the local
[52:40] but really the the owners is really on
the local folks because you know your
[52:45] businesses better than anybody else. And
um
[52:51] and as you can see it's there's some
things the retention of capital base
[52:55] secures your tax revenue.
The outreach is costefficient
[53:00] essentially. You just go put on a
schedule. You go out and sit down with
[53:03] somebody or you take them to lunch and
have a discussion about their business.
[53:05] You do that on a quarterly basis or
every six months whatever the frequency
[53:10] is. And it's really the opportunity to
identify problems before they come
[53:14] unsolvable. The last thing you want is
just to wake up one day and your local
[53:19] local factory, your local business has
said, "Well, we're shutting down
[53:21] tomorrow." When they may have had a
problem for a while and if you knew
[53:25] about the problem, you might be able to
reach out to some other partners and and
[53:29] get some help for them. Um,
gives you the opportunity to validate
[53:34] the fact that you, hey, I believe our
business climate is great. We're doing
[53:38] great here. We're not really supportive.
Well, they may tell you, well, yeah, in
[53:42] most areas you are, but maybe you need
to work on this particular area in
[53:45] particular. So, that's very important.
Uh,
[53:50] and they create business champions. I
think this is a is one of the premier
[53:55] reasons that you should be out working
with your businesses because businesses
[53:59] can not only support things that happen
in your community if they're happy with
[54:05] the community and become your champions,
but also when a company comes and looks,
[54:10] they're going to pay attention to what
the local business owners have to say.
[54:15] And if you got a good business champion
for your locality, that is golden on a
[54:20] uh on a prospect visit.
And um you can create a professional
[54:26] service team that is creative and
customer focused. Uh and that could be,
[54:30] you know, architects, engineers,
whatever your needs may be. If they're
[54:35] in the area, you can, you know, you need
somebody to come out and and do survey
[54:39] or to do design and they're you've got a
good relationship with them. That's one
[54:43] reason to go out and talk to those types
of folks. Also,
[54:49] and this is just an example. If you get
a chance sometime, take a look at
[54:53] Frederick Frederick County. That's up in
the upper Shannidora Valley. I guess
[54:57] that would be down the valley because
it's north, but they call it down the
[55:02] valley. But they made a decision that
they were not going to focus on business
[55:06] attraction because they had a really
good
[55:10] factoring base already. They were going
to just focus on call teams to visit
[55:14] local businesses and communicate
training resources, expansion assistant
[55:19] opportunities, problem solving, all
those types of things. And it's really
[55:23] been amazingly successful for them. Um,
they've got a track record of
[55:29] facilitating financial and workforce
training assistance and expanding their
[55:33] companies. And those are all the figures
that they use, you know, the capex uh
[55:37] for expansion of businesses and that
type of thing.
[55:41] Um so it's been very successful. It's u
you know again you have to kind of put
[55:47] that this is just an example but it is a
I say a supercharged example it because
[55:53] they do have such a broad manufacturing
base. If you don't have that much
[55:57] manufacturing base, you're not going to
achieve those types. But you are going
[56:00] to keep your companies and you keep
expanding your companies in place, which
[56:04] is really a goal. And it's something
that can be done with not a lot of
[56:09] money, but with some effort.
Of course, we talked a little bit about
[56:14] the econ the entrepreneurial side of
things. Um, and again, that's long-term,
[56:19] but it can create businesses. Um, it's
got to be systematic, have a systematic
[56:24] approach to this.
that uses not just your resources. Most
[56:29] of the resources to help support these
early uh early businesses and
[56:34] entrepreneurs come from the region or
from the state. They might come from a
[56:38] university. They may come college, small
business development center, uh like I
[56:43] say, rise, those types of of uh business
support organizations or SCORE, who is a
[56:50] organization of retired executives and
that can always be a good resource to to
[56:56] help with that. Um and you're part of
the rise region uh rise region in
[57:01] southern Virginia, I believe. So do have
that program available. It's a really
[57:06] good ecosystem that's coordinated
through Southern Virginia Innovation
[57:10] Center and it's it's supported by
Mid-Atlantic Broadband staff. So, they
[57:14] have some staffing to help out too. And
they use fund they've got funding from
[57:18] Go Virginia and some other federal
partners that keeps them clicking along.
[57:24] I think the important thing is to to get
those resources to the entrepreneur and
[57:29] don't ask the entrepreneur to drive 45
minutes or an hour to go because you
[57:32] they're trying to build their business.
That's that's the goal is to get them to
[57:35] build and sustain their business. So if
you can get those support to them,
[57:40] that's that's golden. Uh do everything
you can. It's kind of like with the
[57:46] bigger business, do everything you can
to help them grow, help them sustain.
[57:50] The challenges are, you know, they are
going to be influenced by the quality of
[57:53] place. Uh you know, it's it's that's
kind of it kind of makes me laugh. You
[57:58] know, we went through this phase where
every town wanted to have a coffee shop
[58:01] because that's what all these
millennials they want a coffee shop. So
[58:06] there's that then in a micro brewery.
>> You got those two, you got it made. Uh
[58:12] entrepreneurials are typically require
really expensive
[58:16] support networks and that's where those
agencies and organizations I just
[58:20] mentioned come in into play. Um, again,
if you can get them past the first two
[58:25] years, they be they're going to be
golden. They they've got a good idea.
[58:30] They've got a good business model.
Things are working and they can grow
[58:32] from there. But it's that first two
years, which is really tough. And you
[58:37] just have to have significant
significant staff uh is necessary and
[58:41] sometime with limited rewards. It takes
some patience, too. But I do go back and
[58:46] and here's some examples of some of the
entrepreneurial stuff.
[58:51] One of my gigs in projects was I was
hired to be the executive director under
[58:57] contract with the Greater Williamsburg
Partnership and that was uh James City
[59:03] County, York County and City of
Williamsburg and they had a facility and
[59:08] a program called Launchpad
and Launchpad uh gave is and it's still
[59:14] in existence but they've expanded some
they're now down they've got an
[59:17] operation down in Hampton Road
somewhere.
[59:19] But they give work fa workspace
u guidance mentoring those types of
[59:25] things. Um they have partners that they
uh hook companies up who are in
[59:30] launchpad that could be SCORE. Hampton
Roads has a group and William and Mary
[59:35] because they're located in next to
William and Mary. They have guest
[59:38] speakers, memberships, seed funds.
But what what really was encouraging for
[59:43] me when I worked there for I was with
them for about two and a half three
[59:47] years.
There were two guys who came into
[59:50] Launchpad and paid their their money to
have a little office space there. They
[59:54] were called SBT Robotics
and they started out with two people and
[59:59] they they now are worldwide and this has
been only in eight years but they
[1:00:05] started out there. They got support.
They got what they needed. They got seed
[1:00:09] money. They got connections. They got
all of those things. And what they do is
[1:00:13] they do robotic integration. So if you
got a factory that's got 10 different
[1:00:17] brands of robots in it and they all have
to talk a different language, they've
[1:00:21] created a way that all these robots can
work as a unit. They they understand
[1:00:25] each other through through these SD
robotic systems. And it's phenomenal.
[1:00:30] They just announced that they have a
worldwide uh contract with DHL, which is
[1:00:36] the big international freight carrier
because they use, you know, robots
[1:00:39] everywhere. And this shows you what can
happen if you give people and
[1:00:45] entrepreneurs with a good idea, the
right kind of support,
[1:00:50] this is what can happen. And so they
employ, you know, hundreds of people
[1:00:53] now. And they're global. when they
started out as a twoperson firm eight
[1:00:57] years ago in Launchpad. So, it's a great
success story, I think, and a good
[1:01:02] model.
[1:01:06] Business attraction,
this again is the one that gets the most
[1:01:10] attention. The press and the governor
and everybody else gets so excited about
[1:01:14] it. Um, it does increase the size of the
local economy. That's a benefit. It
[1:01:19] diversifies the tax base and employment
base. And there's another county uh
[1:01:24] actually within in the new region u and
I'm not going to mention names because I
[1:01:28] probably shouldn't but it's Paul public.
They their tax uh tax uh uh mix was
[1:01:36] really offkilter. Uh they were 75%
residential
[1:01:42] and about 25% commercial. Well 20%
commercial 5% industrial.
[1:01:47] And they knew they couldn't keep doing
that. And so this is where the board of
[1:01:52] supervisors worked with the EDA and
board of supervisors said, "We want the
[1:01:57] mix to change." And no, we can't do it
overnight, but we want to change it so
[1:02:01] that we've got a higher amount of
industrial and and commercial than we
[1:02:06] have now, less in our tax revenue coming
from residential. So they put everything
[1:02:11] in motion around that concept for the
next three to five years. This is our
[1:02:15] goal. They've got percentages, but I
don't even remember what the percentages
[1:02:19] were. But that's what the
diversification of the of the base does.
[1:02:24] It it helps uh helps increase uh your
tax revenues in certain areas and still
[1:02:31] uh being so you're able to provide the
services that need it. And it's the most
[1:02:35] visible result of economic development.
Like I said, it's when the governor gets
[1:02:38] on the, you know, on comes down and
everybody gets very excited and all the
[1:02:44] local officials get excited and EDA gets
excited and everybody gets excited.
[1:02:50] The challenge is though it is the most
competitive. I think there's something
[1:02:53] like trying to remember 11,000 economic
development organization organizations
[1:02:58] in the US alone.
And when we're talking about attraction,
[1:03:03] we're not talking about just the US.
your competition is global. And you look
[1:03:08] at all of the countries around the world
that have strong economic development uh
[1:03:13] programs, they're trying to get that
company to move here to England or
[1:03:18] wherever instead of coming to Amelia
County. So it's extremely competitive
[1:03:23] and it's it you really have to think
about how do you position yourself
[1:03:28] not only with uh what you talk about in
your assets but what are your goals
[1:03:33] because you know back in the old day
well when Amazon announced that they
[1:03:38] were going to have this competition. I
was in Richmond with the uh at a we were
[1:03:45] in up in DC and I was on a mission with
Virginia Economic Development
[1:03:49] Partnership
and the the manager I was with got
[1:03:54] called back to Richmond
because I Amazon had just announced that
[1:03:59] they wanted to have an that HQ2
competition
[1:04:03] » and all of a sudden every locality in
Virginia
[1:04:08] » was sending fruit baskets was you doing
this and I I told the president or the
[1:04:13] CEO of BDP said you really need to put
the lid on this and expectations not
[1:04:18] every local very few of these localities
are going to get anywhere and they're
[1:04:22] get so worked up and their boards are
getting worked up and they're telling
[1:04:25] the economic developers you you got to
go get this and it's not going to
[1:04:29] happen. So it's it's it's about being
intentional about who you go after and
[1:04:36] making sure that it fits your community.
Uh it is generally an expensive
[1:04:41] strategy. Uh you know you you're already
witnessing that with trying to develop
[1:04:45] your product, your site, your your your
your your
[1:04:50] park. Um and you got to have a lot of
elements in place to reduce the risk for
[1:04:56] the business client. Um, and there's
just a bunch of different criteria that
[1:05:01] are are some of those things that need
to be in place in order to get to be a
[1:05:06] tier five ready for business type of
company. So, it takes a lot of work. It
[1:05:11] doesn't mean you can't have success
somewhere along that path. But if you
[1:05:16] want to be top in class and you want to
get the most attention, got a lot of
[1:05:21] things to put in place or to uh explain
as an asset that you have or one that
[1:05:27] needs to be developed further.
Really partnerships are key and I think
[1:05:33] about anything that you do. It's hard to
be the lone wolf and go your own.
[1:05:38] uh and economic development is extremely
important because business is the center
[1:05:42] cog that makes the world go around in
our in economic development but you've
[1:05:47] got a state you've got regional you got
locality you got nonprofits and you got
[1:05:51] the fed all of those have a role to play
and all those influence
[1:05:55] uh how things work no single entity can
do it by itself and always remember the
[1:06:01] business is the center of everything
I want to we're getting close to
[1:06:07] wrapping here. Um, but I think it is
important to understand the Virginia way
[1:06:11] because we are unique in how we do
economic development in Virginia. Um,
[1:06:17] we're very much based on a state to
region to locality model. So,
[1:06:23] Commonwealth Virginia uh
they u
[1:06:30] they they go out and market for the
world. They they market and say,
[1:06:33] "Listen, Virginia is the top place to
be. this is where you want to create
[1:06:38] your your opportunities, your
sustainabilities, and they they talk
[1:06:41] about all of our assets and they talk
about talk about the the business
[1:06:44] climate and all those types of things.
But what happens if they get a prospect
[1:06:50] in they get a company says, you know,
well, we're interested interested in
[1:06:54] Virginia and we need, you know, certain
size site and we eventually want this
[1:06:59] size building and we need this kind of
workforce and we need they have a whole
[1:07:02] criter list of criteria.
They reach out through the regional
[1:07:06] groups and there I think now with the
addition of the gap alliance I think
[1:07:10] there are 19 economic development
regions in Virginia and these are all
[1:07:16] organizations that come together for a
variety of different reasons.
[1:07:20] Sometimes it's because they have a
common culture sometimes it's because of
[1:07:24] geography. Sometimes because of both. So
there's lots of different reg reasons
[1:07:28] for doing that. But the but this the
Commonwealth once they get that lead and
[1:07:33] they may vetted it a little bit and say,
"Well, we think that the GAP Alliance is
[1:07:37] a good regional bridge, they'll come to
the GAP Alliance and say, "We've got
[1:07:41] this prospect that this is what they're
interested in." And then it's our job to
[1:07:46] funnel that down to our local members
and work with our local members in a
[1:07:49] support uh staff in a support situation.
And if the local member has got
[1:07:56] everything that's needed,
we work with them to get that back up to
[1:08:00] the state and then presents that to the
prospect. And eventually the goal is to
[1:08:03] try to get them interested enough to
come the company interested enough to
[1:08:07] come and visit. And that's when the hard
work starts.
[1:08:11] The rest of the work with the the
preliminary work on the regional basis
[1:08:15] and on the local basis to make sure you
got all your data in line that you got a
[1:08:19] good team together. you kind of got a
philosophy or a strategy of how you
[1:08:22] would handle a prospect visit. Who needs
to be at those visits? What do you want
[1:08:27] to show them while you're here? How do
you highlight and hit all the things
[1:08:31] that are really important to them like
workforce, like housed, like sites and
[1:08:35] buildings, all those things.
So, it is really a team sport. if you
[1:08:41] and I, you know, I live in North
Carolina and North Carolina is not like
[1:08:45] this and no other states are like this
because North Carolina did used to have
[1:08:50] regional groups and they were actually
funded by the state, but they did away
[1:08:54] with those. Shoot, I came on board with
Sanford. This was my first project with
[1:08:59] Sanford Holtzhouser was uh advantage
west which was a bunch of counties in
[1:09:05] and the city of Asheville out the
western part and they brought me on to
[1:09:11] help them understand how they could fund
raise because they were going to lose
[1:09:14] all their state funding. So the state
does not fund regional groups anymore.
[1:09:18] They're coming back kind of like
Virginia is because we're all
[1:09:20] self-funded. The regional groups are all
self-funded. They're not funded by the
[1:09:24] state.
But u you know they just have a
[1:09:28] different model. Georgia has a different
model. They all do. But we've worked
[1:09:32] this way and it's worked very well for
us. But it's all about having strategic
[1:09:36] vision and action plan attraction new
business existing business retention
[1:09:40] expansion marketing and promotion the
product development business formation
[1:09:46] tourism workforce all the other things
that we've talked about within that
[1:09:50] Virginia way. We cover all those bases
in lots of different ways.
[1:10:00] And this slide is generally the primary
roles and responsibilities for each of
[1:10:05] those uh those uh levels that I just
mentioned in the Virginia waste system.
[1:10:11] Um
and it really a lot of it depends on
[1:10:15] really solid communication settlement as
you'll see
[1:10:19] you're let's start on the right hand
side with the state. The state as I said
[1:10:22] there's marketing responsible for
business climate the state business
[1:10:27] climate strategies to focus like
workforce broadband transportation big
[1:10:31] one research
supply chains making sure that we got a
[1:10:36] good supply chain for a lot of different
types of businesses and then helping to
[1:10:41] create funding sources like the go
Virginia program or the tobacco
[1:10:44] commission those types of things and
then on the regional as we talked about
[1:10:49] it's about trying to put together work
force story. So it's not about an
[1:10:53] individual locality member telling a
workforce story is trying to find the
[1:10:58] consolidation of the three members in
our new gap alliance. How does that work
[1:11:03] story look? Because you know to be
honest with you most companies don't
[1:11:06] start out looking at a locality. They
start out looking at a state and then
[1:11:10] they look at a region and region is
where you can begin to make a good
[1:11:13] regional pitch that gets their
attention. Uh we the region focuses on
[1:11:19] higher education infrastructure etc etc
etc and on the local level it's all
[1:11:24] about real estate your infrastructure
especially the broadband early education
[1:11:29] K through 12 the local tax policy
quality of life is a big one we talked a
[1:11:34] lot about that the existing businesses
you know you got a good business uh
[1:11:39] ecosystem where where in your locality
and do you have good relationships with
[1:11:44] them and then stakeholders and champions
ions. That could be your your local
[1:11:48] bank. That could be uh business
champions who who tout doing business
[1:11:53] here. That could be the church uh
religious structure. It could be a lot
[1:11:59] of different folks or stakeholders and
champions for your locality.
[1:12:08] And you can only have success in
economic development if you have a
[1:12:11] shared vision at the local level. Um,
and you you can read these, you know, it
[1:12:19] really is about sharing,
flexible long-term strategies,
[1:12:26] being committed to confidentiality.
That's a big deal with companies uh and
[1:12:30] actually with the state too.
Company are you you get an opportunity.
[1:12:36] It's it's always good to keep that to
yourselves until something really
[1:12:40] happens because you don't want to have
the egg on your face
[1:12:43] uh if if things don't work out or the
company finds out that something that
[1:12:47] should be confidential is widely known.
They will turn around and run the other
[1:12:51] way. Got to have good communication
strategies in place between your
[1:12:55] partnership and partners. Uh
stakeholders have to be engaged and you
[1:13:01] have to commit resources which are staff
and funding uh to make that happen.
[1:13:06] I think that really the shared
leadership and shared vision or
[1:13:10] leadership and vision
in a fundamental way comes down to two
[1:13:15] entities. That's your elected officials
and your EDNA.
[1:13:20] You need to be on the same page. You
need to have regular communication.
[1:13:25] Share ideas. may not always agree 100%
on everything, but have that dialogue
[1:13:29] and be able to communicate with each
other and come to a shared vision and
[1:13:34] move forward together. Everywhere you
look, they have that good line of
[1:13:38] communication, that good partnership,
that shared vision that's successful.
[1:13:42] And believe me, I we see plenty of
places that where that does not happen
[1:13:46] and they are suffering. So
sometimes we have to park we have to
[1:13:52] park ourselves at the curb, our egos at
the curb and bite a little humble pie,
[1:13:56] but it's it it it helps it helps a lot
to have that single vision and that
[1:14:01] single effort together to move forward.
Um things like having meetings on a
[1:14:07] regular basis with your counterparts or
joint planning. I don't know if you guys
[1:14:11] do workshops, especially when the
budget's coming up and stuff. if you
[1:14:15] have workshops or planning sessions or
anything like that, but that's also a
[1:14:19] really good way to try to come to the
single vision and share the load.
[1:14:26] I'm not going to read this. I mean, it's
it's stating it's stating the obvious. I
[1:14:31] think that it's important that the board
of supervisors has a role and as I said,
[1:14:35] it's analogous to me to an architect.
They're designing, they're putting
[1:14:39] specifications.
EDA has uh the hammer and the nails and
[1:14:45] the power equipment to build it. And
you can't have a great building if you
[1:14:51] don't have both of those. And they've
got to have a shared vision of what that
[1:14:55] building's going to look like. Um
you know, again, you've got a lot of
[1:15:00] powers with the statutes that you have
for setting this up.
[1:15:05] It's again ensure alignment with the
county and communicate communicate
[1:15:10] communicate and serve as the integrator
of stakeholder views and that's not only
[1:15:15] just government but it's also your
business community you're the ones who
[1:15:18] can kind of bring all the conversations
together into into a vision and
[1:15:22] collaboration partnerships
and I believe
[1:15:28] that is it so I know that was a lot to
cover
[1:15:33] I think if I To sum it up, it's this. It
there's some fundamental things that
[1:15:39] will be here forever. There's some new
things that are influencing how we do
[1:15:44] economic development.
It's all about having partners and and
[1:15:49] having good relationship, having common
visions. And it's also about just
[1:15:53] rolling your sleeves up. And it's it's
also about asking for help. If if you
[1:15:56] think you can't solve a problem on your
own, reach out. You know, reach out.
[1:16:01] There's plenty of partners around the
Commonwealth. there's partners in in uh
[1:16:06] in your region who are willing to help
because we're all in the same same boat.
[1:16:11] You know, we all want success. We all
want to want to help our citizens. We al
[1:16:15] all want to have a long sustainable
uh place for our kids to grow up and our
[1:16:20] grandkids to grow up. So, I'll take any
questions if you have any right now. And
[1:16:25] I think I did okay on time. I don't
know.
[1:16:29] » That was a lot of information. the uh
I'm aware of we're at a tier three now.
[1:16:37] We get these uh wells in, maybe we can
move up to a tier four.
[1:16:43] We're going in the right direction.
It's it's frustrating when it takes so
[1:16:48] long.
>> Yes.
[1:16:52] I was blown away when I found out how
many people the the Commonwealth of
[1:16:59] Virginia has that uh dedicated to
international business. How many people
[1:17:07] they have dedicated to to visiting and
trying to draw international business is
[1:17:13] really key.
[1:17:16] Yeah, they have they have offices
with both
[1:17:23] represent agenda.
>> I think they count those general
[1:17:30] » but it actually goes two ways. They're
they're there to help sell these brands
[1:17:37] and also I've done this in Europe. I'll
go over
[1:17:44] people point that hold my hand all those
types of things help on the outside for
[1:17:50] us to market ourselves.
>> Well, I think the gap alliance is going
[1:17:57] to help us. Uh, we've got uh Anthony
Carver is a real estate developer
[1:18:06] and uh when he went down to the meeting
in Virginia State, he sat at your table
[1:18:12] and he got to meet Nora and and Roxan
and
[1:18:17] he's already politic with him and says,
you know, if you get a a an inquiry that
[1:18:23] you can't handle, let me know about it.
Maybe maybe Amelia can do it, you know.
[1:18:27] So, uh, Ameilia is of the three, we're
we don't have anything going on like
[1:18:33] they do. They've got a lot of stuff
going on. So, but there all three of the
[1:18:40] both the directors are uh aware of that
and aware of our Commerce Park over
[1:18:44] here. They've already we've already had
some inquiries.
[1:18:48] Well, that was one thing Liz and I we
before we approached the subject about
[1:18:52] the regional thing, we looked at a lot
of detail about what are the common
[1:18:56] things, what are the uncommon things,
but also what are some some synergies
[1:19:02] and I think from a product standpoint,
site standpoint, the three are great
[1:19:07] because Gland is probably more advanced
when it comes to sites.
[1:19:13] Palotan is trying to get there and you
guys have got a nice piece of property
[1:19:17] but you can attract different
>> different sectors and different types of
[1:19:22] companies that maybe don't want to be in
a power tanner because there's no sites
[1:19:27] for
>> that size.
[1:19:28] » Yes.
>> But maybe hey here you go. Plus we look
[1:19:31] at it I thought about this the other
day. I was talking to Liz about it. You
[1:19:35] think about this for a minute. You're
kind of a gateway to the Richmond
[1:19:39] Petersburg metro area, but you're also
gateway the middle part of Parksville,
[1:19:45] Lynchburg, those types of places. So,
you've got opportunity to attract
[1:19:49] » both ways more both ways. Yeah. Well, I
keep having it in the back of my mind
[1:19:53] that when they uh do the 288 extension
and business parks going to come out
[1:19:59] there and they're going to have um no
telling what, but uh maybe we would fit
[1:20:06] in for some uh ancillary business, you
know, but we support them and it's what
[1:20:12] 10 minutes away. Yeah,
it's a ways away, but
[1:20:19] got to have a vision, I guess. Have you
seen any uh these developments that that
[1:20:23] kind of located or center around
agriculture? I look at what Ameilia
[1:20:27] brings. You know, we're an agricultural
community. That's our basis. A lot of
[1:20:31] emphasis now, you know, on food, less
processed,
[1:20:36] um improving the quality of really food
being less processed. And what we offer
[1:20:40] is access here of food is from right
here. So, for example, meat processor,
[1:20:46] you know, there's demand for locally
processed meat. Um, and I didn't know if
[1:20:51] you had any examples of Nelson with the
151's kind of in that way. They could
[1:20:55] use local wheat, but that you're
actually seeing a decrease in drinking
[1:20:59] and the the Z's and and millennials. So,
that to me, that's kind of something
[1:21:04] like the beer train was good 15 years
ago, but it's y'all food thing is hot
[1:21:08] now. I got a 27 year old,
>> she doesn't she makes her own food, no
[1:21:12] process, and she lives in on Monument
Avenue. Friends are the same way.
[1:21:16] » Yeah. So I I kind of see like that's the
attractiveness of millia like you said
[1:21:21] we're the more agricultural of the
three. So we literally could be the
[1:21:25] place that starts to generate that. You
see a lot of interest in power farm to
[1:21:28] tableland also higher income areas
whether if you had any examples of where
[1:21:33] that could be leveraged.
>> Yeah. Well a couple things
[1:21:38] and this is interesting.
My last executive director position with
[1:21:43] the regional group was Virginia's growth
alliance and in the last year before
[1:21:47] that closed down I left I think we had
three or four processing plants. Now
[1:21:53] these weren't big operations but they
were big processing small processing
[1:21:57] plants and
a lot of those come down. Um but as far
[1:22:03] as food hubs is another thing. It's food
hubs and I don't know if you're familiar
[1:22:07] with a food hub or not, but it's they've
been around for a while, but they're
[1:22:10] kind of go on steroids now where
they'll have a facility and it's it can
[1:22:17] serve like four or five different
purposes. Number one, you can have
[1:22:21] somebody who does nothing but packaging
for you know for crops. So they package
[1:22:26] it up, process that type of thing. It's
a pleasure to farmers to bring it's
[1:22:30] almost like a co-op bring our stuff
there. consolidate it will you know go
[1:22:34] off and sell it somewhere. It can also
be for small food production. It can be
[1:22:40] for labeling and marketing. You have a
market and a lot of that is going on
[1:22:45] right now city and you know you're
right. A lot of it can be just organic
[1:22:50] or minimally processed foods that type
of the other thing that
[1:22:56] I almost hate to mention it because it's
a great idea. There's a lot of interest
[1:23:02] in it. There have been some big
companies set up but I think you can
[1:23:05] also do it on a smaller scale. That's
indoor growing.
[1:23:09] that's control environmental
agriculture. People think, you know,
[1:23:12] it's got to be this huge building,
really tall, but you they're modular
[1:23:17] units. They're people who are doing Cay
within containers, shipping containers.
[1:23:23] They they just instrument, put lights in
them, and do things they grow crops in.
[1:23:27] So, there's a lot of stuff like that.
And there are programs for that like the
[1:23:30] high tunnel operations through the
extension service which is something if
[1:23:36] we can line those entities up EDA
agriculture the programs that exist and
[1:23:41] then because people looked at the thing
with Taylor Farms
[1:23:44] » I mean my wife stopped buying vegetables
our our grocery bill went down but we
[1:23:49] didn't buy any kind of stuff like you
know berries all sorts of things because
[1:23:52] people were scared to buy anything.
>> Yeah. You know, nobody wants to sell
[1:23:56] explosive problems.
So, but it does show people all of a
[1:24:01] sudden I watched the Pan farmers market
which was they had moved it and the
[1:24:06] tenants was dropping off and then about
a month ago exploded people going there
[1:24:10] and the farmers markets we've tried in
this area. I don't think they're nearly
[1:24:13] a answer, but the process and being able
to get into being able to encourage that
[1:24:18] and leverage what we do well already
instead of like you mentioned
[1:24:22] necessarily depending on
>> a method where we're trying to put
[1:24:26] different businesses in the site. What
if we took advantage of what we had
[1:24:29] locally and kind of funneled through
that because I don't think the
[1:24:32] importance on food is going to go down.
>> If anything in the US is going to go up
[1:24:36] because we're starting to outsource more
of our agriculture now we're getting
[1:24:38] contamination water stuff is coming
back. a screw worm. I mean, there's all
[1:24:43] sorts of people worrying about where
their food's coming from. So, if you
[1:24:46] kind of get ahead of that and then
that's what we do well already.
[1:24:51] » Do do you have a cooperative where you
you bulk your product and
[1:24:57] » I'm completely ignorant on that. That's
what I was asking. I I still just do we
[1:25:00] just mostly production something you
know I say guys that grow beef here
[1:25:04] mostly sell some sell direct but still
the bulk sell it through the auction
[1:25:08] system. So, but if you had a system you
sell here and you have, you know, Amelia
[1:25:12] brand beef and I think people would
snatch snatch that up, you know, it it
[1:25:17] be something they know where it came
from and when they see the stuff on the
[1:25:20] news, they're not worried about it
because their beef came from, you know,
[1:25:23] 153.
>> Okay. Rather than coming from some other
[1:25:27] place and worried about what's in it and
who did what.
[1:25:30] » Well, there reason I mentioned co I
think it's great a great concept. You're
[1:25:35] great practice. I was uh in my youth in
high school. I was trying to make some
[1:25:42] money for college and president I was
working as a dishwasher and
[1:25:49] president inherited he was from
Wisconsin. He inherited three cherry
[1:25:54] farms in door town just here's Wisconsin
here door county is up here lake
[1:26:00] Michigan bay it's all up there. So he
hired a bunch of local kids to go out
[1:26:05] pick cherries and I remember going out
there summer it was great. First of all
[1:26:11] it was Swedish area tradition Swedish
area. So they bring all these very young
[1:26:15] teenage waitresses over every year and
work in the pancake house. But the
[1:26:21] bottom line was this. I just remember
they didn't sell his he didn't sell his
[1:26:25] cherries direct. He he they had a co-op
drive the truck down tank on the back
[1:26:31] dump the load in there. All these
farmers you remember consolidating and
[1:26:35] they were responsible marketing could
sell it to do it. They split it and it
[1:26:38] was just it was just a good model and I
know there are other places that have
[1:26:43] co-ops that specific jobs and co-ops
that
[1:26:50] but having a facility like I mentioned
where you bring all these spare ones
[1:26:54] together
process do some other things they can't
[1:26:57] just do on their own might be a good
model for you that I'll try to send you
[1:27:03] some
up in the valley. Yeah.
[1:27:09] » And see that that thing up in the valley
I showed was more about I don't think
[1:27:14] they have a
[1:27:18] fields of gold. That's not a co-op type
thing. They're mainly marketing in terms
[1:27:22] of for both the locals the local crops
individually local farm stands that
[1:27:29] type.
[1:27:35] Dave, we want to thank you for coming
in. I think
[1:27:37] » I hope this provided a lot of
information here and I think it's good
[1:27:42] that we captured on the on the video so
we we want to find out go back and
[1:27:47] refresh our memory. We can do that.
>> Well, if you got my card got any
[1:27:51] questions at all, reach out to me. Happy
to answer reach out to Liz. She's the
[1:27:56] much better looking part of our
partnership. So, reach out to her and
[1:28:01] all have it done. And again, thank you
for being a member of of GA.
[1:28:08] Best days are ahead.
>> Yeah.
[1:28:11] » What time do you have to be in Richmond?
>> Our meeting thought
[1:28:18] » and we go to lunch.
>> All right. How about uh entertain a
[1:28:22] motion to adjourn? So move. Second.
>> Thank you.