Editor’s Note: “The Economic Development Side” originally appears in the Pine Bluff Regional Chamber of Commerce’s weekly member e-newsletter. It is written by Rhonda Dishner, the Economic Development Alliance’s executive assistant.
This is a report about nothing. Or at least nothing specific. Activities last week at the Economic Development Alliance were more routine than normal. So, there’s nothing exceptional to talk about in today’s column.
There were no visiting VIPs hosted by the Alliance. No Alliance staff member attended an out-of-town conference or made a presentation to state or local officials. Not one of us received a prestigious award or nomination. No industrial prospect decided to make a location announcement or happened to drop by the office to discuss that possibility.
Those are the kinds of things we generally like to report, promote and brag about here (with pride but certainly not with a prideful attitude). But that’s not to say that economic development activities weren’t taking place last week.
Even a routine week of economic development at the Alliance can be positively dizzying in intensity. An example: scores of phone calls and emails that result in more emails; numerous meetings to plan and attend, including one breakfast meeting and one working lunch; a grant to write on a two-day deadline; a multitude of reports to write; other reports to review and edit; memos to send; a board meeting to prepare for and attend; a lengthy conference call and a webinar (online seminar); industry survey visits; and phone calls to and from industrial prospects and their representatives.
It’s always all-hands-on-deck mode on the economic development side of the Alliance because each part of the small, dedicated team offers invaluable support toward getting this work accomplished. There are even actual, isolated cases of near-collisions in the hallways as our energetic staffers walk really fast (run) to complete their portion of tasks on time. Go, team!
Sometimes we all need these less-busy-than-normal weeks to rest up for the next big event. And I’ll know when that is…just as soon as I locate my calendar still buried beneath all the piles of files and papers from the last “slow” week.