public entities and partners. I meet quarterly with our industries to learn of their challenges and opportunities and then connect them with local and state resources and incentives to assist. The innovation center piece is funded from an appropriation from the General Assembly and works in conjunction with the Missouri Department of Economic Development and Missouri Technology Corporation to operate in their respective target areas and programming. Businesses have differing needs, but most all need access to capital. We connect entrepreneurs with state programs, and then we have been awarded a USDA Revolving Loan Fund grant for micro-lending projects. Finally, the small business development center subcontracts with the state’s SBA partner to offer counseling services, which is federally funded. Those services include business counseling, business plan and financial assistance, plus education and training. All of these entities collaborating, sharing staff and space, allows for a holistic all-inclusive approach to economic development. The reward comes in many forms, but it is the help our citizens get. When an entrepreneur comes in and gets help in starting a business, it is a win. When a local major employer is able to expand and increase wages, local citizens make more money. They in turn get to buy a house, a car, or expand their family. We believe a rising tide raises all ships. What have you been working on in recent months? Several current projects that we’ve recently worked on revolve around workforce needs in labor force participation, childcare, and housing. So, labor force participation. In every community in the US, businesses cannot find workers. In some areas, immigration is a legitimate means of gaining new employees. For some areas of the country, less so. But as I look at the labor force participation rate in my community, I see that over the past five years it has been shrinking. Even before COVID, it had been in decline and continues to fall. I estimate that if I can work to increase the labor force participation rate by 5%, it would add 450 workers to the job seeker field. That does not mean I recruit new people to town, I get the people who already live here to work. As I dig further into the data, which labor force participation counts those 16-65 years of age, I see it is not the teenagers or the elderly who are not the ones working. It is those ages 25-54 who are not working. My plan is to find out why. Why are so many of the citizens not working? What barriers are keeping them from work? This will take resources of time, money, and manpower to determine. But once it is understood, I am preparing to solve the problems. For example, if a large number of people state the issue/ barrier to employment is transportation—how does my community fix that? If the barrier is a lack of available and affordable childcare—how does my community address it. And so on. Another project is childcare. I began looking at the childcare situation in the summer of 2019 because many of my local companies came to me stating it was an issue that needed a community solution. A committee formed to learnmore about local options, and decided to conduct a survey of employees to determine needs. It was late fall 2019 at this point. I went on maternity leave in early December to have my fourth child, and thought—will get this survey out when I return. Of course, inMarch of 2020, the world shut down with COVID. The survey did not get distributed till August of 2020, because we knew COVID impacts would be shown more so than regular needs. Regardless, survey taken, action steps taken, and we still have a need in 2022. I am going to do a second round of the childcare survey in the next month, and then move forward on a community solution. But I have Q THE CEO INTERVIEW
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mjk3Mzkz