The Greene County Development Corporation Board met in a special session Wednesday morning at the Greene County Community Center in Jefferson to hear a presentation from one of the options to possibly choose for a new director.

During their monthly meeting earlier in June, the GCDC Board discussed different pathways to choose a new director, following the previous director stepping down in May. The options were doing a statewide or a national search, partnering with another entity in the county, or looking to be with a close by group such as the Ames Regional Economic Alliance (AREA), which the membership leaned on the ladder to learn more. 

AREA President and CEO Dan Culhane and Senior Vice President Brenda Dryer gave their pitch to GCDC and they highlighted not only their partnerships with other communities, but also their successes, a few failures and how they would function in conjunction with GCDC. It was mentioned that since AREA was established in 2012, they have an executive team of 18 individuals that have helped to secure over $56 million of external funding to go along with just under $1 billion of capital investments for projects within their ten community partners that includes Boone, Hamilton and Story Counties, as well as the cities of Boone, Story City, Huxley, Nevada, Ames and Webster City.

GCDC President Scott Weber revealed that he was most impressed by looking at each of their community partners with a keen eye to treat their entire network with different ways to improve and make their communities better.

“And they all believe in community development and economic development. It doesn’t matter if you have 50 people living in your town or 10,000, they want success. And they talked about those successes and what that looks like for those communities. I was just impressed with their successes in all of their communities, whether small or large, and how they accomplish that through their involvement with everybody that steps up to the plate in volunteerism, and just those sorts of things. I think it was really good.”     

Some of the successes that were highlighted include facilitating a $500,000 Community Attraction and Tourism Grant for a project at the Iowa Arboretum in Boone County, as well as helping to bring DAISY to the city of Boone and they have assisted with over 500 workforce development housing unit projects.  

As for what was envisioned for GCDC, AREA would hire a new individual to act as either the executive director or liaison that would be under the purview of AREA. That individual would also be embedded in the county, attend events, as well as join other organizations or civic groups. If GCDC agreed to pursue partnering with AREA, it would be for a minimum of three years. 

Weber thought the meeting was well attended by their membership and there were lots of great questions and concerns that AREA addressed. He added that they will meet again next week for further discussions, but that he anticipated choosing a direction to move forward with by next month.