Julie Knutson
President & CEO, The Oklahoma Academy
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Several common themes emerged from the community forums that were held in Oklahoma. One theme that especially stood out in the smaller rural communities was the recognition of the importance of working together as much as possible with communities in close proximity to each other. This includes recognizing the strengths and services that one town has but another does not and finding avenues to share and market ideas that can be of benefit to all of the adjacent communities. Examples where adjacent communities can work together are pooling resources that would perhaps provide opportunity for growth in industry already there or create the appropriate entrepreneurial atmosphere to start and grow new businesses; and working together on cultural and community projects and events so that a regional event or project is held, rather than an individual community bearing the cost of holding their own event.

Concerns expressed in Arkansas’ community forums make it clear that a “wait it out” option is not feasible: chambers of commerce are losing membership; fuel costs are way up; capital is scarce; retirement fund volatility has upended many lives; and industries such as forestry and aviation/aerospace have taken major hits. There is consensus that we need to build on and diversify what we’ve got, as well as create new strategies to help us move ahead. We’re seeing solid collaboration among our state and local governments and two-year colleges to partner and help us keep and find skilled labor, when needed. There are plans to re-focus local economic development strategies to a buy local push. Other ideas include imbedding entrepreneurship training into all K-Gray education and training programs and emphasizing basic business and soft work skills for the emerging, existing, and dislocated/transitional (includes retirees) work forces.

Andre Temple, Ed.D., AICP
Economic Development Specialist, Institute for Public Service, University of Tennessee
Martin, Tennessee

The overarching theme to the forums that were held in Tennessee was that elected officials and economic development practitioners should use existing resources and partners in leveraging and creating new economic development opportunities. Forum participants from larger cities overwhelmingly stated that federal and state spending should be increased to assist existing community agencies that were created to help economically distressed residents bridge the gap during this economic downturn. However, participants from rural communities did not encourage additional federal spending to alleviate the recent economic downturn. Instead, they proposed solutions such as retooling the region’s workforce in order to meet the needs of this rapidly changing global economy.

Dr. Doug Whitlock
President, Eastern Kentucky University
Member of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and Madison County Schools Board of Education
Richmond, Kentucky

Eastern Kentucky University recently partnered with the Richmond and Berea Chambers of Commerce and the Madison County Schools as we hosted more than 100 of our community’s business, education, government and high school student leaders to discuss our region’s response to the current economic crisis. Many promising ideas were raised at the forum, but the one that received the most attention was the idea of building on existing collaborative community partnerships to develop a common vision for the entire county. Related to this was a desire to broaden the community dialogue, while continuing to emphasize the importance of including the voices of our young people. A sense of optimism prevailed, with participants expressing the feeling that we are going to come out of this crisis as a much stronger region.