Stevens talks about economic development

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

CONVOY — Economic development in Van Wert County and how it relates to students was one of the presentations made during Monday’s meeting of the Crestview Local Schools Board of Education.

Van Wert Area Economic Development Executive Director Brent Stevens noted he’s making the rounds to schools within the county to share information about development projects underway and potential future business development.

When discussing options in Van Wert County, Stevens said businesses interested in setting up shop locally want to know more about how the schools are preparing potential future employees.

“I’m not trying to change anyone’s curriculum, I’m trying to figure out what you do today, how I can package what you’re doing and sell to the people who are coming into Van Wert to look at us,” he said.

Stevens said since April, he’s had approximately 45 inquiries from companies from overseas, east coast and west coast and he said 95 percent of the companies looking locally are renewable related, EV (electric vehicle) related, technology-based companies.

“There’s a lot of facets, like engineers, mathematics and those types of degrees that they’re looking for,” Stevens said. “(They want to know) what the schools doing to help provide flow that’s going to be coming up through the system in the future.”

He also said U.S. companies don’t want to deal with overseas supply chain issues and are looking to relocate companies they have abroad back to the United States, and he mentioned the “Switch” curriculum.

“It’s a really cool program and I haven’t decided how I’m going to put it together yet, all I know is I’m going to figure out the funding to buy it,” Stevens said. “It’s $75,000 for one program and it is an EV powered car that comes lithium batteries and the kids will go in and build this car from scratch, so they will learn coding, they will learn EV batteries, they will learn motors, they will learn welding and put this car together and at they end they’ll have a driveable car. Then it all comes apart and do it all over again and that’s the nice thing about it…it’s sustainable.”

“My plan on the economic development side of things is to get one for the county and then figure out how to utilize it within the school system,” he added.

Stevens briefly mentioned the Mega Site, which consists of 1,600 acres of land in Van Wert, outside of the Crestview school district, and Vision Industrial Park in Van Wert.

The board also heard from Program Services Director Amy Eikholt, who talked about how the district helps non-English speaking students. That story can be found here.