{"id":170440,"date":"2023-09-20T03:55:41","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T08:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=170440"},"modified":"2023-09-21T03:47:43","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T08:47:43","slug":"stevens-talks-about-economic-development-future-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2023\/09\/20\/stevens-talks-about-economic-development-future-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Stevens talks about economic development"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONVOY — Economic development in Van Wert County and how it relates to students was one of the presentations made during Monday\u2019s meeting of the Crestview Local Schools Board of Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Wert Area Economic Development Executive Director Brent Stevens noted he\u2019s making the rounds to schools within the county to share information about development projects underway and potential future business development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
VWAEDC Executive Director Brent Stevens explains what potential businesses are looking for locally. Scott Truxell\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to change anyone\u2019s curriculum, I\u2019m trying to figure out what you do today, how I can package what you\u2019re doing and sell to the people who are coming into Van Wert to look at us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stevens said since April, he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of facets, like engineers, mathematics and those types of degrees that they\u2019re looking for,\u201d Stevens said. \u201c(They want to know) what the schools doing to help provide flow that\u2019s going to be coming up through the system in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said U.S. companies don\u2019t 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 \u201cSwitch\u201d curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really cool program and I haven\u2019t decided how I\u2019m going to put it together yet, all I know is I\u2019m going to figure out the funding to buy it,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cIt\u2019s $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\u2019ll have a driveable car. Then it all comes apart and do it all over again and that\u2019s the nice thing about it\u2026it\u2019s sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy 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,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s meeting of the Crestview Local Schools Board of Education. Van Wert Area Economic Development Executive Director Brent Stevens noted he\u2019s making the rounds to schools within the county to share […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 22:23:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170440"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170506,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170440\/revisions\/170506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}