{"id":22756,"date":"2012-04-04T06:34:43","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T11:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=22756"},"modified":"2012-04-05T05:15:42","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T10:15:42","slug":"crestview-grad-named-new-county-development-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/04\/04\/crestview-grad-named-new-county-development-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Crestview grad new development director"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
New Van Wert County Economic Development Director Sarah (Moser) Smith (standing) goes over some paperwork with development assistant Darlene Myers on Tuesday. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Van Wert County has a new economic development director and this one doesn\u2019t have to do much to get up to speed on what the county offers to prospective clients.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Sarah (Moser) Smith grew up in the western part of the county around the Convoy area in the 1980s and mid-1990s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from Van Wert, I grew up in Van Wert and I remember it as a kid,\u201d Smith said Tuesday when she was introduced by Van Wert Mayor Don Farmer. \u201cI\u2019m happy to be home and I\u2019m excited about what I remember, and to see what they still are doing, and what they are doing different, and what they want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the 1996 Crestview High School graduate last lived in the county 15 years ago, but those intervening years are what make her an asset to county economic development efforts. Smith, a former officer in the United States Air Force who married a fellow officer, was a premed student at the University of Wyoming when she decided to join the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to fly more than I wanted to be a doctor, so I pursued becoming a pilot,\u201d Smith said, noting that she spent most of her time in the Air Force in AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft, the planes that control an airborne battle using sophisticated radar and guidance systems.<\/p>\n

Smith later earned a master\u2019s degree in human relations at the University of Oklahoma and also managed to accumulate a family of five children — three of her husband\u2019s from a previous marriage and two of their own. The children range from 11 years to 10 months.<\/p>\n

The Smiths\u2019 military careers have taken them to a number of places, including Italy, Korea, Las Vegas and Oklahoma City, something Smith says she feels could be an advantage in the global competition for economic development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s neat to see different areas and bring it home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s husband, who remains in the Air Force and is an aerospace engineer who graduated from Georgia Tech, is currently commuting to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton to work in a research lab there, but plans to retire in a few years.<\/p>\n

Although she said she knows the county has changed somewhat from when she lived here, Smith, the daughter of county farmer Gary Moser and his wife, Connie, a teacher at Crestview High School, did stress that economic development should be the focus for the entire county, not just the county seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just the City of Van Wert, but Wren, Convoy, Middle Point, everywhere, is part of the county,\u201d she noted, adding she will be getting acquainted with the county\u2019s economic development stakeholders over the next few weeks and learning about local development efforts.<\/p>\n

Smith said that while the megasite north of Van Wert is important, her top priority is the retention of existing businesses, since that\u2019s where most new jobs are created.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetention is huge \u2026 the BR&E program \u2026 there\u2019s a lot going on from Jobs Ohio,\u201d she noted. \u201cWe going to be doing visits, going out and meeting the businesses, finding out what they want, what they want to see with Van Wert, what they need to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also plans to quickly get up to speed because of the time lag from when her predecessor, Nancy Bowen, resigned to take a regional development job until she was hired.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has ideas, and that\u2019s what we have to sort through what works, what doesn\u2019t work for Van Wert,\u201d Smith said, but also added, \u201cI don\u2019t want people to think we want a business so badly that we\u2019re going to take anything \u2026 we need to be a little selective, and we really need to get what works for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

While being a county native gives her added perspective about the county and what it offers, Mayor Farmer stressed that it was her ideas about economic development and not where she’s from that landed her the county development job.<\/p>\n

The Wyoming and Oklahoma college grad said she was also excited about finally becoming a Buckeye.<\/p>\n

“Always wanted to come back to The Ohio State University … be a Buckeye for sure … because everyone always asks ‘did you even go to Ohio State?'” Smith said with a smile. “And now I’m a part of Ohio State Extension, so I’m excited to do that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Van Wert County has a new economic development director and this one doesn\u2019t have to do much to get up to speed on what the county offers to prospective clients. That\u2019s because Sarah (Moser) Smith grew up in the western part of the county around the Convoy area in the 1980s and […]<\/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-22756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 08:41:49","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\/22756","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=22756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}