{"id":54835,"date":"2014-08-23T07:25:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T12:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=54835"},"modified":"2014-08-25T07:34:28","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T12:34:28","slug":"chambers-hold-7-county-econ-development-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2014\/08\/23\/chambers-hold-7-county-econ-development-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Chambers host regional ED summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/b>independent editor<\/i><\/p>\n

ARCHBOLD — Representatives of seven northwest\/west central Ohio Chambers of Commerce met this week at Northwest State Community College in Archbold to discuss how they can best collaborate to enhance economic development in the region.<\/p>\n

\"Northwest<\/a>
Northwest State Community College President Dr. Thomas Stuckey (standing) moderates a discussion on regional economic development issues during a summit held earlier this week at Northwest State in Archbold. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Counties represented include Van Wert, Defiance, Paulding, Henry, Fulton, Williams and Putnam.<\/p>\n

In addition to Chamber executives and business representatives, mayors of several communities in the region \u2013 including Van Wert Mayor Don Farmer \u2013 also attended the meeting.<\/p>\n

Dr. Thomas Stuckey, president of Northwest State, acted as facilitator of the forum, moderating a discussion that took place on a number of economic development topics, including regionalization, workforce development and partnerships between government and private businesses and organizations.<\/p>\n

Local Chamber President\/CEO Susan Munroe said she felt the forum provide lots of good feedback on economic development issues, as well as sowing the seeds of collaboration across the region. Others attending from Van Wert County, in addition to Munroe and Mayor Farmer, were OSU Extension Community Development Director Cindy Leis, David Thompson of the Kenn-Feld Group, Vantage Adult Education Director Pete Hayes, \u00a0and Dan Litchfield of Iberdrola Renewables.<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborating with the central\/northwest Ohio counties for economic development, private\/public partnerships, (and) educational and workforce issues is a strategic, tactical necessity as we look to attract businesses to our area,\u201d Munroe noted. \u201cOur counties share similar goals and challenges: we all want to see job growth; we all want to attract prospects while retaining our young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Munroe and others were optimistic about the possibility of establishing regional partnerships that could benefit all seven counties. \u201cThis seven-county summit is just the beginning to begin to reap the assets of this region, collaborate, reduce redundancies and share best economic development practices,\u201d Munroe said.<\/p>\n

One summit participant from Bryan put it best: \u201cWhat benefits northwest Ohio, benefits Bryan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that kind of understanding and appreciation of the impact of collaboration that employers look for when evaluating a community,\u201d Munroe added.<\/p>\n

In addition to four hours of facilitated discussion on various economic development topics, forum attendees came together at lunchtime for more informal talk about future plans stemming from the earlier discussion.<\/p>\n

Other meetings are planned to develop actions plans arising from this past week\u2019s summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor ARCHBOLD — Representatives of seven northwest\/west central Ohio Chambers of Commerce met this week at Northwest State Community College in Archbold to discuss how they can best collaborate to enhance economic development in the region. Counties represented include Van Wert, Defiance, Paulding, Henry, Fulton, Williams and Putnam. In addition to Chamber executives […]<\/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-54835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-04 09:21:43","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\/54835","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=54835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}