The City of Delaware announced today that Courtney Hendershot is the new Economic Development Coordinator.
Hendershot previously served Parkersburg and Wood County, West Virginia, as Events and Marketing Coordinator for Main Street PKB and Marketing Director for the Wood County Economic Development Office. She also has private sector sales and marketing experience.
Based upon concerns that Ohio currently underperforms in many innovation ecosystem components and ranks 39th in the rate of entrepreneurs and 48th in startup creation, the state’s private sector economic development corporation, JobsOhio, is launching a substantial innovation initiative. The election of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine did not signal the end of previous Governor John Kasich’s JobsOhio corporate to run the state’s economic development program. In fact, with the appointment of several new board members and a new JobsOhio President, JP Nauseff, JobsOhio undertook a “listening session” to determine the next direction for the organization. JP Nauseff announced that new direction is what is termed JobsOhio 2.0 at a board meeting in Lima, Ohio several months ago.
The United States will remain a corporate site location powerhouse in 2020 ignoring the chaos of a presidential election and continued trade disputes based upon the analysis of the Montrose Group for what trends are apparent for corporate site location in 2020. Corporate site location projects are more likely in nations and regions with a growing economy. Economic growth creates the wealth that attracts capital and workers. Slow growth regions are often unattractive to companies considering economic consolidation and expansion projects.
Church & Dwight Co., Inc., has announced that it will invest $38 million at its facility in the village of Old Fort, Ohio, for expansion of consumer products manufacturing and construction of a new warehouse. Final approval for the project is contingent upon the receipt of state and local incentives; if approved, construction is expected to be completed in 2020, and the company would be hiring up to 60 new employees.
It’s easy to identify a “growth city” once it’s grown. With hindsight, you can point back to reasons why Austin, Denver and Charlotte became hotspots for budding businesses. The harder thing to do is to predict which city is next.