Federal Budget: Funding for Key #EconDev Programs

Apr 26, 2018 | Advocacy

Federal Budget: The omnibus spending bill passed by Congress in March authorized favorable spending levels for 2018 for federal economic development programs, including:

  • Economic Development Agency – 302 million for fiscal 2018; about $26 million above fiscal 2017;
  • Manufacturing Extension Program – received $140 million; $10 million above fiscal 2017;
  • CDBG – received roughly $3.3 billion; $365 million about fiscal 2017;
  • TIGER – received $1.5 billion; $1 billion above fiscal 2017 ;
  • Rural Business-Cooperative Service – received roughly $77 million; about $12 million above fiscal 2017
  • Employment and Training Administration apprenticeship opportunities – received $145 million; $50 million above fiscal 2017;
  • Minority Business Development Agency – received $39 million; $5 million over fiscal 2017, and
  • Appalachian Regional Commission- received $155 million; $3 million over fiscal 2017.

Capitalizing on rural corporate site location opportunities

Nov 24, 2020

Rural communities are prime targets for companies considering a corporate site location project. Rural areas in the U.S. cover 97 % of the nation’s land area but contain 19.3 % of the population who are more likely to own a single family home, are older and less likely to hold a bachelor’s degree or be in poverty than their urban counters.

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AEP Names Wells Vice President, Sales, Economic and Business Development

Nov 17, 2020

American Electric Power (Nasdaq: AEP) has promoted Timothy J. Wells to vice president, Sales, Economic and Business Development, effective Nov. 2, 2020. Wells replaces Mark James who retired last month.

Wells, 55, will lead AEP’s efforts to attract new commercial and industrial customers to its service territory and help existing customers take advantage of AEP’s growing menu of business consultation services. AEP has unique expertise in the energy field and has become a trusted energy advisor to many of its larger customers. Wells will be responsible for leading growth in services that fall outside of the distribution and transmission of electricity, in addition to helping communities bring new jobs to their local economies.

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