Honoring the Job Creators

I was the keynote speaker last week at the East Idaho Business Awards Program put on by the Regional Development Alliance, Inc., a ten county regional economic development organization. Regional efforts such as this are a very strong effort to allow smaller towns to stand out in the crowd. It takes courage to recognize that economic development in one community helps the neighboring ones in the long term. It doesn’t make sense for them to fight each other, when they should be working together.

The counties in this effort range in population from only 1,000 to over 80,000. Four of the ten have less than 10,000 in the entire county, and these are BIG counties.

Honored at the luncheon was AMET, which I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Other manufacturers were: Premier Technologies (185 employees), that started locally in 1995; Blackfoot Brass (16), also locally started in 1990; Lost River Ballistics (8), that moved to the very rural county because it was where the owner wanted to live; DuBois Leather and Shoe Company, which has sold boots and orthopedic shoes in 38 states; and QBeam Products (95). Also honored were several in the professional and services business.

While a 20 or 30 person operation might not sound like a big deal to someone from a large city, in a county of under 5,000 this is generally one of the larger employers in the county. They are always the first place that people in town go for donations, often provide a high level of professionalism, and provide excellent employment opportunities. They are usually the backbone of a small town or county.