LEDC Update

A big thank you to everyone who came out to our first Small Business Workshop this last Wednesday at the County Seat Café! A little over 30 attendees came out to listen to our speaker, Kathy Williams, discuss best practices and effective strategies in bookkeeping.

Kathy did a wonderful job discussing the topic and fielding questions from the audience and we greatly appreciate her for being our very first workshop speaker! Another big thank you to Doug Carter and Ray Wallace for recording the presentation for us. We will have the video presentation posted online in the near future and we plan on having all workshop videos archived on our own website once we have that up and running.

I was extremely happy to see the turnout on Wednesday and I am so grateful to everyone who participated in this new endeavor. All that said, the phrase that keeps coming to my mind when I reflect on last week’s workshop is, “It’s a good start.”

Now, that is not to say that I’m not happy with the outcome. I’m overjoyed, but I also believe that what transpired was just that—a good start. It was a great beginning that we will continue to work to see grow into something even greater. So, if you missed the opportunity to participate in this workshop, I would highly encourage you attend our next one—and the one after that as well! These events are designed to provide valuable information to our business community in Linden, and I want to maintain and expand the level of outreach that we saw last week.

Last week, I also had the opportunity to speak to the Morris County Collaborative [MCC] at their Economic Development Forum in Lone Star. The MCC is a group of devoted and innovative Morris county citizens that have banded together to discuss ways to revitalize the communities in their county.

Their goal is to form effective and powerful allegiances within and without of their community in an effort to design a path for prosperity for their citizens. I was extremely excited to have this opportunity to meet with the MCC because they represent the same progressive fervor that the LEDC represents for the city of Linden.

Maintaining a good working relationship with neighboring cities, counties, and communities always needs to be a focus of an effective economic development corporation. I always greatly value the chances I get to partner with external organizations because I know that for every bridge that we can build, we open up exponentially more opportunities for our city and our citizens.

We partner with a plethora of organizations including the North East Texas Economic Development Roundtable, the East Texas Council of Governments, the Small Business Development Center of Northeast Texas, the Texas Workforce Commission, and many others.

If you’re unfamiliar with any of these organizations that I just listed, I would highly encourage that you look them up. They each serve a vital role in the economic landscape of Northeast Texas and they also administer some fantastic programs that you may be able to put to good use.

In conclusion, I’m left thinking about what I’m thankful for as we enjoy this holiday of Thanksgiving.

I am truly grateful for the fantastic progress I’ve seen take place in our city and for the wonderful people that I get to work with to make that progress happen. Here is to a Happy Thanksgiving, Linden!