Economic development talk ramping up in the county

Momentum builds for government/business partnership

What started as a government-driven conversation about economic growth in the Gunnison Valley is quickly transforming into a community-led effort to make economic growth sustainable and real.

About 30 government and community business leaders met on Thursday, April 21 for a follow-up meeting to a March economic development summit. They came together to identify and submit five economic goals to Governor Hickenlooper’s Bottom Up Economic Development Initiative in May, but they left with a new goal: make the realization of those goals a reality.
“They’re trying to take a different approach to [economic development]. Some say it needs to be government-driven. One of the things that came out of this meeting is no, it doesn’t. It needs to be a private [sector]/government partnership,” said Mt. Crested Butte Town Council member Dave Clayton. “It’s not something the government needs to do, it’s something the people of Gunnison County need to do, and the government can assist.”
That means figuring out the best way to actually encourage the growth of existing business and industries, diversify the valley’s economic base to be less susceptible to boom and bust cycles, increase existing tourism, create a more business-friendly climate and create new, better paying jobs.
The nature of these goals has shifted since the group’s first meeting in March, when discussion focused on ideas like improving Internet infrastructure and improving airline service into the region. But those strategies haven’t disappeared, according to Clayton. They have been identified as just that: strategic actions that can be taken to meet the broader goals.
“You’ll see improving Internet and bandwidth as strategies under improving the economic base,” Clayton explained.
Thursday’s meeting helped the group identify action steps for each goal and tailor the goals themselves to the Gunnison Valley.
“We modified the goals and all of the strategies,” said Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Chamber of Commerce executive director Richard Bond. “For example, creating new jobs was changed to create more high paying jobs, because it’s not going take a lot to create $8 an hour jobs. We could probably do that today without a lot of energy, but to create $80 an hour jobs is really where we want to be.”
“I think they’ve got a good outline put together for moving forward,” said Michael Kraatz, Crested Butte Mountain Resort director of real estate and sales, who also attended the meeting. “The key will be, of course, having someone who really takes this on. Whether it’s an employee of the county or somebody who works through the chamber is being looked at, but you know, with anything it requires having a champion who moves it forward and gets it attention and makes things happen.”
Summit organizers are wasting no time figuring out how to make things happen. A steering committee made up of representatives from the chambers of commerce and county commissioners Phil Chamberland and Paula Swenson met on Tuesday, April 26, to begin developing an organizational structure and funding mechanism to drive economic growth.
“We have formulated a couple of options for structure and a couple of proposals for funding of an organization which we have to develop in the course of the next several weeks and present to the group,” Richard Bond said. The subcommittee still needs to work out details and pursue conversations with potential funding partners before going public. But one thing is clear: the plan will involve a public/private partnership, and once it has been identified, that plan will be shared.
“We want to develop an education program like a PowerPoint [presentation],” Swenson said. “Have the group make presentations about where we are going and how we got where we got. I gave one yesterday morning, to the Rotary, and it was fabulous to get more people engaged.”
According to Swenson, it’s thrilling to see the enthusiasm behind the group’s efforts.
“The collaborative effort, knowing we are small, we’re not going to spend $5 million, but there’s a lot of things we can go out and agree on as a community,” Swenson said.
Even individuals initially skeptical or wary of the economic development summit have expressed their enthusiasm to Swenson.  
“They realized what I presented was a starting point to take the conversation forward, and everybody got to have a say and be involved in it,” she said.
Many who were involved in the summit are observing a general enthusiasm and sense of excitement new to the topic of economic development. Past attempts have sometimes floundered to find footing.
“One of the past economic development initiatives was the act of a committee of the Gunnison chamber [of commerce] years ago. It spun off into a separate organization. There were challenges funding [that organization], staffing it, giving it the right priorities. It became a political sandbox and failed for a whole host of reasons,” Bond said.
According to Gunnison Chamber of Commerce executive Director Tammy Scott, The Gunnison Valley Economic Development Committee (EDC) to which Bond referred was a public-private partnership that began as a council under the Gunnison Chamber.
“As the council grew, it became apparent that to achieve its goals, it needed more political push than a council could provide,” Scott said. But as the board turned over, “other people came on with different ideas, and it morphed out of its original vision. It lost momentum.”
According to Scott, the EDC found some footing when it helped develop the airline program at the inception of the Rural Transportation Authority. But according to Bond, the struggle to find footing has sometimes made it difficult to build enthusiasm for economic development.
“People have never felt excited about economic development because of past failures,” Bond said.
This time, however, people seem to be saying—albeit cautiously—sustainable economic development could be real, and more than just talk or politics.
Bond did observe that a smaller group attended the April 21 meeting than the March summit. Fewer businesses seemed to be represented, with more governments and NGOs represented. But he’s not convinced there is anything to read into that. He sees an active group committed to an opportunity for people to collect ideas and share them. And according to Swenson, scheduling issues prevented some enthusiastic business leaders, like president of Gunnison Savings and Loan Steve Williams, from attending. Yet Williams helped Swenson present to the Rotary the next day, generating new enthusiasm among that group. And the simple truth remains that it’s a process that will take time, and no one is sugar-coating the work that lies ahead.
Even as the Gunnison Valley’s economic goals will be submitted to Region 10, and in turn to Governor Hickenlooper in May, the steering committee will continue to develop options for a structure and to support economic growth and funding. A third economic summit will be held at the end of May, with the goal of discussing those options and continuing to lay out a plan.
“Step by step, we have to continue to understand that we are committed to this for years and years and years,” Swenson said. “And every year we have to look at it. And that’s the good thing about this group. They are committed to coming back annually or biannually to reevaluate.”
 “You have to keep doing it,” Clayton said. “Economic development means developing a framework, so you know what you’re trying to attract. So you know when you get it if it’s something you want or don’t want. How to go about getting what you want.”