Our community has had several groups formed, officially and unofficially, to try to jump-start our local economy. There has been significant progress on the tourism front, but very little, if any progress on attracting business investment to Gilmer County. The economic development plan presented here was developed by a team which grew out of the Catalyst Group, which began visioneering for Gilmer in March, 2013. In a nutshell, the plan calls for the hiring of an Economic Development Professional to be housed in the Gilmer Chamber Facility and whose work will be to focused on existing business retention and expansion as well as business recruitment. When you study the Organizational Chart, please note that the plan pools the resources from the county, both municipalities, the various authorities, the Chamber, and the Greater Gilmer Foundation. The importance of this collaborative approach is two-fold.

First, by pooling the resources of these various entities, the financial investment will not be burdensome on any one agency. In these times of tight budgets, this is a vital ingredient for any viable plan. Second, by pooling the resources of the various entities, the community will be able to get behind a shared vision and apply all its resources on one effort instead of several disjointed and ineffective efforts. By collaborating on the marketing effort for our community, everyone will have to come together to agree on one plan and one approach. I think we can all agree this level of cooperation has been lacking for decades in this community, if it ever existed.

The organizational chart for the proposed Economic Development Initiative can be found here:  Catalyst EDC Structure

Everyone has been talking about the need for jobs, jobs, jobs for a while now. This is the only viable plan I am aware of to move beyond the talk to proactive marketing to actually bring new jobs to Gilmer.