The Sport of Business Retention

I am extremely honored to have received the International Economic Development Council’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” in absentia last week. I have received several awards in my life: 7th place in the 50-yard dash at Mark Twain elementary, the eternally late award...

A Lifetime of Lessons and Thanks

I am extremely honored to have received the International Economic Development Council’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” in absentia last week. I have received several awards in my life: 7th place in the 50-yard dash at Mark Twain elementary, the eternally late award...

An Economic Developers Inauguration Poem

I have been writing my blog for almost 10 years, Warning small communities of their own worst fears. So, as I sit in my home while in quarantine, My thoughts have now gone beyond Covid 19.   Each January I write resolutions that you read online, I thought I would...

2021: It Will Be the Best of Times

Thank goodness the year is finally coming to an end.!!!! Charles Dickens words are certainly prophetic for 2020. “It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times”. In the future, most of us will remember this year being the worst of times. It reminds me of...

And the award goes to…

I love July.  I love the warm weather, the weekend barbecues, watching the Seattle Mariners valiantly battle for last place, and because I celebrate another year of being born (it’s the 22nd, in case you’re wondering or are in a shopping mood). But I really love this...

Start, Stop, Continue

When I was young, I use to love watching game shows. Shows like You Bet Your Life, Truth, or Consequences, and What’s My Line were just a few of the 51 game shows that were on television in the 1960s. But I didn’t want to be a contestant on those TV shows. I wanted to...

An ode to 2018.

Another year has come and gone, There are many things we can dwell on. But as we look to the future, reflect on the past, We hope our good fortune will continue to last. 2018 was certainly a year, Where economic trends were often unclear. So rather than making New...