What Is Economic Development? With Jennifer Daniels

In today's episode of The Gateway Connection Podcast, Joey O'Hern is joined by Jennifer Daniels, Executive Director of Columbia County Economic Development. Listen in as they discuss what economic development is and how the work their team does helps bring opportunities to Columbia County.

Thank you for listening today, and thank you to Security Safe for their support of the Gateway Connection Podcast! For more ways to connect with us, visit lnk.bio/gatewaychamber.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our targeted sectors as a state shifted dramatically from the old-fashioned distribution, food manufacturing, that type of packing and shipping industry to smart technology. How do we bridge that gap with a workforce? Is really been the conversation from even the state level. The types of companies who are looking, and these are companies who invest significant amounts of money in order to grow the community, not just their business. They have us on their radar and they realize that this is an up and coming and growing community. That in itself is exciting.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Welcome to the Gateway Connection Podcast, where we connect you with the movers, shakers, and leaders shaping our region. I'm Joey O'Hearn, Executive Director of the Chamber, and your host. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Thanks for having me, Joey. I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

So tell us about you, what all you do, which I know is kind of a loaded question, and then we'll get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

So I am the county's economic development director, which is a fancy term for my job is to help attract and retain business and industry here in the county. And that includes inside of the city limits, all the way down to Fort White, from the top end of the county to the bottom. My job is to create an environment where business and industry would like to come here and invest their dollars in our community.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Well, it's funny you mentioned that.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

You know, we've got the ideal location logistically speaking. And anybody can see that when you Google Lake City, Columbia County, right? We're at the intersection of I-10 and I-75, the only place in the state of Florida where that happens. So, you know, logistically speaking, you can get anywhere in the state of in the United States from Lake City through a truck, north, south, east, and west. We've got great connectivity with rails. We have, you know, a relationship with Jack's Port and the Inland Port there. There are so many logistic assets that just make Lake City and Columbia County stand out from our competitors across the state. But even more so, it's the community itself. Companies these days, when they come to visit and look for a site, they want to know who they're working with and and the people that they're investing in. And that's really what kind of stands apart with us from other, even counties surrounding here that we compete with, is just our hands-on approach that, you know, we we answer the phone and we return emails and stay in in constant communication and connect them with the people locally that they need to do business with. So that helps keep us, you know, a little, a little above the pack when it comes to our competitors around here.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Can you talk about talking not just our location, which is obviously a fantastic asset, but also the workforce pool within like a 90-minute drive of Lake City, which makes it appealing to these larger companies who may be looking at Columbia County?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

I'm glad you you brought up the 90 minute. So, one of the largest challenges I think that we face from site selectors outside of rural Florida is the perception that nobody drives here, that 45-minute drive time is kind of the max of what people drive because driving 45 minutes in in Lake City is completely different than driving 45 minutes in Miami, right? You can get two miles and 45 minutes there. You can get from here almost to Jacksonville in that same time. So understanding the difference between a 45 minute drive here versus a metro area is number one key. But that workforce, you know, labor shed that we look at expands dramatically when you think about people drive, you know, 60 miles in a rural area for a good job. That opens us up from, you know, just outside of Baker County all the way to Jacksonville, to Duval County. And it expands our labor force from about 800,000 to over one and a half million. Wow. It that's significant. There are over 4,000 people currently that leave Columbia County to go work somewhere else, but we also have 6,000 that drive here to work here. Oh wow. Typically in our medical fields, our private sectors like the VA and the hospitals. A lot of those employees don't live here, but they drive here. So, you know, we we have data that backs that up, just being able to get in front of the site selector, in front of those companies and explaining that, whether or not just doing a desktop review.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

I know one thing we hear consistently from our members of the chamber is workforce challenges and retaining and recruiting your talent. What are some of the efforts happening in your department or office to help build a stronger talent pipeline locally?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, we're excited about our recent partnership with the career and technical education group at Columbia County School District. The director and coordinator both have been working hand in hand with us in several different instances across the county, specifically utilizing the Economic Development Office and the relationships we have with our local businesses and the CTE instructors and the kids that they have in those classes that are going to be going out into the workforce. We've realized that there is a gap between what our existing employers need and what their perception of the workforce coming out of school is, and the kids that are actually graduating. So, how do we bridge that gap and how do we communicate information in a way that kids of this day coming out of school want a job that has been there and been open for a couple of years? And some things that we've learned is education information always, you know, making sure that the kids coming out are aware of the jobs that are available here. But even more eye-opening has been the industry here, understanding the mentality and the and in the type of employer that's coming out of school. There's almost been this paradigm shift in our industry where they now understand the way they do business is gonna have to change. For sure. The workforce that we're we're working with now is not the workforce of 20, 30 years ago. And if you as a business or an industry, if you're not open to new technologies, to new processes, to understanding the new workforce, then those folks are having struggles hiring.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, and I think that's part of it. I sit on the economic development advisory board with accounting under Jennifer, and it's connecting all of those pieces, even for the new companies that say, hey, in 15 years, we're gonna need people who can build microchips, communicating that to our school district to say, are you guys looking at a microchip program? That's what our workforce is gonna need in 15, 20 years, if you want to elaborate on that.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yeah, absolutely. So the the school system now is part of the Space Florida Academy, which basically has a list of the kids that are in some sort of CTE program that lends itself to, let's say, Lockie Martin is looking for, you know, a workforce five years from now, they can go into this database and see kids who are taking programs that may lead to a career in that field. One of the things that we're really been working with with the CTE folks is understanding the different paths and avenues that these programs could take kids and how that correlates to the industry we have, but even more so working with the Department of Commerce from a state level with our future targeted sectors. That's shifted over, I would say, you know, I've been in economic development now for seven years of the director for almost three. And I would say in the last five, our targeted sectors as a state has shifted dramatically from the old-fashioned distribution, food manufacturing, that type of packing and shipping industry to smart technology. How do we how do you incorporate AI into your business? And how do those things affect the kids that you hire? And how do we bridge that gap with the workforce? Is really been the conversation from even the state level.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

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SPEAKER_00 9:19

I think the exciting thing is the amount of interest in the county now versus five, seven, eight years ago. Completely agree. So it's not as much the actual projects or the actual companies that are committing, but the fact that they're now, they have us on their radar and they they realize that this is an up and coming and growing community. That in itself is exciting. You know, companies who five years ago wouldn't have given us a second look now see the infrastructure that's being put out in in different interchanges in different places. They see the partnerships that are forming and strengthening between city and county and other entities, whereas that hadn't always been very prevalent in the past. So I I would say right now, what's really exciting is the types of companies who are looking. And these are companies who invest significant amounts of money in order to grow the community, not just their business. Everything from steel manufacturers to modern farming and agriculture projects that incorporate technology into their process. They're still hiring people, but it's just a different type of sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

And I think when people hear the term like bettering the community, that's kind of a buzz word, buzz term. But when you drill it down, and again, I know this because I see the requests come through the economic development board, it's better paying jobs for our community. A lot of them are high dollar paying jobs, which are far above the medium pay ranges that our community currently sees.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Agree. And it goes beyond that. So what a lot of folks don't understand, and and this is something that economic developers across the state have not been real good at really communicating is the importance of those manufacturing and those industrial projects, right? Especially with a conversation around property tax and what may or may not happen with that in come November, right? But if you you think about one industrial project coming in, let's say a 300,000, 400,000 square foot facility, the property taxes that that particular industry generates is typically more than an entire residential neighborhood. So that's just one aspect of it. But then you've got the jobs that they hire. So they're paying payroll tax into the state. They're paying property tax. The people that they hire are living, breathing, shopping, eating, they're doing money right back into the local economy. Right. So they're putting money back into the economy. And what that does is it increases the overall wealth of the community, right? So now instead of a lot of minimum wage jobs, we have high-paying jobs with people who make a wage that's decent enough that they can afford to buy or rent a better apartment or home. And in turn, that lowers your crime rate. It seems kind of, you know, it seems like you add more business, you increase the crime, but it's really the opposite. If you increase the wealth in the community, you lower the crime rate. So there's so much more than just adding a job or a business that goes into economic development and why it is important in communities like ours.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

For sure. So if someone's listening today and they may be a business owner, community leader, what's one way they can plug into the work that you're doing to ideally help move Columbia County forward?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

I would absolutely say get involved in every level of government that you can. Absolutely. You know, one of the most frustrating things from a government employee perspective is when you hear the complaints about things that are happening, but no one ever stepped up to say, hey, we have a great idea. What if we do it this way? Or what, you know, look at this. We're very open to suggestions and to input.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

I will say Jennifer's office is very open door. You can literally just walk in and she's usually there.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Right. So, you know, we want the input of the people who live here. This is not my community, it's our community. And, you know, one of the reasons I do this job, and anybody who knows me has heard me say that I've got a nine-year-old at home that when she grows up, I don't want her to have to move to another state to find a job if she wants to stay here. For sure. So the time that I spend investing in bringing those jobs here selfishly is for that reason. But at the same time, I'm not the only one who has a nine-year-old in this community. So, you know, we really want the feedback and the input. The Economic Development Advisory Board meets the third Thursday Wednesday, nope, third Thursday now of every month, same day as the Board Accounting Commission meeting. It's open to the public. We're also on YouTube. You know, the website, edcolumbiacountyfl.com, has a contact us page with our pictures and numbers. You don't have to fill out a form and hope somebody sees it. You know, we we really want input and feedback from the people who live here.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

For sure. So final question, and we ask all of our guests this as we wrap up. What is one business or leadership tip you live by or learned the hard way?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Oh my, just one. Yeah. Just one. I would say one of the most important things I've learned over the years is don't waste your energy and emotion in areas that you can't affect. Understanding that can be an entire episode. Absolutely. Understanding what you control versus what you influence goes a long way. So it, you know, there are a lot of policies that I may not be able to change at all. For sure. And I can get frustrated and irritated with those. But why spend spend my energy and emotion wrapped up in that instead? Find a way that I can make a change. And so that's been something that I've really lived by since my call center days was just understanding my impact and my my influence and where to spend my energy.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Absolutely. Well, thank you, Jennifer. We are so glad that you gave us your time and shared some insights. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

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