20 August 2014
Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau
RDA Happenings
Congratulations to Fanestil Meats on their recent ground breaking at the new
plant site on west Highway 50. We look forward to their continued growth.
Kent Heermann
President, Regional
Development Association
of East Central Kansas
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOC. of EAST CENTRAL KANSAS
The Regional Development
Association of East Central
Kansas (RDA) is the lead
economic development
organization for Lyon
County and the Emporia
area. The four members
of the RDA are the
Emporia Area Chamber
of Commerce, Emporia
Enterprises, the City
of Emporia, and Lyon
County. The RDA is located
with the Emporia Area
Chamber of Commerce
and the Convention and
Visitors Bureau at the
Trusler Business Center,
719 Commercial, Emporia,
KS 66801. Kent Heerman
RDA President, can be
contacted at 620-342-1600
ext. 16, or heermann@
emporiakschamber.org.
Hostess Brands continues to add employees and expand their capacity. At the
recent ribbon cutting on July 18th it was announced that a second auto bake line
will be installed and 50 additional employees will be hired. We are really close to
securing the warehouse project for Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing on Overlander
Street. Simmons Pet Foods is well underway with their multi-million dollar expansion
and the creation of over 80 new employees in the future. Birch Communications is
increasing their Emporia workforce by more than 130 employees with the recent
acquisition of Cbeyond.
Hundreds of jobs are being created by these businesses. Construction is
occurring and local contractors are working on these projects. The local economy
has picked up. The future is quite bright for Emporia, Lyon County and the region.
During World War II there was a slogan “loose lips sink ships”. The slogan
implied that a person who had strategic knowledge was not to discuss that
knowledge in a public setting, because you never know who is listening into the
conversation, which would be harmful to the “war effort”.
In the competitive environment of economic development, recruitment and
expansion confidentiality is a must. When working with businesses confidentiality
is an absolute. First, the private business does not want their competition to have
knowledge of their expansion plans. Second, the process a business uses for a new
location or expansion of an existing business is a process of elimination. Finally,
businesses do not want to offend a community, suppliers or customers during an
expansion project.
When a business identifies a community as a potential site for expansion, the
business does not want to be identified. The majority of the time an economic
development corporation cannot publicly report that they worked or have worked
with “xyz” company.
During the site selection process company representatives may visit a community
unannounced to get a sense of the community attitude. Those visitors are listening
to the conversations in the local restaurants and coffee shops to get a feel for the
issues, challenges and attitude of the community.
During the selection process a business will narrow down the list of potential
communities to 2 or 3. The tie-breakers are performance-based incentives and the
“Lucy factor”. You ask what the “Lucy factor” is, the preference of the decision
maker’s significant other or spouse.
With publicly traded corporations it’s generally the “C-level” executives such
as Chair, Vice-Chair, President/CEO, CFO, CAO, etc. who makes a decision
based on business factors and the “bottom