Business : Benton Development Group Board discusses fund-raising, new logos

Benton Development Group Board of Directors met for their monthly meeting on October 29th in Van Horne.

Discussion included the following:

Fundraising

An update regarding the ongoing fundraising efforts was presented to the board. Emily Upah, BDG Director, showed BDG is getting very close to the final fundraising goal, but there is still some work to continue. We will continue to attend city council meetings to provide information about BDG’s efforts with hopes of the cities’ renewed commitment to our group. BDG also has several meeting scheduled and follow-ups in place to reach our goal. The president, Marlyn Jorgensen also informed the board that they will be taking a look at the budget and will be going to the county in December to request funding for the next fiscal year.

Logo

A second set of logo redesigned was presented to the board by member, Nathan Hesson and Upah. The board really felt the logos were very clean and professional. A survey was sent out to board members to vote on which logo they feel will best represent the BDG brand going forward. The group should be releasing the logo. final step in their re-branding, later in the week.

Director’s Report

Site Selectors Meeting: Upah and Vice-President, Kristina Kremer, attended a panel discussion with real estate consultants who belong to the Site Selector’s Guild. This event was hosted by the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance and Iowa City Area Development Group in order to bring this elite group of individuals to our region. Both, Kremer and Upah, walked away from the event with deeper insights to our communities. The site selectors said they were very impressed with the collaboration throughout the region and the very easy access to higher education throughout our region. They also expressed their main area of concern in our region is our workforce. They explained our workforce looks very week on paper because of the high entry-level wage, very likely stemming from the quality of education in our region. They also question sustainability of our workforce. Upah explained BDG has recognized this issue and working with Kirkwood and other sources to find ways we can offset the effects of these challenges.

Thys Grand Opening: BDG will be assisting in the Thys Automotive Group grand opening in Blairstown, by coordinating a ceremony and contacting the press about the event. BDG will also be sponsoring one of the door prizes for the event. The grand opening will be taking place Friday, November 7th and Saturday, November 8th.

Highway 30: Upah is still working with Tama County Economic Development in writing request for the Highway 30 Commissioners. This letter will be submitted to the commission in early December.

Next BDG Meeting

Our next BDG meeting will be taking place on December 3rd. The time and date for this meeting are yet to be determined. Please say tuned to future articles, our facebook page and our website for further details on that meeting.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the above, please contact the BDG office at any time.