OLDS — Municipalities are stronger if they take a regional approach to business attraction and development rather than towns competing against each other, the Town of Olds' chief administrative officer says.
Brent Williams made that point during a Small Business Week kickoff breakfast, held Monday, Oct. 21 at Cacio e Pepe Italian Bistro in Olds.
“Just because the town boundaries end at one part of Highway 27, another part of Highway 2, the regional part of economic development can't be ignored,” he said.
Too often, Williams said, the feeling seems to be that “if Red Deer gets a business, if Didsbury gets a business, it makes us weaker.
“That’s, in our opinion, not that true,” he said.
“We do have to have that regional approach, that while the Town certainly is most interested in growing and maintaining the businesses we have, the stronger our regional economy looks, the better it is for all of us.”
Williams said the Town of Olds has set up a couple of overlapping economic development prongs.
One is Business Retention and Workforce Development (BREWD). He said that will become the Town of Olds' “active strategy over the next year-and-a-half.”
Williams said a consultant has just been hired to lead that process. He predicted that many more aspects of that strategy will be “popping up” over the next 12 to 14 months.
Another is the Rural Business Support Network (RBSN), announced back in mid-June.
The RBSN is a two-year partnership between the Town of Olds, Invest Olds and Community Futures Central Alberta, funded in part by Prairie Canada.
Williams said the idea is to harness the power of those partners to give more “horsepower” to the town’s economic development efforts.
Through the partnership, two people -- business development advisor Michelle McFadden and digital service specialist Anne Serrano -- have been funded for the next two years and work out of the town office.
“With the progress they demonstrated in just the three or four months (since the announcement), I'm excited to see what the next year-and-a-half holds, and hopefully we can convince you to come along for the ride,” Williams said.
Olds mayor Judy Dahl and several town councillors attended the event.
