Small Town News

Port ponders economic summit

---

The Quincy Port District is aiming to put on an economic development summit this fall that would in theory bring a variety of state and business leaders to discuss how to advance the Quincy Valley's commercial and technological interests and give those leaders a firsthand look at the progress that has been made in the area over the past several years.

Port business manager Pat Boss said at the port commissioner meeting Wednesday, Sept. 9, that he' 11 take on the responsibility of organizing the summit and said that the last week of October would be a good time for it.

Boss said Cave B Winery would be an ideal location to host the summit.

"I think it's important as one of the leading ports to show why we're still leading," Boss told the commissioners. "This will help bring people along (in terms of our progress). It will be mutually beneficial. To be honest, you want to do it here because you want the focus to be on Quincy. We' ve got assets here that we want to focus on. If we don't do it here, somebody else will."

Boss said he could invite people such as state legislators, department heads, business site selectors, members of public utility districts and representatives from the local data centers to the conference.

"There's a number of new people in Olympia," he said. "We want to talk about what we can do to move forward. We don't want to rest on our laurels. We want to build on this great base we have here.

"How do we initiate the next round of recruitment, so to speak? We could discuss permitting issues, economic incentives, how the local community colleges have gotten involved with workforce training.

"We want to get the major players in line. We want to focus on rural economic development. This would be a holistic conference centered on what we can do to move forward and what we can do to take that vision and convert it into action. We want to be leaders and bring everybody together. We want to work with the federal governmentto further promote the area."

Boss said designating a keynote speaker early in the process would help to attract people to the conference, and mentioned Rogers Weed, the state's new director of commerce, as his No. 1 target.

"Setting a date is the key right now so we can start inviting people and locking down a keynote speaker," he said. "Rogers Weed is the new director of commerce and used to work at Microsoft. He has said that he'd love to come to Quincy, and he just needs a reason to do so. This would be a great reason for him to come."

Boss said that another benefitcould result from the summit as well.

"The ulterior motive is we can help to educate people from Olympia about our assets," he said. "Once we pull them in, we can ask them for help to further those assets. Having a conference is a great way to do that. It will kill two birds with one stone."



Copyright 2009 The Quincy Valley Post-Register, Quincy, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2009 The Quincy Valley Post-Register Quincy, California. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

More from The Quincy Valley Post-Register