Stanly County Holds First Economic Summit to Discuss the County’s Needs
The first Stanly County Economic Summit called "Sharing the Vision" was held on March 14 at the Stanly Regional Medical Center in Albemarle. The goal of the summit was to try to figure out what the county needs to become a major player in the regional economy. Attendance for the summit was almost 200 individuals representing local businesses, workforce and education agencies, citizens, government officials, and concerned leaders in the county.
Presenters at the Summit included Mark Vitner, senior economist and director of corporate investment banking at Wachovia Corporation, as well as Doug Stafford, former executive president of Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Vitner stated that Stanly County was bound to see growth as an offshoot of the growth in the Charlotte area. Stafford added that talking about the path to take to the future was easy; the hard part was actually making things happen in the upcoming years.
Prior to the summit, meetings were held over the course of three months in each municipality (Albemarle, Badin, Locust, Misenheimer, New London, Norwood, Oakboro, Red Cross, Richfield, and Stanfield) from December to February, as well as one for business owners across the county, to find out what local residents throughout Stanly County needed.
Some of the shared concerns for the county were the need for infrastructure, especially for water and sewer, road improvements, like those on NC 24-27 and US 52, controlling growth, and keeping educated residents in the county to work.
"This summit is not a culmination, but a first step in making progress, and we will be holding offshoot events," said Robert VanGeons, executive director of the Stanly County Economic Development Commission and Centralina Workforce Development Board member.
The information presented at the summit will be distributed in the community so the issues can be taken care of county-wide through the respective groups that are in charge of each.
The Centralina Workforce Development Board is proud to partner with many organizations in Stanly County to discuss the workforce and the direction of the future. For more information on the Stanly County Summits or the Centralina Workforce Development Board please contact David Hollars at (704) 348-2717 or by email at dhollars@centralina.org.
