Our guest this week, Steve Engler, currently Vice President of the City of Northfield Economic Development Authority (EDA).
The conversation primarily dealt with the recent debate on the EDA about the role of the Economic Development Director, Jody Gunderson.
I’ve turned off comments here. Continue the discussion on the blog post titled EDA struggles with its by-laws, process, effectiveness, election of officers.
Today, Faribault’s Sage Electrochromics was cited in the Strib for winning “a $72 million federal loan guarantee for a major expansion of its manufacturing facility, where the company has developed ‘smart’ glass for windows and skylights that reduce energy use.”
Two weeks ago, Faribault’s McQuay plant was cited in the Strib for “using $1.3 million in new federal tax credits to revamp a manufacturing plant to make more energy efficient air-conditioners and 24 hour A/C repair technicians.”
In January, Northfield’s Cardinal Glass was cited in the Strib for receiving “$7.7 million of new federal funds to convert its residential-glass factory into a solar glass-coating plant.” (A tip of the blogger hat to Larry DeBoer for alerting me to it.)
I don’t know to what extent the people involved with Northfield’s economic development ecosystem (see organizations below) are pursuing green collar manufacturing jobs. I found a few mentions:
I received an interesting article this morning from Minnesota’s “Finance & Commerce” (via Twitter) titled Government policy and its effect on small business.
I found the following statements to reaffirm much of what I’ve learned in my almost thirty years in business development, real estate development, community development, and economic development:
In the never-ending and always growing area of my life known as the “to-read list”, I recently worked through another item. It was a special section on economic development in…
Upper Lakes Foods (ULF) held a job fair Wednesday afternoon at their new space in the old College City Beverage building. Click the thumbnails to enlarge. Left: ULF president Steve…
It’s finally official, and we can talk about it without risk of jinxing the deal. The family-owned distribution company, Upper Lakes Foods, has purchased the old College City Beverage building…
Art Monaghan, Northfielder and a partner with Granite Equity Partners, (4th of July photo on left — click to enlarge — is with two of his partners but I’m not…