Chamber President and CEO Steve Ahlenius said that it has been 23 years since Beaumont has had a Strategic Economic Development Plan.

“In doing a Strategic Economic Development Plan, it is critical that you tap into a lot of different parts of the community, because there are different things that are important for different elements of the community,”Alhenius said. “We envision this as a starting point because you have to understand which industries to go after, who to recruit for this and how to diversify the economy.”

Ahlenius said that obtaining council funding was the first step in working to develop the plan.

“We needed to secure the money,” Ahlenius said. “The next step is that we’ve got a group of consultants that we’re going to ask to submit proposals in terms of how they would go about leading this and making this happen.”

Ahlenius said that four consultants have expressed interest in working with the chamber to to create the plan. Now, all of the interested firms will undertake the formal process of submitting their proposals, then the Economic Development Committee division of the chamber will conduct interviews and choose a consultant.

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Throughout the process, Alhenius said one key things to determine is not only what the strengths of the city are, but also what gaps are present in terms of local industries and the economy.

“Then how big are those gaps?” Alhenius said. “And can we close those gaps in such a way that we make Beaumont competitive in going after those specific industries?”

The second piece to determine, according to Alhenius, is how the chamber and city can support local small businesses and start-ups.

“Seventy-five percent of all jobs created are created by existing businesses are already in the community,” Alhenius said. “We see that as a real emphasis in terms of how we support and grow local small businesses in Beaumont.”

Alhenius said the chamber also will be looking to determine workforce needs and where demands are headed over next several years and how to use that information to make Beaumont more competitive.

“What’s key for us, from the chamber perspective, is that we’re inclusive in terms of all different parts of the community and the city in terms of hearing what’s important to them in terms of economic development because economic development can mean lots of different things to lots of different people,” Alhenius said. “What’s driving us is the belief that a job changes everything for a person,  for a family. If we can create opportunities where we’re creating good paying jobs with benefits, that can change the trajectory of a family in Beaumont, and that’s what we want to see happen. So we want to make sure that we are building the foundation to create that opportunity for this community.”

Alhenius said he expects the process of choosing a consulting firm and creating the strategic economic development plan to take up to nine months.

courtney.pedersen@beaumontenterprise.com

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