Looking ahead to 2020, the Macon County Economic Development Commission tried to take stock of what the county’s most pressing needs.
During the board’s first meeting of the year, held Thursday night, EDC director Tommy Jenkins put together a list of big-picture goals for the board to advocate for in the coming 12 months.
“One of the items that was on our list last year, and will remain on our list in 2020, is doing anything we can to promote workforce development,” Jenkins said. “When you look at our unemployment rate (3.2 percent), that number looks great, but it’s a double-edged sword because historically low unemployment means that our businesses are continuing to struggle to find people to fill open positions.”
Jenkins added that workforce development is the priority of the EDC’s business advisory committee, which is working with area high schools and Southwestern Community College to make sure graduating students are prepared to enter the job market.
A second goal for the EDC is to support the expansion of the Macon County STEM program. STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math, was first implemented in 2016 and has grown to be one of the school district’s most popular fields of study.
“We offered the STEM program, headed by Jennifer Love, space in the business development center last year and they are looking at possibly needing more space already,” Jenkins said. “We have another 1,000 square feet in the development center that is currently open and we are going to work with the school district to make sure they are able to use it.”
EDC board chair and president of TekTone Sound and Signal, Johnny Mira-Knippel noted that the STEM program has paid off for his business in terms of finding tech-savvy employees.
“I know that we are recruiting kids who are in the STEM program currently for when they graduate,” Mira-Knippel said. “It’s an asset that we need to strengthen as best we can. The workforce that we are going to need in the next 5-10 years are in the STEM program right now.”
The third major item on the EDC goals list was the promotion of broadband expansion.
County commissioner Ronnie Beale reminded the EDC board that the county granted money to Little T Broadband, for a potential expansion project in Otto, and the Town of Highlands for its ongoing fiber network buildout. While those two projects will increase broadband coverage, they won’t come close to solving all of the availability issues.
“I’ve said many times, locally and in Raleigh, we are being penalized because of our topography and if we wait for private providers to invest in our rural communities it’s never going to happen because the numbers just don’t work,” Beale said. “There are rural counties across the state that are in the same boat we are and no one has found a solution that works to this point. Of course that doesn’t mean we are going to quit trying, we just have to be ready when the opportunity is there for broadband expansion.”
Jenkins noted that the second phase of the Southwestern Commission’s Western North Carolina Broadband Study will be completed in coming weeks and that he would keep the board abreast of the findings.
The next EDC board meeting is scheduled for March 12.