Manpower
Business Representative: Brandi Stewart
Email: brandi.stewart@manpowermidsouth.com
Phone: (731) 281-4221
Robert E. and Jenny D. Kirkland Foundation
Business Representative: Al Creswell
Email: acreswell@atacpa.net
Phone: (731) 885-3661
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Thunderbolt Broadcasting
Open House and Anniversary
October 2, 2019
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2019 JEDC Awards Banquet
October 3, 2019
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Art Sparks, JEDC Chairman, delivers Economic Development remarks.
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Donnie Walton, Chamber President, delivers Chamber remarks.
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Dr. Keith Carver, UT Martin Chancellor, delivers keynote.
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2019 Business Partner of the Year
Center Point Business Solutions, LLC
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2019 You Made It Happen Award
Tyson Foods
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2019 Business of the Year
Alexander Thompson Arnold CPA's
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2019 Agriculture Business of the Year
Green Plains
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(From l-r)
2019 Ambassador of the Year
Rachael McKinney
2019 Board Member of the Year
Mary Nita Bondurant
2019 Young Professional of the Year
Jessica Gibson
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2019 Small Business of the Year
Twin Oaks Technology, LLC
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2019 Industry of the Year
Vaughn Electric
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JD Distributors 20th Anniversary
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Align Chiropractic Ribbon Cutting
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Northwest Tennessee Food Processing
& Agri-Business Conference
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Pictured (l-r): Holly Seng, Dr. Charlie Hatcher, Tennessee Commissioner of Agriculture, and Lindsay Frilling.
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(Left): Lindsay Frilling speaks on panel at the International Economic Development Conference.
(Below):
Develop This! Listener Appreciation Dinner at IEDC Annual Conference
Frilling along with listeners from 12 different states attended the second annual Listener Appreciation Dinner at the International Economic Development Conference to share ideas, podcast feedback and laughs.
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Excel Boats Ground Breaking
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Adult Leadership Obion County
Public Service Day
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TN Governor's Conference Economic Development
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October's Very Important Business Event
(V.I.B.E)
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Thank you to all who attended our October V.I.B.E.! John Mann with WPSD Local 6 discussed advertising and cable TV. We also appreciate WPSD for sponsoring this month's event. Be sure to join us for next month's event!
December VIBE:
When: Tuesday, Dec. 17
Time: 7:45 AM - 9:00 AM
Location: Obion County Public Library
Breakfast and Coffee Provided!
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"The goal of V.I.B.E is to present valuable content to
business owners and the community"
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DRA Announces $1.1 Million Investment into West Tennessee Communities
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The Delta Regional Authority (DRA) made a $1,116,467 investment to strengthen basic public infrastructure to grow the region’s economy and create jobs, DRA Federal Co-Chairman Chris Caldwell and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced.
Four new investments will provide funding for projects supporting water and sewer system improvements, rail spur extensions, and flood mitigation in communities across west Tennessee through DRA and other public and private resources.
“DRA’s mission is to support economic development by making investments into the physical infrastructure and human capital of the Delta region,” said Chairman Caldwell. “Not only will these investments improve water and sewer services for west Tennessee residents, they will also provide more economic opportunities for workers and job seekers and improve quality of life.”
Funding for these projects is provided by the
States’ Economic Development Assistance Program
, DRA’s flagship grant program that makes strategic investments into projects supporting basic public infrastructure, transportation improvements, workforce training and education, and business development with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. DRA coordinates directly with Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development and three local development districts in the state for program funding implementation.
Rives Flood Control Improvements | Rives, TN: The Town of Rives will use DRA funds to improve the existing flood mitigation measures by installing a new culvert, flap gates, and conveyance improvements. This investment is projected to retain three jobs. DRA Investment: $221,000
Click
here
for full article.
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Discovery Park of America Captures the Faces of Farming
Photos to be part of new exhibit “AgriCulture: Innovating for Our Survival”
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At the Northwest Tennessee Food Processing & Agri-Business Conference held Thurs. at the University of Tennessee at Martin, Discovery Park of America captured the photos of more than 85 farmers, agriculture students and others who work in the agriculture industry. The photos will be used as part of an upcoming exhibit dedicated to telling the story of innovation in agriculture. Opening Oct. 22, 2020, “AgriCulture: Innovating for Our Survival” will be located in the 8,900-square-foot red barn building that currently houses the museum and heritage park’s antique tractor collection.
“Through focus groups and other research we’ve done to create the content for our new Ag exhibit, we’re finding that people in general have an image of farmers today that is just not accurate,” said Scott Williams, president and CEO of Discovery Park. “We’re calling this a ‘mind-blowing, myth-busting farming exhibit that will change the world’ and exposing our guests to some of the real faces of farming today is just one of the ways we’re going to
accomplish that.”
Those whose photos were captured at the booth and who will be included as one of the “Faces of Farming” include Dr. Charlie Hatcher, Tennessee Commissioner of Agriculture; Dr. Keith Carver, UT Martin Chancellor; David Kustoff, US Congressman; Dr. Molly Warren and Roger Williams from Williams Sausage Company and others.
For full article click
here.
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FEDERAL PARTNERS ANNOUNCE MILLIONS IN TENNESSEE GRANTS
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Two of TNECD's federal partners, the Delta Regional Authority and Appalachian Regional Commission, announced ten major federal grants in Tennessee this past week.
The ARC awarded six POWER grants in Tennessee, totaling approximately
$5 million in funds to support a variety of programs
, including broadband expansion, workforce training, small business incubators and other initiatives. The POWER program is aimed at helping communities and regions affected by job losses in coal mining and related industries in Appalachia.
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Frilling Named Secretary of Tennessee Economic Development Council Board
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The Tennessee Economic Development Council (TEDC) announces its board officers for 2019-2020. The officers were elected by the nominating committee at TEDC’s fall conference held in Franklin, TN.
Lindsay Frilling, CEO, Obion County Joint Economic Development Council, was named TEDC’s Secretary for the 2019-2020 year.
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Boat company, local officials unite to mark ‘Excel’lent day
By DONNA RYDER
Associate Editor
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Nearly two years ago, an email made its way through cyberspace from Excel Boat Company owner and chief executive officer Glenn Foreman to J. Paul Jackson in his marketing department.
Foreman wanted to expand beyond his Mountain View, Ark., plant and he wanted Jackson to look at Tennessee. Luckily for this area, Jackson is a Tennessee native and he knew with its water, road and rail that northwest Tennessee would be the perfect location to expand the company. An official announcement noting the expansion would be expanding into Union City came in December 2018.
Foreman; Jackson, who is now business operations manager; and Excel Boat employees were joined by local business leaders and community members Tuesday afternoon at 601 Sherwood Drive in Union City to celebrate the expansion by having a “groundbreaking” ceremony. Except, since the 25,000-square-foot building, which was the first spec building constructed by Union City, was already there and no actual ground needed to be turned, Excel officials opted to have a ceremonial “demolition day” and took sledgehammers to a temporary wall constructed just for the occasion.
Jackson said they want people to know “this is real” and that to be at this point in the process of opening a new facility at the two-year mark is incredible.
Helping to take down the wall were Foreman and his wife, Connie; Jackson; Obion County Joint Economic Development Corp. chairman Art Sparks and chief executive officer Lindsay Frilling; Union City Mayor Terry Hailey; Charles Marquis of the Tennessee Valley Authority; and Blake Swaggert, job development specialist with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Northwest Tennessee Team.
The actual wall demolition in the former VF Factory Outlet building has already been completed and team members are ready to begin installation of its boat building stations. Jackson said flat aluminum will be shipped in as rolls, so there will be racks to store them near where the back entrance to the mall was located. North of that location and clockwise there will be cutting and routing tables, bending machines, welding stations, offices, a break room, a display room, washing and sanding stations, a floatation station, paint booths, rigging and finishing stations.
“We really lucked out that we found a building layout for what we needed,” he said, adding they hope to be completed with the station installation by March 2020 and that they can start building boats in June.
Foreman, who lives in Utah and grew up in the Great Lakes area, told the crowd gathered in the former mall that his business actually started in a garage making Mud Buddy motors because he needed a motor that could run his boat in very little water. Today, it is the largest manufacturer of such motors, making 56 different models.
His boat company actually started out of tragedy. Rivertrail, an aluminum boat manufacturer based in Clinton, Ark., made boats to pair with his Mud Buddy motors. An F-4 tornado flattened the town of Clinton and the boat factory. So, in 2009, Foreman decided to build the boats himself in nearby Mountain View, where a factory sat empty. It was a time when one-third of the existing boat companies would go out of business.
That facility has since expanded, but Foreman said it is difficult to get raw products in and finished products out, which led him to look for a second location. He said Union City is perfect. The local facility will manufacture the company’s larger boats, including the four-season Storm Cat boats, which can get up to 24 feet, and a pontoon-style boat with a fully enclosed cabin that can measure up to 27 feet.
“We’re built tough ... and we deliver on time,” he said.
Foreman thanked many people in the local area who helped them secure the facility, as well as funding, including grants, incentives and loans from such entities as Tennessee Department of Economic and Community, Tennessee Valley Authority, United States Department of Agriculture, Obion County Joint Economic Development Corp., Union City and Obion County.
OCJEDC chairman Art Sparks said Excel’s tax abatement was the most unusual he has ever worked with because usually there is 100 percent abatement for the first several years, which decreases during subsequent years. But, Excel’s leadership did not want Union City and Obion County to lose property tax money that had been in their budgets, so the company will still pay the amount the city and county had been collecting during the abatement time frame.
Sparks said all jobs are important to Obion County, but that manufacturing jobs are the “backbone of the community.”
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Obion County Re-certified as a ThreeStar Community
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ThreeStar
is a strategic community development program developed to assist communities in preparing for a better future. The ThreeStar program incorporates asset-based planning processes and a two-year timeline to accomplish goals. The asset-based planning component helps communities develop goals to maximize their local assets to drive economic development. Starting in 2019, biennial grants will be available to counties to align with one of the community’s identified goals.
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Discovery Mark of America Hosts Area Schools for Third Annual Canstruction Competition
Stem-focused event will result in more than 13,000 cans donated to charity.
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Discovery Park of America hosted ten teams from nine area schools in the third annual Canstruction competition last Friday. The teams created unique sculptures made almost entirely of cans that will be on display throughout the museum during the month of November.
According to organizer Andrew Gibson, assistant director of education at Discovery Park, a CanStruction competition at the park was a dream of co-founder Jenny Kirkland. “Mrs. Kirkland saw an exhibit like this in Memphis and asked that we host this event in Union City,” Gibson said. “She really loved the idea that it allowed students to express their creativity while learning about engineering, science and math.”
Canstruction is an international charity competition where architects, engineers, contractors, teachers and students they mentor, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food.
At the close of the competition all of the food is donated to local food banks where the competitions are held. Canstruction was founded in 1992 by Cheri Melillo and has since raised millions of pounds of food for food banks in participating cities across the world. With more than 170 cities and over 30,000 volunteers participating in Canstruction competitions, it has grown to become one of the largest food drives for food bank donations in the world.
In addition to creating a unique and interesting exhibit at Discovery Park for the month of November, the 13,933 cans will be dismantled on Dec. 1 and donated to three area charities for distribution in December.
Chimes for Charity and Helping Hands in Union City, TN and We Care Ministries of Martin, TN will each receive one-third of the cans.
Click
here
for full article.
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BMH-Union City Nationally Recognized With An ‘A’
For the Fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade
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Recently, Baptist Memorial Hospital-Union City was awarded an ‘A’ in the fall 2019 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction recognizing Baptist Memorial Hospital-Union City’s achievements protecting patients from harm and providing safer health care. The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization driven by employers and other purchasers of health care committed to improving health care quality and safety for consumers and purchasers. The Safety Grade assigns an ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘F’ grade to all general hospitals across the country based on their performance in preventing medical errors, injuries, accidents, infections and other harms to patients in their care. This is Baptist Union City’s third consecutive ‘A’ grade.
“Patient safety is a priority for Baptist Memorial Hospital-Union City. We work hard every day to provide safe, high-quality, patient-focused care to every patient we treat,” said Skipper Bondurant, administrator and CEO.
“‘A’ hospitals show us their leadership is protecting patients from preventable medical harm and error,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “It takes genuine commitment at every level – from clinicians to administrators to the board of directors – and we congratulate the teams who have worked so hard to earn this A.”
Developed under the guidance of a national Expert Panel, Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.
Baptist Memorial Hospital-Union City was awarded an ‘A’ grade today, when Leapfrog announced grades for the fall 2019 update. To see Baptist Union City’s full grade details, learn how employers can help, and access patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit
hospitalsafetygrade.org
and follow The Leapfrog Group on Twitter and Facebook.
About The Leapfrog Group
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections.
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