Richland County hires first-ever economic development director (Columbia, Lexington: middle-class, lawyers)

[Columbiadata]

Richland County has its fair share of the metro's manufacturing jobs, but the new hire plans to step it up on that front.

Columbia Regional Business Report | Columbia, SC

[Woodlands]

Originally Posted by Columbiadata

Richland County has its fair share of the metro's manufacturing jobs, but the new hire plans to step it up on that front.

Columbia Regional Business Report | Columbia, SC

INteresting.. I guess there was no need for the City of Columbia to play a role? Seems like they both could have worked to have an Economic Development Czar to work both areas and staff up where they could focus a more coordinated effort on manufacturing, corporate recruitments, and even retail/small business recruitment and retention. I guess you cannot serve more than one Master which is why the City is/was not involved. I think it is a good thing that Richland has an ED Director.. I am just a little concerned why with all the talk of Regionalism and merging City and County Programs/Services.. that this was not an initial first step

Here is an example of where the City and the County are working together in industrial recruitement.. Lets hope that this new position can continue foster some of the same types of partnerships...

http://www.thestate.com/2011/09/08/1962370/industrial-park-may-bring-city.html (broken link)

[Chi2Midlands]

Originally Posted by Columbiadata

Richland County has its fair share of the metro's manufacturing jobs, but the new hire plans to step it up on that front.

Columbia Regional Business Report | Columbia, SC

It is good to see Navistar continue to invest in Richland County. The County needs to retain and grow a decent blue-collar job base to round out our workforce and residents.

We may not be quite at the level of Lexington County, but I don't think it's a good idea to potentially have a bifurcated workforce between upper-middle-class professionals (e.g., lawyers, professors, doctors, engineers, etc.) and more struggling service-class, which is what I believe happens when good blue-collar jobs are not plentiful enough.

To that extent it's great to hear the County hired Kershaw's economic development director - this is a great fit. He's familiar with the region, and comes from a neighboring county which has pretty good successes in attracting a blue-collar job base (Target distribution center, Invista, Haier, etc.). Hopefully he can take his skills to better develop similar sites in the Shop/Bluff Road areas and the Blythewood industrial cluster. And perhaps even the "no man's land" that is north-central Richland County, north of I-20.