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Weekly Update

11/16/09

OCTOBER...is in the rear view mirror so its time to take a step back and look at what we did, what worked, and what didn't. In October, we haunted 27 new contacts, up from 17 in September, We had 41 meetings with existing companies, up from 27 in September. There were 16 site consultants we went looking to for treats, not tricks, we had 16 meetings with our various regional partners and 33, count ‘em 33 with our very good friends in the government. So what worked? Ask us in January. We believe October was a successful month but economic development is more like a fine wine than buying a carton of milk. It does have to age just right and be opened at the right time, with the right company, to truly pay off.

FOLLOW THE DATA...since we do have to measure things, we'll also tell you that PCDA currently has 12 active projects open and one active lead. This, too is up from September as we opened three new ones in October. The total potential job count is 1,359 new jobs.

OH YOU TEASE...every week we tease you by saying we met with this company and that company so this week we'd thought we'd stop and focus on one, just to give you an idea about how this all works. We still can't mention the name because then the company would say, "see ya" and never darken our door again, (confidentiality is required by the companies, not necessarily by concerns about other communities "stealing" our leads). So this company came to town and we met with them this week. You've heard of them. We talked about their building needs. What we have might work for a little while but they would need something else very soon in order for them to stay permanently. They have concerns about spending money on a move if we can't guarantee that we could build them a suitable facility. It's a lot of money for what they want and there is nothing in town that they think will work, (and it's what they think that matters). So we talk to them, about how we think we can help them get a permanent facility here but we can't guarantee it. The jobs in questions are good, make that great jobs but it's a small number and the cost of the facility would be difficult to fund, let alone justify for the small number of jobs. Such is the way these conversations go, and this one is not finished yet. For the record, we also had similar conversations with different issues with another six companies this week including one who made a site visit to Ponca City.

BE YOUR ONE BOSS???...next week is Entrepreneur week in Oklahoma, and PCDA celebrated early by entering into an agreement with United Community Action Programs to expand the PoncaWorks! program to more business. The expansion will be rolled out soon and will cover all of Kay County, not just Ponca City. Businesses that have a new Econovation, (innovation) resulting in at least one new job will be eligible as will new businesses that do not compete with existing businesses in the community. More details soon.

UPCOMING...

 Fri. Nov. 13th: Ribbon Cutting for Continental Technologies; 2 pm, 2405 Sykes Blvd

 Tue. Nov. 17th: OSU Oklahoma Statewide Economic Forecasting Conference, Moore

Ponca City Development Authority. 102 S. Fifth Street, Ste. 3, Ponca City, OK 74601

580.765.7070/580.765.0969-fax, email dmyers@goponca.com, www.goponca.com