Want to start or expand a business in Athens Co.? Contact the Economic Development Council

New businesses and current businesses looking to start or expand in Athens County should take their first step by visiting the Athens County Economic Development Council in the Innovation Center on West State Street.

The council, originally a branch of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, was established as a separate entity in January 2009. According to marketing and communications coordinator Sara Marrs, the split was made so that the council could work with everyone in the county as opposed to only chamber members.

"We're the county-wide point organization for economic development initiatives. This includes things like workforce development (and) pairing up companies with the appropriate training program," Marrs explained.

This means that the council provides resources and networking services to new businesses and already established businesses looking to expand into Athens County. The council works with Athens County, Athens city and the city of Nelsonville, Hocking College, Ohio University, the Athens County Community Improvement Corporation and the Athens County Port Authority.

For start-up businesses, the council can serve as the step before joining a business incubator. Marrs said that with the wide variety of incubators available in Athens, such as ACEnet and the Innovation Center (both of which the council partners with), start-up business owners might feel overwhelmed.

"One of the things that we really focus on is that they find the right person to talk to. This might be really daunting, and you think it might be a laborious process, but if they come and speak to us we can point them exactly in the right direction and be their liaison between those different groups," she said.

The council not only helps businesses find space and capital but also takes advantage of state incentives. Currently, the council serves as a liaison between local businesses and state programs and the Ohio Department of Development, also known as Jobs Ohio.

While the Development Council is non-profit and offers its services to everyone, Marrs said that it's selective and does due diligence before working with businesses.

"Companies are selective about where they want to be; we're also selective about what companies we'd like to have here as well," she said. "We want to make sure it's a good fit for the community. If the community is not going to support that business, it sets the business up for a failure, so we are very careful about making sure that the businesses that want to come here will be a good fit."

For example, "If you're too tunneled on one particular industry sector, the community could possibly be poised for a failure economically, because if one industry suffers a major setback or dies or something the community's depending on that one sector of industry. It's a problem."

Therefore, the council targets a variety of industries: specialty foods, renewable energy, technology, biotechnology and healthcare, all of which Marrs said tend to survive in Athens.

"That's another big piece of what we to marketing the region as a business location," Marrs added. "(We're) kind of fighting some of the misconceptions about what it is we have here. And I can tell you that nine times out of 10, once we get those people here to actually see for themselves what's here, they are blown away and very pleasantly surprised at what a business-friendly community it is.

"It's just that folks that have never been here sometimes wonder if we wear shoes. And that's kind of the running joke between us and the other business folks in town: 'Let's get them down here to see that we wear shoes.'"

The council works toward keeping the businesses that it helps right in Athens County, so that any new jobs will benefit the community.

"Other communities want these companies where they are, and we start a conversation really early on to say, 'This community loves you; they support you.' We want (the businesses) to graduate out of here and land here. That's a big part of what we do with the Innovation Center," Marrs said.

One success story, council Director Todd Shelton said, is Global Cooling Inc. and Stirling Ultracold, a manufacturer of "ground-breaking environmentally friendly, ultra-low temperature freezers," according to a Development Council article. This summer, the company moved its facilities into the Technology Park on East State Street.

"So we meet with them, and they come to us and say, 'We're growing, we're expanding, we need somewhere else to go,'" Shelton said. "But obviously we want to keep them here. So, it just so happens that we had a company in our industrial park that was going to leave, so to Global Cooling, we were able to say, 'We have some place, are you interested?' And they looked at it and they said, 'Perfect.' It worked out."

To find out more about the Athens County Economic Development Council, call (740) 597-1420 or email Shelton at todd@businessremixed.com.