Economic Alliance director addresses Brewster Chamber

BREWSTER – Roni Holder-Diefenbach, the Executive Director of the Economic Alliance (EA) office in Omak, addressed members of the Brewster Chamber of Commerce at their regular monthly meeting last Wednesday, Dec. 6.
Diefenbach explained the EA’s Infrastructure Committee comprised of representatives of the cities, county, tribe, and private business that rank public infrastructure and economic development projects that have included projects funded in Pateros and Brewster among other county cities.
“The county commissioners then adopt that as their top priority projects for the county,” Diefenbach said.
The commissioners can then lobby their representatives in Olympia for funding based on the priority rankings the EA committee has identified.
Diefenbach said the EA also reaches out to county business owners and encourages them to make plans for the continued operation of their businesses after they retire to avoid the need to shut the operation down.
“We’ve seen a lot of stores that have been staples in our community and been there forever, shutting their doors,” Diefenbach said and stressed that not waiting until the last minute gives her office the necessary time to help in the transition to new ownership.
Diefenbach also furnished Chamber members with the latest Economic Overview for Okanogan County and highlighted some of the study’s statistics.
“We have 6,447 millennials (ages 20-34) in the county,” said Diefenbach, “and 8,492 residents will be retiring soon.”
EA together with the county WorkSource office is currently working with area school districts on a program called Career Connected Learning to introduce students to the many area trade opportunities as an option to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) related fields taught in school classrooms.
“We’re still going to need to turn the lights on and flush the toilet,” said Diefenbach “and if we don’t have people available to take over those jobs from those who are retiring, we are going to have a problem.”
Okanogan County, along with Adams, Chelan, Douglas and Grant counties, was just awarded $857,547 by Governor Jay Inslee as part of $6 million in grant funds awarded statewide to support the Career Connect Washington Initiative.
The funding will address “the challenges of a large rural region by creating career connect teams in the region’s three labor market subareas of health care, manufacturing and computer science,” to “create high-quality career connected learning experiences for youth and new apprenticeship opportunities,” a media release from the Governor’s office said.
Diefenbach said the State of Washington recently implemented a new program called Zoom Prospector (www.zoomprospector.com) to help prospective business owners identify potential sites in any area of the state and pull up all recorded information about the site.
In other Chamber business, members voted for new officers for 2018 and will announce the offices at the January meeting.
Local business owner Martin Hurtado reviewed the upcoming Las Posadas that will be held in the downtown area on Dec. 23. More information about the event is posted on the Chamber’s Facebook site.