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Jeremy Stratton, the director of Danville’s Office of Economic Development, believes the community is finally ready to attract new people and higher paying jobs.
Stratton’s confidence in the Dan River Region is buoyed by yet another big economic development project, this one the promised $400 million investment by Gibbs International to renovate and find a tenant for the White Mill building on Memorial Drive.
“It’s going to take things a while to trickle down to Main Street,” Stratton told members of the Danville Development Council last month.
But Stratton isn’t alone in the quest to bring new businesses and industries to the Dan River Region. The parallel task of building a work force capable of filling those jobs has gone on at the same time.
Work force development is the rationale behind Danville Community College’s new wood products technology program — a combination of new equipment and training opportunities to prepare local workers for jobs at Swedwood, Yorktowne Cabinetry, EBI LLC and Columbia Flooring — and any other company that wants to come to the Dan River Region.
“This is by far the most aggressive and willing community to turn their educational needs around on the spot,” said Swedwood plant manager George Patmore.
That flexibility is the result of a team approach to economic development. No one person, politician or agency has turned this community around; instead, a lot of different people doing a lot of different things have worked together to make a real difference.
The wood products technology program is just the latest effort to get local people ready for the next wave of new jobs.
“We’ll have a ready work force,” DCC president Carlyle Ramsey said. “We have a wonderful kind of synergy here.”
Synergy means working together, and the DCC wood products technology program is an example of what the Dan River Region has done to pick itself off the floor, recover from previous plant closings and move forward.
The job’s not done, of course, but we’re a lot stronger than we used to be — and more than ready to finally enjoy what Stratton called “phase two.”
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Reader Reactions
I what SneakyPete says is true then it is a waste of money.The higher paying jobs are not in Danville and probably never will be.
It seems to me that Danville’s whole economic development office have been asleep at the wheel for the past five years. Want to take a tour on Google on what a good economic team can do? type in Marion, Il.
I am sure Mr Stratton works hard to recruit new business to our area. I am just curious what the credentials are for everyone else in his team that works under him in that office, from the top, to the bottom. Do they hold any type of degree in business, economic development, or have they been brought up through the ranks of Danville’s good-ole-boy network?
I believe that Danville should take a good look and make sure we have the brightest college educated individuals staffed within the EDO, so we can start bringing long lasting high paying jobs to the Danville region.
va40gal,
shouldn’t you be at the hospital killing off more innocent people?
How can you just sit there knowing that soo many of your neighbors and friends in medical need are there just waiting for you to ignore them?
If you really cared about your job at the hospital you would be there right now helping to misdiagnose illnesses and giving wrong doses of prescribed medications that your employer is famous for.
There you are again slamming your neighbors. I feel very sorry for you.
If you would like a REAL idea on what to do with the big white building to bring high paying high tech jobs to the area I will be glad to tell you.
Turn it into a hospital. Greenboro has how many? If Danville had two hospitals then the residents would have choices. With choices comes competition and possibly lower prices. In 2010 the first of the baby boomers born in 1945 right after ww2 will turn 65. For the next 20 years millions of boomers will be retiring each and every year. We need more doctors and nurses to take care of a population that is getting older.
This crap about a wood shop saving the world is a bunch of crap. I wonder if these people have ever heard of a small city just west of us called Martinsville? American Furniture, Basset Furniture, Hooker Furniture and more have all closed up shop and left thousands to talented and capable wood workers without jobs.
I along with thousands of other city and county residents want health care choices like another hospital. Why waste millions of dollars building a wood shop to train for two local furniture companys that can only hire maybe a dozen or so more people?
Sounds to me like city council and the others in charge of this project stand to make some money off of this and the local companies get to save their money by having us pay for their employees training instead of them having to do so. High schools have wood working shops in them already. I know. I took the class. This woodworking school is a bunch of crap and a waste of taxpayer money.
If the local companies need 18 skilled workers to run machines then they should have to train them themselves. I don’t see why we should spend millions of taxpayer dollars to do that for them. Especially when everyone knows that health care is really what the population wants and needs. That big ole white building would make a very nice second hospital.
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