My friend Mark Riffey is from the small town of Columbia Falls, Montana. He normally writes about marketing, and he offers excellent advice. But last week, something different popped up. He wrote to his hometown folks to address the loss of an important local employer. I know many of you can relate to this…
Bike tourists exploring the scenic byways through Baker County, Oregon. Photo (CC) by Baker County Tourism on Flickr. Guest post by Mark Matthews, Chief Executive of Advance Cairns (Australia) ON YOUR BIKE….!!! Mountain biking has experienced rapid growth over the past 20 years as riders seek out new trails and new experiences. And some communities are…
Guest post by Laura Girty “Get back to the basics.” How many times have you heard that? Sometimes the basics are the best place to start. In the late 1990’s under the helm of Executive Director Leo Presley, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce (ODOC) developed a model for community development that worked especially well for…
Every small town faces the contradiction of young people saying “there are no jobs here” while business say “we can’t find good people.” My friend Kat Long from Ponca City, Oklahoma, sent this story of what they are doing to connect young people with the jobs that already exist in town and introducing girls to…
Guest Post by Anne Pyburn Craig It happened to cities and towns throughout industrialized America in the late and middle years of the 20th century. Big employers who’d propped up local economies for decades downsized or left, creating a brutal ripple effect on smaller businesses. Three towns in the Hudson Valley of New York…
InnovationLab helps rural businesses in Sonora, CA Guest post by Greg Falken Tuolumne General Hospital opened its doors in 1849, serving miners in the gold fields of California. By some accounts, the town of Sonora – now the county seat – was founded to address the miners’ urgent need for health care. TGH had six…
Guest Post by SeaTurtle Sports Co-founder Allen Bell and Allison Goldman, Director of SeaTurtle Sports Allen and Jeanne Bell launched SeaTurtle Sports in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2003 to design and manufacture premium beach and backyard games. As its founders, we observed a lack of new ideas in the category and what we felt was an unhealthy…
Guest post by Marci Penner, Kansas Sampler Foundation YOU FIND KANSAS… when you find Mona. We were about to leave the town of Dresden on our ERV guidebook research when we saw a simple sign against the cracked surface of the old basketball court. We had to find out. Who was Mona and what kind…
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