As I have watched various issues affect Lake County, it has become apparent that there is not much leadership among the elected Lake County officials regarding economic development. We don't have a County Mayor, so the County drifts along like a lame duck while the County Board argues over zoning a horse riding stable or suing a water company, or they take junkets to Tallahassee to finalize a 350 page Comprehensive Plan containing regulations that will require hiring NINE new staffers (per the study given to the County Board early last year) and will expand County legal liability if the County does not have staff to act on some of the regulations.
But, at the city level we have staffers John Drury and Bill Neron sparkplugging Tavares with the support from their City Council, and carrying on a planning legacy from Nancy Clutts.
We have County Commissioner Jimmy Conner pushing for fiscal reform, but the County Commissioners do not even have weekly or monthly status reports on the critical issues of jobs and economic development.
We have School Board member Larry Metz analyzing impact tax increases and halting some planned tax increases (last year).
There is the small business incubator in Leesburg, pushed by a local staffer and supported by Leesburg City and UCF, etc.
But, now someone has acted to push the economic development front for Lake County...and he is from Minneola...
On Thursday, I attended the "Boss Summit" or Business Summit ( see http://www.thebosslink.com/ ) at the Minneola City Hall - I squeezed it in between setup for the Antique Boat Show in Tavares and an election launch event for a local election candidate.
About 100 or more people were there yesterday afternoon to see a large panel of players in economic development - mostly from the Disney Entrepreneurial Center (DEC) in Orlando, plus others. They discussed financing sources, minority assistance programs, sources for help with business plans, marketing research, import/export services, etc.
And, the featured speaker was from DEC, and he had the crowd listening to every word. Except for the very poor audio and acoustics, the event was a success with several "booths" to provide info to budding entrepreneurs, and the panel discussion.
But, was the event started by our County Government leaders or Economic Development Director?
No.
It was started by a City Council member from Minneola, Victor Ortega, who made individual calls to DEC, the County EDC Director, and several others, to get them to hold this summit and get off the dime (my term, not his). And, it only took 4 months, but the 4 hour event finally took place.
Ortega, with support from James Spencer ( from UCF and site manager for the Leesburg Incubator) pushed the potential attendees to come, and they finally did, and the panel discussion was led by Shelly Weidenhamer, Director of Business Development for the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission. If you run a firm with 10-100 employees, you are classified as a "second stage" organization and you learned about new "Economic Gardening" programs designed to help such businesses ramp up growth.
One blatant inconsistency was that the meeting used a website provider with an office in Orlando, and main operations in Peru. Thus, the website was apparently outsourced to Peru. So much for 100% local content.
After the panel discussion I had a chance to talk to Spencer about establishing a "branch" of the Leesburg incubator in the Tavares or Eustis area, and we will chat about how to do that next week.
The only area that could have been improved is more specific information on financing alternatives to bank lending. Tom Popieski of BankFirst did a good job of explaining the lending environment from the perspective of Commercial Banks, but there was no talk of angel financing, and other alternatives like Private Placement Memorandums (PPM's). For instance, most "SBA" loans are for real estate backed loans, and not working capital, and alternatives were not discussed.
But Ortega's vision resulted in this BOSS Summit ( or Business Owner's Success Summit) to rouse the entrepreneurs there.
Minneola? - Who knew? - the new center of entrepreneurship for Lake County!
Thanks Victor, for the leadership. Someone needs to focus on the big economic picture for Lake County.
And, I can start the rumor here - there might be a job hunting club forming for the Triangle area, and also a technology entrepreneurs group, and maybe even an Angel financing group. And no one from the economic leaderless County Government is involved. Stay tuned.
vj
Here is the Daily Commercial article about the Boss Summit(Warning: The Daily Commercial website insists on launching LOUD audio for video commercials as soon as you open the webpage, so don't look at it at work - if you know the DC people. tell them about their dumb internet ad audio blasts, and they are not welcome.)
