Annual funding for Economic Development Corporation of Elkhart County approved

Established in 2002, the EDC of Elkhart County is the area’s primary economic development entity tasked with overseeing an economic development marketing program focused on business retention and recruitment, workforce marketing and economic development marketing.

EDC President and CEO Mark Dobson made the request and provided council members with a brief history of the corporation as well as highlights of the corporation’s work the past year. According to Dobson, the EDC is part of a five-county region that includes Fulton, Kosciusko, Marshall and St. Joseph.

“In 2015, there was about $300 million of investment in the region, and about 2,500 new jobs announced in the region,” Dobson said. “Elkhart County represented $147 million of that investment in the region. So of a five-county region, we are nearly 50 percent of the economic growth in the region. We also represented half of the announced jobs in the region. I think that speaks really highly of the business climate in Elkhart County right now.”

Since its founding the EDC has facilitated about $1.345 billion in investment in Elkhart County, Dobson told the council. The corporation also helped to facilitate the creation of 21,000 new jobs and the retention of an additional 18,000 jobs.

“It’s a statistic that we’re very proud of,” he said.

Since joining the EDC as its president back in late 2015, Dobson said he and the board have worked toward a shifting focus when it comes to business attraction and retention that focuses on a more proactive approach.

“Obviously new business came to the community, and we worked with them to make sure that they located here,” Dobson said. “The active change that our board of directors wanted to see was us soliciting, actually out working with site selectors, working with corporate headquarters, and encouraging them to move here. So rather than be responsive, we’re now very proactive in that arena.”

That strategy appears to be working, he said, noting that the EDC was able to secure 15 business expansions and attract two new businesses last year.

Dobson said the greatest economic challenge in Elkhart County continues to be quality workforce attraction and retention — something he said is on the EDC's radar.

“We have a resident labor force of 104,000 people in Elkhart County,” Dobson said, noting that there are thousands of jobs in Elkhart County that are in need of quality workers to fill them. “Finding our workforce is our biggest challenge right now to continuing the growth of Elkhart County.”