FRANCESVILLE — Pulaski County’s economic development director recently recapped the county’s economic progress at an annual countywide summit March 3 in Francesville.
Director Nathan Origer of the Pulaski County Community Development Commission emphasized the under-the-radar growth Pulaski County experienced in 2014, noting that the number of people employed in the county has risen above the level seen in December 2007, before the recent recession began.
He also pointed out in a transcript of his address that the county’s website has been overhauled and the new version is live, including videos filmed at various places in the county in 2013 and information from the county’s economic development, tourism, government, chamber of commerce and human services sectors.
The county’s economic development committee will also meet soon to review reports from feasibility studies conducted on three potential sites for the county’s next industrial park, all located along U.S. 421 and the CSX Transportation rail line. The committee’s next steps, Origer said, would be to approach landowners and look into funding sources to acquire the necessary land and develop infrastructure.
Origer also said he’d recently completed appraisals on the land in the county’s existing Winamac industrial park. “For the first time in a long while, we have some serious interest in the land that we already have,” he said in his transcript.
The community development organization and Ivy Tech have also provided soft-skills training to nearly 100 employees at about six local companies in the last year and a half, Origer said.