Page County EDA 2004 Strategic Plan Recap, Part 2

By far, the driver of the Page County EDA’s 2004 Strategic Plan was “business attraction” – five pages out of a total of 25. That discussion begins “…one key to a sustained economic future will be Page County’s ability to attract new economic development,” before moving into a discussion of how Page competes with other destinations in the state for this kind of investment.


There is an honest assessment of the probability of success for a plan like this. Apparently Page County has traditionally created marketing plans like this without taking the step to explore what industries are suitable, or where high priority investments should be made. This kind of targeting contributes to a higher probability of success. To do it, the community begins by asking itself questions such as:

-What is our niche?
-What types of businesses do we want to attract?
-What should be our strategic priorities: manufacturing, tourism development and promotion, or retail development?

There is a recommendation to take a key step of a chartering a market study and consensus building effort to answer these questions. The goal is to identify the industrial sectors and business types that would be most beneficial in the County. A second goal outlined in this area is an analysis of the types of export opportunities that might exist based on proximity to the Virginia Inland Port in Front Royal.

The rest of the goals in this section – invest in better communications infrastructure, and the transportation infrastructure issues keeps coming up in various ways – address getting the table stakes together before being dealt in to the big hand. Coming down to earth, there is no assessment of how likely a small county like this, 30,000 or so people, is going to attract the kind of economic development investment needed to do these things, simply the observation that Page County must do them.

A second goal in the document addresses the needs of existing business retention and growth. This section begins with the statement “…Page County’s diversified economy, based on the four ‘legs’ of manufacturing, tourism, retail and agriculture, provides an excellent foundation for growth.” There are two key ironies to beginning this section with a statement like this:

• Elsewhere in the report is a note about the lost jobs in the manufacturing sector; in fact, this trained but idle labor pool is part of ‘being ready’ for future new business arrivals; and

• This strategic goal merits only a page and a half of the study, and two objectives, compared to the coverage of attracting new businesses and the lamentations about transportation infrastructure.

Addressing the recent – at the time, although they have continued since 2004 – job losses in the manufacturing sector, this plan reports, “…the strength of Page County’s local economy has allowed the County’s agricultural, housing, tourism, and retail sectors to continue to grow…”, partially offsetting the impacts. Then there is the bottom line – the requirement to come to an understanding of the needs of existing businesses.

As a business person, I’ve found that sometimes the highest payback comes from doing just a little more with the investments already made. It’s different from a “good money after bad” concept – if the fundamentals for success are there, sometimes the little extra of a renewed approach, new tools and technology, or simply, new management, are all it takes to break loose profitability. So I guess I would have liked to see more attention paid to this section.

The strategies listed here are good ones, although I wonder if there was ever any follow-up: undertake a survey of local businesses to ascertain needs, problems, and general perceptions of the business climate; and survey supplier locations and products purchased, using the information to ascertain the feasibility of recruiting common suppliers to the region.

This is where I would start – from strengths. The tourism sector, while taking a bit of a shot during the recession, has remained robust. I’ve never seen the parking lot at the Caverns as it was in the summer of 2009, and on one Friday I saw no less than four camping families arriving with the tell-tale rectangular cylinder of a tent strapped onto the luggage racks. They are coming here for recreation – make sure they have the highest quality experience. Outfitters and groceries are complimentary – make sure these are the best they can be (we have great outfitters, so I mainly am talking about the groceries here!).

Then there is agriculture. Family farms have really suffered and have been in a bad state for decades, but lately there are some new approaches that seem to work – I’ll write about them soon. A county agricultural marketing extension could develop a plan that builds on the sustainability and “buy local” trends that are hot in the big cities right now. Page County is ideally located to serve DC, Richmond, Roanoke, Charlottesville, Baltimore, Charleston, WV, and even Philly and Pittsburgh. Targeting grocers like Giant, Whole Foods, Wegman’s, and Harris Teeter with micro-ag, and seasonally fresh crops, seems to me to be an opportunity.

My next Page County EDA posts will look at the 2008 update to the 2004 plan, and then I will look at the 2009 update. The original posts that were the source of this post are here: http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2009/06/page-county-economic-plan-2004.html  

Thanks for reading such a long post.
Cabin Jim