Paulding County’s Economic Development organization announced recently that Robert Reynolds has been hired to replace first Executive Director Jamie Gilbert, who resigned his position in November of last year. Reynolds took over as of July.
His background with Paulding County began from working in Douglas County from 1997 through 2010 as director of Development Authority and helped to bring a Google Data Center and an American Red Cross regional distribution center.
Reynolds isn’t vexed by Paulding’s lack of direct access to an interstate highway, as has been noted in the past as one item on the short list of drawbacks to the recruitment of new industries, and he brings a fresh perspective to the challenges he faces.
“It’s not like there’s a wall around the county. You’ve got to be able to move goods in and out, but you don’t have to sit right on the interstate necessarily,” he said. “Interstates are a positive, but it’s not the top of the list unless you’re just a true logistics firm and that’s all you need.”
Reynolds also points out that Paulding County has many other things on the plus side to offer. “There’s a great workforce, access to existing interstates, access to the new information super highway, fiber, and things like that, a great healthcare system, a brand new hospital, he said.
Reynolds added that as part of metro Atlanta the county’s future looks good. “There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity; Atlanta continues to grow, it’s in the forefront of the nation in lots of categories of growth, new hospitals, new roads, great infrastructure, all those are positives to make good things happen,” he said.
“[But] there’s no perfect community that has everything everybody wants on every checklist, so you capitalize on the advantages you have, and we certainly have those. So not having the interstate is not near the end of the world in any way, shape, or form,” he said. Reynolds sees the airport, like the hospital and other facilities playing an important role in local opportunities.
“We’re looking at all of that right now. It’s an asset to help with job creation. You take advantage of the assets you have. It’s a beautiful facility and facilities like that say a lot of good things about a community.”
In March of 2011, the funding that new Executive Director Jamie Gilbert was given consisted of support from both Dallas and Hiram with each city contributing $50,000 annually, another $100,000 coming from the county, and another $40,000 coming through the Chamber of Commerce. By 2013 support from Hiram began to waver, and more recently the city council has focused their economic development efforts in the direction of a downtown business association.
Paulding Board of Commissioners approved a FY2016 budget earlier this month and in the process adjusted the budget with regard to the Economic Development organization, reducing its allocation by $70,000 as an adjustment for the period when there was no director for the organization.
More than 70 percent of local residents still commute to jobs in surrounding counties. An EDO brochure provided in August 2014 at the organization’s annual meeting showed 10 new or expanding businesses during 2013-14, totaling 577 new jobs and representing $157,300,000 in investment.
Reynolds will spend some time getting up to speed on available real estate and building inventory, he says. “I’m aware of some of it. We certainly want to take a look at what’s existing. [Jamie] developed a great website, but as far as updating that it’s been neglected for these last six months. It’s certainly a high priority to make sure it’s updated and we have a good current inventory of what’s available, and make sure nothing’s fallen through the cracks. Because all these companies want different things, there’s no cookie-cutter perfect site or perfect building out there anywhere.”
Reynolds explained that the approach lies in promoting your locale’s positives and also in recruiting for quality rather than quantity. “It’s about the types of jobs and the sustainability of the industries that come in and then have a positive impact on the community,” he said.