Executive Director  Truman Hamilton   

Our vision is for Monticello and Drew County to be the economic, educational, health, and cultural center of Southeast Arkansas.

Mission Statement

• We will leverage our relationship with the University of Arkansas at Monticello, our affiliation with the Cornerstone Coalition, and our human resources to strengthen the economic environment of Monticello and Drew County.

• We will provide a climate for business, institutions, and industry to start, operate, and grow while enhancing the earning opportunities of our citizens.

Definition of Economic Development

Long Range Economic Development Planning

"If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?"

First, let's make some fundamentals clear:

• Economic development is not industrial recruitment, although industrial recruitment may be a part of an economic development program
• Economic development is not building highways, bridges, air ports or river ports, although their construction may be a part of an economic development program.
• Economic Development is not literacy training or human resource development, although such may be a part of an economic development program.
• Economic development is not lobbying at City Hall, the County Courthouse, the State Capitol or in the Halls of Congress, although the education of elected officials regarding key issues may be a part of an economic development program

Economic Development is the process by which wealth is created.

Historically, Southeast Arkansas has been blessed with very fertile soil and forest resources. In the past significant wealth was created in Southeast Arkansas through cultivation of the soil and the harvesting of timber. Agriculture and the wood/wood products industries have been steadily declining for decades as generators of rewarding employment. Technology has taken its toll in the fields and the forests. Ownership of significant resources has shifted from this local to the portfolios of out-of-state corporations. Today global competition adds another dimension to our regional dependence upon these resources.

Now we must ask:

• What can we do , and what should we do to slow and eventually reverse out migration over the next decade?.
• What can we do, and what should we do to create wealth for the residents of the region?
• How can we more fully participate in the mainstream of American economic life?

To answer those questions we must determine:

• What are out strengths and weaknesses? How can we maximize the former and minimize the latter?
• What are our opportunities and threats?
• What are the mega-trends that will impact our region, state, nation, and world over the next decade/ What strategies can we develop to rise with the tide, not resist it?

Economic development planning is not rocket science. It is the application of fact and foresight to create the greatest possible opportunity for the greatest possible number of people in the region.