According to Jeff Noel, community and economic development should be “common sense.”
At the behest of Christian County leadership, Kentucky’s Secretary for the Cabinet of Economic Development brought this message to Hopkinsville Tuesday afternoon — embracing a symposium setting and standing-room-only-attendance at the city’s Municipal Building on Virginia Street.
For more than an hour, Noel reflected on his cabinet’s role in Frankfort, and answered questions about what south western Kentuckians can do — as a collective — to maintain the sharp edge between commercial and industrial development, and the families looking for opportunity in the Commonwealth.
In the area for the second time in as many weeks, Noel called Christian County “a special place” — where a “can-do attitude” continues to propel locations like Commerce Park I and II into areas of success.
His four-pronged mantra goes back to “keeping it simple” — build trust, create job opportunity, provide housing, and everything else will fall into place.
The Pennyrile, Noel said, has taken advantage of the Kentucky Product Development Initiative and several state and federal grant opportunities, and specifically the Commonwealth remains the country’s top assembly state — with shipping and logistics efficiency a high selling point for current and prospective companies.
Christian County, Noel added, remains poised in those departments.
Noel also offered a sense of comfort about active local development within Christian County.
Kentucky, Noel closed, exports more than $46 billion in goods and imports more than $96 billion in goods. Why the delta? He said Kentucky’s biggest imports are auto parts, pharmaceuticals and aeronautics…and its biggest exports are finished, high-value products in the same fields.
Noel also noted that Christian County officials need to keep their eyes on the exponential growth of Nashville, which continues to move north through Clarksville and to the state line.
Noel’s opening comments:
Questions and answers:
