Econ Dev Show Podcast - Economic Development

In this unique episode of the Econ Dev Show, Dane Carlson talks with Dan Kiger, founder and principal advisor at VerumLegend, about why a meeting that feels productive can still leave you without the answers you need. Drawing on more than 20 years in the defense intelligence community, including time as a military interrogator, Dan makes the case for clarity over agreement and curiosity about what matters to the person across the table. They discuss how follow-through builds trust, why a rigid agenda can hide useful information, and what you miss when the CEO does all the talking. Dan also works through familiar economic development situations: a prospect focused on incentives, an employer struggling to find workers, and an existing business owner who feels overlooked. The conversation offers practical ways to get beyond polite answers and understand what will actually move a project or relationship forward. *Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! * Ten actionable takeaways for economic developers Define what you need to learn before the meeting. Identify the questions you need answered to understand the project and its prospects. Afterward, assess which questions were actually answered and what information you can corroborate. Learn what matters to the company before presenting your pitch. Ask about its history, employees, suppliers, and reasons for considering your community. That context can reveal concerns that a property checklist or incentive discussion leaves out. Invite a clear answer about whether things are moving forward. When a prospect keeps taking calls but never commits, ask where the project stands and what is preventing a decision. Make room for disagreement so both sides understand the situation. Follow through on the small commitments that build trust. Return calls and emails, arrive on time, and do what you said you would do. Remember that a broken promise affects how people see your organization as well as you. Follow useful detours in the conversation. When someone raises a concern outside your planned questions, ask them to explain it before steering back to the agenda. It may reveal a need or obstacle you did not know to ask about. Ask what would eliminate your community from consideration. If every shortlist discussion returns to incentives, ask what would cause the company to rule you out and what an acceptable incentive package means to them. Use those answers to clarify the requirements behind the negotiation. Investigate the hiring process before suggesting a workforce solution. When an employer says it cannot find workers, ask them to walk through exactly how they have tried to recruit. Find out what they have tried, what they have not tried, and where the process is getting stuck. Turn an overlooked local business’s complaint into a concrete meeting. Set up time to discuss its current problems, concerns, and goals. Identify people in your local network who could help address those needs. Create opportunities to hear from people beyond the CEO. Ask leadership to allow separate conversations with managers and employees so concerns can surface without the boss in the room. When conducting confidential interviews, share themes without identifying the individuals who raised them. Corroborate what you hear before treating it as settled. Compare statements with other available information and the person’s pattern of follow-through. Recognize when your assessment rests on evidence and when you are still working from a hunch. Special Guest: Dan Kiger.

In this episode of the Econ Dev Show Dane Carlson talks with Peter McGee about why entrepreneurship support is often included in economic development plans but rarely given the same strategic attention as attraction, retention, and infrastructure. Peter explains how better entrepreneurship programs can help communities connect residents to economic development, support business owners with coaching and practical business fundamentals, and generate meaningful metrics instead of simply counting meetings and referrals. They also discuss why information alone is not enough, the value of human coaching in an AI-filled world, and how economic development organizations can create locally branded entrepreneurship programs without having to build everything from scratch. Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Special Guest: Peter McGee.

In this episode of the Econ Dev Show Dane talks with Thane Hutcheson about what site selection looks like from the company side of the table, beginning with why the process often starts with markets, labor, supply chains, and operating conditions rather than a specific piece of dirt. Thane explains how companies narrow their choices, why falling in love with a community or site too early can create problems, and what the best economic development teams do differently—from submitting only sites that actually fit to helping visiting companies visualize what long-term success in the community would look like. They also discuss incentives, the growing role of AI in professional services, and why automating data gathering and analytical work can free economic developers and consultants to spend more time building relationships, exercising judgment, and doing the work that still requires humans. Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! 10 Actionable Takeaways for Economic Developers Understand the market-level decision before pitching individual sites. Companies may narrow locations based on labor availability, labor costs, specialized occupations, supply chains, utility costs, and other operating factors before they ever start comparing properties. Don't lead with dirt when the project isn't ready for dirt. Learn what the company is actually solving for first. A perfect site in the wrong labor market or supply-chain location may never be competitive. Submit fewer, better-fitting properties. If an RFI asks for 20–50 acres with specific characteristics, don't pad the response with properties that obviously fall outside the requirements. Protect the company's time and your own. Know what surrounds the site, not just what is on it. Be ready to explain neighboring uses, infrastructure, businesses, access, and the larger environment in which the company would operate. Understand your community's goals and resources. Know how a project aligns with local priorities and what financial and non-financial resources—including workforce training and community-college partnerships—you can realistically bring to the table. Help prospects visualize operating in your community. During site visits, answer the questions behind the spreadsheet: Where would executives and employees live? Where would their children attend school? Which airport would they use? What would the drive look like? Bring successful local businesses into the conversation. Give prospects opportunities to hear from companies already succeeding in your community. Their experience can help establish confidence that the prospect can succeed there too. Treat a location decision as a long-term relationship. Thane describes these decisions as potentially 50-year commitments. Think beyond winning the announcement and demonstrate why the company can operate successfully over the long haul. Use AI to gather and organize information, not replace judgment. AI can help process datasets, collect information, and accelerate analytical work, but ranking alternatives, evaluating sites, negotiating incentives, and making final decisions still require experience and judgment. Spend the time AI saves on people. Use automation to create more room for business retention visits, prospect relationships, community engagement, conferences, conversations, and the other human interactions technology cannot replicate. Special Guest: Thane Hutcheson.

In this episode of the Econ Dev Show Dane Carlson talks with Amy Renner, Community Development Senior Program Manager for the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP), about what rural communities really need to move economic development projects forward. Drawing on her experience as the former mayor of a 1,000-person Appalachian community and her current work providing technical assistance across rural America, Amy explains why limited staff capacity can be a bigger obstacle than limited funding, how relationships can unlock resources that communities cannot provide for themselves, and why grants work best when paired with planning and technical expertise. They explore RCAP’s work through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Thriving Communities program, examples involving outdoor recreation, infrastructure, mixed-use development, transportation, and entrepreneurship, and the importance of community-led planning that produces action instead of another report sitting on a shelf. The conversation ultimately makes the case that transformative rural development starts by building the relationships and capacity necessary to turn good ideas into projects that are actually ready to fund and implement. Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Special Guest: Amy Renner.

In this episode of the Econ Dev Show Dane Carlson talks with Will Williams, president and CEO of the Western South Carolina Economic Development Partnership, about how economic development has changed over his career: from paper RFIs and long project timelines to massive capital investments, compressed decisions, and new infrastructure demands. They dig into Western South Carolina’s effort to develop a 1,900-acre industrial park, the growing constraint of electrical capacity, and the heated debate surrounding data centers. Will argues that communities should evaluate data centers the same way they evaluate other industrial projects: by looking carefully at infrastructure, utilities, location, tax impact, jobs, and community compatibility rather than reacting to misinformation or fear. The conversation ultimately becomes one about trust, communication, zoning, AI, long-term community building, and the economic developer’s role as the “connective tissue”, or, as Will puts it, “community duct tape”, that holds people and institutions together. Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! 10 Actionable Takeaways for Economic Developers Start planning electrical capacity earlier. Large projects increasingly require enormous amounts of generation and transmission capacity, making power availability a fundamental site-readiness issue rather than something to address after a prospect appears. Build sites for the next generation of projects, not the last one. Western South Carolina spent years assembling 1,900 acres because larger contiguous sites with strong interstate and workforce access can take years to create. Treat data centers like any other industrial prospect. Examine electricity, water, sewer, noise, location, jobs, taxes, and infrastructure requirements instead of automatically treating the industry as either uniquely good or uniquely bad. Put intensive uses where they belong. Good land-use planning and appropriate buffers can prevent many conflicts before a project is announced. Will specifically points to industrial locations and property-line noise standards as tools communities can use. Don't mistake the loudest voices for the entire community. Public meetings can amplify a small group of highly motivated opponents, so economic developers and elected officials should seek broader community understanding before assuming opposition is universal. Communicate before controversy forces you to. Economic development can no longer happen entirely “in the kitchen.” Practitioners need systems for explaining projects publicly while still respecting legitimate company confidentiality. Use your track record to build trust. When skepticism is high, point to previous projects, their actual outcomes, and the community's experience rather than relying only on promises about a new project. Recognize that automation changes jobs more often than it simply eliminates them. Will compares today's AI concerns with earlier fears around manufacturing automation, which increased the need for more skilled workers even as processes became more automated. Think in decades. Will expects the new industrial park to develop over roughly 25 years. Economic developers should be comfortable investing in infrastructure and assets whose full payoff may come long after their own tenure. Build a network far beyond the usual power players. Will's career advice is to “grow where you're planted” and know as many people as possible—not just utility executives and elected officials. Those relationships become sources of information, introductions, and problem-solving capacity. Special Guest: Will Williams.