MANSFIELD — The City of Mansfield may soon have its own version of Jessica Gribben.
The city, which saw long-time economic development director Tim Bowersock retire near the end of 2024, has contracted with the Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development for those services.
That new agreement, for which the city will pay $100,000 annually, will be modeled after the work Gribben does as the chamber’s economic development project manager to the City of Shelby and northern Richland County.
It’s a one-year contract that can be renewed each year.
The new agreement, which took effect Jan. 1, was discussed Tuesday as part of the chamber’s 2024 end-of-year economic development review with the Richland County Board of Commissioners.
County commissioners pay the chamber $100,000 for its economic development efforts, a practice it began in 2021. As part of the agreement, chamber officials report their efforts twice a year to the three elected officials.
Ellen Heinz, the chamber president and CEO, said her organization has a collaborative working environment with the city and its mayor, Jodie Perry, who led the chamber for more than a decade before being elected to office.
“We have teams supporting the different initiatives we have with all of our communities, but we will have a relationship manager for each of the different communities that we have got,” Heinz said.
She praised the work of Barrett Thomas, the chamber’s director of economic development, for his work with Mansfield during the transition from Bowersock to the chamber.
“We do have some things in place already,” Heinz said. “We are accepting applications for the economic development project director (to work with the entire county). We’ve received many applications so far.
“I have started to review them and we will be setting up interviews this week and next week. So hopefully we will have an additional team member on board within the nex month,” she said.
“In the interim, I’m acting as kind of the point in tandem with Barrett and our entire team to make sure (the city’s) needs are being met,” Heinz said.
Gribben, in her work for Shelby and northern Richland County, focuses on retention and expansion of existing businesses there, as well as working with city and village leaders to attract new development.
Thomas will take the point working on behalf of Mansfield.
“(We are working) with the City of Mansfield’s mayor and also the City Council to identify those core objectives and the expectations, from economic development leadership to support with business retention expansion projects, as well as other community needs.
“We’re also going to be helping them in identifying different ways we can support them for marketing and workforce development, too. We will be setting up those specific parameters,” Heinz said.
Thomas praised the work of Bowersock, who retired in November after 25 years with the city.
“He’s done a lot of amazing work. What we call the industrial park in Mansfield is a series of eight industrial parks. Tim worked on each of those separately, building out the infrastructure, finding the dollars to go put in the roads and infrastructure, and then bringing in companies to fill all of those spots,” Thomas said.
In a wide-ranging 45-minute meeting with commissioners, efforts toward the U.S. 30 corridor broadband project were also discussed.
Commissioner Tony Vero said a $20 million funding request will be submitted to the Ohio House of Representatives on Friday for potential inclusion in the next two-year state budget.
He said the initial plan to submit the proposal to Lt. Gov. Jon Husted has changed since he was selected last week by Gov. Mike DeWine to replace now-Vice President J.D. Vance in the U.S. Senate.
“I have a conversation with (state Rep. Marilyn John) as to how we should best audible with respect to that request,” Vero said. “She has been great on this project and she is willing to champion the cause in the (Ohio) House of Representatives,” Vero said.
(Below is a PDF with the 2024 Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development’s end-of-year report to the Richland County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.)
