Geringer stresses partnerships

CHEYENNE – Gov. Jim Geringer is reaching out to chambers of commerce to form partnerships that will help develop and diversify Wyoming’s economy – partnerships in every community between business, industry, education and government.”Economic development is everybody’s business,” the governor told chamber of commerce executives and members during the recent Business Day at the Legislature, an annual fixture in Wyoming to bring the business community closer to the legislative process.
Economic diversification, he stressed, isn’t something that’s left to the governor, chamber executives or economic-development professionals.
“We all have a part to play,” he said. “There are a lot of us who make a contribution in different ways. But the partnerships that are necessary to help promote economic growth are so important, and if we don’t recognize that, we’ll miss the opportunity for proper economic development.
Geringer’s message is that it takes cooperation between public and private sectors, between government and volunteers and not-for-profit groups, between labor and management and always between all the major players in a community.
“We’re going to focus on what we can do ourselves, what we can do together as a community, defining what we’d like to be in each community, designing how we get there and recognizing who has the responsibilities for carrying each one of those out.Geringer told the chamber audience he was there to “break some of the notions” about state government’s traditional role in economic development. While there is a place for recruiting and offering tax incentives or helping arrange financing, government’s best role is to develop the human and physical infrastructure that allows business to prosper and expand, he said.
ÿ