NorWelCo moves toward economic goals

Like the wheat that ripens to gold on north Weld County’s undulating plains, the new North Weld County Business Alliance is beginning to bear fruit.

Operating on the premise that there’s strength in numbers, officials and business owners from the small towns of north Weld County banded together this past spring to cultivate a new economic-development organization that has come to be known as NorWelCo.

Touting a one-for-all-and-all-for-one strategy, members of the fledgling organization set about pursuing three objectives: alerting residents of Ault, Eaton, Briggsdale, Galeton, Grover, Nunn and Pierce to the various community events in those towns; creating a directory listing local businesses; and building a centrally located base of knowledge about the communities for businesses interested in relocating there.

Membership growing

The brainchild of Eaton mayor Keith McIntyre and Ault’s former mayor, Stan Cass, the organization has quickly grown to include a cross-section of business people from the area. The organization has about 30 members representing various towns in north Weld County.

Since the organization formed, its members’ to-do list has dwindled.

The first objective was completed early on. A list of community events went out to residents of the region.

Objective two — a business directory — is on its way to completion. Fred Bauer, NorWelCo co-chair and president of Farmers Bank in Ault, said the organization expects to have a business directory published by February 2004.

NorWelCo is cooperating with a professional directory publisher to create a north Weld version of The Local Pages. In addition to listing businesses in Ault, Eaton, Briggsdale, Grover, Nunn and Pierce, the directory will include a four-page section devoted to NorWelCo and its members.

The organization also is building a Web site. The site is under construction and should be up and running later this fall. The site will post a directory listing of north Weld County businesses.

“The idea was that if we let people know where the businesses are and what they do, it’s going to generate more business for everyone,” McIntyre said.

Surprising number of businesses

To gather information for the directory, NorWelCo sent a mailing to 6,000 households. The mailing yielded a strong response. Even NorWelCo members were surprised to learn of the number and variety of small businesses embedded in and around their towns.

“I think the biggest shock that I had was when we sent that flyer out to see if people would be interested. There are so many businesses out there in people’s shops and in their homes. They don’t advertise. They aren’t on Main Street, and you would just never know about them except by word-of-mouth,´ said Kris Barber, NorWelCo co-chair.

It’s important to start economic-development efforts from within, Barber said.

“All these people are moving here from Fort Collins and Greeley and Loveland, and they’re continuing to do their work, their shopping and everything in other communities. They just live here and sleep here because they like the quiet small town. They don’t know what’s here.”

What’s there includes everything from naturally grown chickens to in-home computer help. The mailing that NorWelCo sent out revealed business operations that include “people who raise beef, do custom cabinetry, custom welding, ironwork, tile work, landscaping work, fence work. Anything you could imagine. There are just tons and tons of businesses,” Barber said.

Uncovering that wealth of commercial endeavors in their own backyard and publicizing it is a step toward building economic vitality in the region, NorWelCo members say.

“It’s in our interest to encourage business,” McIntyre noted. “The more successful they are, the more successful the town is.”

In addition to bolstering existing businesses, NorWelCo is at work gathering information of interest to businesses considering relocating to the area. Members wanted to have the kind of data that businesses look for all gathered in one place. In addition, NorWelCo members have volunteered to serve as information contacts.

A subcommittee of NorWelCo has been working with Greeley/Weld Economic Development Action Partnership president and CEO Ron Klaphake.

Community leaders said Klaphake has been supportive of NorWelCo’s efforts and that EDAP already has brought businesses interested in relocating to look at the area.

Assessing area’s strengths, needs

NorWelCo, meanwhile, is “really focused on trying to find out what prospective companies look for, then trying to map some of our areas so that we already have some of our information ready for them,” Kelly McIntyre said.

Kelly — Keith McIntyre’s daughter — grew up in Eaton and operates a management-consulting firm from the town. She is a founding member of NorWelCo and serves on its economic-development subcommittee.

She stressed that NorWelCo wants controlled economic development. “We want to be able to increase it, but we want to keep the small-town feel of this area,” she said.

The task of gathering and mapping economic-development information is complex, she said. “We need to figure out what we have, what we don’t have but need, (and) how quickly we can get it there for each parcel of land that might be desirable. We just want to be as ready as possible when someone is interested.”

NorWelCo officials say their organization hasn’t established what’s next after its existing to-do list is completed. But Kelly McIntyre said the group would likely continue on a similar path.

“I think we’re still forming,” she said. “We’ve talked about what our goals are for the immediate future. Long-term, I don’t think those goals will change all that much.”

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