Our guest speaker for Nov. 4, 2013, was Emily Ingersoll of Economic Development. Rotarian Shawn Leonard introduced Emily to the Sussex Rotarians.
Emily's background and training are in Human Resources. She joined the province in her current capacity in May 2013. She is a proud resident of New Brunswicker and proud mother of two children. Emily updated the club on the Economic Development changes in the province...
- Emily has an office here in Sussex at the Court House.
- The purpose of the Sussex branch is as a business resource for businesses getting started.
- The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is no longer in the Economic Development business.
- Reorganization to the new Department of Economic Development organized into five (5) business districts, which include several satellite offices in areas with Sussex being one of those centers.
- The new model decentralized the decision making in all the regions of the province.
- Incentives are organized into three primary programs:
o NB Economic Growth Program to help businesses and assist with the costs of the hiring of people.
o INOV8, a program that supports a business with anything new or to improve and upgrade for improvements in efficiency or increase in production.
o Export Development, perhaps the most used of the three programs, which is anything to support export development opportunities. Export is defined as 'anything exported outside New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island.'