Our program last Wednesday was presented by Kristie Young, Vice President of Economic Development with the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce. She shared several bits of her personal life and her love for this area. She stated that economic development is the creation of wealth from which community benefits are realized.

She then reported the area unemployment numbers saying that in June 2020 unemployment stood at 14.6%. In June of 2021 it stood at 10.5% and is 9.9% now, so on that front, we are seeing improvement.

The virus has impacted business in several areas such as the pause in a number of expansion projects. We have also experienced employees having limited access to vaccinations. Home sales since Hurricane Harvey have been affected by low inventory and high demand. In healthcare, hospitals missed their budgets by millions of dollars. Construction dropped 40% from 2019. Those numbers have improved to 90% from 2019. Small business startups numbered 17 in 2019. There were only 5 in 2020. There have been 10 so far this year.

Ms. Young then talked about why this area is attractive to businesses. She said the infrastructure here is outstanding. We have a port, railroads, highways, pipelines and a regional airport. We also have a low cost of doing business.

We currently have over $60 billion worth of projects planned or currently underway that will produce as many as 65,000 jobs over a 10-12 year period.

The Chamber of Commerce has several initiatives in place to help business. One is the Talent Pipeline Management (TPM) program. It is employer led which gives them more freedom to share ideas and talent with each other. She shared with us a website called “Make My Move” which helps potential employees find out about the opportunities here and compared it to “Angie’s List.” The chamber also has a “Concierge Program” which helps those looking to move here. Still another program is called the “Beaumont Champions.” There are 30 members - veterans of the area as well as new-comers. The goal of this program is to empower people with knowledge about our community.

The chamber also provides quarterly educational programs dealing with branding, government grant-writing and funding programs.

Ms. Young then encouraged us to talk and think positively about all that our area has to offer when sharing with people considering a move here for work.