December 2009
Happy holidays to you all. It is an honor to be named president of CEDAS, an organization that I respect so much.
As we move forward into the second decade of the new millennium (scary huh?) I wanted to share my goals for CEDAS in the coming year. In preparing these goals, I am reminded that this is a membership organization first and foremost, and customer service is job number one. So this is where we begin.
All of our goals are interconnected. If we want to increase our membership in larger communities, we have to offer them something they are not getting from another organization, that is knowledge, contacts, etc that is very relevant to them. Examples for larger communities probably include programs and services related to brownfields, transportation and the Federal EDA. We need to help them network not only with our friends at DECD, but also with other agencies of cognizance such as DEP and the DOT.
GOAL 1: INCREASE MEMBERSHIP
First retain and then increase our membership. Economic development professionals know that retention is the most important thing we can do. This means giving you the services you need and want. Last year we began a successful initiative to engage economic development commission members. We added roughly 30 new EDC members by offering a discounted rate for volunteers, including students and retirees. We will continue to offer this membership rate and look to bring many of them to CEDAS events and encourage them to take advantage of our services. Tell us what we can do to help you do your job!
We should also reach out to our brother and sister organizations such as CT APA, ICSC, CORENET, etc. not only to increase our member’s knowledge and contacts, but also to help their members understand the value of our profession.
GOAL #2: INCREASE KNOWLEDGE
We must continue to support the professional training and best practices opportunities through the Community Builders Institute (CBI) as much as possible. Tom Marrano and everyone from CL&P involved continue to do a great job. UI held another great economic development conference in 2009 and I look forward to being a part of it next year. I am excited to work with both CL&P and UI in 2010.
CEDAS Advisory Services (New!): Conceived as an idea many years ago, we are hoping to move forward with this service to CEDAS members whereby a team of experts in a given area (requested by the member) would work with the member to provide technical assistance. Thus if a member needs some advice or help related to brownfields or TIFs, the CEDAS Advisory Service volunteer would help the member.
GOAL 3 MARKETING:
This is “telling the story” of what CEDAS is about and what our customers (that’s you!) are doing, the successes, interesting ideas etc. We will take our already fine web site (cedas.org) to its next generation as a resource center for best practices and important information and as a social networking center.
GOAL 4 NETWORKING:
This is far and away the most frequently valued benefit of CEDAS. We want to give you not only the opportunity to meet in the social/party context, but also to network through educational and professional collaborative opportunities. One way we plan to do this in 2010 is making sure as part of our quarterly meetings that we have a networking opportunity for existing and new members. These meetings will be held in different locations around the state to give members statewide the chance to be part of the fun and education of an CEDAS program.
The goals outlined for 2010 provide the important basic services to you, our customer. There are many other goals that are related - such as policy and legislation for which we will certainly play an active role in shaping the long-term economic landscape for the next several years.
I am really looking forward to working with you in 2010. I welcome contrarian views and differing opinions. As professionals you know there is a continous paradigm shift and we must continue to expand our knowledge base and network of contacts. I’ve often joked that while everyone else is sleeping we must reinvent ourselves. At the local level we want to help you tell the story about what can work to help your community grow in healthy and sustained way. We want your chief elected officials and economic development commissions and other organizations to have realistic expectations and benchmarks. Please join me in 2010 to get the job done!
Cheers and happy holidays!
Dale Kroop
CEDAS President
