More on the Eco Devo workshop

I want to be clear that I'm not pointing fingers at the people in the room. They were there. They had encouraged others to come. They will all be major contributors to the process, and I do believe it will happen.

The ViTAL Economies process works just as Tryan commented on the last post: first take a detailed inventory of our existing assets and look at how they can be linked to provide added value products or services. We were beginning to talk about our fisheries when Denny Holmes raised a blind in the conference room and revealed the Queen of the West docked a hundred feet away. Jim Haguewood said, "That boat comes here every week. Does it leave with your fish?" Turns out the boat is provisioned here, but not with any local products. Why?

The process also requires making definitions and setting specific, realistic goals. For example, what IS a "family wage"? Clallam looked at the specifics of its economy -- cost of housing, etc -- and decided it was $40,000 per year with health benefits. They wound up setting a goal of creating about 2,900 new jobs over the next four years at or above that wage.

There were people in the room who are ready right now to provide some $$ that would leverage other $$ to get us going on this process. Clallam started with $150,000 from a telecom and has so far leveraged that for $1.92million, including $1 million from the National Science Foundation to the community college, for programs that were designed to meet the specific needs of certain businesses.

We don't need such an angelic gift. We need to begin with enough to pay a good staff person who can keep things and people organized and who can write and maintaing grants. With one or may two more workshops, on the weekend, we can bring in the other players, get them on board, and Clatsopia can be not so far behind Columbia.