In college, my Communications degree senior thesis was on “Economic Development for Glen Elder, Kansas“. I chose something close to my heart, “saving” rural Kansas.
When searching for a career, I came across the Director of Republic County Economic Development (RCED) advertisement in the Salina Journal. I applied, got the interview, and said yes to the offered job. Then, I drove around the Belleville community. Every other house was for sale and I wondered, “What did I get myself into?”.
I lived in Belleville and I found it to be a great fit, but it was April 2003 and M-C Industries had just closed leaving three hundred people out of work and a 66,000-square-foot building empty. I was the second-ever Economic Development Director for Republic County (Belleville budget $26,185, County $26,185), in my second-ever job out of College, and my board and I had inherited a significant economic issue. A manufacturing plant that had closed in December 2003.
Fast forward twenty years to today.
That empty manufacturing plant now houses Lambert Vet Supply, a very successful pet supply and pharmacy that serves major National vendors like Chewy.com. One of the largest employers in Republic County. How did that happen, just spontaneously? Unfortunately, no.
In March 2004, I wrote some press inquiries to major news outlets, trying to get some attention and leads for the MC Industries building. The Salina Journal showed up and the Belleville plant was featured. The Topeka Capitol Journal also picked up the story. Leads started to come in and I showed the building more times than I could count. Then finally came Doug Lambert. But, that was only the beginning of the story. From there, coordination happened with our Kansas Department of Commerce representative to share all of the State programs. Meetings were held with the Belleville City Council to determine final details about the building sale, etc.
That’s when I learned that turning a three-hundred-employee plant closure back into something good doesn’t just happen. It takes persistence and a lot of people working behind the scenes to make things happen.
After all of this work, I ended up moving away for six years to another part of the region, leaving the momentum for the next economic development director and board to carry forward. While I was gone for those six years, five other economic development directors were in place. Some of them carried on the work that I started, and other work was still ready to be done when I returned for a second Economic Development stint in 2010, but all of it took patience.
– Jenny Russell, Republic County Economic Development Director, 23-24, 2010-present
