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Show County businesses 'thanked' HILL AFB -Economic development de-velopment is alive and well in Davis County, at least according to members of the county's Economic Econo-mic Development Office, which hosted a luncheon for local business busi-ness leaders last Wednesday. THE LUNCHEON, held at the Officers Club at Hill Air Force Base, coincided with Economic Development Week in Utah. Members Mem-bers of the Davis County Commission, Commis-sion, the county's Council of Governments Gov-ernments and the Private Industry Council scheduled the luncheon to say "thanks" to local business leaders. Com. Harold Tippetts conducted con-ducted the meeting, telling guests "we are all seeking economic development, de-velopment, but all too often fail to recognize the industry already in place." HE SAID the governing bodies hope the luncheon will become an annual tribute to county businesses and their leaders. Com. chairman Harry Gerlach used the analogy that economic development de-velopment is like the work of a magician. "It takes a lot of hard work to make your trade pay off," he told the guests. HE RELATED his experience on a trip to Colorado, where he found a county similar in size and demog-raphics demog-raphics to Davis County. He wanted to see first hand what that county was doing to foster business busi-ness growth. "The one recommendation they gave me was to involve the private sector in everything we're doing along those lines," he said. KEYNOTE SPEAKER was David Grant, director of the state's Business and Economic Development Develop-ment Division. Grant stated that one fallacy often associated with his work is that new jobs are only created when big firms, such as McDonnell-Douglas, which just announced plans to build a production produc-tion facility in Salt Lake City, come to town. "The fact is that 85 to 90 percent of the jobs created in Utah each year are from home owned, locally-based businesses. They just don't get as much attention in the media," he said. ONE GOAL of the Bangerter administration is to increase the amount of military purchases made from Utah businesses. Thus, the state office has established a Utah Procurement Program. Grant point out that last year. Hill Air Force Base purchased $2 billion in goods, but said only $135 million of that amount went to state businesses. "Davis County is in an excellent position to do better than that, because be-cause of its location. We want a bigger piece of that pie," he said. HE ALSO praised the work of Metro Utah, a coalition of the 1 1 northern counties of Utah which have combined efforts for economic econo-mic development. Grant concluded by telling luncheon lun-cheon guests that his office also deals in other forms of incoming state revenues, such as the Utah Travel Council that promotes tourism, tour-ism, the State Office of Film Development, De-velopment, the International Division, Divi-sion, and branches that deal with small businesses and job training. "ECONOMIC Development means the creation of wealth, an increase in prosperity and an improvement im-provement in the standard of living. liv-ing. We are seeking business, but that business must be compatible to the lifestyles of Utah," he said. He outlined the five most important impor-tant factors in helping growth. They are, first, innovation-development innovation-development of better and cheaper ways to produce goods and services; ser-vices; second, entrepreneurship; third, financial capital; fourth, human hu-man capital and fifth, a good public interstructure. th |