Southeast Community College in southeast Lincoln hosted its inaugural meeting to develop projects that will benefit the southeast region of Nebraska on June 21.
This is the second region that has started these meetings under the 6 Regions, One Nebraska initiative.
The group will meet twice a year for the next three years to work towards projects that will pursue economic development in the area.
“We will have the department of economic development present (at each meeting), the Nebraska chamber present, the governor or lieutenant governor available to join us for those events,” said Tara Lea, vice president of Community Affairs at the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We’ll have about 100 community leaders from their regions gathered together as well.”
The goal of this program is to allow communities in the region to band together and help one another grow.
“Over time, Nebraska communities have been parochial about wanting to benefit their hometown, and that’s great, but our hypothesis here is that they can benefit their hometown even more by working with their neighbors,” said K.C. Belitz, director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. “You can’t have two regions; that’s too big. You can’t have 34, that’s too many, so six is a nice number.”
The southeast region will include the counties of Seward, Saline, Lancaster, York, Saunders, Fillmore, Thayer, Jefferson, Gage, Cass, Otoe, Johnson, Nemaha, Pawnee and Richardson.
Marc LeBaron, CEO of Lincoln Industries and Jonathan Jank, President and CEO of Seward County Chamber and Development Partnership will serve as volunteer co chairs of the committee.
“Over the last decade (Seward has) been intentional about bringing all of our communities together,” Jank said. “That’s been a focus for us, so on a microcosm level, we’ve been able to do exactly what we’re talking about here. Our hope is to do that across the region.”
Each region has hired a navigator in each region who will be out every day meeting with community leaders to help build connections across the region and act as a connector throughout the region to help push projects forward.
