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Boom town! Schultz offers success keys As leaders in economic development of the region met Tuesday evening at the Wellington High School for the Sumner County Economic Summit, a general sense of working together for the common good was shared by passionate speakers and in conversations through the evening. Community members were greeted by displays from area chamber of commerce directors and business development representatives from a variety of markets. The evening began with a welcome by the Sumner County Economic Development Commission Chairman Roger Mericle. Sumner County Commissioner Elden Gracy also greeted the crowd with a speech which was well received from the crowd of nearly 100 city and community leaders. Suzie Ahlstrand of the Visioneering Wichita program and David Wood of the Greater Wichita Economic Development Commission were the first speakers of the night. Ahlstrand spoke of the Visioneering Wichita efforts for the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) including Sedgwick, Butler, Harvey and Sumner counties. Wood spoke about the new goals of the GWEDC which include marketing Wellington and Sumner County as well as the entire region. He expressed his hope that Sumner County and Wellington would look for growth in cooperation with the chamber, city and other regional groups. Both speakers were passionate about the region's opportunities for growth, energizing the stage for the highlighted speaker of the evening, Jack Schultz, author of Boomtown USA. Schultz shared his seven and a half keys to success, addressing issues such as attitudes and vision. He gave many examples of small towns which were able to flourish because they shaped their vision and made their cities unique. He gave further ideas on building a brand for the community through entrepreneurism and leveraging resources available within the city. Whether it was in discussing city leaders, resources or vision, each example Schultz provided showed a city able to completely shape their image and grow their city. Many cities saw a need to diversify their base in the face of slow economies and the creative ideas which flowed from that need transformed the cities. "You have to have a diversified commercial and industrial base," he said. Schultz encouraged each audience member to have vision and to take the city's growth personally. "One person with passion in a city is more important than 50 or 100 people who kind of care about what's going on," he said. "Be that one person with passion and see what you can accomplish in this town." The evening ended with an auditorium resounding with applause and words of thanks and farewell from Sumner County Economic Development Commission Director Debra Teufel. Those who stayed after for handshakes and autographs from Schultz, could also view again the informational booths from various economic development partners such as Kansas Department of Commerce, South Central Kansas Economic Development District (SCKEDD), SBA, Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), Workforce Development Center, WSU Small Business Development Center, Sunflower RC&D, Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition (GWEDC), several Chambers of Commerce from the area and other SCEDC partners.
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