For more information, contact:                                           For Immediate Release

Peter Zaehringer, Executive Director                                    December 15, 2010

419-627-7791

director@eriecountyedc.org

ERIE COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ANNOUNCES NEW LEAD REFERRAL INITIATIVE

The Erie County Economic Development Corporation (ECEDC) will begin to coordinate the distribution and processing of economic development leads from the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) for all communities in Erie County.

“It is important that every community in Erie County is informed of the opportunities that the Ohio Department of Development or any other source makes available. This is our opportunity to market and showcase available land, buildings and/or other resources” says Peter Zaehringer, Executive Director with ECEDC. “This initiative will also ensure inclusion of sites not available in common economic development databases yet” Zaehringer says.

Currently ODOD distributes information about companies looking to relocate and/or expand and are in need of vacant buildings, land, greenfields, brownfields etc. to various economic development practitioners around the state.

Local communities then collect and submit feasible sites back to ODOD. Sometimes in this process leads get lost or not received because an email address changed, or fewer resources might make it difficult to respond in a timely manner. The result might be a missed opportunity to attract new jobs to Erie County.

In order to avoid missed opportunities and to streamline this process and maximize participation by actively including all communities within Erie County, ECEDC will introduce the County’s first “Lead Referral Initiative”.

ECEDC will act as a “one-stop-shop” and distribute the leads to all Erie County communities, compile the data received from the responses, update ODOD’s database and submit the lead.

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