Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

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Who is Jim Sharkey?

First, Jim Sharkey is the man who replaced Gene Monk as director of the Nevada County Economic Development Office.

Next, Sharkey is a husband, married seven years to his wife, Patricia.

Then, he is an outdoorsman. A man who enjoys being in the wild, hunting deer and rabbit, or on the river or lake fishing.

Sharkey is also a man who is very interested in promoting Prescott and Nevada County to business and industry to help the region grow and prosper. His background shows he has what it takes to do just that.

Born in Detroit, Mich. in 1947, Sharkey understands hardship. His father and grandfather worked in coal mines near Fort Smith, moving to Detroit during the Great Depression to find work.

Once he was born, his parents moved south to Erinton, Tennessee, where the Chrysler Co., who his father worked for, opened a satellite plant. Erinton is a small town of about 1,200 people in Houston County, Tenn. This is where Sharkey attended and graduated from high school.

After graduating high school in 1966, Sharkey attended Draughon Business College in Nashville for a year. His education was interrupted by a stint in the United States Air Force.

Sharkey spent a year as an air traffic controller, working in radar approach control, in Okinawa during the Vietnam War. "It was interesting," he said of his tour of duty. "Everything that flew off the island went to Vietnam."

He spent two years there and two years stateside, managing to avoid Nam. Once out of the USAF, Sharkey came to Little Rock, where he attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) on the GI Bill. To help his financial status, he worked part time with the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission (AIDC).

Once he completed his degree in political science, Sharkey went to work full time with the AIDC in the area of community development. In that department, Sharkey developed and maintained demographic information, including building site information for about 200 communities in the state -- spending a great deal of time on the road collecting the data, updating it and taking photos of the areas, along with measuring buildings for possible industries.

He then changed hats, becoming a project manager for the AIDC, and began working closely with industrial prospects, escorting them around the state. Sharkey recruited businesses and industries from across America and overseas, along with Canada and Mexico.

In this capacity, he worked closely with the governor's office and had plenty of access to other state offices and officials, in addition to local leaders across Arkansas.

His next step with the AIDC was to become interim director for the industrial development division. Three months later, Sharkey was named director of the division.

This, he said, is where the actual recruitment is done. As director, Sharkey managed a staff of 20 and also worked to help existing industry do any expanding it wanted to do.

However, after 15 years with the AIDC, Sharkey needed a change of scenery. He decided the logical step was to utilize his background on the local level. So, he went to Camden to head its combined Chamber of Commerce and Economic DevelopmentOffice. During his stint in Camden, Sharkey helped the city attract business and industry.

From there, he moved on to Greenwood, Miss., where he did pretty much the same things he did in Camden. Eventually, Sharkey drifted to Germantown, Tenn. where he headed the Chamber of Commerce, and was hired from there to lead the Nevada County Economic Development Office.

In comparing Chambers to Economic Development Offices, Sharkey said the going trend is to separate the two, primarily because the workload and amount of information to be handled has grown so much and so fast.

"It's more time consuming," he said of economic development, "and requires more planning and information gathering. The market is more sophisticated."

However, Sharkey said the computer age is changing everything. In fact, the NCEDO will soon be on the information superhighway. Information on Prescott and Nevada County will be downloaded on the World Wide Web and can be accessed by prospective businesses and industries.

"They can search our community profile," he said. "Used to, business relied on state agencies for information. With computers, they can gather information instantly."

With the gathering of information comes the process of site selection and elimination. Sharkey said the first step in selecting a site is actually the process of eliminating areas from the prospective pool. Then, when an industry calls, they are fairly serious about locating in an area.

"We've become more sophisticated in the way we compete," he said. "We've changed the way we recruit. I have to reeducate myself with the computer and software," he continued, "and keep the information current on our Web page.

"Any business in the world tied to the Net can access information on Prescott. The world is shrinking in terms of communication. I'm learning more everyday myself. This (computerization) frees up time and saves money. It's really changed the way we do business. It's more technical."

Sharkey said because building a business is expensive, more demands are placed on cities and counties from the business world. "It's up to us to respond," he said. "We'll still do the traditional things we've always done. But with today's technology, we have to change the way we provide current information."

In discussing the Chamber's role in industrial and economic development, Sharkey said Chambers across the country have taken on the role of leadership development, which is vital to communities. He said a lot of communities have lost their traditional leadership and are suffering. "Leadership development is an important program," he said. "We need a way to educate people in the leadership role so they can participate in the community." Leaders, Sharkey said, can come from any walk of life, as long as they are willing to do the work necessary to help their community.

On a more personal level, Sharkey met his wife, Patricia, at the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs. At the time, he was putting together a ribbon cutting-type ceremony for the opening of a plant, and she worked at the Arlington handling travel. The Arlington, he said, was the only place large enough to handle the crowd for the opening.

"We met and hit if off, the rest," he said, "is history." The two exchanged their wedding vows in the Spa City as well.

She is currently working a consultant with a real estate firm, which, interestingly enough, works on behalf of the buyer. Sharkey said his wife primarily keeps the firm'scomputer system operational and keeps the network up.

In her spare