Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Crain resigns EDO position

The Nevada County Economic Development Office is officially without a director following the resignation of former director Donnie Crain.

According to Prescott Mayor Howard Taylor, Crain tendered his resignation in order to work full time with the National Guard. Crain has been deployed in the Middle East for the past several months.

Taylor said that an advertisement for the position has run in the state newspaper for the past several weeks, but John Brannon said the advertisement hasnt actually run yet.

We have a couple of individuals that we wanted to talk to before we advertised, Brannon said. At the (EDO) meeting, they instructed me to run the ad, but as its turned out a couple of leads developed. As its worked out, there wasnt any need to advertise in the state paper.

On Nov. 9, Brannon said he invited two people to send in resumes for the position but had not received replies. He said one of those is local.

Taylor said the position is funded by the city and county and that the purpose is to serve as liaison with businesses that consider locating in the county and to actively seek leads for businesses searching for a place to locate. Taylor said the biggest issue for someone who is not currently in that field is that it takes awhile to make the necessary contacts. The problem is that once a person makes those contacts, there are usually plenty of job offers. He said many other areas can offer a bigger salary and more benefits than the local EDO position.

Taylor said that he hopes the position will be filled soon. Employees of the Prescott-Nevada County Chamber of Commerce can step in to fill some of the gap and Taylor said there are others who are available if necessary, but those are only answering inquiries - not making the contacts that could result in a new business or industry opting to locate locally.