MANDEVILLE, LA – On Thursday, the St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation (STEDF) celebrated its 35th anniversary at Benedict’s Plantation in Mandeville, LA.
Cleco was a corporate sponsor for the luncheon, which recognized a number of past presidents of the STEDF Board of Directors. The organization honored its long history advocating for growth in the parish while sharing news of its most recent successes.
Thanks to STEDF’s efforts promoting St. Tammany as a business destination in the last 15 years under Brenda Bertus’ leadership, 138 companies committed to locate or grow their operations within the parish, Foundation reps said. These companies agreed to invest $980 million into St. Tammany, retaining almost 4,800 jobs and committing to create over 5,900 new jobs.
In 2016, six companies committed to invest $28 million, retain 389 jobs and create 197 new jobs.
STEDF’s integrated site development and workforce development efforts position St. Tammany to attract robust businesses to the community, Foundation reps said.
“In 2016, we facilitated the certification of three new sites—Tamanend Business Park East, Tamanend Business Park West and St. Tammany South Central—all located in the center of our parish,” Bertus, CEO of STEDF, said. “LED Certified Sites have been designated as development-ready, ensuring these sites are primed for a speedy groundbreaking.”
STEDF continually champions Certified Sites as the best tool to attract companies in a global market.
“The development of new Certified Sites and infrastructure will remain a top priority in our business attraction efforts,” Shelby LaSalle, chairman of the 2017 STEDF Board of Directors, said. “We have to pave the smoothest path to finding and selecting St. Tammany in order to engage this critical audience.”
LaSalle said the new STEDF website will play a significant role in business attraction.
STEDF demonstrated the capabilities of its redesigned website, complete with interactive data tools from GIS Planning that permit web users to research local business and industry, to run demographic reports, to generate heat maps of the parish and to compare St. Tammany to other areas across the nation.
The website also serves as a clearinghouse for STEDF’s various publications and locally-produced videos.
At the luncheon, Bertus debuted a new video focused on the organization’s strategic coalition with Northshore Technical Community College to strengthen the workforce in St. Tammany.
“We have created this new video to showcase the workforce development efforts of our organization and our partners, and to feature some of the real men and women at work right here in St. Tammany,” Bertus said.
The workforce development video was presented in partnership with Northshore Technical Community College.
Read STEDF’s 2016 Annual Report here
