The Carbon County Chamber of Commerce take time each month to visit Castle Country Radio Stations to let the community know what is going on in the area. Different Chamber officers are assigned each month, and this month Colleen Loveless, Treasurer of the Chamber and owner of Loveless Ash stopped by.
On October 4 The Governor’s Office of Economic Development brought several aerospace companies to Carbon and Emery Counties to visit our area to look for new suppliers that they may possibly use in the future. Loveless explains further, “It was a very, very good event for our county and in our area actually. We had some companies come into our area such as Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Orbital ATK. They gave us information as to things that they are looking for; they are trying to get people and companies and industries in rural Utah to be able to become suppliers for the aerospace industry.”
A few of the companies also held a fun event to educate students that are interested in engineering, physics, mathematics and robotics. Students that were able to take advantage of such an awesome opportunity were from USU Eastern, Carbon High School, Lighthouse High School and Mont Harmon Middle School.
A dinner was held later that evening for the aerospace companies, where they were able to meet local businesses who had set up vendor tables to highlight their products and/or services. “They are really trying to get companies and industries in rural America involved in something larger than what we would do on our own. The walk throughs from probably four different businesses within our area and some of the feedback that we heard is they are very interested in some of the things they saw here in our area and would like to explore it,” stated Loveless. One of the companies, Lockheed Martin was very enthusiastic about the strong businesses in our county and promised to return to talk to the companies more at length in how they will be able to utilize their services.
Tami Ursenbach, with our local Economic Development office, along with Alair Emory from The Governor’s Office of Energy Development, with the approval of Dr. Laura Nelson, Director of the Governor’s Office of Energy Development have formed a group called Advanced Coal Resource Group. “They had a meeting here on October 3 and what they are trying to do is be able to recognize different things that our community could offer to the Coal Resource Group and they’re trying to invite some of the private industries to be a part of that. They’re trying to form a coalition so they can come up with alternative ideas of things that we can do within our community to help those that are here to become better and more efficient,” said Loveless. The next step will be to send out a survey to the current participants to see how this group will support individual organizations, schedule meeting times and set goals for the group.
Individuals and/or companies who met with the aerospace companies and would like to move forward with government contracts or would like more information on the Advanced Coal Resource Group, contact Tami Ursenbach at (435) 636-3294 for more details.