The first initiative of the Leadership Sub-Committee is a quarterly speaker series concerning various topics and issues involving leadership, business management and entrepreneurship.

Each quarterly session will be at Bladen Community College in Dublin, in the Teaching Auditorium (which is in the Parker Building).

This will be a great opportunity for budding and established leaders to further develop their skills and to network with like-minding individuals. Help spread the word about this positive initiative!

Look-out for upcoming "Leadership Bladen Presents . . . " events.

Funding for the first initiative to come-out of the NC STEP Bladen County Cluster has been funded. A part-time position has been funded to promote tourism in the four NC STEP communities. The position is being administered by the Elizabethtown-White Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. This "Tourism Specialist" position was a crucial part of the original cluster application to the NC STEP program.

The funding for the tourism initiative was approved by the NC Rural Center Board in September of 2006, but it took several months to work-out contract details.

Dawn Maynard has been hired to fill the position. Dawn started in the position in February. Dawn has tourism and recreation experience working for the Town of Emerald Isle. Both Dawn and Chamber Executive Director Cathy Kinlaw volunteer on NC STEP committees to help improve small business and tourism in all four communities.

This first product of this tourism focus will be a new Vacation Guide for the area. Within a month, the Chamber will distribute several thousand new magazine-styled, full-color Vacation Guides to every Welcome Center in NC. This document will feature articles and business ads about and from the entire county, including towns of Bladenboro, Clarkton, Elizabethtown and White Lake.

In February of 2007, the towns of Bladenboro, Clarkton and Elizabethtown received infrastructure grants from the NC Rural Center (the same organization funding the NC STEP program) to help provide services to businesses in each community.

As is mentioned in the article, "What is NC STEP?" (on page 2 of this newsletter), one desire of our participation in this program was preferred treatment in other NC Rural Center grant programs. We are already seeing this benefit through the announcement of the aforementioned grants.

The NC Economic Infrastructure Program assists units of local government by funding up to one half of water and sewer infrastructure costs in projects that result in the creation of private sector jobs.

A $24,000 grant in Bladenboro will help provide water and sewer service to Birdsong Peanuts. A $25,000 Clarkton grant will help the town in the provision of water utility services to Peterson's Auto. The $40,000 grant in Elizabethtown will help pay for a water line extension at the Elizabethtown Industrial Park that will serve Sue Bee Honey.