Commissioners 04-21-2026 [21:31-26:09]

Next we have Mr. Kimbrook and Mr. Barton. Mr. Chairman, I mean, you're speaking there both. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dan Bortner. I have the pleasure of serving as the CEO of the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council and the Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce. Been in that position since first of all this of last year. The reason I stand before you this morning, you know, I've talked to several of you. Every organization I've led when I first get there, I'm a Stephen Covey disciple and I always, you know, as they say, seek first to understand and to be understood. So that's code for don't touch anything until you understand it. And so I spent the back part of last year trying to understand the organizations and kind of how we operate and the right things do. But now we are in the process of making some changes. I've had the pleasure of being a, having the credentials of a senior certified professional and human resources for more than two decades. I'm an HR guy by trade. I haven't practiced HR in quite some time. But every position you hold is an HR position if you're working with people. And so when we started looking at making some changes and how we can improve the lives of people in this community, because I see both organizations as a quality of life organizations. You know, if you have somebody who is wanting to make their life and their family here in Lawrence County, first thing they got to have is a job. You got to have gainful employment. You know, they're again to be able to take advantage of the lifestyle that we have in this community. You have to be able to raise your family and you have to have the funds to do those things. When I was growing up and when I was looking for jobs, we had a local newspaper as a starting point to look for employment and employers utilize that. Today you don't have that situation. And so there's really, you have some national searches. You have indeed things like that, which is great. But for the average person living here, looking for an opportunity and looking for a place to start their career, there was nothing. And so, you know, I'm just a simple Southern Indiana boy and there's no sense in reinventing the wheel on some things. The idea was to go out and find somebody, some community that was already doing this. How are they connecting job seekers with local job employers? And we found down in Duboy County, a system down there called hometown hiring that was strictly for the Jasper in Duboy County area. And it's like, that's it, that's what we need. We need something for Lawrence County where people within a 50 square mile radius can look for jobs and to be able to match the local employers with those people looking for opportunities. And we found that with this new company, this hometown hiring. And so the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council invested in that in recreating what they were doing and doing that here. It so happened at the time, you know, they were looking at some potential expansion of things. So we partnered with them to be able to pull this thing and put it together. We actually went live the first part of April. So now we put at my organization, we had an opening for an office coordinator. And so we were one of the first ones to post on there. And at last count, I had 52 resumes for that. Today's what, the 21st of April, I think it is. So in three weeks, we had enough that we could go through some interviews and then we're narrowing that scope down now and we'll make an offer to somebody this week. So it's been effective and it's done exactly what it's designed to do. And Joe is going to stand up here in a minute. Joe is a partner with that organization now, which worked out, you know, he was a member of our organization for a very, very long time. And then seeking other opportunities and things. So we've got some things that he can tell you about. But I'm just here today to introduce the partnership. We believe in what's being put together there. And we're getting out to local employers to tell them, hey, this is available. We'll meet with the other, with the County Council and the City Councils of both communities at Bedford and Mitchell to tell them that this is available out there. The hometown hiring folks are actually going out to the companies and things and letting them know what the opportunities are and stuff. So I'll sit down and shut up. But I will, you guys all know Joe, but I'll let Joe get up here and kind of give you some more detail on the organization. Joe.