ED Now

IEDC is now accepting submissions for the 2023 Excellence and Leadership in Economic Development Awards. Take advantage of early-bird pricing and submit your entry by April 14. Dennis Alvord received the Federal Leadership in Economic Development Programs Award in 2022. The award recognizes a federal program director who has gone above and beyond in administering a federal economic development program. Alvord serves as EDA’s deputy assistant secretary for economic development and chief operating officer, and is responsible for enterprise-wide operations and program execution. He also serves as co-chair of the Department Management Council, comprised of senior executives from all of the Department of Commerce’s principal ...

Montgomery County, Md., is a 500-square-mile county with 1.05 million people adjacent to Washington, D.C. The county has many strong assets, including federal labs and agencies, a thriving life science sector, and an incredibly diverse and well-educated population. One of its strongest assets is its breadth of strong, business-focused organizations that communicate effectively with one another. As in other communities, the pandemic hit industries such as hospitality, retail, restaurants, and entertainment particularly hard, and the county hit a historic unemployment high in April 2020. Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC), in close collaboration with Montgomery County government, WorkSource Montgomery (WSM), Visit ...

By Johnathan M. Holifield As an NAACP civil rights lawyer and advocate, Urban League chief executive, community development champion, education and government reformer, and regional innovation-based economic developer, my life experiences have crystallized into a single intention: to wage a “war of opportunity” for traditionally ill- and underserved Americans. Beginning in 2017, I had the honor to serve as executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU Initiative). Since 1837, HBCUs have educated and prepared, primarily, but far from exclusively, African American students—nearly a quarter of HBCU students are non-Black—to contribute to the American ...