Economic Development Now

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 Montgomery (VM), and other partners, responded to those challenges in multiple ways.

MCEDC has provided more than $22 million in direct grant support to businesses via its creation/administration of the following funds:

• A Local Production Fund to support small- and medium-sized manufacturers/producers with capital to make pandemic-related items

• The $1 million 3R Initiative focusing assistance on several less-advantaged business areas to provide long-term boosts, including grants for small retailers and restaurants

• 3R dovetails with MoCo Eats which helps county residents order from and support local food establishments.

• Three rounds of Restaurant Relief

• A nonprofit grant program

• MCEDC supported Nonprofit Village for a series of virtual training sessions to help businesses transition to remote work and sales.

• A Telework Assistance Program

In addition to direct funding, MCEDC quickly created COVID-19 Resource web pages with federal, state, and local resources, and keeps them updated. The county, chambers of commerce, and others continue to share the information with their constituencies.

The county, MCEDC, VM, and WSM created ongoing industry-focused Pandemic Response groups serving the hard-hit industries as well as life science, technology, and other small businesses for information sharing and support. MCEDC has provided technical assistance to hundreds of small businesses.

Montgomery County is fortunate to be home to many life science companies developing therapies and vaccines for COVID-19, a number of which are now being tested and/or used to fight the virus. The COVID-19 Collaboration and Response Team connects all Montgomery County and Maryland companies responding to the pandemic for information sharing and teaming. MCEDC worked directly with a number of these companies to assist in record-speed expansions to support their research and development, clinical trials, and manufacturing.

MCEDC’s Marketing Team partnered with VM and the county to create #MaskUpMoCo, an outreach campaign in seven languages that provides businesses with free signage and materials teaching people to wear masks correctly, contributing substantially to Montgomery County’s nearly universal acceptance of mask-wearing.

As of November 2021, the county’s pandemic unemployment rate has been reduced by more than three percentage points. Further evidence of the county’s economic resilience and confidence in an economic recovery is the record $18 billion in investments made thus far in 2021 (through Q3). The COVID-19 pandemic presented a 100-year challenge to the world, and Montgomery County continues to develop creative economic innovations post-pandemic and beyond.