Erik Collins is the Director of the Community & Economic Development Department for Montgomery County, Ohio – the state’s fourth largest county. Erik oversees various functions for Montgomery County including Building, Planning, and Community & Economic Development Divisions.

In Economic Development, Erik is responsible for overseeing business attraction, retention and the county’s incentive programs. Erik was instrumental in developing, and is now responsible for managing the County’s first countywide business retention and expansion initiative known as Business First! For A Greater Dayton Region. BusinessFirst! has expanded outside of Montgomery County with over 32 jurisdictions in a six county region containing over 100 Regional Resource Partners serving businesses; among the communities, over 7,000 large and small companies have been visited. BusinessFirst! has received several recognitions from the National Association of Counties Achievement Award as an innovative program contributing to and enhancing county government in the United States; Business Retention and Expansion International and The Ohio/City County Management Association (OCMA). He is a national trainer for the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) presenting best business retention and expansion practices across North America and for the University of Oklahoma’s Economic Development Institute (OUEDI). Erik serves on the Board of Directors for the Ohio Economic Development Association (OEDA).

In addition to business retention and expansion, Erik has played an instrumental role as part of the development team in several significant new investments in Montgomery County including: Collective Brands – now Payless Shoes, the largest shoe retailer in the western hemisphere, CAT Logistics – the second largest CAT facility in North America, the 1.8M sq. ft. P&G in the City of Union, WilmerHale – the fifth largest law firm in the U.S. in addition to many small and large development projects.

Erik’s accomplishments also include development of Montgomery County’s first Linked Deposit Program in partnership with the Montgomery County Treasurer in 1999 that was a $20 million program designed to buy-down interest rates for businesses and housing developers that create and retain jobs and improve Montgomery County neighborhoods; a Buy Local Program - ThinkTwice – Buy Montgomery County. In 2015 he jointly created a Strategic Enhanced Economic Development (SEED) program to strengthen business attraction and retention efforts by aligning resources and streamlining the development process for targeted strategic investments throughout Montgomery County. He is a member of the Leadership Dayton Class of 2010. In 2000, Erik was selected as one of the Dayton Business Journal’s 40 UNDER 40 professionals-recognizing the Miami Valley’s future leaders, and in 1999 was member of a professional exchange team through Rotary International’s Group Study Exchange Program to Sweden.