Debi Durham visits Washington

Iowa Economic Development Authority Executive Director Debi Durham paid a visit to Washington Tuesday, meeting with various local business and community officials throughout the day.

“We try to get out to communities two to three days a week, and the community invited us, so we decided to come and visit,” Durham said. “We meet with leadership like the mayor and elected officials to talk about the needs of the community and how we can be better partners.”

In a speech with visitors at the Washington YMCA, Durham said Washington was faced with the same issues as the rest of the state, but was handling them well.

“What’s holding us back (is) workforce, still a population issue, and housing,” she said. “We like to get in a little early, we like to drive the community and see all of the places you don’t usually show us on a tour. But the good thing about this community is there isn’t really much of that. You’re building houses and you’re using a lot of different products.”

The visit opened with a tour of Brava Roof Tile, a manufacturing company that uses recycled plastics to produce its products.

That visit opened with a welcome from Mayor Jaron Rosien.

“What Director Durham does in Des Moines with the IEDA and the IFA is instrumental with many great things we do and continue to do here in Washington,” he said. “One of the many reasons I am proud of this community is looking around this room full of collaborators. Today, we will see first hand many examples of how we collaborate with Director Durham and the IEDA (and) IFA.”

Washington Economic Development Group Executive Director Mary Audia said Durham would help connect the community to solutions.

“She’s very resourceful and what we’ve seen around the state is that Debi comes to a community, she will look at issues … and really become kind of a matchmaker for resources,” Audia said. “She can line us up with different grant programs or different funding programs or even different networks of resources to help solve issues in our community.”

Audia said she was happy to have the state official.

“We’d love to show her the entire county on this trip, but we are fortunate to have her for the hours that we do,” she said. “We had to make it pretty short and sweet, but we are just so excited to have Debi Durham come to our area. We’re very grateful.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com