I know the Executive Director of Enterprise Fundy, Frank Tenhave, quite well as our friendship goes back to the early 1990s at the provincial government Department of Economic Development and Tourism.
He is a guy who understands that regional economic development needs to be about identifying, developing and promoting specific assets in a local area. Just trying to position a region as another ‘low cost’ location with a ‘great lifestyle’ is not good enough.
He has worked to promote natural gas – a key asset in his region, other manufacturing opportunities and natural resources. He was the first to connect the Millstream potash project with a potential investor that turned out to be the one winning the provincial RFP announced this week.
The company said without Enterprise Fundy they wouldn’t be in New Brunswick.
That’s economic development, my friends.