News Releases for December 2005
December 30, 2005
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Hoeven: Ambassador Program Receives National Award
BISMARCK, N.D. - Gov. John Hoeven today announced that the North Dakota Department of Commerce (DOC) Ambassador Program has been named the Best Program of the Year by Business Facilities Magazine. The magazine’s 13th annual Economic Development Awards are featured in the December 2005 issue published this week and distributed to more than 40,000 corporate executives nationwide.
“The Ambassador’s Program has been very effective for us,” Gov. John Hoeven said. “We are aggressively marketing North Dakota throughout the country. Receiving this kind of recognition in a national publication certainly helps us demonstrate our innovation and our commitment to growth and prosperity to a valuable audience of corporate leaders.”
North Dakota’s entry competed against all applications nationwide. A 12-member panel of corporate site consultants judged the applications and selected winners in three different categories: Best Programs, Biggest Deals and Editors’ Choice.
According to judge Philip Anderson, CEO of the international consulting firm P.W. Anderson & Partners, Inc., “The North Dakota Department of Commerce’s Ambassador Program has demonstrated targeted innovativeness by leveraging talented and ambitious North Dakota alumni to help develop the state. This unique approach has yielded impressive results and underlines the importance of carefully researching and exploiting an area’s less obvious strengths.”
When ranking the entries, judges considered three factors:
Innovation: The degree to which the program was creative, new to the economic development field, or unique in some way. Effectiveness: Measurable results of the program. Pro-business Impact: Is this program going to help other businesses in the community and/or those businesses looking to move to the community? Did the program make the community more attractive to businesses looking for a new location?
“This program squarely addresses the state’s biggest challenge, so gets high marks for strategic design,” said judge Mark Sweeney, senior principal of the site selection consulting firm McCallum Sweeney Consulting. “North Dakota can point to a number of noteworthy investment and employment projects directly tied to the program.”
The Department of Commerce created the state Ambassador’s program in 2001 as a new way to generate business leads to diversify the state’s economy. The program grooms current and former North Dakotans to be a volunteer sales force for the state.
“The Department of Commerce has hosted 35 ambassador-related events and signed up more than 900 ambassadors,” DOC Commissioner Shane Goettle said. “The program is directly linked to the creation of six new North Dakota businesses.”
Linda Butts, director of the DOC’s Economic Development and Finance Division, helped spearhead the program. “The businesses created as a result of this program generated $3.8 million in personal income in 2005 and are projected to infuse the state with $4.3 million in state tax revenues over a three-year period,” Butts said. “This program is really paying off.”
Ambassadors are also creating a $20-million venture capital fund to support economic development. Another 10 ambassador-generated business leads are currently in various stages of development.
More than 900 people have volunteered to serve as ambassadors to the state. Two-thirds of these people currently reside in North Dakota, with the remaining one-third in 21 states and three foreign countries. The department hosts regular business gatherings in Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, Portland and San Francisco to engage ambassadors and educate North Dakota alumni about the competitive advantages of doing business in North Dakota.
To learn more about the Ambassador Program or to become an ambassador, visit the program website at www.luvnd.com.
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