The week of May 8-13 has been recognized as “Economic Development Week” in Orange County. It has been just over a year since Orange County took a new direction in Economic Development with the hiring of Jessica Hill as the executive director of the county’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC).
Since being hired in April of last year Hill made an effort to become more familiar with the county and its economy. Hill said the first year has been exciting and she has thoroughly enjoyed it. “I’ve spent a lot of time out in the community getting to know the business owners and the citizens of Orange County, and I am delighted to be here. I’ll be looking forward to a lot of opportunities in this coming year,” Hill admitted.
In the thirteen months since taking the position as the head of the EDC, Hill has been kept busy with a number of prospective projects that are interested in coming to Orange County and locating their businesses here. Hill has a really full pipeline report as she refers to her ongoing projects.
About 16 projects are currently in the works. Those projects range from small manufacturing facilities to large petrochemical facilities in the multi-billion-dollar range. In just the last couple of weeks Hill received three requests for multi-billion-dollar projects that she will be looking to submit proposals to the companies. Hill stated she is working both ends of it, both on the small project side and those large mega projects as well.
Down the road Hill sees a bright future for the county as well as some different avenues to develop for economic impact. She is very optimistic and sees some great opportunities obviously in the chemical manufacturing industry that is so familiar in the county. Hill would like to see Orange County diversity into maybe logistics and distributions type industries while focusing on some advanced manufacturing.
Hill wants to take advantage of the excellent infrastructure in the county with Interstate 10 and the multiple waterways that provide access to national markets. “I see great opportunity for Orange County in the next five to ten years and hoping that everyone will jump on board with what the EDC is looking to do, and we can all get there together,” Hill concluded.
Commissioner Barry Burton ran for county commissioner three years ago on a platform of promoting economic development in Orange County. He believes the work being done by Jessica Hill is a positive step in that direction. Burton praised Hill. “Jessica is doing an excellent job and you cannot run across anyone that’s in this business who doesn’t tells us how lucky we are to have her working for us here in Orange County, so we’re very fortunate to have her on board to help us with our economic development.”
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