Gage Area Growth Enterprise sets committee structure, to tackle objectives

BEATRICE – A Beatrice and Gage County economic development organization has set goals for the next year and established a committee structure to help reach them.

The NGage Board of Directors approved the set of goals, which include creating partnerships to address childcare availability and affordability…engaging area youth by connecting them to career opportunities…and maximizing opportunities for business and industry recruitment, retention and expansion. The list also includes cultivating relationships to increase involvement of key community members… and examining current housing stock and identifying needs.

On the objective of career opportunities, Beatrice High School and NGage are hosting a job fair Friday at Beatrice High School, which NGage Executive Director Rachel Kreikemeier says continues an effort to expose youth to the types of work and career opportunities that are locally available.

"We've been working on that workforce development talent retention, so working with our kids to get them more connected to our business community to create that sense of place so kids will hopefully want to come back to Beatrice to work here, later in life. It's being marketed as a career fair, but it will also open up opportunities for paid and unpaid job shadowing, internships, things like that....again, to get kids integrated into our businesses."

A set of three committees has been established, each of them aided by NGage staff members.