Everything’s in Bloom!  This spring the blooming flowers have been extraordinarily beautiful.  Businesses are blooming too.  The Alabama Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce had its first Economic Development Summit.  During the meeting, business opportunities were blooming before your eyes.  The goal was to discover potential untapped areas of economic development.  

The first speaker was Nisa Miranda, Director of Community Development at the University of Alabama.  She gave an overview of the region’s demographics and projections.  The challenge is for the islanders to collect and publish demographic information for our area of the county. This type of information would be beneficial for attracting new business investment.

Ken Grimes representing the City of Orange Beach and Mayor Robert Craft representing City of Gulf Shores were both excited about the future of the business environment in their cities given all economic indicators in 2013 are tracking above 2012 numbers.  Joanie Flynn, Vice President of Marketing at the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach Tourism reminded us all that every tourist should experience southern hospitality on every visit as Tourism continues to be the area’s largest economic engine.

John Fitzgerald of Saunders Yachtworks passionately identified a gap in our lack of focus for economic potential on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).  The “loopers” in our area are an economic engine and they are sometimes overlooked.  “Loopers” are yachts that loop through the ICW around Florida to Canada then south again to the ICW.

Kevin Corcoran of ReMax Gulf Shores presented graph after graph of trends moving in the right direction in the Real Estate market.  Keith Newton, CEO of South Baldwin Regional Medical Center talked about the need for more healthcare professionals to address the ever evolving Healthcare industry.

Bob Higgins of Higgins and Associates expressed the tremendous opportunities for workers and the gap for workforce development from K-12 education through college and career.  Lastly, rumor has it that the 10-plus new restaurants opening in Orange Beach are being matched by 10-plus new ones in Gulf Shores.  

Yolanda Johnson’s  column on life an Orange Beach appears in the Islander twice a month, as well as on GulfVisitorGuide.com.