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Noted Entrepreneur to Speak at SC Rural Summit to help small towns target high-tech jobs

Submitted by: John Warner on Feb 22, 2006 at 1:35 am Tagged with: Miscellany, Uncategorized Source:

Contact: Karen Owens, SC Department of Commerce, 803.737.2166

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 21, 2006

Noted Entrepreneur to Speak at SC Rural Summit to help small towns target high-tech jobs

Columbia, SC – The mission of Jack Schultz’s company, Agracel, Inc., is to foster business development in small towns, and organizers of the South Carolina Rural Summit are hoping that he will provide some new ideas for attendees of this year’s annual conference, scheduled for March 6-7, 2006 in North Charleston.

The author of Boomtown USA, The 7 ½ Keys to Big Success in Small Towns, Schultz advocates the steps small towns can take to help set themselves apart and renew economic growth, by thinking differently about how they approach job creation. Some steps sound easy enough – adopting a can-do attitude and promoting your community’s unique identity or “brand” – but others require community leaders and others to embrace new ideas, like supporting entrepreneurs, leveraging resources and diversifying the commercial and industrial base.

“This is just the type of message we want to bring to our community leaders as we strive to create jobs, raise income levels and enhance the quality of life for our state’s citizens,” said Secretary of Commerce Bob Faith. “Helping our rural communities prepare for future investment and job growth is an important part of South Carolina’s economic development strategy.”

Schultz cites the growing trend of people wanting to live outside of large metropolitan areas, choosing to migrate to communities that are roughly 50 miles outside of urban areas to the “agurbs,” a term he’s coined for these small towns. They do so, he says, in search of a better quality of life and lower cost of living. But to attract these new residents, small towns have to determine what makes them special and capitalize on those advantages to make them more attractive not only for individuals and families looking to break out of the urban centers, but also for the businesses that are needed to employ these new residents.

In addition to an active speaking engagement roster, Schultz writes a weekly electronic newsletter, called The Agurban E-zine that offers examples of small town successes and thoughtful suggestions on economic development and entrepreneurship.

Schulz earned degrees from Southern Methodist University and his MBA from Harvard. He was named Ernst and Young’s 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year. His industrial consulting business, Agracel, was founded in 1986 and helped land the Komatsu manufacturing facility in Newberry, SC.

To learn more about the South Carolina Rural Summit, please visit the Website at www.sccommerce.com/scrs2006 or contact Beth Pierce, Community Development Manager for the South Carolina Department of Commerce, at 803.737.3163.