Educational programming key to addressing economic development

SHERIDAN — Officials at the Wyoming Business Council offer a range of programs to diagnose barriers to economic development, developing solutions to move beyond those challenges on a community-by-community basis. These supportive programs may be even more important in the next iteration for the Wyoming Business Council. 

In early September, the WBC board approved a rule change requiring a 25% match from local communities for Business Ready Community Grants. The rule change will become effective when signed by Gov. Mark Gordon, who will “review the rules and give them careful consideration once they reach his desk,” according to Gordon's former Communications Director Michael Pearlman.

In the past, Business Ready Community grants and loans were primarily allocated toward financing for publicly owned infrastructure. However, the same change will expand the definition of eligible projects in an effort to help communities address “binding constraints” to economic development.

Those constraints, or barriers, might be infrastructure related, but they may also be related to quality of life, housing or other issues. Following the rules change, the WBC will continue to offer educational opportunities for communities, its leaders say.

“There are really two types of programs that we (offer) at the WBC. One is direct services for communities, businesses and people, and the other part of our work is really trying to better understand what is going on in Wyoming’s economy,” Sarah Fitz-Gerald, chief strategy officer at the Wyoming Business Council explained.

“Those two things go hand in hand,” she said. “Our work really is seeking to answer the question, how can we help preserve Wyoming communities?”

Connor Christensen, an economic policy and research advisor at the Business Council, pointed toward several programs that provide direct assistance, training and information for local communities. The first is the Assessment to Action (A2A) program, launched in February of 2025, through which community leaders work with the WBC to identify problems that may obstruct a resilient local economy.

“This really is us going out to communities that need some help, helping them figure out what their unique challenges are, working as a team and educating them about economic development opportunities,” Christensen said.

There is also ongoing work with the Harvard Growth Lab, and a more intensive, 12-week program called Building State Capabilities, which is full and will start this fall. Another iteration will open to communities in coming months.

“In these groups, we help communities understand the biggest problems they are facing. What is the constraint to being able to achieve the economic goals in their community?” Fitz-Gerald said.

Rural and small communities especially, she said, can face staffing challenges and time commitments that make such deep-dives into economic development difficult.

“It can be really useful to have an outside facilitator,” she said. “We pair that with rigorous data analysis … to hone in on what could be possibilities and potential for work they could do to bring more job opportunities to their community.”

Christensen said that some towns may ask how their GDP changed over the years due to an economic initiative or for other specific data. But more than that, the team enters communities to “listen to people, engage with mayors and the chamber and business owners and administrators, helping them form a team and solve a problem,” he said.

“What it often boils down to is increasing the paths for tradeable income,” he continued.

Tradeable income, he said, is money that comes from outside the community into it.

WBC CEO Josh Dorrell pointed to ongoing work with the Harvard Growth Lab, in partnership with the WBC, which began in 2022 and will continue until the summer of 2026. On the ground, that work means direct economist support, “where they’re looking at and analyzing data, they’re looking at trends, they’re making suggestions we might consider. They are working not just with us, but at a local level,” Dorrell said.

In Cheyenne, for example, economists have been working very closely with city leadership on housing changes to provide “a deeper level of analysis and potential policy change.” In other communities, the team is examining fiscal systems and quality of life issues, including child care, and how those may contribute to the economic complexity in an area.

Fitz-Gerald said that work with the Harvard Growth Lab has been gratifying.

“We have worked with lots of different consultants and people from outside entities, and nobody has gotten to know us as well as these people have gotten to know us,” Fitz-Gerald said. “That is the real key. What we have learned from them are actual tangible solutions to our problems.

“We’re working on problems that have been around for years, and that we have not figured out how to solve. But, we now know there are some steps we can take to work on solving these problems," she continued. "They’re not easy steps, but we understand how we might approach them.”

This story was published on Sept. 27, 2025.