Navajo County offers as much opportunity as it does diversity, and Assistant County Manager Paul Watson is tasked with overseeing a number of departments that have the shared purpose of promoting the county’s assets to business owners seeking a new location. Most recently he has also been assigned to oversee the Northeastern Innovative Workforce Solutions, a workforce development network that assists job seekers and employers.
Watson was hired two years ago to replace the county’s government relations administrator, who also headed up the RealAZ Development Council. While Watson serves as the director over the council, the position has evolved into a different role in serving the county. “I wanted to focus on economic development within the county. I’m not referring to retail, but more industrial development,” he explained.
To accomplish that task, Watson uses his list of county assets to determine what types of industry would mesh well with those offerings. He also utilizes a strong marketing campaign, much in the way a business works to promote its product.
“I attend trade shows like the most recent one that was a shop show for outdoor recreation and guns and ammunition. I promoted this area as a business location and met with vendors from California that I’m doing follow up with,” he said.
His efforts include creating marketing brochures, a new website and working with the Arizona Commerce Authority. “Businesses, like manufacturers of guns, for example, look to the Commerce Authority to get specs of a given area to see if it’s a good fit for them,” he said.
He noted that in the two years that he’s been in the position, eight to 10 companies have shown an interest in Navajo County, with four or five making site visits and several still considering the area as a location for their business.
Watson noted that big industries take certain factors into consideration when looking for a site. Some of the concerns that need to be overcome in Navajo County include utility and broadband infrastructure. “One site that held an interest for one of the companies had sufficient utilities, but the natural gas pressure wasn’t enough for their needs,” he said. He estimates that it would cost anywhere from $7 million to $15 million to make those improvements.
According to Watson, expansion in broadband is the most important step forward that the county can take at this time and this is already in the works, as schools and hospitals take advantage of grant funds to expand broadband capacity throughout the region.
Watson serves as the vice chair of the Northern Arizona Council of Governments (NACOG) Economic Development Committee, which has been addressing the need for broadband in the region for many years. The most daunting issue is the millions of dollars needed to build infrastructure.
“As you look into the future you can see that retail brick and mortar is going under left and right and being replaced by companies like Amazon. With these types of businesses they can allow their employees to live wherever they want and we want them to live here. This is a top priority for me,” said Watson.
In March, the Arizona Corporation Commission approved changes to the Arizona Universal Service Fund (AUSF) rules to provide funding for broadband expansion to rural Arizona. This change will pave the way for the AUSF to fund a program that is a partnership between the ACC, the Governor’s Office, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and EducationSuperHighway, which will allow $100 million in federal E-rate funds to pay for the infrastructure to rural schools and libraries. In addition, area hospitals and libraries are taking advantage of grant funding to expand broadband to address their needs.
As far as expanding operations, Watson said that more forest industry jobs are on the horizon. Novo Star Sawmill in Heber has increased production, and will be adding a second and perhaps a third shift to its operations. In addition, the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, also known as 4FRI, has new capital partners and will be expanding its mill by Heber. “They are also looking at establishing a mill in Winslow, but there is no timeline on that expansion, they’ll be doing this in phases,” he said.
Last July, Watson announced that egg producer Midwest Poultry had selected a site between Holbrook and Snowflake that would bring approximately 300 jobs to the area. He noted that construction has yet to start as Midwest Poultry officials are in discussion with their retail partners, who are transitioning to offer cage-free eggs to their customers, something that would require Midwest Poultry to change its model of operations.
In his role as director of the Northeastern Arizona Innovative Workforce Program, Watson works with case managers not only in Navajo County, but also in Apache and Gila counties, who use federal funds to assist job seekers. The case managers work with employers, direct job seekers to whatever training they may need and provide the tools necessary to complete the job. “If the job requires they have steel-toed boots, we get them steel-toed boots,” Watson said.
As the county struggles with economic losses projected in the near future, the goal is to seek new business, to assist residents in the county looking to improve their lives and to encourage more people to call Navajo County home.
