TEDC Board Meeting Minutes

Members present: Walt Wood, Elizabeth Gray, Doug Lawyer, Kyle Spurgeon, Holly Holt, Macro Oliveri, Paul LaGrange, Kim Denton, and Darryl Brady.  Suzie Lusk was also present.

 Spurgeon called the meeting to order at 2:10 CST.   The minutes were reviewed.  Denton made a motion to approve the minutes which was seconded by Gray.  The motion passed. 

The financials were reviewed.   Lawyer made a motion which was seconded by Oliveri.  The motion passed.

Past presidents dinner update.   The dinner has been confirmed for December 8, 2005 at 5:00 PM at the Palm in downtown Nashville.   To date, 16 past presidents have confirmed their attendance.

TEDC public relations RFP update.    The response to TEDC’s request to proposals has been impressive.  To help sort through the proposals, a subcommittee made up of: Denton, Gray, Lawyer, Holt, Wood, and Brady will review all proposals and recommend three top candidate firms to the TEDC Board at the December 9 meeting.   It is hoped then that the top three firms will present to the Board sometime in January.

Regional meetings update.   West will meet January 19 in Martin from 10-1 featuring key note speaker Jim Davis, a local plant manager.   Middle TN will meet on December 7 in Manchester at noon and will feature a tour of the Arnold Engineering Center wind tunnel.    East TN is working towards a January/February meeting in Knoxville and is working on securing a speaker from EDA to discuss federal incentives.

New business – Spurgeon updated the Board that TEDC will be able to re-brand the popular Tennessee chamber legislative alerts which focus solely on economic development issues.    The goal is to email these alerts out to TEDC membership every Monday AM.  It was discussed getting a sponsor to cover the costs of these alerts.

Two new members were submitted for membership into TEDC – Steven Whitehead with Partners Development in Knoxville, and Tom Chamberlin, with Memphis Light Gas & Water.    A motion to accept the 2 new members was made by Denton which was seconded by Brady.  The new members were accepted.

There was discussion on the comparative incentive analysis and finding a boilerplate RFP for this.   It is hoped to present findings at the Spring 2006 conference.

The next meeting is set for December 9, 2005 at 9 AM in the offices of ECD in Nashville.