Greater Dubuque Development Hosts Annual Meeting On July 19
Event Recap
On Wednesday, July 19, the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation’s Board of Directors was joined by a record attendance of over 250 investors, community leaders, and partners at our 2022–2023 Annual Meeting, held at the Q Casino. Speakers included Joe Hearn, the 2022–2023 Board Chair; Alex Dixon, the incoming 2023–2024 Board Chair; and Rick Dickinson, President and CEO.
Joe Hearn called the meeting to order, presenting the nominating committee recommendations for the 2023–2024 Board of Directors and Executive Committee. Nominations were approved by the investors present. Hearn also thanked outgoing board and committee members as well as called attention to outgoing and incoming Future Leadership Team members.
Hearn acknowledged the fundamental areas that Greater Dubuque Development focuses on to address the challenges we as a region continue to face in seeking to reinvent our regional economy - Workforce Solutions, Business Services and Strategic Initiatives. In the simplest terms, Hearn stated, “What Greater Dubuque does is to collaborate with the public and private sector to support and grow our business community and their workforce, while constantly seeking to improve the region’s quality of life.”
Through numerous ongoing and new initiatives implemented over the course of the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the team at Greater Dubuque has sought to remove barriers to gainful employment, upskill workers for high demand jobs, connect college talent to our employers and attract newcomers to live and work in our communities. Hearn noted that this work also includes supporting business expansion initiatives and leveraging data to move forward on exciting new child care and housing expansion projects to help meet the critical needs of our growing workforce.
Following Hearn, Rick Dickinson acknowledged the Greater Dubuque Development team, with special recognition of Rob Apel, Jayne Ervolino, and Bill Baum who retired from the organization as of June 30, 2023.
Dickinson also discussed progress on the five goals associated with the YOU can be great here campaign. Goals for Dubuque County to reach a median household income of $76,000 and $1 billion in cumulative new residential and commercial construction by 2027 are both on track. Work is underway to reduce area poverty by 5% from 2021 levels of 9.3% to 8.8% by 2027. Recovery continues with near pre-pandemic employment levels with 61,300 jobs reported in May 2023, making progress towards growing our regional workforce to 64,000. Dubuque County’s population is maintaining at 98,677 according to 2022 Census data, making the goal of increasing that number to 105,000 Greater Dubuque Development’s most aggressive goal.
Dickinson ended his remarks by addressing what he called the ‘elephant in the room’ referring to concerns raised publicly in recent months by members of the business community regarding challenges they’ve faced in working with the city. As a first action step, Dickinson shared that the City’s Developer’s Roundtable was being reinstituted, with the inaugural scheduled for Thursday, July 27 at the Diamond Jo Casino. The discussion will be facilitated by Dave Lyons, former Director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, addressing the City’s Design Review Team process and prioritizing topics for future roundtables.
Closing remarks were provided by newly elected 2022-2023 Board Chair, Alex Dixon. Dixon stressed the need for investment in the Greater Dubuque region to broadly support efforts to increase our population and thus, available workforce.
“Dubuque is a great place,” Dixon stated. “We’re great as we are today but in order to get to where we want to, we have to kick it into high gear. We have to believe. We have to believe that we are great and then have a project plan to execute.”
To that end, Dixon shared how the DRA / Q Casino are doing just that with investments in developing Schmidt Island, partnering with ImOn Communications in naming rights of the ice arena, and launching the Dubuque Rising podcast.
Dixon went on to discuss Greater Dubuque Development’s work over the past year to address the key challenges facing the region. Housing needs and child care access, the data on both compiled through studies commissioned by Greater Dubuque Development in the previous year, are seeing significant progress. More than 1,400 new housing units are proposed as of May 2023 and thanks in part to funding to the state’s Child Care Business Incentive Grant program, Dubuque County will soon see 538 new child care slots including those at the world-class child care center now under construction at 7900 Chavenelle Road. Before adjourning the meeting, Dixon shared comparisons of the rate of change in population and employment since 2020 for Iowa’s top ten MSA’s which Dubuque ranking 5th in population growth and 4th in employment growth.
Greater Dubuque Development would like to thank Joe Hearn for his leadership as our 2022–2023 Board Chair. Our work would not be possible without the commitment of our Board of Directors, investors, partners, and the Greater Dubuque region.
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