Driving Economic Growth: Shani Bradshaw on Building Sanger's Future Through Strategic Development and Networking

Have you ever wondered what it takes to transform a community's economic landscape? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Shani Bradshaw, the Economic Development Director who turned her diverse background in marketing, social media, and community engagement into a thriving career in economic development. Learn how her initial hesitations were overcome with encouragement from a police chief and the power of a robust professional network. Shani shares her journey, the mentors who shaped her path, and the certifications that paved the way for her role today.

Discover the strategic efforts behind workforce development in Sanger as Shani details the innovative programs spearheaded by the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). From collaborations with the local school district and the Texas Workforce Commission to on-site business visits addressing workforce challenges, you'll gain insight into the crucial components that support local businesses. Shani also breaks down the unique structure of Sanger's Type A and Type B corporations, explaining how they drive industrial and quality-of-life projects through strategic funding and marketing initiatives.

Networking is the backbone of economic development, and Shani sheds light on the importance of trade shows and major events like ICSE in Texas and Retail Live in Austin. Understand the meticulous criteria businesses evaluate before setting up shop in Sanger and gain clarity on common misconceptions about business decisions. Finally, explore the role of the EDC in funding significant projects such as Porter Park Phase 2 and the collaborative synergy between the EDC, city, and chamber of commerce to foster a thriving business environment. Tune in to uncover the dynamic strategies propelling Sanger's growth and the multifaceted challenges of economic development.

You have been listening to The 266 Express, the official podcast of Sanger, TX. IF you have comments or suggestions, please send them to dgreen@sangertexas.org

Transcript

John Noblitt: 0:07

Welcome to the 266 Express. I'm John Noblitt, with my co-host, Donna Green. Donna, who do we have with us today?

Donna Green: 0:13

We have Shani Bradshaw. She's our Economic Development Director.

John Noblitt: 0:17

Never met her. How you doing, Shani?

Donna Green: 0:18

Hello, hello. Well, thank you, Shani, for joining us today. Can you just tell us a little bit about Shani, your background and how it is that you actually became a director of economic development?

Shani Bradshaw: 0:29

Sure. So I have been working in the public sector for 26 years now. 13 of those years have been in economic development. I have worked for the city of South Lake, the city of Justin, and I've been with Sanger for six years. How I got into economic development is rather interesting.

Shani Bradshaw: 0:50

At my previous role, the previous city that I worked with, I wore many hats. I did marketing, I did social media, I assisted the police department. I was the liaison between the city and the chamber. I did all the city events, including the largest event that they did, which was the Justin Fundays. It was a signature event but I did. I had a very good relationship with the businesses. I collaborated with them. I was involved in the Lions Club, the Rotary, the local business association. So I wore many hats and I had heard through the grapevine that the Economic Development Corporation at the time was looking to hire an executive director and they were considering me. And one day I got a phone call from the president of the Economic Development Association or corporation and they offered me the position and I turned it down Because I was, like you know, I this is not really something I wanted to do.

Shani Bradshaw: 1:50

I was really comfortable in the position that I was in. I knew what economic development was, but I didn't want to report to boards, I didn't want to go to all these late night meetings. I really enjoyed what I did. And so a couple of days later, the police chief comes into my office, he shuts the door and he says we need to talk. And he asked me why in the world did you turn that position down? And I said well, to be honest with you, I just it's just not something I'm really interested in doing. I love doing the events, I love marketing for the city, I love doing all this networking, and I've been doing it for a long time. And he asked me he goes, shani, you do realize you're doing economic development. Everything that you're doing, you're already doing economic development. And he said you really need to reconsider this position Number one. It would be a great career move and, plus, you're really good at what you do.

Shani Bradshaw: 2:50

So I decided, okay, well, I went home, I thought about it. I thought about it for a few days, talked with my husband and I thought you know, I like a good challenge, this might be a good career move. So I called the president of the corporation and I asked him you know, if the position's still available, you still want me, I'll take it. Next thing you know I have keys in my hand. I'm sitting at this building that is separate from the city because Economic Development Corporation separate entity from the city and they had their own building in downtown. And I'm sitting at my desk thinking what in the world did I just get myself into? I had no one to guide me, no one to teach me economic development. I was on my own Growing up.

Shani Bradshaw: 3:39

I was an athlete and I always win at everything 100%. I don't like to fail. So I took this as a challenge and I'm always win at everything 100%. I don't like to fail. So I took this as a challenge and I'm ready to face it. It's either seek or swim, and I'm going to swim. I'm going to swim hard. So I read through agendas, I read through minutes to understand some of the projects they were doing. I contacted some of the people that I used to work with at the city because over the years I made a lot of connections and so they were able to provide some of the people that I used to work with at the city because over the years I made a lot of connections, and so they were able to provide some of the resources that I needed.

Shani Bradshaw: 4:10

And I joined the Texas Economic Development Council, which is an organization for the state of Texas, and they provide resources and networking opportunities for economic developers. So I started. I attended the basic economic development course. I was assigned a mentor, william Myers. He's the director of economic development out of Gainesville. He's been my mentor for 13 years. I just started really getting involved in the organization and trying to learn as much as I could about economic development.

Shani Bradshaw: 4:41

I graduated from the University of Oklahoma Economic Development Institute. I've earned my certification through business retention. I also have a very dear friend of mine that I happened to meet at a Metroport chamber at the time, who was the director of economic development for the city of Southlake, greg Glass, who is now a consultant, and he has been my mentor, my ride or die through this entire process. So without him I don't know if I'd be sitting here today. So I contribute. I mean he has been a big part of my success. And also, you know, I just recently was accepted into an economic development certification program through the Texas Economic Development Council and so I'll be attending some courses over the next few months to earn my certification as a certified economic developer for the state of Texas.

John Noblitt: 5:32

That's fantastic. Now, you know, not a lot of people really understand what economic development is and what its role is, both in the structure of a community and in a city in general. Could you kind of let people know what economic development is and kind of what your role is?

Shani Bradshaw: 5:55

Sure, there's no real true definition of what economic development is, but the best way that I can describe economic development is the practice of improving a community's economic well-being and quality of life. It's a broad range of activities to attract, create and retain high-quality jobs while providing a stable tax base. So, as an economic developer, we are challenged with creating and implementing strategies for economic growth, and what that may consist of is we may develop a marketing plan that tells us how to market our city, how to help our business community, or even creating a business retention program that lays out the foundation of how we assist our business community or attract these new businesses to come into the city of Sanger.

John Noblitt: 6:53

I'm glad that you said that because a lot of people don't really understand that, outside of making sure that your current tax base remains stable and growing that tax base for the future, a lot of people think that your existing businesses kind of get left out in the cold during the economic development process. But business retention and growth, those are all strategies that you guys use on a regular basis.

John Noblitt: 7:15

And those all happen overnight, right? Sure, I say that, having been in development prior, a lot of people don't realize the other portion of that and your role, that a lot of these things that you're working on today at this moment I know a lot of what you're working on right now this community might not see for years or even decades.

Donna Green: 7:36

That is true, can you?

John Noblitt: 7:37

kind of hit on some of those programs that are really long-term programs that don't show an immediate impact but help a business to grow. The one I'm thinking of right offhand is workforce development or your workforce programs.

Shani Bradshaw: 7:53

We understand the importance of a skilled workforce. So we do partner with our local school district. We partner with Texas Workforce Commission because it is important that we make sure that our businesses have the resources to access the workforce. These workforce resources and I'll give you an example we have a business retention program. That is probably one of the most important programs that any economic development organization can have, and what that means is we provide, we go on site visits so we meet with these businesses, our business community, and that's our opportunity to learn what these businesses' needs are, what their concerns are, and we take those issues back and we analyze them and see how we can address some of those issues to assist our businesses. Rather it's with workforce or maybe helping them with maybe a facade grant of some sort. We have a matching facade grant that can help with the outside of the building. We may provide incentives to help them grow.

Shani Bradshaw: 9:04

There's a lot of programs that we do have in place that might help these businesses. And when I talk about business visits and then I talk about the workforce development side, Eric Shanks, who is with the North Texas Workforce Solutions, he's a great individual, great resource that I have partnered with over my entire career being in economic development, During our site visits. Matter of fact, this was a couple of years ago. We had a business in our community that was really struggling with retaining their employees, and so I called Eric and he actually assisted me with a site visit, and he was able to sit down with this business and provide all the resources that they were not aware that they had. Moving forward, this business has worked with the Workforce Commission for all these years to help and to tap into some of those resources so that they've been able to retain employment at their business.

John Noblitt: 10:04

In that with economic development, I know that workforce right. That works two ways. It's not just providing the business with resources or providing a workforce or providing training for these people, which we'll probably talk about later but there's also that portion of some of the incentives that the Economic Development Corporation has are tied to job thresholds. You're going to employ this many people at this dollar amount, so you're also looking at not just placing the workers that people need for their business. You're also looking at placing people in businesses that meet their needs long term.

Shani Bradshaw: 10:42

Is that right? That is correct.

John Noblitt: 10:43

Yes, it's fantastic.

Donna Green: 10:45

Sanger's Economic Development Corporation. Some people have a type A board, a Type B board or just one or the other. Can you tell us what that is, what they do and what they're for?

Shani Bradshaw: 10:56

Sure, we are very unique in the fact that we have two corporations. We have a Type A corporation and a Type B corporation. In 1998, the city of Sanger, our Sanger community, voted to create these corporations. So the Type A Corporation is the Sanger Industrial Development Corporation five-member board. The members serve two three-year term limits and this board is tasked with they're mainly industrial manufacturing board is tasked with they're mainly industrial manufacturing.

Shani Bradshaw: 11:31

So this and let me back up what I failed to mention is the economic development corporation is funded through sales tax. So the city collects 2% sales tax but the economic development corporation collects 1% of that. That 1% is then split between both corporations. So your type A receives half, your type B receives the other half. Those funds are used for economic development projects.

Shani Bradshaw: 11:57

So when I talk about the type A, which is the Sanger Industrial Development Corporation, those funds can be used for industrial development projects such as manufacturing, job training classes, transportation. As manufacturing, job training classes, transportation the corporation can even purchase land, we can provide infrastructure, we can build buildings, we can purchase or assist with equipment. It's projects that can create and retain primary jobs. Now your type B, which is the Sanger Development Corporation, again they're funded through sales tax. It's a seven-member board. These members serve to your term limits and now a type B corporation can do all eligible type projects that a type A can do. But they also focus on quality of life type projects, which can include we can do parks, we can build sports facilities, we can provide tourism type projects and even entertainment.

John Noblitt: 13:03

And that's because not every state handles economic development the same and not every city does so. Is it unique to have a 4A, 4b?

Shani Bradshaw: 13:12

It is. Cities are structured differently when it comes to economic development. You may have some cities that have just a type A, some cities that may have just a type B. Again, you know they focus on certain type of projects, but again, we're very fortunate that we have the two corporations, whereas there's a small handful of cities that have a type A and type B. Most cities are type B.

John Noblitt: 13:35

Right, right, just the flexibility. Yes, you talked a little bit about developing a strategy as part of the economic development process. What is that process and how does that strategy work when you're bringing businesses into Sanger strategy?

Shani Bradshaw: 13:50

work when you're bringing businesses into Sanger. Oh goodness we have. First of all, businesses can locate anywhere, but they can't locate to a community if they don't know about the community or if the community doesn't have what they're seeking. We, as an economic development corporation, spend a great deal of time networking and marketing our community. For instance, we have a lot of programs in place to entice businesses to come to our community. We have a quarterly newsletter that has all the information about our growth, the projects that we're working on, sales tax information that we distribute to commercial real estate brokers, developers, site selectors, investors, because we want them to know Sanger's open for business, what we have to offer. We look at placing ads in site selection magazines. That might be through the Dallas Regional Chamber or through the Texas Economic Development Guide. We have a website that provides all information about Sanger. We tell our story about Sanger through our website as well as social media sites.

Shani Bradshaw: 15:03

Trade shows are a big part of trying to promote businesses to come to our community. We attend ICSE, which is one of the largest retail shopping center events that we have in Texas. That's held in January and we actually set up a booth. We have this large booth. Donna usually attends with me. We have marketing material. We set up appointments with potential prospects that are actually eyeing Sanger and that's an opportunity for us to sit there and tell our story and try to convince these retailers to come to Sanger and why they should come to Sanger. Retail Live is another opportunity where we can be face-to-face with some of these retailers. It's a four-hour show, it's always in Austin, it's usually around August or September and that's another opportunity for us to tell our story of why you should come to Sanger.

John Noblitt: 15:56

So a lot of what you're doing there. Going out and about, I would assume, means networking is pretty important to your profession.

Shani Bradshaw: 16:04

A lot of networking.

John Noblitt: 16:05

And so a lot of people have the misconception that people just show up at your doorstep and you walk out of your office. You put it around, but you're really actively out there, right, you're actually going out and you're making those connections and you're getting those resources. So not only can you go attract those businesses, but you can hear about those businesses that may be willing to relocate. We're not just sitting around our offices all day. No, no.

Shani Bradshaw: 16:30

That's fantastic. Not only do I, I do a lot of networking within, within our community, but I spend a great deal of time outside our community Because, again, the developers and site selectors who are are these investors, are not going to know about Sanger unless I'm promoting Sanger. I'm out, you know, meeting with these people and, like I said, I spent a lot of time in the Dallas area. I might go out of site or out of state and meet with these site selectors. So, yes, I do a tremendous amount of networking. It's not, yes, you need to know what this field is, but it's who you know in this field Right, I would tend to agree with that.

Donna Green: 17:11

So you talked about thresholds for different businesses to come in. A lot of people probably don't understand that. You know they're like where's the Whataburger, where's this, where's that? But they do have certain criteria that they look at before you know, before they're ready to come to Sanger.

Shani Bradshaw: 17:26

Yes.

Donna Green: 17:27

So can you kind of explain what that kind of looks like? Because, yes, so can you kind of explain what that kind of looks like for? Because most people are like you know, I want this, I want this, I want this, and we don't know why it's here, like some of the buildings downtown.

Shani Bradshaw: 17:42

Janie, why don't you have all those businesses full downtown? The properties own those properties and they have the right to sell their properties or not, or to lease their properties. We as city staff or city council or economic development can't force that property owner to sell or lease. Now, in the event that that property owner has a vacant building and it's been vacant for a while and they're struggling to get someone in there, then we, as economic development, will assist. We'll take that property. We may design some sort of a flyer looking for a site, that that kind of that's what we're, what we're marketing, so to help the you know these, these property owners. But again, we can't control who comes in or who comes out. You got to remember. It's a transaction that requires both a willing seller and a willing buyer.

Shani Bradshaw: 18:58

As far as recruiting these businesses, business recruitment does require a lot of persistence and a lot of patience. It's very challenging, it's very time-consuming and it's very frustrating for, as an economic developer, so we do spend a lot of time trying to convince that business why they should invest in Sanger. So we're constantly telling our story, we're constantly out there trying to convince these retailers to come in. However, these businesses rely on numbers. They rely on data, so kind of what that looks like. Yes, they look at our population, but they also look at you know. They're going to look at your daytime population. How many people are coming into your community to eat at Megalito's or eat at another establishment, whatever it might be? They're going to look at how the population that's coming in during the day, like I said, the trade area. They're going to analyze your disposable income, your age structure of your population. They'll look at the cost of land. We can't control what a property owner has. We can't control what they're going to sell it for, if they even want to sell it, because when that business is coming, the first thing they're going to do is they're going to look at some property, see if it's available, going to reach out to that property owner, see if that property owner is even willing to sell and the price of the property can sometimes be a little bit challenging for these new businesses too and again, we can't really control the cost of what that piece of property is. They'll look at your buying patterns. They'll also look at the neighborhood demographics. They will analyze every neighborhood within your community, the convenience of access, where this property is, where your exit ramps are where your turn lanes are going to be Going to look at infrastructure.

Shani Bradshaw: 20:55

Do you have the right amount of infrastructure at this particular location? So I know that I've seen on social media. You know why this community of a population of 8,000, we have a population of 10,300, by the way but why this population? Why a city of a population of 8,000 has all these amenities whereas Sanger does not and we have a population of 10,000. Well, again, just like I said, you know it's all about the data. We may have that population, but you got to look at that other city that has a population of 8,000,. Look at your medium income, look at your buying patterns, the cost of land, the location of the piece of property that they're looking at. So it's really hard to compare apples to apples when you're dealing with site selection.

John Noblitt: 21:44

Because, you're right, we do deal in a free market economy. We know that our market abuts North Denton really, which you know we're a direct competitor right, and you either have to be in pretty good shape or out in the middle of nowhere for some of these businesses, and I'm sure when we hear where's our Chick-fil-A or where's our Whataburger, you've probably made 100 phone calls to those people or talked to them every time you see them.

Shani Bradshaw: 22:07

It is true, and you know we do reach out to those folks. We have reached out to those folks and you know it's a process. We can't force these retailers to come here, like I mentioned. But what we can do is we can promote Sanger, let these businesses know that we're here, we're open for business, we are growing, we'll share the growth that is coming, but, again, we can't force those retailers to come to and no community can and share it where you can.

Shani Bradshaw: 22:39

But we'll continue that process and continue that partnership with them and still visit with them and just keep them up to date on what's happening in our community.

John Noblitt: 22:48

And I think that's a challenge too, when you share what you know, visit with them and just keep them up to date on what's happening in our community. And I think that's a challenge too, on when you share what you can, in the sense that your job is unlike a lot of other jobs where we may have things cooking right, but we can't talk about them because of confidentiality agreements and things of that nature.

John Noblitt: 23:04

So the lack of information sometimes is not that there's no information to tell, it's just no information that you can tell. Would that be fair to say?

Shani Bradshaw: 23:11

Yes, and I'm glad that you brought that up because you know, as an economic developer, we're faced with many challenges in our role and some of those challenges you know, especially for me there's several actually, but you know, making sure that we have shovel-ready sites, we have infrastructure in place. But I think one of the biggest challenges that I face is the process of being transparent while maintaining confidentiality, and what I mean by that is I know that our community has this perception that, as economic development, we're not doing enough. You know we're not seeing enough businesses pop up or we're seeing these businesses shut their doors and, like I mentioned earlier, we can't control. You know what a business does. We can provide those resources and we do, whether they use those resources or not.

Shani Bradshaw: 24:08

You know I can't control that, but it is a challenge when we have projects and a lot of times we have to sign NDAs and we may have a prospect call and before I know anything about the project, we have to sign an NDA and then they'll elaborate, they'll give us a little bit of information, but we can't share that with the public and that is very challenging, it's very frustrating, but or we're asked please do not share this information.

Shani Bradshaw: 24:38

So but we do have project that we are working on. We just can't share that information. And also there's also we have to be careful with what we share Because if we happen to release any of this information, these projects that we are working on, if any of this information was to be released to the public and that prospect hears about it, they could very easily pack up and go to another city because that shows the distrust, because they're putting our trust in this community and staff and they want to work with us, they want to bring a project, they want to be good partners. But if we show that we are not trustworthy and not working with them as a true partner, they'll say you know what? We're not coming to your community, we can't trust you, you're not coming to our your community.

Shani Bradshaw: 25:28

We can't trust you. You're not easy to work with, so we may end up going in down the road, and it has happened more than what you think.

John Noblitt: 25:37

Yeah Well, and you also run that risk right Of talking about things that that on their end, for whatever reason, just don't make. And then it gives, gives their corporate black eyes, and that is.

Shani Bradshaw: 25:48

There are projects that they'll go all the way through to pulling the permitting process and then, for whatever reason, they may say you know what, we're just not going to go through with this for whatever reason. And so we don't want to give that cross impression to the community that this particular business is coming when they really haven't gone through the entire process and there's a good chance they may not come Right right.

Donna Green: 26:14

So, janie, I know you see this a lot, but we have, for example, we have a lot of Mexican food places. We have a new Starbucks and you know we've talked about Scooters is coming to Sanger. On social media we love social media we see a whole lot of people say why are you bringing another Mexican food place or another coffee shop when we need X, y or Z? Oh boy.

Shani Bradshaw: 26:39

So I'm going to give an example. I'm going to give an example. So let's say you have business X that has identified a piece of property in Sanger. Let's say it's off of 35 and 455. They really like this piece of property and they go through the process. They meet all the state requirements, local requirements.

Shani Bradshaw: 27:05

They have contacted our amazing development services team. They've walked them through the process. They meet all the codes, the zoning requirements, and that property owner wants to sell to Business X or willing to sell to Business X, then in that case that business can come to Sanger organically. We can't stop them because they meet all the requirements and a lot of times it's good to have a variety of coffee shops or the same type of restaurant. We know that a lot of people don't like Starbucks, a lot of people may not like scooters, but it gives our community a variety and in addition to that it's job creation. So again, when we have these businesses come in and looking at a piece of property and a zone for that use, then again they can set up shop at that location.

John Noblitt: 28:05

So that's the reason why that's interesting, because the right by use issue is a big one. There are businesses that come in. When you talk about multiple businesses, right? They never even contact you or never even contact City Hall. They get a piece of property, they come in and pull a permit and then they're on the ground.

Shani Bradshaw: 28:21

And we just happen to hear hey, this is coming into Sanger, so yeah, and we're always excited, though right we are, we're very excited, no, place to do this.

John Noblitt: 28:32

Let's talk about the other facet of economic development that you were talking about, which was quality of life. We know that the EDC is very involved in a couple of park projects right now. You've got a survey that has just recently gone out on Porter Park phase. We call it Porter Park Phase 2 expansion. We've got a lot of great feedback already. There has been same questions that you get with commercial and retail development. A lot of people ask it about the focuses on parks and infrastructure. Can you share a little bit about how you get into funding these and how they're allocated to different projects and if that's a true perception that we're just focused solely on parks right now?

Shani Bradshaw: 29:16

So Port-A-Park Phase 2, which we're really excited about, this project, this particular project this is funded through the Type B Economic Development Corporation. So it is separate funding. It's not funding coming through the city, it's coming through our sales tax. Again, we are separate funding. It's not funding coming through the city, it's coming through our sales tax. Again, we are separate entities. We fund different type of projects. So, for instance, the downtown park and as well as the Port-au-Park Phase 2, the Type B was authorized to hire consulting firms to come in and to design unconstitutional plans for these two projects. So again, it's separate funding from the city. So some of these projects that you may see around the city of Sanger is actually your economic development at work.

John Noblitt: 30:07

And that's interesting because a lot of people, even though you're under the city umbrella, just administratively, that's the way we work. We are two separate corporations, so these projects are really partnerships between the city and the EDC, right? Yes, and like Porter Park, phase 2, that was actually a project that the city was working on and asked for partners on. Yes, I think the onus for Porter Park was actually Miracle Field, which was a great project that was brought to us from the public.

Shani Bradshaw: 30:35

Yes, that is true.

John Noblitt: 30:37

So those are just opportunities. They're not plain focus, correct, okay, correct.

Donna Green: 30:44

We can have infrastructure projects going on at the same time. We have parks, because you have your.

Shani Bradshaw: 30:49

A and your B Exactly, and you focus on different things.

Donna Green: 30:51

We can do it all Exactly, and it's not necessarily a city project. We're multitasking, yeah, multitasking, yeah, and it really doesn't have any Right.

John Noblitt: 30:59

If the EDC is partnering on a project to bring in a business or provide some infrastructure or to do a park program with us, it's not taken away from their pothole money.

Shani Bradshaw: 31:09

It's kind of what you said Exactly. So yeah, exactly.

John Noblitt: 31:12

And I think that's an important distinction. I think it would be the same thing as making sure that we can distinguish the difference between the EDC and the chamber. I hear you talk today and we've talked to the chamber. I mean, you guys are doing all you can to grow business and bring business in the chambers, doing everything they can to provide resources for those businesses once they land on the ground, or the businesses that have been here 100 years, and so you all have two very distinct purposes. But there's a point in the middle where you meet, much like the city and the EDC, in situations like this Correct, yes.

Donna Green: 31:47

Yep, I know there's some things you can share and some things you can't. I know there's some things you can share and some things you can't. Do you have any initiatives in place that you can talk about or anything coming up in the future that's going to help with that? Workforce skills and?

Shani Bradshaw: 31:58

structure. There is a particular project that I am very excited about. So we workforce is extremely important for economic development, and so when we talk about workforce, we want to make sure that our community is workforce ready. So the school has an amazing program it's the CTE program. So there's these programs in place to assist students and to have them to be trained to enter the workforce when they graduate.

Shani Bradshaw: 32:34

Because we know that we have students that just aren't going to go to college and they may want to go into electrician, be plumbing, maybe enter or go into welding, and so, anyway, the Type A Industrial Development Corporation, we have met on a couple occasions and we came up with this idea to develop a workforce program. It's called SWAG and that means Sanger Workforce Achievement Grant. It's a program that we're working with in partnership with the school district as well as the Sanger Education Foundation. We've met with Valerie Foster she's amazing and so we are putting together this program that's designed to help these programs. So, in other words, we are learning, we're trying to get a better understanding of what these programs look like, what the kids are doing in these programs, what are the needs of these programs, and so we've also issued a survey to our Sanger businesses to help us understand what our workforce needs are, what our workforce needs are. That way, when we sit down with the school district and we sit down with the Education Foundation, then it helps us identify and really dive deep into these programs.

Shani Bradshaw: 34:01

So we're looking at certain programs of how we can fund them. Rather it's the help purchasing or could be in the automotive department, or maybe drones to assist in the engineering department. So we're trying to package this program together. We don't know exactly. Like I said, we haven't finished packaging together. We still got some things that we need to work on. But this is a program that we're super excited to put together in order to help our future workforce and this will be like one of the first partnerships with the schools.

Shani Bradshaw: 34:40

This will be the first partnership between the EDC and the schools, and I have a great economic development board, the Type A, and Sue Allison. She's one of the board members and she's been extremely active within our community, especially in the school, and she was part of the chamber. She and I actually sat down and we were talking about some of the projects that Type A can do and how we can help with the workforce. And, like I said, she was really involved in the vocational programs at the school and so we started coming up with ideas and we thought you know, how great would it be for us to partner with our local school district and help our students and to have them ready to enter into the workforce here in the Sanger community. So we've been working on this for a couple of months. We met with the school district and the Education Foundation a couple of weeks ago. They're super excited about the program. Like I said, we still got to work through a couple of things, but yeah, it's a cool program. It's exciting.

Shani Bradshaw: 35:46

Swag, swag.

John Noblitt: 35:47

Swag.

Donna Green: 35:49

You made your career change several years ago. Any regrets?

Shani Bradshaw: 35:56

Economic development, the field of economic development, or economic developers, I should say, wear many, many hats and we are challenged with projects every day. And the funny thing is is on Monday I'll have my list of things to do for the week and I might not even get to that list because I'm working on other projects that may have come to light over the hour or two. It's just constantly changing. It's challenging, it's frustrating, it's time consuming, it's political, it's political, but yet it's very rewarding because you get to see these projects from start to finish and to see the impact that it has on a community, coming up with creative marketing ideas or providing quality of life type projects like the Porter Park project with the Miracle Field or the Downtown Park, or even just refurbishing the historic church. It's projects like that is the reason why I'm still in this position. As long as I'm having fun, this is the position that's meant for me. The economic development is meant for me.

John Noblitt: 37:17

Well, shani, on behalf of the city, I certainly appreciate all that you do for us, for what you do for your community partners, for what you do for the community as a whole. Doing a great job. Thank you, doing a great job for us. Now, where can people find?

Shani Bradshaw: 37:30

you Well, I have an open-door policy. You can come by anytime. We're located at 301 Bolivar. We're right across the street from the Sanger Chamber of Commerce. We're here Monday through Friday. You can also contact me at email, which is sbradshaw at sangertexasorg it's spelled out. Or you can even contact me 817-528-0242, anytime.

John Noblitt: 37:57

Nice, you want to plug some websites, donna.

Donna Green: 38:00

Yeah, you can check out the Sanger EDC website. That's sangertexasedcorg. You can also check out discoversangercom. The EDC is very heavily involved in the tourism side of the business and that's where we have all of our fun stuff going on, so definitely check those out.

John Noblitt: 38:18

Well, you've been listening to the 266 Express. I'm John Knoplett.

Donna Green: 38:22

I'm Donna Green.

John Noblitt: 38:28

Thank you for listening in to what's going on in our small little North Texas town.