Turning On the Off-Season: Opportunities for Progress in the
Yellowstone-Teton Region
Help Spend $100,000 on Economic and Transportation
Planning for Greater
Yellowstone
The Yellowstone Business
Partnership (YBP) launched
its Seasonality Project early in 2006 with the help of a dozen business
and
civic leaders in the Greater Yellowstone area. These leaders were
interested in
a cross-boundary analysis of the social, economic and natural assets of
our
region, with special focus on the problems and opportunities facing
rural communities
during the least profitable, non-summer months.
Ideas for research and future
regional collaborations
were then generated from over 80 community leaders who attended six
public
workshops in October 2006. The online report – Turning On the Off-Season:
Opportunities
for Progress in the Yellowstone-Teton Region–
is helping regional
leaders grasp the nature of our common challenges and how collaborating
with
neighboring counties and states could lead to lasting, effective
solutions.
To
encourage and further
explore these cross-boundary collaborations, USDA Rural Development
granted YBP
a $150,000 Rural Business Opportunity Grant late in 2007. It recently
was
matched with $25,000 in planning funds from the Idaho Transportation
Department. Together
these grants will
lay the groundwork to inspire tri-state initiatives such as:
- Connecting public and private
transportation services across the Yellowstone-Teton region
- Recruiting a larger, more diverse
seasonal workforce and providing adequate, affordable housing
- Intercollegiate cooperation in
workforce training, apprenticeships and continuing education
- A real-time, regional communication
network for tourist information and travel referrals
- Greater investment in recreation
services and public facilities targeted to the off-season
- Interstate insurance coverage and
cross-boundary coordination of health providers
You Can Get Involved!
1. Volunteer
to serve on your sub-regional team that will
represent a group of adjacent counties for the duration of this
one-year
project. Each team
will be allocated
$10,000 for additional data analysis and/or strategic planning on an
issue
relevant to all represented counties.
We
invite interested citizens, businesses, colleges, chambers, agencies
and economic
development professionals to join these teams and engage in the
collaborative
process with the assistance of professional facilitators.
Click on a sub-region (at left) for more
details - If you are unsure which sub-region you are in, Click
here for a map.
2.
Help design an integrated,
public-private system of regional
transportation services by serving on a new
transportation roundtable
being formed especially for this project.
Roundtable participants will meet bimonthly to provide
input to
contractors who are preparing a “Concept of
Operations” plan for a
transportation network that will connect 25 counties and Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
3.
Plan to attend YBP’s 5th
Annual Conference May 19-21 at Jackson
Lake
Lodge
and learn more about linking our existing transportation
services to serve a variety of populations across the entire region.
4. Save
October 6-7, 2008,
for the Seasonality Summit
in Cody where final reports will be
presented.
If you have questions or would like to get involved, contact Executive
Director Janice Brown at jbrown@yellowstonebusiness.org. Idaho
Falls Office
No:
208-528-0269
|
About YBP 
