(Editor’s Note: In our continuing business column that you can catch each Monday here at the Voice, we welcome today’s contributor, Carl E. Mitchell of the Virginia Economic Bridge.)

I recently had the opportunity to serve on Gov. Bob Mc Donnell’s Economic Transition Team and worked with some very dedicated individuals who sincerely believe in creating economic growth for the Commonwealth through the support and development of rural Virginia. Being one of the two individuals representing Southwest Virginia, (the other being Delegate Terry Kilgore of Gate City) I felt it an honor to be able provide input.

Initially, I was asked to serve on the Transition Workgroup for Job Creation & Economic Development policy. As the discussions developed, McDonnell’s transition team wisely moved workforce development into a higher education group and created the Economic Development Transition Team. Due to the high priority of this issue and the breadth of this topic, we addressed the topics of small business, film production and tourism marketing, rural economic development, business recruitment, and energy.

Having lived, worked, and been a part of many business, community , economic, and workforce development efforts in SWVA since 1991, it was exciting for me to be able to reflect upon those efforts and offer some suggestions and recommendations specifically on rural economic development. Although many ideas were generated and recommendations provided, today, I would like to share with you one of the challenges envisioned as being most pressing for economic development and job creation in the Commonwealth of Virginia and some of the recommendations for approaching and solving that challenge.

Challenge: The establishment of new economic development strategies and tools for rural Virginia related to job creation

Rural communities’ success is challenging without creating competitive advantages and critical mass. For rural communities to compete, they must adopt a development strategy that is in tune with economic and social realities that are driving change in the early part of the 21st century.

For most communities, the key to success in the 21st century is to support innovation that offers the opportunity for new wealth creation. Entrepreneurs built the farm and agriculture communities in the mid 20th century. Entrepreneurs create new wealth for themselves and their communities by taking innovations to market and commercializing new ideas to meet consumer desires. Helping local entrepreneurs succeed represents one of the more promising development strategies in the 21st century.

In some of the most successful rural communities today; the vast majority of these communities share one key characteristic—they are entrepreneurial. Most have now discovered the importance of supporting local entrepreneurs. They are actively embracing entrepreneurship-based economic development strategies.

A few recommendations that we could focus on that could better serve developing the vision of entrepreneurial development in Virginia’s rural communities include:

• Engaging agency leaders to collaborate on existing small business development programs (proven successes include: the Virginia Business Pipeline, Virginia’s Linked Workforce Showcase, the Entrepreneur Express Workshop, and Business Sales Growth programs) and committing a greater level of resources to entrepreneurship development.

• Creating jobs and capital investment through small business growth

• Beginning a cultural shift toward greater appreciation for the contribution of entrepreneurship in local markets

• Accelerating new business formation by identifying the components of a supportive environment

• Facilitating innovation by leveraging all ‘assets’ of the market

• Supporting organic tax revenue growth

Certainly, this challenge and these recommendations require long-term approaches and will not be successful without concentrated effort and long term support, but in the end will yield vibrant rural 21st century communities.

It was indeed a great experience working with a multitude of statewide leaders and great thinkers on this tranistion team. I look forward to continuing the experience of developing and implementing some of these receommendation with the new Administrtion and a great number of individuals and communities of Virginia’s Great Southwest for years to come.

Carl E. Mitchell, a native of Hanover County with Bachelors degrees in Animal Science and Education and a Masters in Horticulture all from Virginia Tech, is President and CEO of the Virginia Economic Bridge and is currently a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Rural People Rural Policy Fellow. His 20-year career has focused on business, community, economic and workforce development efforts in the Commonwealth and rural America through business, industry, education, and governmental rural/urban partnerships. Carl, his wife, Lori and their six children live in Radford.