River City 2020 group looks at Harrisonburg

As an incubator for technology companies, Harrisonburg could offer Waynesboro a model for its future, according to a member of the River City 2020 group, organized by The News Virginian.

In its second meeting, held at the Waynesboro Downtown Development office Thursday, Chris Graham, publisher of Augusta Free Press, said Harrisonburg took a number of strategies to lure technology businesses — including Rosetta Stone and Gravity Group – to the city.

They included creating a technology zone downtown, offering economic incentives, collaborating with its Shenandoah Valley neighbors on workforce initiatives and actively working with various-sized companies wanting to start or grow their businesses in the region.

In the report he presented to the group, Graham said the city’s economy is in a transition with manufacturing layoffs. It means, he said, the city has available employees, but they have to be retrained for 21st century jobs, with Blue Ridge Community College and Valley Vocational-Technical Center helping in that effort.

“What we need is an action plan to get ourselves to be a player in the market for those jobs,” the report said. “And before that, the will to set ourselves toward developing that action plan.”

Jeff Fife, the director of the Waynesboro YMCA, said that before the city gets aggressive in pursuing companies, the city has to determine what its end approach is.

“Figure out what is the sector we want to go after,” Fife said.

WDDI Executive Director Kimberly Watters said the city could not go out and solicit businesses “when we don’t know what we want.”

Jim Nichols, a retired school principal, said too many things get processed too much in Waynesboro, but said the people at the top working for the city – City Manager Mike Hamp and Assistant City Manager Jim Shaw – are in place to get the job done. However, he wants to see city staff undergo cross-training and become more service-oriented.

“We’ve got to do a better job with what we’ve already got,” Nichols said.