The Lee’s Summit Economic Development Council (LSEDC) received the 2018 Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) Award from the Missouri Economic Development Council (MEDC), the state’s leading economic development agency. LSEDC President Rick McDowell and Director of Community and Investor Relations Jessica Hamilton accepted the award at MEDC’s annual meeting at the Lake of the Ozarks in June.

“In 2017, LSEDC relaunched its BRE program with a specific focus on helping local businesses solve pain points relating to workforce development, regardless of their membership status with LSEDC,” McDowell said. “This award validates those efforts and is a credit to the hard work and vision of Jessica Hamilton, who is largely responsible for implementing our BRE vision.”

The MEDC BRE Awards Program recognizes the contribution of BRE to the success of local and regional economic development initiatives. The purpose of the award is to increase the focus on BRE in economic development organizations by identifying programs, projects or people that have significant impact on a Missouri community or communities.

“LSEDC’s ongoing effort to retain and grow Lee’s Summit’s existing business community is building important relationships that will encourage ongoing investment and expansion by established local businesses and ensuring that successful homegrown companies choose to remain in Lee’s Summit and invest in existing facilities, infrastructure and employees,” KCP&L Manager of Economic Development John Engelmann wrote in his nomination letter.

KCP&L assists organizations like LSEDC in their use of the Synchronist Business Information System to track business retention and expansion data locally to gauge both micro and macro business trends. Synchronist’s database allows economic developers to keep track of site visits and calls, gather data on growth trends, employment activity and utility usage, as well as workforce needs in the community relating to both transportation and education.

“KCP&L has played a key role in LSEDC’s successful business retention program,” Hamilton said. “We are grateful for their partnership and resources as we continue to grow and improve Lee’s Summit’s BRE program.”

Lee’s Summit businesses interested in scheduling an LSEDC site visit may contact Jessica Hamilton at jhamilton@leessummit.org.

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