Economic Development Update

I’d like to talk about what is happening on our Economic Development Commission. We’re in the process of developing a website that will be used to promote Torrington to businesses and aid in convincing them to move here. We have a municipal website, but unfortunately it is only built to display meeting minutes and agendas among other things. This particular project is very important to me because I believe for Torrington to succeed in any type of economic development we need to have an online presence. Right now, when one ‘Googles’ Torrington, the town of Torrington, Wyoming (population 6,500) comes up before any of our official city websites. A website that lists the available buildings and properties that potential businesses can move into, important information about our diverse and capable workforce and incentives that the city offers for new businesses will allow us to have a site that ‘rolls out the red carpet’ for new businesses to come to Torrington rather than other neighboring cities.

Another project that I’d like to work on in the long term is a project that keeps track of businesses that were thinking about moving here but then decided to move elsewhere. Looking at these ‘almost-successes’ and analyzing them could help us see why some businesses choose other cities over Torrington. It would also help us determine what future steps we need to take to get those businesses to Torrington! A quick and short example: if companies are saying no to Torrington because “it’s too far away” or because “it only has 36,000 people” we can stop them in their tracks and highlight Routes 8, 202 and 4 and also explain that Torrington is the hub of the entire county, an area of over 100,000 people! These steps will help us promote Torrington in the future and bring companies and jobs to our great city.


--Stephen Michna, Economic Development Commission