The Juneau Economic Development Council is keeping its incumbent officers in their seats for another one-year term.
JEDC’s four primary officers were re-elected without objection at the board’s monthly meeting on Monday.
Kurt Fredriksson holds on to his chairmanship, John Pugh stays on as Vice Chair, Beverly Schoonover is Secretary and Kevin Ritchie is the board’s treasurer and chair of its finance committee.
All current officers said they were willing to serve another year.
JEDC is an economic development group. Founded in 1987, the non-profit corporation operates with assistance from the City and Borough of Juneau and the Juneau Chamber of Commerce.
JEDC board members also appointed two new members to the board of the Alaska Development Corporation. The 501c3 allows for JEDC to accept donations from foundations.
“Both [JEDC and ADC] have missions of economic development,” Holst said. However “they are two different vehicles.”
The board appointed Tony and Loren to ADC board, which typically meets after meeting.
Lauren MacVay of True North Federal Credit Union and Tony Yorba of Jensen Yorba Lott, Inc. were added to the ADC board. MacVay and Yorba are also new to the JEDC board.
For more information about JEDC visit www.jedc.org
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (6)
Add commentAwesome!!
It would be interesting to total up the funds the CBJ has ponied up for the JEDC the past ten years and then tally up the number of jobs actually attributed to their efforts.
Can't see how Legos and paper airplanes etc are bringing jobs to town for our town or region
Would someone please enlighten me?
Certainly fosters a lot of
Certainly fosters a lot of interest and curiosity for the sciences in the youth of Juneau, though. But why worry about kids learning science or having a positive enjoyable experience. Cant kids just drink beer and play video games anymore?!?!
In defense of lego robotics
@nottacheechako - I'm a small business owner and I donate time and money to the Lego League because it's one of the best things going for kids in this town.
The students are building things, learning to program, developing competitive skills and embracing the core value of gracious professionalism.
These kids put a ton of extracurricular time into their projects and go far beyond building a robot. They're pursuing academics in their evening and weekend time.. and enjoying it because they can see the results of their work.
It sucks when you've got to figure out a problem for homework but when you know solving that problem will result in a robot arm picking up a lego cow, it's full steam ahead. Lego robotics ties academics to real world results, no more, "Why do we need to learn this?"
The best thing about the program is that it isn't just for nerdy kids (although there are plenty). It gives future gear heads and shop kids a place to find academic success. I had a lot of friends who were brilliant but had bad grades because they couldn't do the classroom/homework thing, they would have built amazing robots and learned a ton in the process.
JEDC does a lot of wheel spinning and I'm sure you can find things to complain about if you go looking but the tiny splinter office of two people doing the science projects and Lego Robotics competition is outstanding.
But don't take my word for it, get involved with a team next year and see for yourself.
I know my kids have enjoyed
I know my kids have enjoyed it immensely and learned a great deal!
Good points by you all,
Good points by you all, however, I think they should change the name, as this economic development council is on a different track than any other similarly tasked group in any other city that I am aware of...
What you have described should a school district mission, I fail to see how of millions of dollars given to JEDC are helping job growth in Juneau
Lets call them the Legos and Robotics think tank and let the district fund their projects, not out of our CBJ's diminishing budget ( 3 or 4 million deficit)
Funding
@nottacheechako
I was informed that the branch of JEDC doing the Lego tournaments receives no city funds. I'm not sure how to verify it but I trust the source and it's probably public information if you want to do some research.
The Lego crowd is doing good work and I agree that they should be a separate organization. JEDC has served as a good incubator but this pod is mature enough to spin off and become their own entity focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.