May 17, 2021 at 12:23 p.m.
Grow North's Beyer advocates for regional approach to infrastructure upgrades
Grow North's Beyer advocates for regional approach to infrastructure upgrades
As one example, Brittany Beyer, executive director of Grow North and a member of Gov. Tony Evers task force on broadband, noted the area is still in need of infrastructure to support broadband expansion.
"There's not enough broadband, but more specifically, rural communities have not have not had the buildout of the broadband infrastructure," she said. "And that is why you're seeing the federal move to have broadband infrastructure as part of the infrastructure buildout not as sort of a utility. That's really important, but I would also say that one of the things that will happen is having a better regional understanding of the big picture of broadband in the Grow North region. That way we will better be able to articulate our needs very strategically as we have this once-in-a-lifetime expansion of state and federal dollars to do this. It's going to be a big, big initiative."
Grow North was founded in 2004 as a private/public 501(c)(6) organization dedicated to economic development in the eight counties of northern and northeastern Wisconsin. The region includes Forest, Florence, Marinette, Lincoln, Langlade, Oconto, Oneida, and Vilas counties.
"There's going to be this windfall of unprecedented funds and they (local units of government) need to be thinking about how they want to use it and be partners, especially with economic development," Beyer said. "So each of the counties, they should all be thinking about that county-level strategy for building out and we will aggregate all of the needs from the regional perspective up. That's what we're going to do with all nine regions in economic development."
She also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted considerable creative thinking as businesses large and small had to adapt to survive.
"COVID definitely had its bright side, in that it's having some community members get closer to each other, even though we were distant," she said. "It taught everyone that when they thought they would always do things in the same manner, there could be a different way of doing it. So the old way of thinking 'we've always done things this way' doesn't necessarily fly. If you want to articulate how things need to improve, sometimes you have to make some shifts, and at this point, all we have to say is when you needed to, you made some pretty serious shifts."
Even before the pandemic, businesses were being advised to be more "nimble," or to have adaptive capacities, she added.
"Some businesses were thinking about that as a 21st century skill, well clearly those who could do that in the last year are the ones that really succeeded," Beyer said, adding that workers who have the necessary skills to be flexible will also be in demand in the immediate future.
She said doing business differently has even filtered to her own organization.
"In 2020, we really moved to a form of working on committee by bringing resources to the working professionals and community members," Beyer said. "So, for example, the housing committees, what we've done is work with local communities to get individuals that live in, say Three Lakes, together to talk about their housing. Some communities are moving to do surveys that can then be used for housing studies. And then working with communities to understand how to redo their zoning."
The group has also hosted presentations geared toward getting municipal leaders ready to talk to developers.
"We've also made sure our regional planning commission knew that housing was a highly needed item," Beyer said. "So they'll be looking at housing from a regional approach, so they're doing a housing study for the region, which is going to be useful for everyone. So we've really been hammering home all the different baseline needs for the communities, so that they can then be matched with developers."
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