DRIVE’s Mission Explained
DANVILLE – DRIVE, one of the Valley’s newest economic development agencies has been in the middle of some unprecedented projects recently. DRIVE Executive Director Jennifer Wakeman explained on WKOK’s On The Mark, “DRIVE is an economic development council of governments. We were formed originally by Columbia and Montour County in 2015 and (then) in 2020, Northumberland, Snyder, and Union joined. We were designed really to be the boots on the ground of economic development.”
In the last few months, DRIVE has acquired two historic buildings in Sunbury, the former textile mill and last week, the Sunbury Community Hospital. Both buildings were donated by their previous owners. DRIVE also helped launch a five-county broadband network, and they are working to bring a $1.1 billion manufacturing facility to Northumberland County.
“A lot of what we do, and what is different from what some of our other public partners do, is we engage actively in real estate redevelopment and site selection. So companies looking to come in from out of the area,” Wakeman said.
She says DRIVE then works with local municipalities to help those businesses coming to the area understand what it takes to start a business in Pennsylvania. When the new businesses are established, DRIVE also partners with other area entities to sustain their success.
Another effort of DRIVE is to keep developing workers to fill all these new jobs coming to the area, “It really looks at what are those critical jobs these companies need in the immediate term and then also in the next one to three years. Its working with all the education partners and finding out where is there capacity or how do we need to increase capacity to help people train.”
Hear more about DRIVE and its ongoing projects on the WKOK.com Podcast Page or wherever you listen to podcasts.
