The new Colonels 2 College program is set to begin this year. A local community initiative growing out of NWKF’s Rally for Education Excellence initiative, Colonels 2 College will offer qualifying graduates from Henderson County High School $1000/semester scholarships to Henderson Community College.
The program will begin when this year’s freshmen class graduates in 2013. More information on the program can be found at http://www.northwestky.com/news/documents/Colonels2College.pdf.
This is a program that the NWKF hopes can emulated in each of the other counties.
NWKF recently participated in a very interesting meeting involving our economic development counterparts from Owensboro and Evansville. We met with the newly formed regional higher education consortium involving approximately 10 schools from Northwest Kentucky and Southwest Indiana.
This lunch meeting was a follow up to the Regional Economic Summit that was held in Evansville last November and which focused on themes related to growing this broader region.
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Northwest Kentucky Forward has partnered with the Kentucky Manufacturing Assistance Center to significantly expand the training opportunities available to existing companies in the region.
KMAC is a private, not-for-profit corporation created by the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation and the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development to support and strengthen Kentucky’s manufacturing sector. KMAC has been helping manufacturers improve their production methods, advance their technical capabilities, and adopt best business practices since 1995.
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The “unwind” of the E.On/LG&E lease of the Big Rivers generation capacity is FINALLY complete. This incredibly complicated, incredibly confusing, and incredibly drawn out process means that Big Rivers Electric Corp. again controls in generating capacity and can “freely” supply its three customers—Kenergy (the nation’s largest co-op based on usage), Purchase Rural Electric, and Meade Rural Electric.
For economic development, it means two incredibly important developments:
1) this region’s two large aluminum smelters (Rio Tinto Alcan and Century Aluminum) now have a long-term source of affordable electricity. This broader region is home to more than 1/3 of US aluminum production so this step is incredibly important to maintaining this vital industry;
2) for prospective industry, it means this region can offer a significant supply of affordable, available electricity.
Northwest Kentucky Forward is led by a great Board of Directors composed of 22 members from throughout the region. Each of the 4 County Judge-Executives (basically county mayors for those unaccustomed to KY politics) and the Mayor of Henderson are ex-officio members with the other 17 members coming from business and industry in the region.
Last night, the board elected 3 new members:
- Bill Gough, an entrepreneur and business owner from Union County;
- Steve Hendrix, owner of Hendrix Electric in Webster County;
- Wayne Meriwether, an executive with Methodist Hospital in Henderson County.
NWKF is proud to welcome these new members and looks forward to their being an active part of our efforts to create wealth and opportunity for people, business, and governments of the region.
I understand that while the Cabinet is still drafting policies and regs for the new incentive programs, it has already undergone a name change. The Incentives for a New Kentucky (INK) has been rebranded as Kentucky Business Incentives Program (KBIP).
