ShastaEDC_mixdown.mp3

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Katie:
Welcome to a City of Redding podcast. What exactly is an economic development corporation and why do we need one here in Shasta County? Today we connect with Shasta, EDC president and CEO Todd Jones to learn how the SHASTA EDC positively impacts Redding and Shasta County at large.

Steve:
Did you know? Thanks to the Shasta, EDC and other hard working partners that Redding was recently named, the number one best economic small city in California and number four in the country by the Milken Institute. That's something to celebrate after a couple of rough economic years for the country. Way to go, Redding.

Katie:
Todd talks about the robust start up community here in Redding, new development at the Redding Regional Airport, and how he and his team work to bring new businesses and industry to our local area. After listening to this episode, you might get a better sense of the current growth Redding is seeing and how it might impact our future in Shasta County.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
My name is Todd Jones and I am the president of the Economic Development Corporation of Shasta County, the SHASTA EDC. We are a 503 public private nonprofit. We partner with the city of Redding, the city of Shasta Lake, the city of Anderson, and the county of Shasta. Kind of like their contract economic development department. And we work to bring more economic prosperity to Shasta County.

Katie:
Okay. So, Todd, for somebody like you gave a really quick explanation of it there, but for somebody who doesn't know anything about the Shasta EDC at all, what does it do? What's a day in the life of Todd Jones?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Yeah, so every day is different, which is probably one of my favorite parts about the EDC. And really, if you think about the SHASTA EDC, we're kind of like the outside sales for the community, the city. Redding is our biggest partner. Obviously, the city of Redding is the economic engine for all of Northern California. It's not just Shasta County. People in the surrounding counties, the five surrounding counties, 4 to 5 surrounding counties really rely on the services and the amenities that are provided in Redding to get our daily life done, whether it's health care, shopping, manufacturing, employment. Redding is the biggest hub, so it's a very symbiotic relationship with the city of Redding. We have four primary areas that areas that we focus on. So the first one is business recruitment, and I'll dive into these a bit more as I go. Business recruitment, we do business retention and expansion. We work with our airport in the city of Redding to bring in new air service, and we work with scalable startups. So those are kind of the four buckets. And the primary industries that we're working with are what we call primary industries, which is manufacturing and industrial is the main one. So those employers for every job in a manufacturing job in Shasta County, it equals over $400,000 of economic impact per year, per employee. So those are great jobs to have in our community and those are really the ones that we focus on most. And so we are kind of the tip of the spear for people looking to relocate or expand. Shasta County, they often call us first or they will get referred to us and we try to connect them to resources so that they can be successful, whether it's trying to find an ideal location that fits them or lining up with workforce partners like Shasta College or the Smart Business Resource Center, we're trying to put all the pieces together to make those businesses successful in Shasta County.

Steve:
And Todd, how is the Chesapeake funded? You mentioned all the community partners, the county, the various cities in the area. How does Chesapeake get its funding?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
So our funding is about 5050 right now. A big source of our funding is from the city of Redding and then the other local governments and our community. That makes up about half of our funding. And so those are actually done through professional service agreements. So we're actually providing a service to those local governments to be their economic development department, if you will. And so we have an annual contract with all of our local governments to provide those services to do the things that I just talked about. And then the other part, about 50% comes from private investors or otherwise you can call them donors. They are investing into the Shasta EDC because they believe in what we're doing and they want to see the economy of Shasta County do better. So that's the other big portion of our funding. On occasion, we may get a small grant from the state or federal government or carry out a program for one of our state partners. But typically we rely on those professional services, agreements and support from our local business community. And we have about 50 private investors right now and we've been around since 1957. We haven't always had private funding or public funding. It's gone both ways, but right now it's a pretty even mix to make up the financials for the EDC.

Katie:
And is this a pretty common setup for other cities and counties in California? Do they have like a Shasta EDC equivalent?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Yeah. So there are EDCs all over the world. We're actually part of the International Economic Development Council, which is the international body. And then there's a local body. Led California Association for Local Economic Development, which is made up by a lot of city folks that that represent that organization. But there are EDCs. The closest equivalent to us is just to our north, which is Siskiyou EDC. They also happen to do the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Small Business Development Center. So they kind of do everything up in Siskiyou and Shasta County. We have different organizations like the Sbdc. The Chamber is a Redding that are doing some of those functions. Edcs can look a bit different, but they're all pretty similar. There's accreditations. The formats are often a public private partnership, although it seems to be more common nowadays that a lot of times they're actually fully privately funded with some potentially small public partnerships. But there's a lot of privately funded ones as well. And they are most common, I would say, in either regionally or by a county. So a city doesn't often have their own. It's really a region that often makes up an EDC. So sometimes they're even multi county.

Steve:
And tied within that professional services agreement with each of those entities. What type of deliverables are you responsible for? Is it a certain percentage of airport growth or new flights or certain percentage of new businesses coming to the area? What do those deliverables look like?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
So fortunately for me, there's not a lot of hard deliverables because a lot of what we do, I would say almost everything that we do is really not completely up to us. So, for example, airport growth has been amazing over the last two years. I happen to have been here the last two years in this role as president, but I cannot take the credit for that. It's a great partnership with the city of Redding and Jim Wadleigh, the airport manager, our Supportive City Council, and our airline consultant, who is amazing and invaluable to the work that we do. So we have a lot of big picture things that you can't always measure. Although we're trying to grow air service, we're trying to bring new businesses to town. We don't always have the control, so we don't put a hard number on those, but those are the activities that we are trying to do. So we're representing the community, going to different tradeshows, talking to the airlines, working with our startup community. Again, there's not a lot of hard deliverables, but we do try to make sure that we're in step with our local governments to let them know what we're doing. And working with folks like Steve Bayard and Janelle Galbraith at the city of Redding so that we can do things on their behalf and then also bring bring new support and bring in new things like it. Stillwater Business Park. You know, I would say almost all of the activity that's been at Stillwater Business Park over the last couple of years has been something that I've been indirectly involved with. For almost every instance that's out there, I've been the first point of contact and kind of walk them through the process.

Katie:
So it sounds like a lot of what the EDC does and a lot of what your role is is kind of being sales, right? Like selling the Redding community to prospective businesses or businesses that want to stay here and expand kind of selling that. What do you tell businesses when they come to you and they say, what is it like to do business in Redding? Or Why should we move our business to Redding? What do you tell them?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Well, the conversation has changed really just in the last 3 to 4 years. So the years ago when the EDC built out the Mountain Lakes Industrial Park, which is Caterpillar Road, that whole area, that was the first thing that the EDC ever did. That's what formed the EDC and that was their first project was the Mountain Lakes Industrial Park upon Caterpillar Road in Redding. And for decades and decades, really the big, big reasons were cost. So we're close to large metro areas like Sacramento, San Francisco. We're in the middle of Seattle and Los Angeles for equal distance between the two. So cost and location was a very big driving factor for us for many, many years. You can be in the fifth largest economy in the world here in Redding, but your cost basis is going to be a lot lower than the communities to our south. So that was really a big driver for a long time. We had available land. We have great utilities with specifically in the city of Redding and in Shasta Lake. Both have their own utility companies. So those are big, big drivers. Now, in the last 2 to 3 years, the conversation is really shifting to quality of life. Employers are making sure that if they're going to relocate first, they can find the available workforce, which is very important. But they want to have a community that can attract that available workforce or has one existing.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
And so the conversation has shifted to quality of life, being a big driver. So now it's about you still have a relatively affordable place to do business for the West Coast. We can't quite compete with some of the states in the Midwest, but we have a lot more to offer. Quality life is a big one. We still have, although it can seem hard at times. We still have a relatively abundant workforce. We have reasonably priced housing for the West Coast. So those are big drivers plus all the outdoor recreation we have. So seeing the work that visit Redding does is a great thing for us to have because we can share that with companies to let them know, Hey, this is not just a place that you're going to be working 8 to 5. I go home and have nothing to do. There's so much to do. There's so many great outdoor activities. Plus, we have a great community, which is really one of the harder things to initially sell. But if you get plugged into the community, there is an endless amount of things to do and opportunities to engage. And a lot of people are trying to make this community better. So the conversation has gotten easier. And again, we live in a beautiful place. I just try to avoid site visits when it's 111 degrees.

Steve:
That makes sense. Tod, how much of you and your team's efforts are proactive as far as reaching out to prospective businesses, organizations, etc., versus those folks directly reaching out to the EDC to begin that conversation?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
It's a little bit of a mix. I would say. Right now, probably about half of our business leads that we have coming into us are coming in from the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, otherwise called Go Biz. That is a really strong partnership that we have. They have a pretty good sized staff. We work with them to identify companies that are looking to expand in California, and we respond to requests for information RFI to let them know what we have to offer. And those are still very black and white. How much land do you have? How much is power? How much is wastewater? How much water do you have? Lots of questions like that, but we're still painting the picture of what it's like to be in Shasta County. The other part right now is the ones that we're talking to our companies that we think we can win at. So I am reaching out to companies at least several times a month for companies that we think can benefit our area starting this fiscal year, which for me is July one, we're also going to be working with a retail consultant, which is something we have not done in the past, which we're partnering with the city of Redding and the city of Shasta Alarcon to target more retail or amenity or even hotels to come to our area. I'm not trying to necessarily recruit that next Panda Express, but we're trying to see what other types of businesses can we get that are going to add to the quality of life that we have here. Like a great Wolf Lodge, for example. That's an indoor waterpark. Or is it possible for us to get that bass pro shops or Nordstrom's everybody wants? Maybe it's not, but we're going to we're going to do our best to find something that complements our area, speaks to once are for the residents of our community and at the end of the day are also going to be sales tax drivers for our communities as well.

Katie:
So it sounds like you're basically targeting everything from large scale manufacturing to starting next year, the retail spaces which we hear a lot about on our social media channels. Just picking your brain here for a minute. What businesses do you think downtown Redding needs to attract?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Well, next week we're actually going to have this retail consultant out here, and we're going to be meeting with community stakeholders and property owners and brokers. And we're going to find out what we think can work. And we're going to utilize a lot of data to drive those decisions. And a lot of those are coming from credit card information. We do the same thing with airport information. You know, it's hard to say downtown specifically. I think you're going to want more. This is maybe just my once, but you know, those types of experiences in restaurants like restaurants or boutique clothing, places that aren't necessarily competing as much with online retailers, I think consumers still want choices. They still want to have somewhat of an experience. So going to that store, seeing things, feeling things, trying things on trying new foods. Obviously, I think we I think we could use more good restaurants in Redding. I think we can all agree, not that we have bad ones. We just need more some more options. So I think those types of amenities are going to kind of energize downtown so you can grab a bite to eat, go to a shop next door, have a drink and have more experiential things that are going to get people down there. I think that's maybe that's just my hope. Maybe I'm an idealist, but those are the types of companies I would like to see. And then we're also going to be looking at big box places like the Reilly's on Hartnell. That area is poised for a lot of growth with the Dignity Health Cancer Center that's going to be built there. And so if you can get in now, start doing your construction. By the time that buildout is done, you could have a great neighbor with dignity, health and their cancer center there. So letting those retailers know that are outside of our area, the places we have to offer, because while they do rely on a lot of data, nothing beats someone from the area telling them about the area and showing them something that they might not otherwise know.

Steve:
What does a Redding look like without an EDC? And maybe the second part of that question, what is the value add of the EDC on a financial sense that the EDC brings to the community?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Well, there's a pretty long list of companies that we have recruited to the area over the years, folks like Captive Air Canada installation, which is up in Shasta Lake, Blue Shield, bringing them up from Tehama County. There's a lot of employers and there's thousands of employees that have that are here because of the work that we do. And I think one of the big value adds is really we're trying to, especially nowadays, not being a silo. So the EDC doesn't necessarily have a lot of programs or things that we actually put on like a Shasta College would or a smart business resource center. But we can bring all those pieces together, much like the chamber is connected. Local businesses. We are connecting a lot of opportunities and a lot of resources for the businesses that are here in the businesses that are coming here. So being that first point of contact to kind of have a little bit of an understanding about what's happening in a lot of different resources in our community, whether it's working with Jeremy Pagan, with the city and understanding the process there to someone like Shasta College in a workforce program that they can help fund and support, kind of knowing all of that and then packaging it up, if you will, and bringing it to an employer is a lot better than them trying to find out on their own. So we're really just trying to be that resource for folks and and make sure that no one is growing or building or trying to move to this area alone.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
We want to provide as much information as we can. So, you know, the ultimate goal is I mean, if you look at the flights that have come, that's an easy one for people to see right now. The city of Redding, while they potentially Jim Wadley has a great team and a great vision, but the EDC is really a big driver for those conversations. We're the ones pitching our community at these airport meetings every single quarter. I mean, we spoke with Alaska Airlines for years before they started that Seattle service. We worked with the community and of course the city on the service. A couple of years ago we were the ones that went out and raised the money for the minimum revenue guarantee to secure that flight. And so we're really our impact, our investment. It's on an ROI from a return on investment, although there's an easy number to put on that. It's really more about return on impact. What can we do with the resources that we have to make the biggest impact on our community? And so I think right now the easy one to see is airports. But when Stillwater fills up in the next couple of years and we have potentially thousands of new jobs out there, it'll be pretty rewarding to see the work that we've been putting in really for decades.

Katie:
And you mentioned airports. That seems like maybe a strange partnership for for an EDC and a city if it's a city owned airport. Is that a common partnership where the EDC has actually so involved in the growth of the airport? Or is that something that's a little bit more unique to Redding?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
It is pretty common. So I've been fortunate to go to a few airport conferences over the last couple of years, and a lot of times there are other EDC folks there. Sometimes there's city economic development folks that work 100% for city, and then there's chambers there as well. So it's pretty common. And it's not just air service. A lot of times it's those non aeronautical revenue. So, you know, is there a way for us to get a hotel on the property that we can help connect somebody and make a good argument to get a hotel or an airport property, or is there some type of distribution facility or even light manufacturing facility that can take place on the airport itself. So there's a lot of different ways that the EDC can be involved with what's happening at the airport. But it's certainly not uncommon for us to be that point person when telling airlines about our community, because we have we try to have as deep knowledge about what's happening in the community as anybody here.

Steve:
Todd, I'm curious, you mentioned that at the start of our conversation that one of your four areas of focus are the scalable startups. Can you talk a little bit about the health of the startup industry here in Redding as well as the Shasta venture hub and how that comes into play in those efforts?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Yeah, so we have been working with the EDC, has been working with the startup community for about eight years and it really started with one event that we do every year which is called was called Startup Weekend. Now it's called Startup Games. That's going to be happening the first weekend of November downtown, most likely at the international order of the Oddfellows Hall Ioffe Building. And that is kind of the top of the funnel. So we're trying to identify who's here and keep people plugged in to the startup environment. You know, from there we're trying to work with them. In my previous role, I worked entirely with startups with the EDC, and the startup community is really quite special and different. We have a very supportive startup community. I would go as bold as saying we have the world's most supportive startup community because we want people to succeed. It's not a dog eat dog world like Silicon Valley, where everyone's competing for talent and resources. We're also really fortunate to have our Shasta Angels group for entrepreneurs, which is our local Shasta Angels. They've invested in about 15 companies since they started, also about eight years ago. Our most recent success story is a company called Limelight Health, which went on pitched at the very first pitch. Breakfast went on to raise a relatively small amount of funds from our local Shasta Angels relative in the big scheme of things. And then they went on to sell in August 2020 for $75 Million along the way, creating about 115 jobs, many of those here in Redding.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
And so we want to see more of those types of companies that can scale. And we love the mom and pop shops and the bakeries and all those things. But that's not really who we're targeting. We're targeting those folks that have a high tolerance for risk, can raise money and grow a company for a potential exit down the road. So we are just starting that process back up. It certainly put a damper on that. But we've had Startup Weekend now Startup Games every year for the past eight years. We just finished our second reading venture conference. Our first year, our local Shasta Angels invested $330,000 into a local startup. We also gave away $10,000 to a local startup who's now raised several hundred thousand more dollars and is still building out their startup. This last year we invested into this fast angels investment into one startup, and then we also gave a $10,000 prize to another startup. So we're not that's not only exclusively for residents of Shasta County. We're bringing in people from all over the West Coast. But we're really trying to show what Shasta County has to offer, as well as show our local investors what kind of businesses are out there that have a high potential for growth. And then at the end of the day, are going to have a return on investment, but are also going to make an impact in our community.

Katie:
And if people want more information about that piece of it, where would they find out how to get involved with that?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
So the startup stuff specifically we have Startup Redding dot com sort of Redding is a program, if you will, of the Shasta EDC. And then our website is Shasta EDC dot org. So Startup Redding, we have startup sessions and that's a really fun active community. And then in a few weeks we'll have our website live to buy a ticket for Startup Games, which is going to be November 4th to the six downtown. It's a 48 hour immersive weekend where you get all your food, beverages, coffee for including your ticket price. You pitch an idea, not every idea gets picked. And then we form teams around those ideas and then those teams are selected. The top usually ten or 12 teams go on to build a startup over the course of 48 hours. So it's all about experiential learning. It's a super fun weekend, tons of energy. The pitches on Friday night are open to the public and then the final pitches are open to the public on Sunday night as well. And it's a ton of fun, even if you're not thinking about a startup or entrepreneurship. It's a great weekend for really anybody. People all the way from nine years old to 65 have participated, and it's a ton of fun.

Steve:
Cool. Kate and I will have to come on down.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Yes. Your comments.

Steve:
Totally fun. You know, Todd, we jumped right into this conversation and focus on the EDC and some of the challenges and successes. Can we talk about yourself for a moment? What is your background and and why are you so passionate about the health and success of Redding and Shasta County?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Yeah, so I grew up in Weaverville, so just an hour west of here. And as I said earlier, Redding is really the economic engine for the north state. And so Redding has always been a place that we've come to. My family's from here. I was born here. A family on both sides is from here. I used to work for the congressman here. That's what actually brought me to Redding for the first time as a professional. And when he retired, I was looking for opportunities and you know, and maybe it's maybe just me. I think there's a lot of people in my in our generation that feel this way, but we really want to make an impact. And I think the EDC is a great place where public policy outreach, community engagement all align, which is what I love. I love to think about tools that we can bring to businesses to help them grow. Because what I always say and I'll get back to me, but what I always say is that the EDC and even the city of Redding, we don't create jobs. We can create opportunities for businesses to succeed. And so it's really rewarding for me to see because I love this community.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
I've lived all over the world and this is just such a special place to me. I think we have so much to offer and I think we're seeing that growth right now. And so, you know, I feel really fortunate to be in the role I'm at working with folks like yourself, with Jake at the Chamber, really just to pour into making this community better. I'm so passionate about it and it's really a fun job. I feel very privileged to be in this role where I can go all over the country and tell people about all the amazing things we have happening and try to talk them into moving here. That's that's my goal. So I love the area. I have three little kids. You know, I don't necessarily always say I want to give them a place they can move back to, but I want them to live in a community now that can impact them. So no matter where they live in the future, they can always think fondly and highly of Shasta County and potentially move back, but at least live in a community and grow up in a community that is so supportive like like Redding is.

Katie:
And Todd, you are, you know, very specifically poised to help make a difference and to actually see the work that you're doing now pay off into the future. What do you think the future of the economic development in Redding looks like? What does the future Redding look like?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
You know, I think that has the economy shifts in California. I'm not naive. California is a tough place to do business, but there is a ton of opportunity. And I think we're just seeing that over the last few years, the amount of opportunity that we have. So I don't think that Redding is going to be a Sacramento. Sacramento is a very fast growing metro for California. I don't think that's where we're going to be, but I do think that we're going to continue to grow. I think as downtown matures and we have more businesses and people living down there, it's going to change. I think that Stillwater Business Park is going to fill up and we're going to see thousands of new jobs out there and we're going to see new opportunities and more industries grow. So there's some specific industries I think of, like I talked about wood products, but I think that Redding is going to be a community where there's enough opportunities to move sort of business relocate. But we're still going to have that balance of a high quality of life. I don't think, again, we're not going to be a big, big city probably ever. But I think we're going to be a very healthy city and we're going to have a strong economic base that can support the quality of life and the lifestyles that we want to see. And we can attract new people because at the end of the day, right now, we're going to need to attract at least 10 to 15000 more people to our community if we want to continue the level of growth that we're seeing right now.

Steve:
And Todd, on that note, on the whole, do you think that the efforts that the EDC and really your partners are currently doing, are they successful or are they working or are there things that we could be doing or that you will look to do moving forward, maybe that you're not already to really expand on this growth that you're talking about?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Well, I think one of the things that we're we've started on this year, this fiscal year, is really more, again, supporting the I'm talking to a lot of people, word of mouth, but we need to do a little bit broader work as a collective, which we're doing to tell people outside of our area about Shasta County. So working with the chamber, working with you guys, working with visit Redding, telling people about the area because again, we we have a workforce challenge. We have a shortage of workers in Shasta County and we are not uncommon. The entire US is facing this challenge as well. So we need to do a better job telling the outside world about our community. And I think we need to do a better job, quite frankly, with people in our community, how we feel and think about our community. And I think the Chamber did a great job with the Redding City Identity Project, and I think we need to continue those efforts just to all those things that we do. The cultural district, the work that Veeva downtown is doing, all those things are helping to make our community more attractive.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
And while sometimes you can't see a direct correlation from what a cultural district does to economic growth, those things matter right now because people want to live in a great place, which we have, but we just need to continue to support those efforts. So I think the great coffee shops, all the the theater that we have, the work that the advanced reading is doing, all those pieces are being put together to tell a great story or to have a great story. We just need to do a better job of telling it. So we're really working hard on marketing and messaging our area and not just the traditional tourism aspect of all the outdoor activities, but we want to tell the people about the great schools and about the great places to work and about the competitive housing. And again, I know for locals last two years housing prices have increased pretty dramatically, but we are still a relatively competitive place to live in California. So telling that story is something that we're going to work on because again, we need more people to live and relocate to this area for that continued growth.

Katie:
And what do you say to the people who say, you know, I don't really want Redding to grow. I think it's fine just as it is. And, you know, we like our small community.

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
Small. Well, there's a lot of things I'd like to say, but mostly what I will say is if we're not growing, we're dying. So we have to grow. We have to continue to support people coming into our community because those folks that don't want growth, I think are quickly being outnumbered. And I think that if we don't grow, we're going to lose the amenities we have. I think we can all appreciate what we have to offer in our community right now from in terms of even things like public safety are great schools. We do have quite a bit of shopping, although I know some people would like to see quite a bit more. But we need it. We need to continue to support those things because if we're not growing, are our neighbors and our friends are going to lose jobs, they're going to move away. We're not going to be able to support the same level of public safety that we have now, because at the end of the day, economic development is all cyclical. The more money we're putting into it, the more money, the more things we're going to get out of it from tax revenue, property tax and sales tax. So we we need to continue to grow. We have a lot of catching up to do at the moment, but I think we're on the right track. It has we've seen over the last few years with a lot of people moving to our area.

Steve:
And so overall, I mean, I think you just said it, but would you say that that the overall health of the Redding community is in a good place and trending in the right direction?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
It's definitely trending in the right direction. We're one of the few MSAs in the entire state of California, and MSA is a metropolitan statistical area, one of the few areas that has grown over the last couple of years. We have added new jobs. We're growing from a population standpoint very modestly. A lot of that growth is coming from people inside of California moving to Shasta County. And so overall, we are doing well. Tourism revenue is record high this last fiscal year ending on June 30. A lot of our businesses are doing well, although not without challenges like workforce and supply chain. But businesses overall are doing very well. And we're seeing more housing starts, multifamily housing. The city of Redding does such a great job finding money for projects and other partners in town are doing that as well like too. So we're heading in the right direction. We are statistically and qualitatively doing better than than most of our peers on the West Coast. We were just named as the number one best performing small city in California by the. Institute, which is an economic policy think tank number four in the country. So we are doing the right things. We know that it's not just how I feel and what I say anymore. We can put numbers behind that to see the growth. Wage growth has been up 19.5% just within the last 14 months. So we're seeing a lot of things that are supporting this growth. And I think we're on we're on the right track and we're going to continue on this path for growth over the next five years.

Katie:
That's so great. Todd, is there anything else that you want to make sure that you get across before we sign off anything?

Todd Jones, Shasta EDC:
It's definitely not something the UTC is doing, doing ourselves. So working with the city, the chamber is reading Shasta College Simpson. A lot of our great businesses. I have a great board of directors that represents a lot of folks in our community. And so it's definitely the strength of the community is what's making all this happen. And it's just exciting for me to be in this role right now during this time.

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