News 8 Coverage - Temple Companies Work to Increase Economic Development

Finding companies to come to a smaller community isn't always easy. The City of Temple knows the challenges first-hand. "Temple, Texas is not on very many people's radar," the president of Temple Economic Development Corporation (TEDC), Lee Peterson, said.

So how does a city like Temple acquire a reputation as a good place to do business?
"That's a real chicken and egg situation because how many trained and educated people do you have for this job?" Peterson asked.

To solve the challenge, the Temple Economic Development Corporation is teaming up with Workforce Development at Temple College. Tyler Smith, director of Workforce Development at Temple College, said it's all about the complete package. "When a business looks to relocate, it looks at the total package, and the total package consists of the workforce," he said.

Right now, they siad there are about 29,000 people that make up Temple's workforce. They're putting programs in place at Temple College to expand the amount of highly skilled workers.

And it's not just new companies. The Temple Economic Development Corporation said it's trying to help existing Temple companies on expanding a future workforce.

"One of the things we're trying to do is raise our wage rate," Peterson said. "We want our people to make a lot of money. We want to work with companies that pay people well."

That's something Peterson said they're working on right now to improve the community's overall growth.

About Temple:
Temple, Texas is a community with a diverse economic base that includes healthcare, distribution and warehousing, and manufacturing as the foundation. Within 180 miles of a population of 17.8 million, Temple is in a strategic location that is central within the southwestU.S. marketplace.