MOSES LAKE – The first day of the LEAD Summit hosted by the Grant County Economic Development Council was held at the Grant County Fairgrounds on Wednesday and Thursday. Local leaders from the area came together to share the future plans for the county. 

“We think this is important to get our stakeholders around Grant County together at least annually, if not more than that, and this is a great opportunity to do that,” said Brant Mayo, Executive Director at the Grant County Economic Development Council. “We look forward to continuing to do this in the future and see it grow.” 

Those who attended the event included Grant County Health District, Grant PUD, Grant County Sheriff’s Office and fire districts, local school districts and colleges such as Central Washington University and Big Bend Community College, irrigation districts, city ports, and Representatives Tom Dent and Alex Ybarra and Senator Judy Warnick. 

During the course of the two-day event, the local organizations shared an array of content, including updates on key projects and developments around the county. 

Overall, Rhyanne Berryman, Director of Business Retention and Expansion and Coalition for Health Improvement Facilitator at the Grant EDC, said the event went great and that she was pleased with the turnout this year. 

“I saw lots of familiar faces, but lots of new faces and I think given that we were able to split it into two days instead of one day, we were able to fit more sessions and I think it was really valuable for everyone here,” said Berryman. 

Mayo said the key point for the event was getting local leaders together from all around the county to take a day to meet and discuss ideas with one another, which typically isn’t possible with how busy their schedules get. 

This year’s LEAD Summit was successful in achieving that goal as it shared valuable information to a large and diverse network of partners and peers, said Berryman. The event also allowed people to hear ideas from a different perspective that can help improve collaboration going forward. 

“There’s just so much that goes on and there’s so much that people need to know,” she said. “There are so many things that touch parts and pieces of people’s jobs that they need to hear and they need to hear from the source.” 

Following this year’s summit, Berryman has already begun looking into what she and the EDC can do to improve things for next year. She said her main goal is to get even more people in attendance. 

Next year, she said that it would be beneficial to create more networking time between those in attendance to allow more opportunity for local leaders to meet and collaborate. This has been hard to do given the tight schedule, but she said part of the purpose of the event is for people to build those meaningful connections. 

“I think that we will just continue to build momentum, get the word out about it, try to express that value to people and just hopefully continue to grow,” said Berryman. 

For those who were unable to attend this year’s summit, the EDC has already scheduled next year’s event for Nov. 4-5. Berryman said she would like to see even more people from across the county join in and participate in the future. 

“We’re still missing a couple of our smaller communities from those near and far corners of the county that I would love to be able to get in the room because there is just so much value in that, and getting the partners to the table is the main goal,” she said. 

Follow-up stories covering the content from some of the panels presented at the summit will be shared in the next two editions of the Columbia Basin Herald.

    Sue Kane, CEO of NCW Tech Alliance, speaks to the group about how AI can be used as a tool that will be necessary in developing Grant County’s growth into the future.