Economic Partnership Annual Meeting highlights change, growth from the past year

LOCK HAVEN – The Clinton County Economic Partnership held their Annual Meeting Wednesday night at the Best Western Hotel.

Bill Garbrick, Chairman of the Operating Board, provided CEO Mike Flanagan’s update and address to those in attendance.

“As you can tell, Mike cannot be here tonight, he is struggling with some health issues and thoughts and prayers would be very appreciated,” Garbrick said. Garbrick also welcomed the new Leadership Clinton County Director Ben Green to the Partnership.

“One of the things we want to celebrate is the naming of the partnership building to the Dan Harger Center for Economic Development and Tourism, named for Dan who has dedicated a lot of years to economic development for the county,” Garbrick said. “The Story building in Renovo has been sold to the Partnership and we are currently working to find a tenant to lease or purchase the property, and work continues in Lamar Township  Business Park, we made a sale for Lot 12 this year which was purchased by Mr. Maguire’s Living Trust, and we are currently in negotiations with the remaining lots out there.”

County Chamber/Tourism Director Kira Rosamilia delivered a brief report and included a full print one, highlights of which are included below.

“Please, anyone who has a tourism-related business, please reach out to the Tourism office to claim your listing and upload your own photos, videos, on our website,”Rosamilia said. “You can switch it up as much as you want to get more interested in your site, including analyzing data of those visiting your page on our site and listing sales and promotions at your business.”

When you come as a visitor and only see 22 restaurants in our county that were members listed on our website, people think we only have that amount in the whole county, and we have more than 90 restaurants total in Clinton County,” Kira said, explaining the trouble caused by only listing Partnership members on the website. “We don’t want people to think that there are only 22 restaurants in this large county.”

Tourism Report Highlights

• Updated newsletter
• Rebranding/logo and slogan
• New website
• Attending meetings and conferences
• Using Placer.ai to monitor travel trends to local events and attractions
• Promotional videos highlighting local attractions

Ben Green delivered his report on Leadership Clinton County, thanking Kira and Megan for being accommodating during the transition into his new role at the Economic Partnership.

“I am learning the ropes at the moment and starting to feel more settled in and I am thankful for this opportunity,” Green said. “The opening retreat for the 2024-2025 Leadership Clinton County class was held last week and went very well, the class is excited to get to know each other pretty well, and we are trying to get the Partnership Annual Dinner planned as fast as possible for October 9.”

Darlene Weaver of the Finance Committee reported that Ben Green has been running so fast since he started here at the Partnership, and then expressed her thanks to Kira and Megan for stepping up with Mike Flanagan being away taking care of his health. “I know Mike would say thank you,” Weaver said.

“Partnership budgets will hopefully be approved by September 25, and I am encouraging everyone if you know of anybody you can ask to sponsor the Annual Dinner, please reach out to them to ask about sponsoring this, we have a great guest speaker planned,” Weaver said.

Dan Harger of the Facilities Committee provided an update, speaking on transportation within Clinton County.

“The riverwalk in Woodward Township was recently completed, Pete Lopes worked very hard on that years ago, and we kept after PennDOT with the project idea,” Harger said. “We focus on transportation within the whole county and we have been successful with our projects, forming a consensus on what is important, and being successful.”

When Harger started, he mentioned there were 90 projects on their list and that has since dwindled down to only three.

Harger also plans to hold an open house at the Story building in Renovo on the weekend of Flaming Foliage Festival, providing information about Clinton County, and trying to drum up possible business interest in the location.

Partnership Operating Board elections were held at the meeting, electing Bobby Maguire of Big Woods Land Company, Steve Stevenson of City of Lock Haven, individual member Jim Hanna, and Louie Anastos of Stella A’s Bar and Grille.

Guest Speaker Tom Hendershot spoke about his business, Stronghut Cybersecurity & Technology, and the importance of cyber security for businesses and residences.

Hendershot, who has 15 years of experience in cyber security and 20 years of experience in technology, has an office in Mill Hall at 145 Hogan Boulevard.

“There are more and more incidents of people’s personal information being stolen, and there is an estimate of $13 trillion by 2025, up from $3 trillion from 2015,” Hendershot said. “It is a big business for hackers to be able to get your personal information.”

“The frequency of cyber attacks is getting worse by the day,” he said. “So why does this matter to you? Your email addresses are tied to your bank accounts, anybody can get that and drain accounts easily, there are so many different ways that people can get attacked now.”

The first place to start, as recommended by Hendershot, is to do a risk assessment. Then to train employees, if you are a business owner, on what to look out for with things such as spam emails, phishing attempts, real-looking links in email addresses, and other practices such as multi-factor authentication, strong passwords, and updating antivirus protections.

“Coming up with a backup plan when technology fails is also important,” Hendershot said, “especially recently with cell towers and internet being down around the area.”

Hendershot is available to sit down with homeowners and business owners to discuss possible security threats and weaknesses to “beef up” security within home or business networks.

Upcoming events:

• Ribbon cutting at Castanea Bridge on September 30, at 5 p.m.
• Commonwealth University – Lock Haven Homecoming will be happening from September 25-29
• Partnership Annual Dinner will be held on October 9 at The Clinton Country Club
• Veterans Park Dedication will be held on November 11 at 11 a.m., the same date and time that World War I ended in 1918
• A Time Out event will be held at the Lock Haven Sons & Daughters of Italy on October 3 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.