By Bryon Glathar

Herald Managing Editor

Editor’s note: This is part two of a three-part series looking at local economic development, challenges Evanston and Uinta County face and what local leaders are doing to help attract outside businesses while supporting businesses already in the area.

EVANSTON — After Evanston made the short list to land Weatherby, a firearms manufacturer that recently announced it will move its headquarters from California to Sheridan, Uinta County Planning and Development Director Gary Welling, said the lead process — facilitated by the Wyoming Business Council to bring new businesses to Wyoming — can be frustrating at times, especially when Evanston appears to be a frontrunner for a project or when a company passes on Evanston for reasons no one can control.

“You know, with the tungsten company (Tungsten Parts Wyoming, a tungsten factory that announced in August 2015 that it would move its headquarters from China to Laramie), we spent a lot of time … we were real close. He (a company officer) came up and we toured the town and toured the sites. … That’s more frustrating than just to lose, but to lose on something we can’t fix. We can’t fix an elevation. We can’t control the [number of] Chinese [residents]. But the diversification that Laramie has compared to us — that’s why they chose Laramie.”

Weatherby officials cited Sheridan’s milder climate and the importance of an educated workforce — pointing to Sheridan College — as deciding factors in their relocation. They also mentioned that they wanted to appeal to their customers as a western-type company, which might have been why they looked at Wyoming in the first place. More specifically, they wanted to move to a western-sounding location.

Welling’s right — leaders certainly can’t change Evanston’s elevation. Even changing its name would be quite the task. And with no community college in Uinta County, Evanston might have been lucky to even make the “shorter list” of Weatherby’s potential destinations.

Other companies have overlooked Evanston in recent years. HiViz Shooting Systems announced in early 2013 that it would relocate from Fort Collins, Colorado, to Laramie. Company officials cited gun control legislation passed in Colorado and Wyoming’s gun-friendly atmosphere as reasons for the move. Specific to Laramie, the company said the proximity to Fort Collins would allow for a smoother transition because employees could still commute to the new location while they weigh the option of relocating with the company.

According to a report by Dailycaller.com, HiViz President and CEO said the Wyoming Business Council played an important role in bringing the company to Wyoming.

Magpul Industries announced in November 2014 that it would move operations from Colorado — also citing gun control legislation passed in the state — to Wyoming and Texas. Grenfell said the WBC confirmed that Magpul had self-identified Laramie County because of the size of the community and its geographical connection to its existing facility in northern Colorado.

According to the Washington Times, more than two dozen states tried to attract Magpul after the company announced it would leave Colorado. At the time, “the company [supported] 200 direct jobs and 400 supply-chain jobs and contributed an estimated $85 million annually to Colorado’s economy,” the Times reported.

Putting Evanston’s best foot forward

In an email sent to city officials after Weatherby announced plans to move to Sheridan, Evanston City Clerk Amy Grenfell said she and others will “continue to put Evanston’s best foot forward.” But what does that mean? What is Evanston’s “best foot?”

Grenfell said that for her, personally, Evanston is a great place with lots of good things already going for it.

“We all hear it. We all hear … Evanston needs to be more like Cheyenne or Evanston has to be more like Sheridan or Evanston needs to be more like Salt Lake City,” she said. “All of those places have wonderful things, but I think what we forget is that Evanston has a lot of great things, too. It’s very, very important that we be the best Evanston we can be. … I think we need to be very clear about what we can change and about what we can’t change. And be accepting of the things we can’t change, and focus on the things that we can change. For me, that’s the key.”

‘Evanston is resilient’

Gary Welling, who’s also on the county economic development board, agreed and said Evanston is different from other boom-and-bust towns.

“During the downturn, we didn’t have mass [quantities of] people leaving and empty buildings [left behind],” he said. “As a whole, as a community, we’ve rallied around and we’ve held tight. … So I think the resilience of the people is commendable and should be promoted.”

Welling said a lot of the commission’s focus is on existing businesses “because they’re here and they want to be here.

“We can talk all day about what we’re doing to attract [businesses],” Welling continued, “but to help businesses grow — the Union Tanks and the Elkhorns, the fiber plant out there — what can we do to help them grow and expand? Because they’re already here. They want to be here. Let’s kind of pave the way, if you will, to help them grow.”

Organic growth

Meanwhile, some businesses have moved to or expanded in Uinta County without the help of the Wyoming Business Council. BH Martin Company, which sells sheds, recently moved its manufacturing to its Uinta County location. Ideal Transport is in the process of moving to Evanston. Grenfell said she believes the transportation company chose Evanston because they wanted to be on one side of Wyoming, not somewhere in the middle, because Interstate 80 is shut down quite often.

“I think it’s really important to reinforce that that’s the kind of economic development that’s even healthier,” Grenfell said.

She said the government shouldn’t be involved in every little thing to do with businesses but, rather, should support these companies and make its communities nice places to live.

“Organic economic development will happen,” Grenfell said, “if we have a good foundation in place. I’m one who believes that the private sector can do things better than government, and it’s sometimes best for government to just get out of the way.”

What could Evanston support?

Grenfell said Monday that many of the WBC leads are for larger companies that need a substantial workforce, which can put Evanston at a disadvantage. She said the WBC uses a population-based formula to determine how much growth a community can support.

The general formula is to divide a population in half, then take 10 percent of that number. In Evanston’s case, based on a population of 12,500, the result is 62.5 — that’s the number of new jobs Evanston could easily support at once.

“A larger workforce need would put strains on our existing workforce and may take us some time to fill the workforce needs of the company,” Grenfell said. “It could definitely be done, but the timeframe may be longer than a company could be supportive of.”

Benefiting from lead process

While Grenfell said she’s not aware of a single WBC lead that materialized for Evanston, the time spent on those leads hasn’t been for nothing. She said that because of the process, Evanston’s local marketing materials and ability to respond quickly to leads (both from the WBC and from other sources) has been sharply honed and polished.

“We have a solid process in place and are able to determine quickly what information needs to be provided to a company to best showcase our community,” Grenfell said. “And because we have been on the short list for a few leads and have hosted these companies in our community for site visits, we also are more attuned to the needs of any business when it comes to things like infrastructure, fiber, etc.”

She said local officials better understand Evanston’s weaknesses and have been able to take steps to rectify those weaknesses.

“For example,” Grenfell said, “we knew that fiber access in the Union Center Business Park was a weakenss in further enticing companies to that area of the community. So the City installed a fiber conduit from the Roundhouse to the end of Commerce Drive (near the Kern River Gas offices), which encouraged All West to run fiber and provide high-speed internet to the existing businesses along this route.”

She said that fiber access is very helpful as officials continue to market the land to other companies.

“This is just one example of infrastructure investments,” Grenfell said, “but the need was highlighted as a weakness in our conversations with potential tenants — so we fixed it.”