BUSINESS & ECONOMIC DEV.
Staff reports
To attract new business, Cobb
leaders are looking well beyond
the Peach State.
“At the start of the year, we
organized the International
Council, led by Peter Heintzelman,
the president and CEO of
Cobb EMC. The council works
to foster relationships with the
international companies already
based in Cobb and develops
ways to recruit more international
companies to the county,”
said Dana Johnson, executive
director of SelectCobb.
“SelectCobb is the single point
of contact for state project managers
and site selectors, which
ensures a seamless process to
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recruit businesses to and retain
businesses in the county,” explained
Johnson, who joined the
SelectCobb team during the first
week of January after serving
as director of the Cobb County
government’s Community
Development department.
Previously known as Cobb’s
Competitive Economic Development
for a Growing Economy
or EDGE, SelectCobb had its
inception in 2011 and launch in
2013. Comprised of the Cobb
Chamber of Commerce, the
governments of Cobb County
and its six cities, the Georgia Department
of Economic Development,
Cobb Travel and Tourism,
the county’s three community
improvement districts and many
other partners, the initiative is
now within its next five-year
strategy that began in 2018.
Among the goals its leaders
have set to accomplish before
the end of 2022 are 10,000 new
jobs for the county and $1.5 billion
in new, private investment.
“Just since January 2018
through our SelectCobb strategy,
we worked with our many
partners to attract more than
8,000 new quality jobs to Cobb;
this brings us to more than
30,000 new quality jobs since we
started SelectCobb nearly seven
years ago,” said Sharon Mason,
CEO of the Cobb chamber.
When asked about Select-
Cobb’s biggest gets of the past
year, Johnson said two of them
came during his first week of
work — BioIQ and Carestream
Dental.
“Both BioIQ and Care-
Stream Dental are health care
technology companies that
located in the Cumberland
SelectCobb searching well past
state’s borders for new business
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