Local leaders are reportedly still recovering after a site selection consultant invited to conduct a mock site visit provided the kind of candid feedback officials had specifically requested, though not in the exact motivational tone they had imagined.
The consultant, veteran site selector Brian Benjamin, spent two days touring the community as part of an economic development readiness exercise designed to evaluate how well the region presents itself to corporate prospects.
By the end of the visit, Benjamin had reviewed available sites, met with elected officials, toured infrastructure, assessed community messaging, evaluated workforce claims, and quietly written “oh no” in his notebook 14 separate times.
“We brought Brian in because we wanted an outside perspective,” said Economic Development Board Chair Denise Callahan. “We told him to be brutally honest. We just didn’t realize he would interpret both words literally.”
The mock visit began promisingly, with Benjamin greeted at the airport by the Executive Director, three board members, the mayor, two chamber representatives, and a welcome basket containing local honey, branded mints, a historical brochure, and four business cards from people who did not appear on the official agenda.
According to Benjamin’s report, the greeting was "warm and memorable," though he noted that "future corporate visitors may prefer an arrival experience that does not immediately introduce them to all nine people who have opinions about downtown parking challenges."
The first stop was a 300-acre industrial site described in marketing materials as “shovel-ready.” Benjamin’s report later clarified that while shovels were technically present in the county, the site itself lacked sufficient due diligence, updated wetlands information, clear ownership documentation, utility extension costs, and a realistic timeline for development.
“It is not that the site is bad,” Benjamin wrote. “It is that the phrase ‘shovel-ready’ appears to be doing most of the infrastructure work.”
Local officials pushed back gently on that point, explaining that the site had been discussed for years and was therefore “basically ready in a community sense.”
The consultant also reviewed the community’s workforce presentation, which included slides showing strong regional population, commuter patterns, technical training programs, and a photo of students wearing safety glasses near equipment.
Benjamin praised the visuals but questioned whether the presentation demonstrated actual availability of workers for the types of projects being targeted.
“We felt that was a little harsh,” said Workforce Committee member Greg Benton. “The slide clearly showed people near machines.”
During lunch, Benjamin met with 19 local stakeholders, each of whom was given the opportunity to share a brief comment about the community. The lunch lasted two hours and 40 minutes.
In his report, Benjamin recommended that future prospect meetings include fewer speakers, clearer roles, and a more disciplined narrative.
Several participants disagreed, noting that everyone at the lunch had important things to say, including the retired banker who spoke for 17 minutes about a bypass project from 1998.
“I think prospects need to understand our history,” said Council Member Ron Teague. “How else will they appreciate the importance of the access road we almost got?”
Benjamin’s final report praised the community’s leadership, hospitality, location, quality of life, and long-term potential. However, it also identified several areas for improvement, including inconsistent messaging, unclear site control, limited product readiness, overreliance on aspirational language, and a tendency to answer direct questions with “we can probably make that work.”
The phrase appeared 23 times in Benjamin’s notes.
“We were hoping for validation,” Callahan said. “And in many ways, we got that. We were validated as a community with significant room for improvement.”
The most controversial section of the report focused on the community’s economic development website, which Benjamin described as “friendly, attractive, and not currently behaving as if it expects a site selector to use it.”
He noted that several key data points were buried, outdated, or available only after clicking through a PDF named “Final Presentation Revised Updated NEW v7.pdf.”
Staff later confirmed that the PDF was not actually the final version.
Despite the tension, Benjamin said the community performed better than many places that wait until a real prospect visit to discover their presentation is held together by optimism, local pride, and a map last updated before the pandemic.
“The good news is, this was a mock visit,” Benjamin said. “Nothing was lost except the comforting illusion that everyone was already on the same page.”
