Dan Tobergte, President and CEO of Northern Kentucky Tri-ED, shared some advice for young economic developers during this month’s episode of Economic Development Secrets. He stresses the importance of finding a mentor to guide you. As a test grader for the CEcD exam, Dan also emphasizes the importance of becoming a certified economic developer.
See the excerpt below and follow the link to listen to the full podcast.
Then, beyond that, develop in a mentor relationship with a couple good folks in your community that can help you, show you the course, show you the path, and help get you through some rocky times that are inevitably going to be out there, because we’re not going to ever be able to please everybody all the time in the work that we do.
I’d certainly encourage everyone to get your basic course in Economic Development and then go ahead and take IEDC’s courses as well as University of Oklahoma’s courses to get into the certification tracks so that you can become a certified Economic Developer. It’s an element that has really helped me out personally. I’m now able to grade some of those tests and I’d like to see some better test answers come across, because we need to be able to have some qualified individuals in this industry.
