Resort, retirement community turns attention to business

By Sara Greene

LITTLE ROCK — Fairfield Bay is studying ways to draw businesses and young people to the community to bolster its bottom line for the future.

“We need to have some type of stable economy, because we can’t live off retirement and tourism,” said Tom Schueren, mayor of Fairfield Bay.

During an economic development summit Tuesday, residents learned the key to drawing just about any new business or industry is digital infrastructure.

Jeff Pipkin, director of the Arkansas River Valley Alliance for Economic Development, spoke to the group about one of Russellville’s recent economic successes: a call center for National Electronics Warranty Customer Service Co.

“The company required 23 inboundT1 lines from two directions, in case one direction got damaged. They can have no downtime. They will field calls from 6 a.m. to midnight seven days a week,” Pipkin said.

A T1 line represents 24 telephone lines.

“Used to, all we had to look for were interstates in order to attract businesses.

It’s that way now with T1 lines,” Pipkin said.

Another example is the day Pipkin saw satellite television trucks at the Lake Dardanelle’s fishing weigh station during one of the more than 50 fishing tournaments held there annually.

“Turns out they had an angler from Japan competing, and they were livestreaming the results of the fishingtournament weigh-in on the Internet, again, using that T1 line, so his fans in Japan could watch him fish in Lake Dardanelle, Arkansas,” Pipkin said.

Pipkin said cities can’t afford to depend on the old way of attracting business and industry.

“We’ve done things the same way for 12 years. We’ve directmailed, we’ve gone to trade shows. None of that stuff matters anymore, because it’s all Internet-based. Companies are basing their decisions based on the information you can provide on your Web site,” Pipkin said.

He said cities aren’t going to attract business and industry by posting citizen of the year or yard of the month information on their Chamber of Commerce Web site. Pipkin said it has to be demographic information businesses and industries can easily access.

Gil DeLorenzo, chairman of the North Central Arkansas Regional Economic Development, said students from the University of Arkansas have completed a survey on what Van Buren County has to offer and what sort of business and industry the county can attract, but the stumbling block is supplying an educated work force.

“We don’t have a work force in our area that is available for the type of information-technology jobs we could attract to the area. Not everyone is going on to college, so we need to develop a broader base of training for them through distance learning,” DeLorenzo said.

While many community colleges offer hospitality and entrylevel medical training, DeLorenzo said about one-third of graduates go on to get their four-year degrees and then don’t return to the area because there are no fields where they can work using their degrees.

“We do see a lot of big-box retailers that don’t pay enoughto support young families, but we need businesses and manufacturers,” DeLorenzo said.

Rupert Robertson, 62, said he’d like to see Fairfield Bay capitalize on its tourism and retirement foundation.

“I think a hospitality school would do well here,” Robertson said.

The mayor said he’d like to see area schools offer more curriculum to get students interested in working in natural-gas exploration.

“We need jobs for some of those individuals who don’t want to go on to college. I would like to see our schools offer more classes such as geology, seismology and engineering that would get students excited about working in that field. There is a science to drilling, and if we can interest our children in that now, those jobs will be there when they graduate,” Schueren said.

He said when Fairfield Bay first became a city 14 years ago, all the residents were relocating from somewhere else. Now, this is home for those families.

“As the city leaders, we have an obligation to those children to provide a way for them to come back here and live. I think if we can establish an stable economy where people can earn more than minimum wage, the population will move here, and in turn, demand more retail business,” Schueren said.

He said Fairfield Bay’s population is estimated to be about 2,600. While it has many local merchants, the closest McDonald’s is more than 20 miles away in Clinton. The closest Starbucks Coffee store is 56 miles away in Conway.

“I think the biggest misconception about Fairfield Bay isthat we’re a closed community - that we’re a bunch of rich people, and that’s not the case. We have people who live here who work in Conway and Little Rock,” Schueren said.

Pipkin’s opening remarks on the research paper “Shift Happens,” which discusses the shift in global population and what it means for the job market in America, was “sobering” to Schueren.

“It makes you realize that as a community, if we’re not moving forward, then we’re moving backwards,” Schueren said.

- sgreene@ arkansasonline.com

Three Rivers, Pages 107, 118 on 06/29/2008