BROKEN BOW—The Broken Bow Chamber of Commerce was happy to welcome the Nebraska State Chamber to Broken Bow on Tuesday, September 11. Numerous members of the Broken Bow Chamber and media were in attendance at the event that was held at Adams Land and Cattle. The event was centered on Blueprint Nebraska, but other issues that were directly impacting business such as taxes, workforce, regulations, and job creation, were also discussed
Bryan Sloan, the Nebraska State Chamber President was in attendance and talked about the impact of the issues that face businesses. Aside from taxes and regulations, a main talking point for Sloan was workforce and job creation. Sloan talked about how there are jobs out there in the community and that he has talked to businesses about workforce problems.
The biggest issue he noted was that there are jobs available, but there is no one to fill those jobs. Nebraska does not have a problem bringing in new jobs, but filling the jobs that are already here. The outlook that Sloan had on 2019 was negative attributing that to an aging workforce. Sloan did not attribute that to a lazy generation, but instead said, “Young people are not lazy, they want a quality of life.”
Blueprint Nebraska was the main focus of the presentation which centered on a state wide coalition of leaders representing large and small businesses as well as Ag and non-Ag businesses in developing an economic plan. Assistant Dean and State Director at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Catherine Lang, really spearheaded the Blueprint Nebraska project with the help of the University of Nebraska President, Hank Bounds, in hopes of connecting the state. Blueprint Nebraska was designed in part of the process that is similar in Mississippi.
Part of the reason this program was designed is to give Nebraska business a bigger voice in legislature as well as other areas. The best way to do this was to design a program that took leaders from different areas in the state, with different backgrounds in agriculture, education, government, as well as other areas.
Broken Bow was discussed often, because it is unique to the state in the way that it excels in business. All of the speakers talked about how amazing and well connected the businesses are in Broken Bow. They also spoke numerous times on if they could take what was being done here and spread it across the state, there would be a massive improvement economically.
Blueprint Nebraska wants to hear from businesses across the state, especially from the younger generation. Please take the Blueprint Nebraska Community survey at blueprint-nebraska.org
