Business, Expansion, and Retention (BEAR) Program

Chippewa County Economic Development Corporation (CCEDC) proactively connects with our areas existing businesses through our Business, Expansion and Retention (BEAR) Program. Several studies have shown that expansions of existing businesses represent between 60 percent and upwards of 90 percent of a community’s job creation. Our local companies and the local workforce also serve as a “barometer” of Chippewa County’s overall sense of place and economic health. The approach of the CCEDC BEAR program is to be a collaborative form of outreach, emphasizing face-to-face contact and dialogue but use the outreach to collect comprehensive, comparable inputs from our business community. Recently, the CCEDC BEAR Team lead by Board member Rick Kaiser of Xcel Energy spent some time in Stanley visiting Ace Ethanol and Film Tech. Ace Ethanol LLC is an ethanol production facility built [...]