The municipality’s business and economic manager has been recognized with a major award from the Economic Development Council of Ontario (EDCO).
Belinda Wick-Graham received the Joseph Montgomery Economic Development Achievement Award at the EDCO’s annual conference in Toronto on Feb. 7.
“It’s quite an honor that’s for sure,” said Wick-Graham, who only learned she was receiving the award when her name was announced from the podium.
Celebrating one of the founding members of EDCO, the award was created in 2010 and recognizes innovative contributions to EDCO and the economic development profession.
A Minto native, Wick-Graham joined the Town of Minto staff in 2005 after graduating with an honours degree in tourism administration from Brock University.
She also holds a certificate in downtown revitalization from Fanshawe College and certified economic developer designations from the Economic Developers Association of Canada and the International Economic Developers Association.
The first woman and youngest recipient to receive the Joseph Montgomery award, Wick-Graham was recognized by the province with a “Leading Women Building Communities” Award in 2011.
In addition to volunteering with numerous local organizations, ranging from the Harriston-Minto Agricultural Society to the Minto Arts Council, Wick -Graham has been involved in the launch of local and regional initiatives such as Renew Northern Wellington, which works with startup businesses and property owners to fill vacant storefronts in Minto, Mapleton and Wellington North.
She is a founding member of Women of Wellington Saugeen Area (WOWSA) and played a key role in the start-up and continued operation of Launchlt Minto, a business incubator providing training, coaching, mentorship and affordable space for businesses to start and grow.
She is also involved with downtown revitalization committees in Clifford, Harriston and Palmerston and assisted in the development of a Community Improvement Plan that has seen over $700,000 worth of projects completed in Minto’s three downtowns.
Minto treasurer Gordon Duff and County of Wellington economic development officer Mandy Jones, a former Minto employee, worked together to prepare the nomination forms for the Montgomery award.
The application was supported, Duff noted, by “a very diverse selection of people that Belinda has worked for both in and out of Minto.”
Wick-Graham came to the town from the start “with the desire to learn and then to go beyond,” said Duff.
“We try and go by a principal in Minto that we aren’t going to be defined by small town, population 9,000. We try and go beyond that and Belinda is a great example of that. She’s always built a network of people … you need to get co-workers and other municipalities,” to buy into initiatives, he explained.
Wick-Graham said, “One of the things I think we pride ourselves on in Minto is being collaborative and working with multiple partners across all sectors and neighbouring municipalities.
“Now we’re even going across county borders on projects to partner … and that’s really unique. That doesn’t happen a lot. So that’s something else I’m really proud of, is having built relationships with a lot of different stakeholders for everybody’s benefit.”
Wick-Graham is quick to apply principals and ideas generated from attending seminars and conferences, something Duff said organizers noticed.
“Belinda’s contribution and knowledge were recognized by them … and she got asked to actually speak at conferences and not just attend them,” Duff recalled.
“Despite her youth at the time, she was passing on her knowledge to other, often more experienced, people.”
Minto was among the first small rural municipalities to begin providing capital grants for downtown improvements.
Duff said he and Wick-Graham started attending cultural planning forums “back when they began.
“Minto was the first rural municipality to have a comprehensive municipal cultural plan … and that evolved into developing industrial parks,” said Duff.
“It’s a team approach. We all work together but the idea is you can’t just do one thing and she’s been really excellent at that, getting the industrial land, doing the community events, and the other thing I think works out so well for Minto, and Belinda’s been a big part of it, is having a good relationship with the local chamber of commerce.
“And we sometimes take that for granted, but it’s not that common. Stuff like LaunchIt, street parties, Diggin’ It (a campaign to promote downtown business during street reconstruction), there’s so many things that the chamber and the town work together on, and she was the original liaison.”
Noting Minto’s decision to get proactive about economic development back in 2005, Wick-Graham said, “I think there was definitely questions, probably, for council when they hired me.
“That council and the senior management team were taking a chance on me. But I think that once we got started and got community members on side … I don’t feel there was a lot of skepticism around any of the programs.”
Duff noted the impact of economic development efforts aren’t usually felt overnight.
“All these things they take time, and time is like a decade,” he said.
Wick-Graham agrees a long-range view is required.
“One of the things that I’m definitely most proud of would be the work that we’ve been doing in downtown revitalization … It takes a long time to see significant changes.”
Duff explained, “We came up the idea of offering a façade grant.” That required a Community Improvement Plan “and that’s maybe a year (to put in place).”
Later, when the town wanted to add a structural grant program, that too took time to develop and “again, you have to have the basis for that in your Community Improvement Plan.
“A lot of it is being a quarterback to guide all these things,” said Duff.
While noting recent town councils, and taxpayers, have made major investments in local industrial parks, Duff said economic development efforts have helped Minto’s industrial land fill up over the past decade.
“They went from kind of moribund pieces of land that just sat there, to where we’re very close to having everything sold and the difficultly is, ‘Okay, we have to perhaps reinvest in servicing additional land.’”
Duff added, “We’ve always tried to make Minto a more self-sufficient community and if you’re going to do that you have to have the jobs for people and you need the land for business to locate. Everybody’s trying to play in this space, but it has worked out well for us.”
“I get asked to present to a lot in communities north of here to show them what we’ve done, where we were, and where we are now,” she said. “And because of those presentations a lot of municipalities are hiring economic development people.”
Promoting Minto through a number of programs will be the economic development department’s priority for 2018, Wick-Graham said, citing the municipality’s “Come Home To Minto” program and an initiative to build on a growing Filipino community in Palmerston as among the unique efforts underway.
The town will also be working with developers to attract new residents.
“We really need to increase our resident base to support both drawing in more commercial development and support our employers. Workforce still is a challenge across the province,” said Wick-Graham.
