After brief introductions from Chamber President/CEO John Hall and Dennis Jordan of Alliant Energy, Durham took center stage and, after noting the extra layers she was wearing to stay warm, highlighted the partnerships that make the work she and her team do on a daily basis possible, specifically shouting out ITC, Alliant, Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs Commandant Todd Jacobus and Hall and his team at the Chamber.

As she dove into the heart of her presentation, Durham described what she felt were the key drivers of economic development: the regulatory environment, taxation, workforce development and infrastructure, but also community factors such as housing, quality of life, arts and culture, outdoor spaces and clean water.

“Iowa’s biggest challenge is the same today as it was pre-COVID, and it’s really a population problem that we have,” she said. “But at the end of the day, let’s never lose sight of who we are here to serve, and we are here to make sure that we have development opportunities in which we raise the standard of living for Iowans. So we’re looking for those policies and programs that create prosperous businesses. We’re looking for policies and programs that create vibrant communities, and we’re looking for opportunities in which our citizens can thrive.”

From there, she dove into the pillars of the IEDA’s plans for growth, the first of which is workforce. Currently, there are 70,000 job openings in the state and only 53,000 unemployed people, and there have been about 6,900 WARN notices or permanent layoffs in the state between Jan. 1, 2024 and yesterday, mostly in the agricultural sector at John Deere facilities.

From left to right, Marshalltown Mayor Joel Greer, Michelle Roseburrough of IowaWORKS, IEDA Director Debi Durham and First Ward Councilor/Mayor Pro Tem Mike Ladehoff pose for a photo at the tail end of the Economic Outlook Breakfast on Tuesday morning.

The unemployment rate, Durham explained, isn’t necessarily as important to pay attention to because it’s almost always low in Iowa, but the labor participation rate, which hasn’t recovered since COVID and currently sits at 66.4 percent, remains a concern especially among young men between the ages of 24 and 35.

For the population to increase, either the state’s birthrates must increase, or Iowa must be prepared to welcome new residents. A key aspect of the latter strategy, Durham said, is tourism and providing visitors with such positive experiences that they can envision themselves living here. The top deciding factors prospective new residents identified were affordability, public safety, and culture — including outdoor recreation such as parks and trails and the arts.

From there, she segued into talent attraction and marketing, joking about the common confusion between Iowa, Idaho and Ohio. According to Durham, a recent marketing campaign highlighted the state’s natural beauty and increased overall favorability ratings among focus groups who had little to no prior knowledge of the state. Today, she said, they have over 7,000 leads on individuals exploring the possibility of relocating to the state, and the IEDA can even connect them with specific communities based on their interests.

“For instance, if they say arts, Marshalltown is at the top of the list. Amber (Danielson), I don’t know where you are, but that should be music to your ears,” she said.

California, Nevada, Illinois, Nebraska and Hawaii are currently the states where the highest numbers of new Iowans are arriving from, with net migration now in the positive by over 40,000. She joked that she initially thought Hawaii was an anomaly or “one large family” coming to Iowa, but it has been on the list for consecutive years now.

Later in the morning, Durham, left, made stops at businesses in the 13th Street District and visited the Iowa Veterans Home before wrapping up at Raymon Enterprises and the Raymon Veterans Park in Albion.

Durham said the IEDA and the Iowa Finance Authority (IFA) have provided funding to a large number of projects in Marshalltown. Applications here tend to do “very well,” in her words, and she’s particularly fond of efforts to renovate historic downtown buildings and create upper story housing.

She then moved on to energy and the effort to incorporate an “all of the above” strategy that includes natural gas, ethanol and renewable sources with Gov. Kim Reynolds assembling a task force on nuclear energy and the state under consideration for a sustainable aviation fuel refining project. Durham also hoped Iowa could benefit from President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshore manufacturing and said the IEDA is providing grants to small companies to help them compete and adapt to the new realities of AI and automation.

“It’s a win-win. I would tell you it’s a much more satisfying job when (workers) get to run these big machines, right? It’s like gaming, and they get paid more because it requires higher skill sets. So it is simply a win-win for everyone,” Durham said.

Small manufacturers can also help to alleviate supply chain shortages, she added, before moving on to Iowa’s insurance and finance industry, which is still one of the largest sectors despite uncertainty and natural disasters. Durham touted Iowa’s high rankings in fiscal responsibility and other metrics along with the legislature cutting state income taxes and eliminating taxation on retirement income.

Durham, who is coming up on her 15th year with the IEDA, said her own recently retired husband was especially excited about that news, and she then discussed a “mega” project Iowa is competing for that would attract 14,000 jobs. She called for “right sizing” incentive programs in a way that will keep the state competitive for large projects and options for investments and research and development.

“If we’re not researching, if we’re not looking at what’s next, if we’re not positioning Iowa to be in a position to seize these new opportunities, R&D is a way to do that, and so this is a fairly big play because it used to be with the Department of Revenue and we’re gonna relocate it to the Department of Economic Development,” she said.

The final pillar she mentioned was quality of life, and Durham described Marshalltown as an example for the rest of the state with the city’s investments in trails, recreation, tourism and arts and culture. She again recognized Amber Danielson, the executive director of the Arts+Culture Alliance, for her role as the current chair of the Iowa Arts Council, and shouted out the Linn Creek projects that have received Destination Iowa grant funding.

In his brief concluding remarks, Hall again advocated for public-private partnerships.

“As you leave today, think about what your opportunity looks like as it relates to that. Different organizations have different levels of budgeting, different resources to maximize, but every single program up there, every piece of the programs that really drive forward our economies, have different levels of investment available. We need folks that can champion building new housing. We need folks that can champion putting a new mural up. We need everything and anything in between, and know that your Chamber team stands here ready to assist you in making those investments and helping to drive forward Marshalltown and Marshall County,” he said.

Once the breakfast concluded, Durham, Hall and other local leaders headed to 13th Street to visit Lillie Mae Chocolates and the district’s newest addition, Most Wanted Coffee, before stopping at IVH to discuss various issues and initiatives with Jacobus and other members of the facility’s administrative team.

Her final stops of the day were in Albion at Raymon Enterprises and the Raymon Veterans Park, which was envisioned and financed by the company’s late longtime Owner/CEO Larry Raymon. After she had departed for Des Moines, Hall reflected on Durham’s trip in a statement to the T-R.

“We are always thrilled when we can have Director Durham visiting Marshalltown and Marshall County. It gives us a great opportunity to showcase what’s working for us already and present challenges, obstacles, and opportunities that might require additional support and resources. That’s exactly what IEDA and IFA have been great at under Director Durham’s leadership,” he said. “We have some great opportunities in our future and we are continually making progress on them. It’s often hard for us to see that progress manifest when we live it every day, but folks from IEDA notice it, they see it, and they are equally excited about seeing Marshalltown and Marshall County move forward.”

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.