Origin of the EDC Serving Fresno County
As we approached the planning of our 25th Anniversary, we decided to take a look back to the actual origins of our organization 25 years ago. In addition to various printed records, we interviewed the visionaries considered to be early founders of our organization. We do realize that, a quarter century, minds cannot remember every last detail, but we did our best to contact individuals involved in our organization’s beginning and they did their best to recall details.
The Economic Development Corporation was established in 1981. At that time, the EDC was formed as a subsidiary of the Fresno County and City Chamber of Commerce. The EDC was intended to have a separate Board of Directors and separate funding. The official story says the EDC grew out of a recommendation of the “Market Fresno” study in 1980. That study called for a concerted effort by business and local government to promote Fresno County as a place to do business, to visit and to hold conventions in. Our interviews revealed some other facts as well.
As individual founders were interviewed, a few other events that lead to the EDC founding were discussed. One name that consistently came up in every interview was that of Charles Tingey. Many agree that Mr. Tingey was a real catalyst in the formation of the EDC. As the story goes, he had been in Denver, CO., working on a project for his own company. The work on the project involved Mr. Tingey’s interaction with an EDC in place in Denver. He was so impressed with the Denver EDC that he came back to Fresno rallying the cause for a similar organization in our community.
Mr. Tingey then brought other civic leaders into the conversation and support started to grow for a Fresno County EDC. Meetings were held after hours in local restaurants and private offices to garner more support for our organizations founding. Municipalities and private investors were contacted for funding. At that time, the suggestion was made to have the EDC become an arm of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce.
For many years, the Chamber of Commerce performed the function of industrial and business recruitment. In the 1970’s, the City of Fresno and County of Fresno each granted funds annually to the Chamber to handle that activity. On June 6, 1978, the voters of California approved Proposition 13. A few days later, in the spirit of that measure, the Chamber volunteered to forego the City and County grants. It resolved to carry on the work of marketing the region for industrial development without financial assistance from local government.
Within just a couple of years, it became apparent that the Chamber had taken on a virtually impossible mission. Marketing involves significant costs – and the Chamber simply did not have the resources to fund the operations out of its general revenues. Local government, as strapped as it was financially, felt that economic development was too important to the well being of the community to go without public funding. A series of negotiations began, involving the County of Fresno, the Cities of Fresno and Clovis, the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention Bureau.
The next question then became whether to have the Chamber administer the marketing program or to form a new entity whose sole purpose would be economic development. The decision was to form a new entity. The parties looked to the San Diego EDC as a role model. There the Chamber continued to perform function of member services, educational seminars, local government advocacy, data collection, special projects, social functions and so on. The EDC dealt exclusively with the matter of expanding the economy and creating jobs.
When the EDC was formed, the founders envisioned a budget of approximately $500,000.00 per year, with $300,000.00 coming from local government and $200,000.00 coming from the private sector. Unfortunately, the timing was not quite right. The corporation was finally formed in 1981, just as the nation began its slide into a deep recession and just when the federal government began cutting grants to local government. The combination meant that neither public nor private sector was able to provide the level of funding initially envisioned to the EDC.
In its first full year, the EDC had a budget of $125,000.00, far too little to make any kind of impact. In succeeding years, the budget was gradually increased. Today’s EDC has a budget 10 times that of the first year’s budget. Our funding still comes from public and private sources.
During our 25th Anniversary Celebration, we are honoring a few individuals responsible for the creation of our great organization. We could possibly have omitted some who were directly involved and we apologize in advance if that is the case. Our goal is not to offend or leave anyone out who should be recognized. Regardless, we are grateful for the vision some individuals had twenty-five years ago to form the Economic Development Corporation serving Fresno County. The EDC has achieved demonstratable and significant success in the expansion and diversification of the Fresno County economy and we will continue to do so.