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E-REP outlines talent-recruitment and site-readiness plans for Vanderburgh County
Summary
E-REP representatives told the Vanderburgh County Council they have recruited dozens of newcomers and are pursuing site-readiness and corridor planning; presenters emphasized remote-worker recruitment, local "belong here" relocations, and constraints from a lack of shovel-ready industrial sites.
Patrick Hickey, identified as Economic Development Director with E-REP, and team members Josh Armstrong and Abby Alpers presented the organization's 2024 work and priorities to the council. They described programs under REDI/Ready 1 that seek to retain and expand businesses, attract investment and recruit workers to the region.
Abby Alpers described talent-attraction results: in their remote-worker recruitment program E-REP moved 25 remote-work households (62 individuals) to Evansville and Vanderburgh County, with 44% purchasing homes; Alpers said 24% of those households had no prior connection to the region. She said the average wage of those incoming remote workers was $127,823. A separate local-hire initiative called "Belong Here" has moved 12 households (29 individuals) into local jobs with an average incoming wage of about $91,000; some newcomers have purchased homes locally.
Hickey and Armstrong described business retention-and-expansion activities and limitations for attracting large industrial users: the presenters said the most frequent reason Vanderburgh County is not competitive in large site searches is simply a lack of appropriately sized, shovel-ready sites and buildings. They highlighted the county's work on the I-69 corridor and a regional SEDS (Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy) being produced with federal EDA support, and said that accelerating site readiness and reducing land-assembly time are effective ways to reduce taxpayer-funded incentives.
Councilors asked for more detail on which businesses are recruited and how E-REP assesses lost opportunities. Presenters described outreach and coordination with site selectors, workforce and utility partners and said the organization is pursuing federal and state resources to prepare industrial sites.
The council did not take a vote on E-REP's presentation but engaged in a substantive Q&A about workforce, incentives and site constraints. Presenters offered to follow up with county staff on talent pipelines and specific projects.
