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Choctaw Nation economic developer details business recruitment, highlights workforce challenges
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Summary
Stephanie Mervine of the Choctaw Nation described business retention and recruitment work across several counties, emphasized workforce training partnerships and offered to supply reports on commuting and sector trends to city staff.
Stephanie Mervine, an economic developer with the Choctaw Nation's Grow Choctaw division, presented an overview of the tribe's business retention-and-expansion work and outreach to national retailers and site selectors.
Mervine told the council she serves Atoka and several neighboring counties and described activities that include regular meetings with area employers, targeted workforce alignment, and trips to national retail conferences to understand pipelines for retailers such as QT, Pilot and Chick-fil-A. "My name is Stephanie Mervine. I'm an economic developer with the Choctaw Nation," she said at the start of her presentation.
She said the Choctaw Nation produces materials to educate site selectors about tribal capabilities and sovereignty after encountering misunderstandings about tribal lands. Mervine described the work as a mix of relationship-building, providing site and utility information to developers, and identifying appropriate incentives and workforce training.
Council members asked about local labor-force dynamics. One council member summarized county commuting patterns, saying about 3,500 of the roughly 5,900 working-age residents commute out of the county. Mervine and council members highlighted partnerships with Kiamichi Tech's multiple campuses and the tribe's efforts to match training to employer needs.
Mervine said roughly 75% of existing local businesses are extensions or successors of earlier firms and reiterated the importance of aligning workforce skills with target industries. She offered to ask her department for sector-specific reports and to follow up with the council on training pipelines.
Council members thanked the Choctaw Nation for data and support, noting the information has been used for housing studies and site-selection work. The presentation concluded with Mervine's offer to provide further reports and with the council's appreciation for ongoing partnership.
