New economic sustainability coordinator (ESC) Dan McRae is ready, willing and even excited to address what he calls a "disconnect" between looking after Squamish's existing business community and attempting to attract new businesses to town.
"If you're not adequately servicing the existing business community, it's tough to go outside the community seeking more business," he said.
"Up to 80 per cent of a community's employment growth comes from its existing businesses. There are over 15,000 economic development organizations chasing fewer than 200 major business relocations in North America annually.
"So our best opportunity is to strengthen our local business community first."
McRae should know.
After moving to Squamish in 2000, he immediately became immersed in the business community by purchasing the Brackendale Bistro and working with the Community Futures Development Corp. to secure loans for the District of Squamish.
"I've owned a restaurant in the community, which is a high management-intensive type business," he said.
"But also what helps is my work with Community Futures, where I sat on the side of the desk of the lender, so I had a lot of people coming with start-up business ideas and business expansion ideas. So I think I've got a well-rounded understanding of trying to do business in Squamish."
He acknowledged the pressure being placed on the new ESC position in a town desperate for jobs and sustainable economic development.
"I don't think there's a magic wand for this by any means and I don't think I'm hired to have all the answers," McRae said.
"I think my job is to work with local businesses to facilitate and coordinate and develop the answers together."
He plans to work closely with the other economy-driving organizations in town, including the Chamber of Commerce, Tourism Squamish, Inside Edge, the downtown business improvement association and others.
A self-admitted "data guy," McRae said collecting a detailed matrix of information on existing businesses is key to identifying issues, creating solutions and monitoring growth and expansion.
"We're going to launch a business retention and expansion program where I'm going to go around and interview business owners face to face to develop better relationships and gather information on their businesses to try to help identify issues around creating and retaining jobs.
"I would ask how many employees they have, what their expansion plans may be, what some of the challenges are that they're having, there's a lot of questions that we would ask."
He said collecting the information in a systematic way, year after year, allows the district and the business community to identify issues and see trends developing.
"We need to go out and understand what the issues are and get in a room together, prioritize them and workshop solutions for them," he said.
McRae said the survey tool and database that will be used to compile the information is ideal for Squamish's business community because it's area-specific, sector-specific and size-of-business specific.
That doesn't mean McRae values data over input. When asked which was more important, he said that data "is a result of community input."
"We need to start collecting that data so we can understand the health of the business community and what we need to do with it," he said.
"It's like all these events come to town but we don't really have any way of quantifying the benefits, so I need to work with the business organizations and the events people to start developing a matrix on these things. That way we can understand the value of what's happening here and what it's doing to our local economy."
To help track the impact of visitors who come to Squamish for events, McRae suggested that event participants who log onto an event's website with a promo code have access to a Squamish discount pass. To print it, they would need to complete a short survey that would provide McRae with information: Have you been to Squamish before? How many times? How many days are you staying? Etc.
"We'd know from their promo code which event they're coming from and then we can start gathering this information and figure out what these events are really doing to our community," he said.
"So we can make informed decision - that's what it's all about."
