Vanhooser Testimony

Summary

Written testimony of Cassandra M. Vanhooser, Director of the Department of Economic Development and Tourism for Talbot County, Maryland, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship on August 17, 2023, for a hearing titled Small Business Resiliency: Learning to Succeed in America’s Dynamic Economy. The testimony describes the role of economic development organizations and lists five lessons from the pandemic, including that relationships matter and that preparedness is the cornerstone of resiliency. It describes Talbot County's Hazard Mitigation and Community Resiliency Plan, first created in 2015, and the county's COVID-19 website and Private Sector Call. It also describes the Eastern Shore Economic Resiliency Toolkit built with U.S. Economic Development Administration support and asks for continued support of the SBA, EDA and USDA Rural Development.

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        Testimony for Cassandra M. Vanhooser
Director, Department of Economic Development and Tourism
                 Talbot County, Maryland

       U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business
                 and Entrepreneurship




                 Small Business Resiliency:
    Learning to Succeed in America’s Dynamic Economy
                    August 17, 2023
Good afternoon, Senator Cardin, esteemed members
of the Senate Committee for Business and Entrepreneurship,
Senator Van Hollen, and Congressman Harris.
My name is Cassandra Vanhooser, and I am the director of economic development
and tourism in Talbot County, Maryland. It’s an honor and privilege to speak with you
today about an issue of vital importance in the ever-shifting landscape of business and
entrepreneurship.

Resiliency is a word that often appears on college entrance exams and in strategic
plans or government white papers. Though it’s a word that has dominated headlines
since 2020, it’s not a term that most of us use in our daily conversations.

The dictionary defines resiliency as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to
adversity or change.” Synonyms include tough, strong, nimble. One of the business
owners I work with closely said it this way, “I had to get scrappy during COVID.”

We’re instructed on how to deal with adversity from the time we learn to crawl. It’s
what we teach our kids when they’re dealing with life’s ups and downs. It’s what
coaches tell their teams after a gut-wrenching loss. It’s what we tell ourselves when
we suffer a disappointment at work or when we have a broken heart.

Resiliency is woven into our lexicon, but this is how we say it.

•   You’ve got to roll with the punches.
•   Get back on the horse.
•   You can weather this storm.
•   Hang in there.
•   Dust your pants off and get back in the game.
•   When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.



The Role of Economic Development in Building
Business Resiliency
Business resiliency is far more than just “getting back on the horse.” It’s being
proactive, anticipating change, identifying and taking steps to mitigate risks,
and reacting quickly to disruptions, all while keeping the doors open, employees
productive, and revenue flowing.

Economic development organizations play a critical role in building resiliency in
the business community. Early in my career, I was surprised by an instructor who
summarized the profession in seven simple words, “Economic developers are a
conduit to resources.” While that’s largely true, our role is far more nuanced than that
definition implies.

Communities invest in economic development because we help businesses grow
and succeed. We help remove the obstacles that impede success, and we cultivate a
strategic mindset that includes things like disaster preparedness, business continuity




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planning, and succession planning. We market the community to attract new
businesses, new workers, and new visitors. And yes, we connect business owners and
managers with the resources they need to be successful.

Why is that important? Successful businesses employ people who live in the
community. They help weave the social fabric of the communities we cherish, and
they create the quality of life we enjoy. Imagine Main Street without small businesses.
Imagine a community without a grocery store, gas station, or hair salon.

Successful businesses also generate tax revenue that supports community assets,
including roads and infrastructure, public parks, schools, and public safety. It allows
communities to pay public employees who offer the services we rely on, from trash
collectors and snowplow operators to EMTs, paramedics, and corrections officers.

Lessons from the Pandemic

There is no one-size-fits-all economic development plan. Economic development
organizations create strategies and programs to meet the needs of the community

or communities they serve. Economic developers worldwide are doing amazingly
forward-thinking and innovative programming to support small businesses and create
robust ecosystems for small businesses.

Yet, the pandemic underscored some foundational principles that define the work of
an economic development professional. The work we do in these areas on a day-to-
day basis lays the groundwork for what we can accomplish during times of crisis or
economic uncertainty.

1. Relationships matter. No one knows the businesses in a community better than
the economic development team. The bulk of what we do falls under the “Business
Retention and Expansion” category, which requires knowing the players. Our
connections with the private sector are crucial to preparedness, response, and
recovery.

2. Effective communication is necessary. Accurate, timely information can save
lives, and it can save businesses. Economic development organizations must be a
reliable source of information for the business community. The respect, trust, and
communications plan you build during the good times will pay dividends when
times are tough.

3. Time is money. Economic development organizations that respond quickly can
help their businesses get up and running faster. Whether it’s a natural disaster or
an economic crisis, quickly deploying information and resources can shorten
recovery times.

4. Strong partnerships are a valuable force multiplier. We are stronger together. |
rely on the Small Business Development Center to help our businesses grow and
expand. | rely on the Small Business Administration’s ability to fund well-thought-
out business concepts. | rely on the Economic Development Administration to help

  fund infrastructure needs that support business development and expansion. I rely
  on state resources to help support Talbot County businesses. I am only as strong as
  my resource partners.

5.	Preparedness is the cornerstone of resiliency. The best defense is a good offense.
   People often fail to prepare for business disruptions because some things are
   too scary to consider. That’s human nature. But planning pays off for individuals,
   businesses, and communities, and not just for natural disasters and public health
   emergencies. Change in the business world can be just as disruptive as a natural
   disaster. Today’s shifting economy comes with new workforce expectations, price
   changes, and supply chain disruptions. The world can change overnight, and
   businesses must account for these changes. Business owners and managers can
   manage change by being prepared. You cannot prepare for every emergency
   or crisis, but planning for as many contingencies as possible helps businesses
   react quickly, and it helps businesses be ready to take advantage of unforeseen
   opportunities.



Talbot County’s Hazard Mitigation and Resiliency Plan
Talbot County has integrated the business community into its emergency
preparedness planning for many years. The Talbot County Department of Emergency
Services created its first Hazard Mitigation and Community Resiliency Plan in 2015,
years before the coronavirus swept the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic put our plan
to the test.

While FEMA encourages Emergency Services professionals to create hazard mitigation
plans focused on prevention, Talbot County took the process further by marrying
community resiliency with hazard mitigation. We turned the process “upside down”
by focusing on community strengths rather than weaknesses when doing hazard
mitigation planning.

Leaders asked, “What event could take us down as a community?” The outcome of this
process was the establishment of five community pillars – Infrastructure, Education,
Public Health and Safety, Environment, and Economic Stability. When the COVID-19
health emergency emerged, we already had a roadmap to follow.

Because economic stability had been recognized as one of the pillars of our
community, I had already been assigned to the Emergency Operations Center to
represent Talbot County’s businesses. Economic Development and Tourism had a seat
at the table when assembling the county’s core emergency management team for the
pandemic.

Working with the Emergency Operations Center, the Talbot County Department
of Economic Development and Tourism helped create a COVID-19 website, and we
launched it within three days. We also created a “Private Sector Call” to give businesses
direct access to the health officer and up-to-the-minute information on closures,
changing health directives, and financial resources. I programmed it like a radio call-in
show and called on my business resource partners to address issues of concern to the




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business community. The calls featured accounts, lawyers, local and state officials, and
the Small Business Development Center.

| only realized the importance of these calls once | spoke to the vice president of a
prominent local company. He said, “I’ve got notes from every one of those calls. As
soon as the call ended, we had a staff meeting to review the information and plan how
to keep our business running. That call was a lifeline for our business, and it helped us
make it through the pandemic.”

The Eastern Shore Economic Resiliency Toolkit

As economic developers, we also need tools that help us prepare for, monitor, and
measure the impact of any crisis that affects businesses. Thanks to the U.S. Economic
Development Administration, we built an award-winning suite of tools called the
Eastern Shore Economic Resiliency Toolkit.

In the spring of 2020, EDA offered grants to qualified Economic Development Districts
to develop resiliency plans. Because the Mid-Shore Regional Council already had a
resiliency plan in place, we were able to access these funds to create data-driven tools
to help us understand the economic crisis and gauge recovery.

Scott Warner, executive director of the Mid-Shore Regional Council, assembled

a group of partners to work on this project. The group included nine regional
organizations: two regional councils, two workforce investment boards, three county
economic development organizations, in addition to the Eastern Shore Regional GIS
Cooperative and Salisbury University’s Business Economic and Community Outreach
Network.

The tools included interactive dashboards, web mapping applications, and interactive
reports, in addition to key points and summaries. Features included:

A central website that offers quick, easy access to key economic indicators and uses
publicly accessible data from resources such as the U.S. Census Bureau, American
Community Survey, and County Business Patterns.

Using information from the Maryland Comptroller's Office, the ESRGC developed
a series of dashboards showing Maryland sales tax collections across years, county
boundaries, and industries.

BEACON developed a Business Sentiment Survey that economic development
offices administer in all nine counties. The survey is repeated at regular intervals,
and the data is used to identify challenges facing the region and assist in long-term
planning and public policy development.

The group avoided focusing solely on creating tools for the pandemic, instead taking
a broader approach to developing tools for any economic crisis. We believe we can
harness the lessons we learned during the pandemic—and the tools we developed—to
better respond to future economic downturns. Best of all, the tools are all free and
publicly accessible.

The Eastern Shore Economic Resiliency Toolkit is now a permanent part of the
Delmarva Index, a tool the ESRGC developed as a centralized repository that provides
streamlined access to data and visualization of information about the Delmarva
Peninsula, including Delaware, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and the Eastern Shore
of Virginia.

The tools have also become part of the strategies both regional councils employ. The
Mid-Shore Regional Council and the Tri-County Council of the Lower Eastern Shore
of Maryland are recognized by the U.S. Economic Development Administration as
Economic Development Districts. They are required to develop and maintain regional
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS).

To access the Eastern Shore Economic Recovery Project, visit
recovery.delmarvaindex.org. The complete Delmarva Index can be found at
delmarvaindex.org.



No One Stands Alone
I want to say something quite clearly as I wrap up my remarks. I am just one of
many economic development professionals on the Eastern Shore, across the state of
Maryland, throughout the United States, and around the world who are doing this
work.

My heart goes out to those affected by the wildfires in Hawaii, widespread flooding in
California, and devasting storms in Mississippi and Vermont. In these places, right now,
businesses are wondering if they will be resilient enough to rise from the ashes, and in
these places, economic development professionals are working hard to help make it
possible.

Your continued support of the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Economic
Development Administration, and USDA Rural Development is essential to their
work and mine. We need programs that allow businesses to grow and prosper, even
during times of uncertainly, and your commitment through funding that provides the
resources and the flexibility for local jurisdictions to implement programs that help
small businesses thrive.

Business resiliency is a strategic imperative in an increasingly interconnected and
unpredictable world. The businesses that survive and thrive will be those that master
the principles of resiliency, those with the competence, confidence, and character to
carry on in the face of adversity.

Thank you for your time and attention today. I look forward to
answering any questions you may have.




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