| Success Stories |
Empowerment Zone grant funds support a unique project for the Griggs County Museum.
Cooperstown, ND
The museum received grant funds from the Empowerment Zone to develop an audio CD that will be available for museum visitors to understand each individual exhibit in the museum. The primary speaker was an elderly gentleman who has lived in Cooperstown all of his life and has extensive knowledge of the community and the region. He is one of the primary tour guides at the museum, and this CD will allow the museum to have access to his extensive knowledge long after he is gone. The museum is an outstanding example of a regional museum and has some wonderful exhibits, and this project funded by the Empowerment Zone will help increase the value of the museum experience.
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DataCom International
Cooperstown, ND
This eight-year-old company has developed an on-demand enterprise software application that combines various functions in a real-time environment to facilitate collection, processing, storing, analysis and communication of operational data. The software can be utilized by various types of manufacturing businesses and other types of primary sector businesses. DataCom is locating a division of their company in Cooperstown that will be primarily focused on sign companies, thus DataSign. The company will be hiring approximately 10 people by the end of 2007 for their Cooperstown location. The Empowerment Zone has played a large part in helping them secure a location, funding and personnel to begin this operation in early 2007. Because this is cutting-edge software technology, there are unlimited possibilities for expanding into other types of businesses and great potential for growth for this company.
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Cooperstown Community Activity Wellness Center receives grant funds for new equipment
Cooperstown, ND
The Cooperstown Community Activities Association has received grant funds from the Empowerment Zone to use in replacing and updating their exercise equipment in the wellness center. This center is utilized by many people and organizations within the community and provides an opportunity for the hospital to provide in town physical therapy for their patients; the school to provide weight room equipment for their students; and to the community as an opportunity to work out during the winter months in a quality location. The new equipment is top of the line, and has been a welcome addition to the wellness center.
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La Rinascente Pasta Company
Hope, ND
How does a 52-year-old New Jersey small family business
re-establish itself as a successful company in rural
North Dakota? With the right attitude, a strong
local investor group, and the resources of the Griggs-Steel
Empowerment Zone. Faced with the rising cost of
doing business on the East Coast and no family to
take over, John Natali decided to sell Rinascente
Macaroni. He contacted Claude Smith at the Rural
Technology Center on the UND campus and Smith contacted
the GSEZ. Today, a company that could have relocated
anywhere is a thriving public/private partnership
in a North Dakota town of 250 people and serves
as a model for rural economic development. Smith,
who now serves as the company’s president
and CEO, notes that what the area may have lacked
in terms of transportation, labor pool or infrastructure
was made up for by the resources available through
the GSEZ and the benefits of doing business in North
Dakota. La Rinascente (which, quite appropriately,
means “re-emerging” in Italian) is not
only doing well, it’s poised for growth and
expansion. |
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