Minnesota

Located along the international border with Canada, northern Minnesota’s Koochiching County is a remote rural community of approximately 13,000 residents. In May 2013, the area’s largest employer, a major paper manufacturer, announced that it was closing two of its four paper machines permanently due to large decline in the industry, eliminating 265 jobs. In such a small community, the impact of this announcement quickly rippled through the region.

Understanding that the impacts to the local economy and workforce needed to be mitigated, local officials formed an Economic Response Team to brainstorm ideas that would help the area recover from the impact of the workforce reduction at the paper mill. In April 2014, EDA awarded $200,000 in Economic Adjustment Assistance funds to the Arrowhead Regional Development Commission to develop an economic recovery strategy.  This project will develop a strategic economic vision that identifies and targets business and industry growth opportunities that will help diversify the area's economy, assess the workforce needs and work to keep the dislocated workers in the region.