Success Stories

The place-based investment is core to EDA’s mission, with our team working closely with local community leaders to ensure EDA’s grants support targeted economic development based on each community’s unique needs. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, which allows EDA’s grants to be flexible, dynamic, and meet the moment that’s called for in each community. In Lubbock, Texas, that has translated into multiple EDA investments, as leaders turn a painful Air Force Base closure into economic opportunity for the region.

Frost Fire Park in Northern North Dakota has been driving tourism to the Pembina Gorge for nearly half a century. Located just five miles from the Canadian border, the weekend ski area attracts skiers and snowboarders from hundreds of miles away who not only enjoy winter sports but also frequent hotels, restaurants, and small businesses in the area. 

Stearns, Kentucky is rich in Appalachian history and culture, founded in 1902 by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company. Centrally located within the state, adjacent to both the Daniel Boone National Forest and the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Stearns was a ‘company town’ for decades serving as a major player in the mining and logging industries. More than 2,000 people lived and worked throughout 18 coal camps.

In 2018, Brookings reported: “A central development problem is that high-quality, timely, accessible data are absent in most poor countries, where development needs are greatest. In a world of unequal distributions of income and wealth across space, age and class, gender and ethnic pay gaps, and environmental risks, data that provide only national averages conceal more than they reveal.”

Commercial drivers play a critical role in our nation’s economy. Those with a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) operate the tractor-trailers, semi-trucks, and passenger buses that transport supplies, materials, products, and people across the country.  Simply put, commercial drivers help America move forward.

Lack of access to broadband is a problem for millions across the country, including residents in the state of Missouri. According to surveys from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the state ranks near the bottom for access to high-speed internet. Some local business owners had to find creative workarounds including completing tasks and then traveling into town to upload their completed work. 

Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley is well known for its natural beauty and history, attracting visitors each year to its national parks, Civil War historic sites, and many local wineries. It is also home to Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (SHD) and a thriving aviation industry.

Nome, Alaska, is a hub for the transshipment of cargo and equipment from the Lower 48 states to coastal communities in Alaska’s vast territories known as the Unorganized Borough.

“I was just a humble chocolate maker with a dream.” Daniel Herskovic, a gourmet chef who worked at top restaurants in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, started his luxury chocolate company, Mayana Chocolate, in his apartment and eventually moved to a small table in the corner of a local cheesecake bakery on Chicago’s North Side.

World War II sparked a surge of defense activity in southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon, leaving behind, by war’s end, several unused military facilities. In 1958 the Port of Pasco in Pasco, Washington, acquired one of these facilities — a U.S. Army POW camp — and repurposed it as the Big Pasco Industrial Park.