Several dozen business, school and community leaders Friday morning heard Dr. John M. Weed III say some words Rockdale and Milam County have been longing to hear.
“There’s going to be a change.”
Dr. Weed, president of the Rock-dale Municipal Development District (MDD), told the crowd a new business is believed to be headed for Milam County.
He wasn’t able to give specifics, but there were a few tantalizing hints as Dr. Weed opened a morning-long gathering of leaders to build pathways between school and industry relating to employment.
ALCOA LAKE—It was held at the Alcoa Lake Training Center on the site of what was Alcoa’s Rock-dale Operations.
Dr. Weed referenced the recent Project Blue Sky bid by Milam County leaders in an unsuccessful attempt to lure Amazon to build its much-sought second headquarters on 31,000 acres at the former Alcoa’s Rockdale Operations, now on the market as Sandow Lakes.
“That bid tripled the interest in Sandow Lakes,” Dr. Weed said.
He said far more persons in rarefi ed business and industry circles are aware of Rockdale and Milam County and related a conversation MDD Executive Director Kara Clore recently had in Washington, D.C.
“Oh, you’re Blue Sky,” was the response when someone found out she was from Rockdale,” Dr. Weed said. “This is Washington, DC. They recognized ‘us’.”
Sandow Lakes was originally on the market as a 33,000-acre site but Alcoa announced it was transferring 2,100 acres to Luminant as part of the power plant decommissioning process to facilitate the shutdown of Sandow 4 and 5.
THIS YEAR—“Industry is probably going to come (to Milam County),” Dr. Weed said, with an announcement expected later this year. “We can’t say it yet,” he noted.
He noted Friday’s gathering was so business owners, hiring and human resources managers could learn how Milam County schools could help train employees.
Dr. Weed said the session was to “help start the process of change” and was focused on “quality of place” along with educating and training a workforce.
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