HCDC Prepares to Celebrate 25 Years
David K. Main,
President, HCDC
Twenty-five years ago, articles of incorporation were drafted and filed with the Ohio Secretary of State creating the corporate entity that is the Hamilton County Development Co. Inc. The initial rationale was to provide small businesses in suburban Hamilton County — those outside the city of Cincinnati — with the opportunity to obtain U.S. Small Business Administration 503 (now 504) loans.
Other organizational efforts did not formally get under way until January 1983, when the initial meeting was held to elect a nine-member Board of Trustees and 25 general members. Dirk Rorie, chairman of United Air Specialist, was voted the first president of HCDC. Efforts then commenced to obtain SBA certification to participate in the loan program, and I was hired as the agency’s first executive director in April 1983.
Over the years, HCDC has grown from this one loan program and one employee into a multifaceted economic development agency, with 20 employees administering a business incubator, county economic development programs and three distinct lending programs that are available well beyond suburban Hamilton County.
Beginning with HCDC’s annual meeting on Nov. 8, we will spend the next year celebrating and commemorating 25 years of providing business loans, incubation services and economic development programs that have directly resulted in more than $2 billion worth of investments through the creation and expansion of companies and jobs.
These results did not occur in a vacuum, nor by HCDC alone, but through active collaboration with organizations and individuals in the public and private sectors.
During this time, many other organizations and economic development efforts have come and gone in Greater Cincinnati. The faces of Hamilton County and the city of Cincinnati have also changed.
But since its beginnings as a one-man operation in a borrowed room on the 10th floor of the Hamilton County courthouse annex, HCDC has never strayed from its mission. Stay tuned to join the celebration as we reflect on our journey thus far and prepare for the next 25 years.
