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EBR City-Parish and BRAC Select Richmond for 2008 Canvas Workshop
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact Mike Odom
at 225-339-1167 or mike@brac.org
EBR City-Parish and BRAC Select Richmond for 2008 Canvas Workshop
Virginia Capital Chosen as the Next Destination
BATON ROUGE, La. (February 7, 2008) - The East Baton Rouge (EBR) City-Parish and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) announced today that Richmond, Virginia has been selected as the destination for the 2008 Canvas Workshop. A delegation of business and community leaders will spend three days and two nights in the Richmond area to learn from a community that has had recent success in such areas as regional economic development, transportation, higher education/research and development, downtown revitalization, and public education. Trips similar to the Canvas Workshop series are taken by many groups around the country as a tool for gaining insights and sparking new ideas for their communities.
The Canvas Workshop, sponsored by the EBR City-Parish and BRAC, is in its fifth year and follows successful trips to Austin in 2003, Nashville in 2004, Raleigh-Durham in 2006, and Portland in 2007. Past trips have resulted in developments such as BRAC's five-year regional economic development program, increased community support for LSU and Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and a new community mindset focused on maximizing the potential of the Baton Rouge metropolitan area.
"I am thrilled that we will be visiting a city as vibrant as Richmond," stated Mayor-President Melvin "Kip" Holden. "This is an opportunity for the Baton Rouge area to gather keen insight as we continue on our quest to be America's next great city."
Steven Grissom, BRAC's interim President and CEO, said that "our community benefits greatly by experiencing other areas of the country through the Canvas Workshop series. We have very high expectations that Richmond will provide knowledge critical to the Capital Region's economic transformation."
This year's Canvas Workshop is being chaired by Julio Melara, president of the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report. An announcement concerning the dates of the workshop will be released in the coming weeks.
About the Baton Rouge Area Chamber
BRAC leads economic development in the nine-parish Baton Rouge metropolitan area. Serving as the voice of the business community, BRAC's membership includes more than 1,500 organizations whose employees represent over a third of the Capital Region workforce.
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