No Power, No Site

If There's No Power, You're Out of the GameAnna Cardona has worked in architecture, project management, municipal economic development, and now energy infrastructure strategy. Her message for economic developers is blunt: power, not land, decides whether a site stays in the running.Why a four or five year utility timeline can take a site out of contentionWhat "time to compute" means to data center developersBehind-the-meter options: geothermal, solar, hydrogen, generators, and turbinesHow site selection and institutional capital for energy infrastructure fit into one dealHow Memphis shifted from logistics and warehousing to the Digital DeltaAnna's decision persona scores, plus her rapid-fire calls on regenerative sites, concentrating capital, and project fitIf your region has land and labor but not megawatts, listen here.CModel.io

Trevor Lewington has been a food manufacturer, an entrepreneur, a mayor, and a city economic developer. Now he runs growth for Lethbridge County, a 2,800 square kilometer agricultural powerhouse in Alberta that wants to be Canada's most innovative rural community. He brings the blunt version of what that takes.Why 80% of job creation comes from existing businesses, and what that means for your budgetThe difference between reporting activities and reporting outcomes, and why elections complicate itHow rural communities solve the talent problem without a universityHow autonomous harvesting and automated warehouses are rewriting what "entry-level" meanshe data center question, and why "any investment at any cost" is the wrong filterPlus a decision-making persona assessment and a rapid-fire round on housing, infrastructure, and regional bids.If your community chases the next big employer first, this one will make you reconsider.cmodel.io

Nate Clayberg has spent a decade proving workforce development and economic development are the same function. As business and industry director for the CAPS Network, he connects employers with more than 100 high school programs where students work as junior consultants on real company projects. Why site selection RFPs list community college programs and call it a workforce strategyShovel Ready Workforce: reverse engineering a targeted industry back to K-12 durable skillsThe "number 10 on the to-do list" project, and why students are the ones to take itWhy school counseling offices and HR offices are the same office with different customersPurpose over passion when a student's interest has few local openingsIf your community talks about talent but nobody owns the relationship, start here.cmodel.io/podcast

Tanner Jones spent eight years as a local economic developer in Alabama before moving into consulting. Today, as Director of Economic and Community Development at Fourth Economy, he helps communities across 40 states plan for growth they actually want. Why momentum, not infrastructure, is the first thing to break when a region boomsWhy most companies won't look at a community without existing infrastructure, and what that means for who gets the capacityHow to use an economic impact study to make a decision instead of defending oneWhat communities and developers are learning from data center proposals in the SoutheastGrowth is the easy part to celebrate. Tanner is more interested in what comes next.Tune in

Dr. Alice Holloway spent 20 years managing supplier relationships at Alabama Power, started six companies, and now leads Birmingham's Entrepreneurship Center for Growth and Excellence. She knows what corporate buyers say in the room and what they never say out loud.The unglamorous reasons small businesses never get the call, from email platforms that do not connect to proposals that do not read as professionalWhy "you cannot take goodwill to the bank" is a critique of cohort and accelerator cultureHow desperation distorts decisions, and why revenue buys better onesFive bottlenecks to scale: access, networks, story, capital, and strategyHer answer on startups versus growth stage businesses: the "ugly dating stage" versus full courtshipWhy bootstrapping changes how a founder thinks, and why she would bootstrap a product firstIf you sell to big companies, or help others do it, this one will change your checklist.Keywords: corporate supply chain, small business supplier diversity, procurement readiness, Birmingham Alabama entrepreneurship, small business scaling, how to win corporate contracts, entrepreneurship ecosystem, supplier relationships, bootstrapping vs venture capital, small business capital access, coachable entrepreneurs, economic development Birmingham

Paty Araiza grew an SDR team from 20 to 100 people, drove about $5.7 million in TCV, and promoted around 20 reps to account executive. She calls the first stretch "absolute chaos," and that honesty is why this conversation is worth your time.Why institutional knowledge, from discount limits to call cadences, quietly sinks new hiresThe buddy system and "hierarchy of questions" that let two managers support 100 SDRsHow to get adoption by treating a playbook rollout like a sale, with champions firstA 90-day test for whether your enablement is actually workingWhy enablement is getting agents, not just training decksIf your best rep is the only one who knows how things really work, press play.

A French company had four sites to choose from for a $450 million North American plant. It picked a Manitoba city of 15,000, and the owner explained why. Dr. Jean-Marc Nadeau, former Portage la Prairie city manager and now CEO of SUMA, tells the story, including a rebrand that went badly wrong.Why the owner of Roquette credited councils that weren't in conflict, and not just the incentivesHow a wastewater plant sized for 60,000 people was funded through a P3 and future tax revenueQuestioning every internal process to rebuild reserves with no service cutsA two-year province-wide consultation that won 82% approval for a new governance modelCommunication fails firstNadeau shows how to fix it before the investor walks in.

Jamie Nichols covers North Central Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, and her job starts with asking who in a town is already selling outside it. One county believed it had maybe half a dozen micro businesses. Then someone pulled the data and found 500 registered. Even if only 25 of those are real and unseen, thats 25 businesses a community can help grow, and that is economic development. The makers are findable. You start with the mayor and the city clerk, then check the town Facebook page and the vendor fairs at street festivals.Once you find them, you have to keep them, and keeping them takes more than goodwill. Jamie and Teasha Cable get into what holds a rural economy together:Retention beats recruitment every time. Each retention attempt teaches a town which resource it is missing, so the next maker is less likely to leave.When 150 jobs threaten community character, dont choose yes or no. Negotiate community benefits and ask what the town should get in return.Know what you own. The buildings you have, and the electric, gas, water, and internet each one carries, decide whether a growing business expands in your town or the next county over.Turn data into a story. A city council that is lost in a spreadsheet stops listening, and a council that hears the story acts on it Learn more:CModel Dataokaycommerce.govecondevops.com

Jessica Olives has spent more than fifteen years inside nonprofit and public sector governance, including the Port of Seattle, King County Housing Authority, and the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority. Now she runs Mission Match, a nationwide platform where nonprofits search for board members by expertise, location, and cause instead of waiting for someone to answer a posting. What to do when the perfect skills match doesn't care about your mission: dig deeper firstWhy her first move on a dysfunctional board is the bylaws, not new recruitsWhat nonprofits can borrow from public sector boards on record managementHow Strategic Doing's "what can we do now" questions work as a middle ground between a long-range plan and no planIf your board runs on who you already know, start here.Learn more: CModel Data, Inc.Mission Match

Marta Tarantsey spent 12 years in Oregon state service, from civil rights compliance at ODOT to certifying more than 400 small businesses to now serving as Business Oregon's liaison for four Southern Oregon counties. She does not advocate for one business over another, and she explains why that neutrality is how she helps all of them.Why treating Dutch Bros as a unicorn guarantees you never see another one, and what to ask insteadA new Oregon tax credit for traded sector jobs: up to $1,000 per job, up to 10 jobs, for the 2026 tax yearHow reframing a grant application is following the rules, and the one case where Marta steps awayWhy new business starts and patent filings are the early signals she watches, and what a patent drop revealedWhy you should never restructure your business just to qualify for a certificationMarta's scores on the four decision-making personas, and the one she pushed back onIf you work with rural businesses, public money, or a long horizon, press play.