Mark Yarich said he imagines a Suwannee County where businesses want to be rather than being incentivized to relocate.

LIVE OAK, Fla. — In choosing its new economic development director, the Board of County Commissioners chose Suwannee County.

When asked why he should be the pick near the end of his interview with the board Wednesday morning at Live Oak City Hall, Jimmy Norris kept it simple.

“A good friend of mine told me this and I’m just going to say it the way he said it, ‘Because I am Suwannee County,’” Norris said. “It’s as simple as that.

“I’ve been here. I’ve left a lot of blood, sweat and tears here…There’s no place I’d rather be.

“I want it to be the greatest place on Earth and I think it is.”

He’s also the county’s new economic development director as the board chose him as the top candidate following the two interviews Wednesday. Norris received 206 points in the board’s grading system of a maximum 250. Mark Yarich received 151.

The board authorized Chairman Ricky Gamble, County Administrator Randy Harris and County Attorney Jimmy Prevatt to begin negotiations with Norris. Before Norris can officially take over the position, the board will have to approve that negotiated contract.

Originally the board planned to interview four of the seven applicants for the position, which was left open when Alvin Jackson departed to be the city manager in Bunnell at the end of September. He resigned Aug. 27.

However, Theresa Campo withdrew after the board narrowed down the candidates in November when the board declined to allow a video conference interview. Campo is the community development director in Monroe, N.C., who has also worked in community development in Wilmington, N.C.,

The other non-local pegged for an interview, Lacey Ekberg then withdrew Tuesday when she was unable to find a flight due to weather. Ekberg’s prior experience includes serving as executive directors of various Chambers of Commerces previously, most recently in DeLand. She currently is the executive director of the Switzerland County Tourism in Vevay, Ind.

Norris has been serving as the county’s interim economic development director since Jackson’s departure as well as the Suwannee County Chamber of Commerce’s executive director, a position he’s held since 2016.

Now with the position full time, Norris hopes to build on the work and relationships he’s already developed within the business community of Suwannee County as well as trying to lure more in. He added he accompanied Jackson on trips to California and New Orleans in recent years trying to help attract outside businesses to move into the area.

“There’s some exciting things out there,” Norris said about his thoughts on filling in during the interim basis, adding there’s been a few good leads from interested businesses since taking over on an interim basis.

Asked to identify the county’s best assets and biggest limitations in trying to attract more businesses to move in, Norris pointed to the low cost of land and the large parcels of land available as among the county’s top assets, just behind its location.

“Location, location, location,” he said. “I think that’s our biggest asset. We’re the diamond as we call it between Jacksonville and Tallahassee, Valdosta and Gainesville.”

The drawbacks to a business looking to move would be regulations, a trained workforce, infrastructure and housing, Norris said.

“We’re working on the housing, we’re working on the infrastructure and we’re working on a trained workforce,” he added.

But working is nothing new for Norris.

“Being an independent business person, an entrepreneur, the buck stops and starts with you and I never had the opportunity to lean or rely on anyone else,” he told the board was probably his best attribute. “If the job was going to get done, I had to do it. Daylight to dark, seven days a week, whatever it took to get the job done.

“It never bothered me. It was all about the results.”

Yarich has spent the past 17 years in Suwannee County and in his five years at the Small Business Development Center has also been working on helping local businesses.

He said that experience made him apply for the position.

“I saw myself in the job description,” he said. “Working with entrepreneurs day in and day out, working with existing businesses day in and day out…As I read through that whole list, I just said this is the stuff I’m doing already, the only difference is who is the client.”

Yarich also pointed to Suwannee County’s location near Interstate 10 and Interstate 75 as its best attribute in luring new business, but that he really didn’t see any significant drawbacks, adding he doesn’t buy into the talk that the workforce is undertrained.

Yarich also told the board he believes the focus on luring business should be improving the county as a whole rather than incentivizing the businesses

“I believe a loan program is superior to an incentive program,” he said, adding that through a loan program the county would get its money back to loan out again. “What we see on the list of why businesses relocate, incentives were down at the bottom consistently for the last 10 years.

“If we can put emphasis on making Suwannee County a superior product, people will want to be here. If we pay attention to the product, everything else will fall in place.

“I imagine a Suwannee County where people want to be here, really want to be here.”