Debi Durham

Economic development is increasingly the top priority of both Hamilton County and Webster City and that’s no coincidence. In the most recent decades, economic development has trended towards urban rather than rural districts, and that has impacted this local population.

The population in Hamilton County has declined steadily since 1960. If you think of population in terms of the number of students in local schools, the number of people who work locally, and the collective power of votes in state and national elections, you see the crucial equation: Fewer people equals fewer economic opportunities.

That’s what Debi Durham is coming to town to discuss.

Durham, director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority — IEDA — will speak Thursday at a public luncheon at Briggs Woods Conference Center. She is expected to describe Iowa’s organization and approach to economic development, and how it can benefit Hamilton County and Webster City. She’ll likely focus on community development, making Iowa more attractive to today’s residents and, most importantly, ways to resolve the declining population problem.

Her visit here is officially sponsored by the Hamilton County Growth Partnership — HCGA — as part of its first annual meeting. HCGA is a group of local business, education and civic leaders created in 2024 to steer economic development in Hamilton County and Webster City.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Debi Durham as keynote speaker for our annual meeting,” Ottie Maxey, HCGP’s executive director, said. “Her leadership at the Iowa Economic Development Authority brings invaluable insight into how statewide initiatives can support regions like ours.”

A little history

During his successful 2010 campaign to become Iowa’s governor, Terry Branstad promised more private sector involvement in Iowa’s economic development. What rankled him, and many Iowans, was the state allegedly paying unearned subsidies to movie-makers to convince them to film in Iowa, which at the end of the day, felt good, but had little dollar impact.

As a top priority, Branstad replaced the old Iowa Department of Economic Development with the Iowa Partnership for Economic Progress — IPEP, a public-private partnership. IPEP was to be governed by an independent board of directors chaired by then-Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, and led by then-Economic Development Director Debi Durham, who was the very first appointee made by the Branstad-Reynolds administration.

Further back in time

In 1960, amidst the biggest economic boom in U.S. history, Hamilton County had 20,032 people. By 2022, it had dropped to 14,820.

In those same years, the U.S. population grew 7.7%; Iowa’s population grew by 4.9%.

Increasingly, the fortunes and future of places like Hamilton County and Webster City — rural America — are being uncoupled from urban America.

You could cite the farm crisis of the 1980s. Or, more locally, the boom, then bust 20 years later of Electrolux. Big box stores, online shopping, out-sourcing of jobs, globalization, the pandemic — each took a bite out of this community. The move of Electrolux to Mexico was especially damaging: incomes went down, school enrollment declined, shops closed, families split as some had to move to other states for employment.

The impact of all that loss is still palpable.

While all that was happening, economic development itself evolved. One person charged with “attracting industry” to small towns no longer worked.

Enter the Ames Regional Economic Alliance, which both the city and county agreed to join in 2024. Though it was once identified as the Ames Chamber of Commerce, the Alliance is living proof of the regional nature of life in rural Iowa today: live in one town, work in another, shop in yet another, kids ride a bus to a consolidated school.

The takeaway? Think regional.

This week may be your only chance to hear Durham in person. She’s announced her retirement, effective December 31, 2026.

In the year that remains, many of our own, local economic development issues will mature. Ahead we expect the full certification of more than 400 acres designated for industrial development in Webster City, the hoped-for breaking ground next spring on a potential 219 new rental apartments by Kading Properties, and the first steps on the long road to making downtown viable again.

IEDA is an actual or potential partner in all of them.