Development Practice: The Job And Its Relationship To Other Professions

Authors

  • D.B. (Bruce) Murray Industrial Commissioner, City of Guelph

Keywords:

Local Development Strategies, Economic Development Officer, Regional Economic Development, Marketing, Economic Development Committee

Abstract

Being an Economic development Officer (EDO) should not feel like an onerous job. The EDO should have the appropriate tools, resources, and have direct contact with the community’s stakeholders. Aside from administration and management, and other economic development activities, EDOs must also collect data on the local tourism industry, provide yearly report and plan for the future. The complex and strategic work requires the involvement of many public officials in a variety of disciplines. The strategic planning exercise will strengthen the collaboration and continued liaison with community stakeholders to continually address the many issues that arise regularly. Establishing a committee to oversee and monitor the health of the local economy, manage and support the operation of developing all annual citywide economic development activities with the collaboration of local volunteer interest groups will strengthen the economic health of the community.

Author Biography

D.B. (Bruce) Murray, Industrial Commissioner, City of Guelph

In 1971 Bruce Murray was appointed Industrial Commissioner for the City of Galt and after the amalgamation of the Municipalities of Galt, Preston and Hespeler in 1973 was appointed the first  Industrial Commissioner for the new City of Cambridge. Bruce's duties in Cambridge involved the management of an 1,100 acre industrial park and the implementation of a comprehensive downtown re-development plan.

In 1981 Mr. Murray was appointed Industrial Commissioner for the City of Guelph with a mandate to re-organize that city's Economic Development Department. Since that time, he has implemented a comprehensive five year business plan for the city of Guelph and is now involved in both industrial and commercial development for that municipality.

Apart from his work with the local business community, Mr. Murray found time to be President of the Galt Chamber of Commerce in the early days. Bruce Murray has been a member of the Ontario Industrial Development Council and the Industrial Development Association of Canada since 1972. He is Past President of the Ontario Industrial Development Council and he has continued as a Guest Lecturer at the University of Waterloo from 1972 through 1988 and sits on the Professional Development Committee for the Industrial Developers Association of Canada. Mr. Murray maintains close contact with the Guelph business community through the Industrial Section of the Guelph Chamber of Commerce where he is and Ex-Officio Director.

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Published

2021-01-18

How to Cite

Murray, D. (Bruce). (2021). Development Practice: The Job And Its Relationship To Other Professions. Economic Development Journal of Canada, 49–52. Retrieved from https://ecdev.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/default/article/view/125

Issue

OIDC Journal, 1989

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All content published in the Economic Development Journal of Canada is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Attribution (CC BY) International 4.0 license. The journal owns copyright for all works published prior to June 2020. The author(s) retain copyright for all works published after June 2020.