Mid-Missouri Business Week: Best in the Midwest initiative

Missouri’s Department of Economic Development is in the process of rolling out a new “Best in the Midwest” initiative to make the department the go-to development agency in the Midwest.

ABC 17’s Deborah Kendrick sat down with Maggie Kost, the director of communications and marketing of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, to talk about the initiative.

Kost says a majority of the funding for the initiative is coming from federal workforce funding, along with some funds in the state from the Hawthorne Foundation and the Missouri Development Finance Board.

Right now, the department is working on finding areas for growth in the state that could provide opportunities to create more jobs.

“A key aspect of this is that folks across the state are going to see better alignment across our workforce, from K through 12 all the way through to your career. They should see some changes there helping provide students with better opportunities and better training and education and skills that will help them in the workforce,” Kost said.