In Crossville they've created the Cumberland Business Incubator.

I've always said that our individual towns - and the county as a whole - need to emphasize and have boards that are for ECONOMIC development as opposed to INDUSTRIAL development.

The growth and progress is nowadays centered in BUSINESS, not in industry. The times of mill towns and sugar-daddy factories/mills is done and gone. We waste time if we think some industrial development board is gonna find a financial savior or sugar-daddy in some industry.

Harriman in particular, but other parts of our county in general, have seen the sad story. When Harriman was a mill town - paper and 2 hosiery mills - it was to the advantage of the captains of industry to band together and make the area inhospitable to the influx of new business. That way they had a captive work force, and a captive work force, with nowhere else to earn a living, is a lower cost work force. That captive work force makes less money, has lower expectations, and generations that only see mill work as a future are bred.

Ecomonic development of business, technlogy, and light, high-tech industry is the way forward, IMHO.

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RB