Carol Johnson, Southern Indiana Business Report
In Lorie Vincent’s 30-plus years in economic development, she has attended numerous professional conferences and seminars, but often found them lacking in addressing issues facing rural communities.
The conferences offered a wealth of information, but something that works in Chicago is tough to adapt for a small city in Texas, where Vincent is from.
“Eighty percent of the country is rural and even though I asked organizers for more programming for rural communities and they did add some, it wasn’t enough,” Vincent said. “I knew one day I would create a conference that was 100 percent for rural communities.”
Stand Up Rural America is the rural economic development summit that Vincent envisioned and it’s coming to southern Indiana.
The 2024 summit will take place at the French Lick Resort July 30-Aug. 1; registration is now open.
The summit will feature more than 20 speakers with expertise and experience in economic and community development. Topics to be covered include planning, leadership, entrepreneurship, downtown revitalization, rural tourism, innovative marketing, business retention & expansion, effective communications, housing, child care, broadband rural retail development, diverse housing, talent development and best practices.
Vincent said anyone working in economic, community or workforce development, a local Chamber of Commerce, city and county government, elected officials, utility providers, lenders and industry leaders can benefit from attending.
Vincent is a certified economic developer and is founder and president of ACCELERATION by design LLC, an economic development firm specializing in keynote presentations, facilitation, comprehensive training and workshops.
She said the summits have become exactly what she envisioned when she held the first Stand Up Rural America Summit, “a place where the people who are the change makers and want to see their communities grow can be with like minded people.”
Case studies, best practices and networking are key aspects of the summit.
Kristal Painter, chief operating officer of Choose Southern Indiana, a Radius Indiana talent attraction program, attended the 2023 Stand Up Rural America Summit when she was executive director of the Orange County Economic Development Partnership.
“It was a great event because it was all about rural communities and everyone I met represented a rural community,” she said.
Like Vincent, Painter had attended several economic development conferences.
“When you attend other economic development presentations, you meet a lot of people who represent larger cities, so the information didn’t necessarily apply to our communities because we don’t have the resources of, say, Chicago,” Painter said.
Previous Stand Up Rural America Summits have been held in Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas and Mississippi.
Vincent said she chose French Lick for the summit after several attendees from the Kentucky summit encouraged her to hold a summit there.
During a business trip to Kentucky, Vincent visited Orange County to see if it would work for a summit.
“I fell in love with it and it felt like this was the perfect time to have it in Indiana,” she said of the French Lick-West Baden area. “Once I went, I knew I wasn’t going to have it anywhere else.”
As one of the event hosts, Skylar Whiteman, executive director of the Orange County Economic Development Partnership, is excited about the national exposure for Orange County’s tourism and outdoor recreation opportunities.
“We’re encouraging people to bring their family with them, to come early and stay late and to take time to discover the local area,” she said.
She’s also looking forward to the opportunity for area residents working in economic and community development to attend a national conference.
“This will be my first national conference. I’m excited for that and to be part of hosting and networking with people on a national level. I’ve also been encouraging our board of directors and local elected officials to attend, because there will be strategies that can help our communities,” she said.
Registration information
About 250 are expected to attend the 2024 Stand Up Rural America Summit. Vincent has a dynamic lineup of speakers that includes former Olympian Johnny Quinn, Will Baggett, author of the Blueprint for a Success and many others.
Summit hosts are Radius Indiana and Orange County Economic Development Partnership. Hoosier Energy is the presenting sponsor. Scholarships are available from Hoosier Energy and Radius.
Register here for the Stand Up Rural America Summit.