Campbell County is one of seven communities in the country to enroll in a federally-funded program focused on strengthening economies that rely on coal. The Building Resilient Economies in Coal Communities (BRECC) initiative connects counties and towns to trade strategies and support local leaders. Wyoming Public Radio’s Jordan Uplinger recently caught up with Campbell County Commissioner Jim Ford to hear about the program and the county’s future.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Jordan Uplinger: Before we talk about the federal program, can you explain your view on the economic conditions in Campbell County?

Jim Ford: I had an old man tell me one time when I was just coming into the workforce, he said, “Things in Campbell County are either good, or they're great.” That was in his lifetime, working in the minerals industry from the ‘60s until maybe 10 or 20 years ago. Things have always been good or great in Campbell County. By some measures, particularly coal production and coal jobs, we’re definitely off the mark from where we have been in the past. Even with all the changes in our mineral industry, the population of the city of Gillette and the town of Wright both continue to increase. So even in the face of the challenges that we have – and there are real challenges, particularly where coal is concerned – things are still good in Campbell County.

JU: You say times are good in Campbell County and from a governing perspective, you'd like to keep that going. But there have been similar coal communities around the country that have faced obstacles in continuing to produce that type of energy. With that in mind, can you explain why Campbell County has enrolled itself in the Building Resilient Economies in Coal Communities initiative?

JF: We'll shorten that and call it the “BRECC” challenge. This program comes from funding at the federal level with the US-EDA, the Economic Development Administration, administered through NACO, the National Association of Counties. And with a group that they have hired who has expertise in economic planning, development and plan execution, called community builders. What they've done is put together a program that provides professional and pertinent coaching and direction for county leadership at the local government level to try to help engage in the process of, first of all, acknowledging that change is upon us – and there's bound to be more change where coal is concerned. And then to do something about it.

What are the goals of the community, in terms of what we want to be [with] the continued challenges to the coal industry? Again this is [a] five, 10, 20 year type of vision that we need to take into account during this one-year long BRECC challenge. Now, the result of this work with NACO is going to be a plan, but it's a living document, something that we will continually reference and revisit and edit or change based upon the realities of next year, and the year after, and the year after.

JU: How would you respond to any criticism that says this is just another federal program or federal attempt to push our local or state economy in a direction that the community here does not want?

JF: There are plenty of people, and myself included to a certain degree, that don't want to be unfairly pushed, pulled or dragged in any particular direction by the federal government. The biggest pressure on the coal industry for the last 15 years has been cheap, natural gas. That has been purely in the realm of the free market. The purposely produced, or the byproduct, of natural gas, of oil production is as cheap as it's ever been. That has been the thing that has challenged the coal industry, and particularly the Powder River Basin thermal coal industry, more than any regulation.

JU: Is there a future for Campbell County without the asset of coal leasing the Powder River Basin?

JF: Yeah, absolutely. There's a future. It's going to be different if we have less coal, and it could be markedly different, if at some point in the next 20 or so years there's no coal. That is within the range of possibilities. I don't think it's going to be that way. But three years, and five years, and 10 and twenty years down the road: The highly trained workforce, the well-educated workforce, the tremendous capacity we have to build and service and operate mega-scale projects – those skills translate into a lot of different industries. If we're mining less coal, it just means that we're probably going to be doing more of something else. If that involves wind or solar or nuclear, we absolutely have the capacity to support those industries through and beyond this transition.

JU: Ten or 20 years down the road, how different could things look, economically speaking? There's a pretty high rate of self employed businesses in nearby Sheridan County. Could Campbell County ever transition away from energy producers to perhaps manufacturing goods or services, self-employed businesses?

JF: Short answer no, I can't. I cannot at all, not in my wildest imagination ever conceive of a time when Campbell County in the state of Wyoming is not the energy breadbasket of the nation. Right now we have probably 10 major businesses. These are mines, power plants, oil and gas companies, oil and gas support companies that have somewhere between 500 and 1,000 employees apiece. It's very likely that a couple of those mines get to be a lot smaller, or go away altogether. I envision those jobs being replaced by not one company with 1,000 jobs, but 50 companies with 20 jobs.

JU: Outside of energy, what else would you like to see revitalized in Campbell County?

JF: For me personally, I want to see growth and growth in population. Again, I want to challenge you a little bit just on the terminology, “revitalization.” There are lots of federal subsidy type programs or assistance programs that are focused on people and places and industries that have, let's say, hit bottom and want to bounce back. We don't need to revitalize. We're still vital. We're still the economic engine of this state. We just want to keep growing. We want to prevent the decline from loss of tax revenues and the potential risk of not being able to provide the services and the quality of life investments that we've all become accustomed to here.

For us here in Campbell County, and through this BRECC challenge, I’ll admit that we are a little unique in terms of other communities across the nation. We don't have to rebuild. We need to prevent the decline. We need to continue on this upward growth trajectory that we've had here for the last 45 years and that's our intention, absolutely.