Campbell County and the city of Gillette want to brand the region as the 'Carbon Valley,' and the local governing bodies are searching to hire a marketing firm to aid in this effort.
The Carbon Valley Initiative is aimed at making Northeast Wyoming a hub for carbon-based research and development. Those are things like advanced carbon products or carbon capture sequestration and utilization.
Ivy McGowan Castleberry, Campbell County public information coordinator, said they are searching for a marketing firm that has experience with regional branding and economic diversification efforts.
"The idea with the branding part of that is that, as we get set up, how do we attract those businesses that are maybe conducting that research in other countries as well as across the nation and bring them here to where we have the resources? We have the transportation infrastructure, we have the community infrastructure, we have a good workforce," she said.
McGowan Castleberry said they have some particular skills they are looking for in the search.
"We need somebody who understands energy markets, they understand policy aspects, somebody who can understand the cultural nuances of the various countries that we know that we're probably going to need to target. So those are all considerations that have to be accounted for," she said.
While Gillette calls itself "the Energy Capital of the Nation," McGowan Castleberry said the area has never had to foster a reputation like this before.
"Everybody kind of knew there is oil and gas development, there are coal mines. The people who needed to know, they already knew that, so we didn't have to do any outreach to them. But obviously things are changing from an economic perspective so we're going to have to think differently about how we've done things in the past," she said.
The committee tasked with hiring the marketing firm will be interviewing final candidates for the position in the coming weeks.
Have a question about this story? Contact the reporter, Catherine Wheeler, at cwheel11@uwyo.edu.
