By Liz Shepherd
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — After five years, Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation CEO Alan Tio is stepping away from the organization to pursue new opportunities.

KEDCO’s board of directors announced Tio’s departure on Dec. 7.

Tio will be taking a few weeks off and is working on planning his next adventure. Even though he can’t reveal what that is yet, Tio said he wants to stay in Kosciusko County and continue to be active within the community.

“I’m hopeful that by taking a step away from KEDCO, I’ll be able to get involved in some things that I haven’t been able to do, like serving on local boards or commissions, or working with other nonprofits,” said Tio. “I want to find ways I can help make a difference.”

Tio was hired as KEDCO’s CEO in September 2018 after working as the economic developer for Michael Kinder and Sons Inc. From 2008 to 2015, he served as Whitley County Economic Development Corporation’s president.

“We’ve had a great five-year tenure at KEDCO working together with our team, our board, and our communities,” said Tio. “It’s been enjoyable building the organization and seeing what we can accomplish together with our partners.”

Helping local communities and determining projects for them to focus on was an enjoyable aspect for Tio during his tenure as CEO.

“It creates a very dynamic environment, but also helps us learn a lot from one experience to the next, one product to the next, and helps us create new stories, success stories in the community,” said Tio. (KEDCO) really looked for what I call ‘good trouble,’ good trouble to cause, and looked for how we could help the community think bigger about what we can accomplish with our community and economic development.”

Tio referenced KEDCO’s “Small Cities, Big Futures” project as one he’s really proud of undertaking with his staff, noting that a lot of KEDCO’s work and approach to completing tasks stemmed from that.

“(At KEDCO), we’re getting past just kind of playing defense and being reactionary to whatever comes our way,” said Tio. “Now, we’re getting out in front, playing offense, and looking for where we want to go as a community.”

With the “Small Cities, Big Futures” project, KEDCO evaluated quantitative and qualitative data from nine Midwestern cities. Each city is home to a corporate headquarters or significant production facility for well-known American companies. Tio said he enjoyed visiting those communities and learning about them while getting to experience those visits with local leaders.

“That was really such a great memory and it’s important to continue to have that kind of mindset of ‘What can we learn from other places?’” said Tio. “How do we work to see Kosciusko become the best version of itself it can become by learning what others are doing, challenge what we’re doing, and work together to see us continue to advance and evolve…making those connections helps us connect to that larger state economy, to the larger community of manufacturing and entrepreneurship around the state, but also helps to make sure we’re contributing toward building that future economy.”

And, five years later, toward the end of his time at KEDCO, Tio feels the 19 recommendations made in 2019 by the Community Research Institute at Purdue University Fort Wayne to leverage Warsaw’s orthopedic medical device and agribusiness industries in order to improve prosperity and life quality are still relevant.

“My hope for KEDCO is that the team will continue to do great things and that (KEDCO’s) downtown business studio continues to be a hub of activity,” said Tio. “And I hope to continue to see KEDCO working with all of our other economic development partners…to begin checking off some of those projects people have been talking about for 30 years and start to be able to point to success stories to illustrate what’s possible when we work together.”