When a door closes a window opens, you just have to be willing to look around. I believe that the events with Tenneco and other major outside companies during this downturn should be a wake up call for all of us.

As a small business owner that has fought to stay in Cozad, we have the market potential to grow and create jobs. I know that there are many other existing businesses and entrepreneurs in this area that have potential to create jobs.

We are in the heart of farm country; we make many things grow, so why can’t we grow our own jobs. Economic gardening is happening all over the United States. With our neighbors to the west in Littleton, CO, and Wyoming leading the way with resources and support for their own vs. the extensive and costly recruiting philosophy of economic development.

The survival of our communities will depend on our leaders looking outside the box, to cultivate the opportunities that are in our own backyard. We all need to consider any job created is a success, a foreclosure diverted, a student retained, a consumer salvaged, and a family saved in our community.