Economic development director, Kathy Fasso leaving Butte-Silver Bow Economic Development Organization

Butte-Silver Bow Economic Development Director Kathy Fasso will be leaving the job after three years to take a position in the private sector.

"This is really an oppor-tunity for personal growth," Fasso said Tuesday. While Fasso’s home base will still be Butte, she expects to travel much of Montana in her new job in the wholesale banking industry and sees the new job as a challenge and the opportunity to better herself.

By Leslie McCartney of The Montana Standard

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2004/12/01/newsbutte/hjjfihjijbjbhb.txt

Fasso will leave Butte-Silver Bow by the end of December. Until then, Fasso expects to continue to work on several projects, including working with the Seattle-based precision investment castings manufacturer SeaCast http://www.seacast.com/. The company is looking to expand to Butte-Silver Bow.

"From my personal opinion, I hate to see her leave, but I’m happy for her. She’s done an excellent job and brought about regular meetings to the (TIFID) group. She worked very hard to bring in businesses," remarked Mark Donaldson, chair of the Tax Increment Finance Industrial District. The district is one of Fasso’s responsibilities as well as working on economic development for the county and supervising the Business Development Center.

Fasso is especially proud of the work done with the TIFID and the new programs to help build infrastructure at the industrial site, home to Advanced Silicon Materials Inc. and the Port of Montana. "I’m extremely excited about the new program to build infrastructure and lease back to business while providing for job credit incentives," Fasso said.

One of the great challenges of her job was the limited amount of economic development incentives at the state and local level. "You try to keep companies or recruit new ones and sometime your hands are tied," she said.

However, she pointed out that the county’s economic development team has been very creative and hard-working in their pursuit of new business and extending help to established business.

During her tenure, Fasso was named one of the area’s "40 Under 40" which recognized strong achievers under the age of 40 in Southwest Montana.

It is expected that the county will replace Fasso when the new chief executive, Paul Babb, comes on board in January, but calls placed to the county seeking comment were unsuccessful Tuesday.