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Bozeman economic development summit: Dan Ripke says ‘Grow your own’

At Thursday’s summit, Dan Ripke spoke about "economic gardening," a strategy that focuses on growing local businesses before spending resources to recruit large companies to the area.

When a startup company that makes clothing for Hispanic men asked how it might expand into new markets, Dan Ripke and his team handed them a map and a list of phone numbers.

Ripke, state director for the Northeastern California Small Business Development Center, and his staff had mapped out every zip code in the nation where more than 10 percent of the population was Hispanic men. Ripke’s office had also identified clothing distributors in each place.

"We said, ‘Here. Start in Arizona," Ripke told Bozeman business representatives at the city’s first-ever Economic Development Summit Thursday morning. "Then, they called them all up and sold them on their product.

"We started small. We gave them the information, and boom, they took off," he said.

By AMANDA RICKER, Chronicle Staff Writer The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Full Story: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_8bb7cec6-3b05-11e0-add9-001cc4c002e0.html

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