Good news is rarely as fun to tell but this story deserves to be told…Our Town Staff operates with limited dollars and often hear that we need to trim their budgets further. All I have to say is Thank You Dan. Thank you John. Thank all of you on the team. You cannot measure the value our town employees bring to Gilbert in dollars and cents.

9 new businesses, $63 million in investments

By Parker Leavitt – Feb. 28, 2011, The Arizona Republic

Business development manager Dan Henderson told the Town Council that his team helped attract nine new businesses and $63 million in capital investment to Gilbert over the July-December period.

Town officials have also generated 75 new leads and helped create 110 jobs with salaries more than 150 percent higher than the average salary in Maricopa County, Henderson said Thursday.

The annual goals include luring 200 new jobs, 10 new companies and $105 million in capital investment, according to the town budget.

In 2009-10, business development officials helped create 500 new jobs and $123 million in capital investment.

Gilbert’s business development team has five employees and an operating budget of about $564,000. The budget allocation has shrunk from $2.7 million three years ago.