Yancey County’s Planning & Economic Development Director, Jamie McMahan, was elected by the executive committee of the Southern Economic Development Council (SEDC) to serve as North Carolina’s State Director on the board of directors of the 17-state regional economic development council for a term beginning on 1 January 2022 through 31 December 2023. As State Director McMahan will serve as state membership chair for North Carolina’s member delegation and serve as North Carolina’s voting member on the national organization’s governing board.
Celebrating its 75th year in 2021, the SEDC is the oldest and largest regional economic development association in North America, composed of member states Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The organization serves to promote the regional economic development interests of its member states across the American south and foster collaborative and innovative ideas to continue to drive economic investment in the region.
Jamie McMahan has served as Planning & Economic Development Director for Yancey County since 2017, having previously served as County Planner from 2008, as well as currently serving as Executive Director of the Yancey Advancement Foundation, Inc. and of The Winter Star Company, Inc. McMahan also currently serves as President of CarolinaWest, Inc., a regional economic development council composed of member communities Mitchell, Madison, Yancey, Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood, and Transylvania Counties, and the City of Asheville, and partner agencies including the Asheville Regional Airport Authority, Duke Energy, Dominion Energy and ERC Broadband. Having studied sustainable community and economic development at Duke University and development finance at the UNC School of Government, McMahan is currently a student in the Executive Education and Leadership Program of Yale University’s School of Management and is a member of the North Carolina Economic Development Association, the National Rural Economic Development Association, and the North Carolina Chapter of the American Planning Association.
“I am honored and humbled to be selected by my peers and colleagues to serve in this capacity in the SEDC, an organization that is a leader in regional economic development on a national level. I and my colleagues across North Carolina can certainly agree that our communities succeed in economic development individually, when we set a goal for excellence, collaboration, and innovation with regional partnerships where common interests can be developed. In my career I have enjoyed engaging with my colleagues on a regional level, both in western North Carolina, and throughout the state, and I look forward to the opportunity to continue to work with my fellow North Carolina SEDC members in the mountains, the piedmont, and on the coast as we continue our partnership with our neighbor states across the southeast.” said McMahan.
