Christina was promoted to Director of Community Economic Development at the start of the fiscal year. To celebrate her successes with Centralina, we sat down with her to pick her brain and learn more about Christina and her goals as Director of Centralina CED.

The Centralina Economic Development District (EDD) partnered with Centralina Regional Council and the nine-county emergency management (EM) directors to launch the Regional Resilience Collaborative (RRC) in April 2021. The RRC program examines the viability and resiliency of EM disaster recovery plans and economic resilience needs to ensure the region benefits from greater efficiency in responding to current and future natural and man-made disasters and economic shocks.

AICP has announced new mandatory educational requirements for the Certification Maintenance (CM) program. The update aims to ensure AICP’s certification remains relevant to the dynamic and ever-changing needs of today’s planners and communities. Under the previous iteration of the CM program, planners were required to obtain 32 CM credits during each two-year reporting period, with at least one and a half credits each in the areas of Law and Ethics. While the 32-credit requirement remains in place, the CM program update will require credits in two new topics, Equity and Sustainability and Resilience, which were identified by the AICP Commission as essential knowledge areas for planners.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and other federal and state funding programs are bringing unprecedented transportation and electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure funding to North Carolina. As a result, EV infrastructure planning is top of mind for many Centralina communities. To assist our member communities in tracking the variety of funding programs available and capitalizing on these historic opportunities, the Centralina Clean Fuels Coalition has developed resources that support these planning and funding activities on a regional level.

The onset of the COVID-19 created a shift in employment causing record-high job losses across the nation. However, now that the world has returned to normal operations, employers have reported difficulty finding the workers they need to fill open positions. Centralina Workforce Development Board (WDB) and our NCWorks team worked together to help provide a solution.