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Business View Magazine
INFRASTRUCTURE
vamped town council that swept into office in 2013,
including Rob Mackin, the 38-year-old mayor who was
elected in November of that year as well.
“It’s an untapped potential that Hinton has,” Mackin
said.
“We’ve got a diverse economy. It’s not a one-horse
town. We’ve got the lifestyle and the quality of life sur-
rounding it. We just need to focus on selling that to the
outside world and getting people to recognize what we
have and get them here to experience it. Selling what
we’ve got here is pretty damned easy. It’s now just a
matter of letting the world know.”
The existence of a solid and fairly new town infrastruc-
ture has enabled the future focus, he said, which be-
gan with an internal review of processes in planning
and development to make sure permits are easily ac-
cessible and that the community-facing mindset is
one based on customer service.
Mackin said that phase took about a year to complete,
and was followed at the start of the second year by a
specific targeting of industries that are either comple-
mentary to the ones that already call Hinton home – or
ones that are entirely new to the region, thereby avoid-
ing undue duplication.
Participation in a national project through which Telus
is making fiber-optic technology available to all homes
is enabling out-of-the-box thinking that could keep