Civil and Municipal - Mar 2023

89 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 DOUGLAS , ARI ZONA of the state’s Commerce Authority, as well as the federal government’s Small Business Administration (SBA). “We have them down here on a regular basis, offering advice for developing business plans for small businesses to try to get them to be successful,” he shares. The city also has a strong relationship with nearby Cochise Community College, which is eager to provide training for the new workers who will be employed by future businesses. “The president of the college meets with us regularly and is more than ready and wants to gear up. ‘You tell me what kinds of jobs are coming, and we’ll develop teaching programs to be able to handle that,’ he says. They already started commercial driver’s license classes. ‘If you tell us you need people that understand operations, logistics, warehousing, just let us know and we’ll develop the curriculum to prepare the workforce.’” Another current and future economic driver in Douglas is tourism. “Our area is steeped in old ‘wild west’ type history,” Huish says. “Texas John Slaughter, who was a Marshal in Tombstone, started in a ranch east of town, which is now open to tour the grounds. There’s our Vietnam War Museum in the old Gadsden Hotel that’s grown to include some of the other conflicts and wars that we’ve been in throughout the world