Along with a new look, the Leavenworth County Development Corporation has a new focus in its mission to bring commercial development to the county.

During its regular July meeting the LCDC board of directors unanimously voted to accept a new, 18-month marketing action plan that was developed with the help of Pearcy, Tice, Krizman Communications, Inc.

“I don’t know if I can stress enough how excited the staff is about the direction we are going,” Steve Jack, LCDC director said.

The 10-page plan lays out LCDC’s vision — to “play a key role for Leavenworth County by helping existing companies expand their operations and partnering with new businesses interested in locating in the county, thus creating new quality jobs, quality incomes, a stable tax base and a positive impression of the overall business climate in Leavenworth County” — and six key objectives it hopes to implement by the end of the 18 months.

The six objectives are:

• Develop an economic development based marketing plan and branding for Leavenworth County to address the opportunities available in each of the four regions of the county and uniquely market.

• Become a positive center of influence with partners by establishing and reinforcing Leavenworth County’s core economic development message points.

• Increase private sector financial support and member involvement.

• Develop and implement a systematic and proactive business retention plan to achieve a minimum of 95 percent job retention.

• Develop and implement a workforce development program to build appropriately skilled workforce in Leavenworth County.

• Implement proactive business attraction and recruitment program.

The objectives are broken down and lay out exactly how the objectives will be accomplished, who is involved in accomplishing the goals and sets a deadline for implementation.

Jack said this draft of the plan focuses more on developing a better Web site and Web presence to drive more interest to the county.

“We are going to have a better product, we are going to have a better Web site we are going to have a more modern look and we think it’s going to pay off in the long run,” Jack said.