Advanced Technology Manufacturing can provide high-paying jobs that provide good employee benefits. The key, Day said, is for people to be personally responsible for preparing themselves for those jobs.

“We have to take advantage of the HOPE grant and develop marketable skills,” Day said. “I market our work force and I have to confidently show that we have a skilled work force. That’s the first thing prospects ask me.”

Day said that members of the development authority are attending a University of Georgia training in Douglas soon to hone their economic development skills. Members will learn the role the Internet plays in marketing Tifton and Tift County to prospective businesses and best practices on dealing with those prospects as well as financing techniques. Other instruction will include how to structure economic development deals and information about development authority operations.

The COC is also working to make themselves more electronically savvy as 90 percent of all new business prospects look at the Internet first. Day said the development authority and Forward Tifton recently funded $13,000 each to “build an electronic presence” and market what Tifton has to offer online. The Chamber partners with other chambers in the state, with the Georgia Dept. of Economic Development, Georgia Power and Colquitt EMC to keep a data base of sites and buildings available up-to-date on the site.

The newly vamped Tifton-Tift County Chamber of Commerce Web site will have a second component, an economic development section, in January.

“We want to use modern marketing to show Tifton to the world,” Day said.

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.