Mayor credits economic development for workforce improvements

NEBRASKA CITY – Mayor Bryan Bequette recognized economic developer Dan Mauk upon his retirement after a decade in Nebraska City.

The mayor credited Mauk for helping bring new housing to Nebraska City and new opportunities for working parents looking for day care for their children.

Mauk was with the city for the opening of the Fourth Corso viaduct, recovering from the flood of 2019 and the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

Bequette: “Through all those things Dan has just been their chugging along, keeping us out in front.”

He said Mauk encouraged new business and the workforce that would go with it.

Bequette: “All alongside of it was workforce, workforce, workforce. He knew that we had to attack it, one through housing: we were doing four and half houses a year, maybe five if you give us more credit, since then, in the last 10 years, we’ve done 120.”

Mauk said he has worked for eight mayors and some really good mayors, but he called Bequette the best by far.

He credits Bequette’s military training and strategic planning.

Mauk: “Things happen because of your military training, your strategic planning. You look at the whole battlefield instead of the little skirmish.”

Mauk introduced the city’s new economic development director Lisa Walker.

 

Walker is a graduate of Nebraska City High School and earned degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Bellevue University.

She is a former career services director at the University of North Georgia and former continuing education director and economic development coordinator at Iowa Western Community College.

In her economic development role at Iowa Western she analyzed training needs for the area’s key manufacturers and met with the region’s economic developers to see how the community college could assist with improvement strategies.