Lucas County has approved a pilot of an “economic gardening” program that aims to grow local industry rather than attract out-of-town businesses.

The approach is based on the idea that scaling up local businesses — or “gardening” — is faster and cheaper than “hunting” for new businesses to stimulate economic activity. Five businesses will participate in Lucas County Economic Development Corporation’s test of the program, led by the National Center for Economic Gardening.

Participating companies have between 10 and 100 employees and between $1 million and $50 million in sales to external markets, and the first five selected for Lucas County are Element Machinery, Designetics, Vipo, Robotic Technical Support Services, and Yarder Manufacturing.

Element Machinery creates custom metal proces

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