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Knowing the key players in the region and connecting them with state and national resources is Thompson’s job, as long as the EDA and ARC remain funded; as long as they do, that chain of developmental effort flowing from Washington to Raleigh to Haywood County always terminates at the local level. “We work with CeCe Hipps at the [Haywood] Chamber of Commerce,” Chung said. “Generally, chambers are advocating for a better business climate, which helps because if we’re out there trying to sell North Carolina, you need a good business climate to back that claim up.”The same, Chung said, goes for Mark Clasby, executive director of the Haywood EDC. Both the Chamber and the EDC work in concert with the EDPNC and with the county itself. “The county government has long had a role in economic development,” said Ira Dove, Haywood County manager since May 2014.Dove cites 2001 industrial incentive grant guidelines as evidence of ongoing effort, but also points to county expansion of infrastructure as a different sort of incentive to the traditional property tax-based grants.“These are all regulated by the state,” Dove said. “There’s a whole battery of statutes that we have to follow, to work through, when we do that.”The county’s partnership with the EDC, a contract similar to the one EDPNC has with the N.C. Department of Commerce, demands similar duties.“They’re supposed to be marketing to bring in new companies, to help build relationships with existing businesses and help them expand, to do some research, to respond to the requests that companies have as they’re coming in and trying to learn about the area and locate here,” Dove said. At an even more granular level, the county interacts with both municipalities and like-minded funders to complete projects that ultimately contribute to economic growth in the county. “We got a Golden Leaf grant — and not an insignificant one — to try to do some infrastructure development with the Junaluska Sanitary District, and that was a team effort,” Dove said. “That’s a lot of players coming together talk about looking at how businesses expand when infrastructure expands.”The county, through its interactions with regional, state and national economic development agencies on one hand, as well as smaller municipalities, outside funders and local development organizations like the Chamber and the EDC on the other, serves as the lynchpin of the whole process.