Three dozen Eastern Shore of Virginia residents from various walks of life gathered Dec. 15 at Eastern Shore Community College to participate in a planning process that will result in an economic development blueprint for the region later this year.

Organizers said they would like to see even more residents participate in the plan's development, including members of the business and agriculture community.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia is one of three Virginia regions chosen to participate in the Stronger Economies Together program, a nationwide initiative that helps communities in rural America work together to create and implement regional economic development plans. The others are Mount Rogers and the Northern Shenandoah Valley.

The Northern Neck region completed a plan previously.

SET was launched in 2010 by USDA Rural Development, the nation’s four regional rural development centers and their land-grant university partners and the Purdue Center for Regional Development. It is now in place in more than 70 regions in 32 states.

The process is intended to help strengthen the capacity of communities and counties in rural America to work together to develop and implement an economic development blueprint for multi-county regions, strategically building on the current or emerging comparative economic advantages of that region, according to the program's website.

The Dec. 15 meeting continued a process that began with a civic engagement forum held at Eastern Shore Community College in October. A third session is planned for January 12 and meetings will continue monthly through May.

"Our goal at the end of the day is to develop a high-quality plan," said Martha A. Walker of Virginia Cooperative Extension, a Virginia SET resource team member who helped facilitate the session.

The plan will be based on data and developed by community members, she said.

"No one is here to write this plan for you...It is up to you," she said.

The four-hour session was not a sit-back-and-listen event; instead, attendees — including community activists, businesspeople, educators, government officials, non-profit agency representatives and others from Accomack and Northampton counties — were asked to actively participate.

"What are you bringing to the table today?" Walker asked.

She kicked off the session with an ice-breaker intended to illustrate the planning process — giving attendees one minute to work together to build from a small pile of interlocking blocks a structure intended to represent success.

The resulting creations included a bridge, a railroad boxcar and an underground house, among others.

Then Walker asked for feedback from each table. "It felt like all of us were coming together to build this," said Jane Cabarrus of the Northampton County NAACP.

Walker took things a step farther, asking the groups to combine their project with another group's work.

"It required somebody to move — that's exactly what SET is about. Something has got to move if we are going to build it," she said afterward.

Walker set forth several `questions to ask as the region's plan is being developed: "Is it practical? Is it broadly supported? Is it focused on regional growth? Is your plan aligned with your goals?"

The discussion then turned toward economic data, including employment and industry figures, for the Eastern Shore — with the ultimate goal being to define specific areas the region should explore further based on its assets and current trends.

Jim Pease of Virginia Cooperative Extension presented the data, including figures from the National Establishment Time Series showing 1,476 more establishments were in the region in 2011 than in 2000. Out of 4,338 storefronts launched, 2,937 of them closed during the period, in addition to a net migration into the region of 75.

In 2011, 60 percent of establishments in the region had between two and nine employees, while another 30 percent represented self-employed individuals with no other employees.

Only 20 establishments in the region had between 100 and 499 employees, and only two had more than 500 employees.

"Basically, there is a lot of creation of a lot of small establishments," said Pease.

The same source showed the most growth in jobs was in the self-employed and two to nine employee categories, while the 500-plus employee category had a 66 percent decrease in jobs during the period. The figures include full- and part-time jobs.

Self-employed enterprises went from accounting for 599 jobs in 2000 to 1,159 in 2011, while companies with between two and nine employees went from 4,888 to 6,871 jobs.

In the 500-plus category, there were 1,667 jobs in 2011, compared to 4,917 in 2000.

"What we might be seeing is a lot of the people who were laid off in the larger firms may be running their own businesses," Pease said.

He also presented the top 10 industry sectors with employment growth in the region between 2009 and 2014: educational services; mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction; arts, entertainment and recreation; real estate and rental; finance and insurance; professional, scientific and technical service; retail trade, other service; information and transportation and warehousing.

The sectors are defined by the North American Industry Classification System.

The ten sectors with the most decline in jobs were: construction; crop and animal production; administrative and support and waste management and remediation services; wholesale trade; manufacturing; utilities; management of companies and enterprises and health care and social assistance.

To develop a good economic plan, it is important to identify which industry clusters should be its focus — a region in the SET process typically focuses on between two and four but may choose more, Kasey Martin of USDA Rural Development told the group.

After discussion, the group agreed to focus on five clusters: agribusiness, tourism, information technology, defense and business and finance. Those will be narrowed down to three or four for the final plan.

Participants who volunteered to explore one of the clusters were asked to bring more information to the January session — the topic of which is Evidence-Based Planning.

All sessions are from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Eastern Shore Community College Workforce Development Building in Melfa. To RSVP for a session, contact Curt Smith at csmith@a-npdc.org or (757) 787-2936 ext.114.

Information about the local SET process can be found here.