ROBERTSDALE, Alabama -- Economic recovery and continued economic growth were topics of discussion at the Baldwin County Association of Realtors meeting held Thursday at the BCAR central office in Robertsdale.

Lee Lawson, president and CEO for the Baldwin County Economic Development Alliance, gave a presentation to BCAR members and affiliates on Thursday saying that while economic growth numbers in 2012 are the highest since 2008, diversity is the key to continued growth.

“The bottom line is that we’re here to create wealth and we’re here to create jobs,” he said. “Over the last five or six years we’ve seen a lot of things effect our local economy that we had no control over, but developing a diverse economy to ensure economic growth is something that we can control.”

The two strongest areas of Baldwin County’s economy continue to be retail sales and hospitality services.

“That is not going to change any time soon,” he said, “and while those two industries are important, they do not make for a very resilient economy during times of crisis. We learned with the oil spill and hurricanes and retail and hospitality are the first to suffer. While we don’t want to take anything away from those two industries, our focus is to make other areas of our economy stronger to create more balance.”

With the construction phase of Airbus at Brookley Field in Mobile, the development of the aerospace industry is foremost in people’s minds, Lawson said.

“With the United Technologies plant in Foley, formerly known as Goodrich, growth of the aviation industry is something we’ve been developing in Baldwin County for 20 years now,” he said.

The EDA is also working to develop growth in the information technology industry (IT) and in the film industry.

“(The film industry) is something that has been quietly developing over the last several years,” he said. “We now have the education systems in place to create fulltime jobs in the film industry.”

Developing infrastructure is another key to economic growth and the county has seen great strides in the Baldwin County Beach Express Extension which will soon link the beaches with Interstate 10 and plans are to connect the Beach Express to I-65 soon after.

Future plans are to link the Extension to the proposed South Alabama Megasite, a 3,000-acre $600 billion site owned by the Baldwin County Commission which hopes to draw business and industry to the area.

“It’s such a massive site that if you bring in one business large enough to take up 500 acres, you will still have enough left over to bring in a lot more business,” he said.

EDA is also working to develop the expansion of Interstate 10 between Mobile and Baldwin counties, Lawson said.

“It’s something that is going to take a long time to develop, but it is critical to the continued growth of our area,” he said. “Believe me, expanding I-10 is at the top of our list of things that need to be done.”

Another area of direct concern for Realtors, Lawson said, is the development of the GIS Property Database, an online tool which links Real Estate development to infrastructure.

“Right now every property listed on the MLS is linked through our website,” he said. “That has become an invaluable tool to economic growth.”

The Economic Development Alliance, a 501c6 non-profit corporation, was created in 1994 as a link between the private sector  and public leaders working closely with the county’s five Chambers of Commerce, County government and the 14 municipalities, along with eight individual development boards and more than 100 private investors to promote economic growth in Baldwin County.

Lawson served as vice president of economic development for EDA from 2006 to 2008 and was an economic development representative for PowerSouth Energy Cooperative in Montgomery from 2008 to 2012 before taking over from longtime BCEDA President/CEO Robert Ingram in September of 2012.

“We have in place a strong brand here in Baldwin County as a clean, family-friendly place where people can come,” he said. “At the same time, Baldwin County is such a diverse area that we are able to market the county as a whole for any industry. It’s important for us in economic development to promote growth while not doing anything to hurt the brand.”