Wanted: Jobs; $1,000 Reward

A nonprofit organization is offering cash rewards to people who help attract new business to town.

Cozad Development Corp. will give $1,000 to anyone who provides a lead that results in the recruitment of a new business or industry for the city.

“We realize that we’re going to have to be more aggressive than we’ve ever been before” in recruiting businesses, said Dean Dorsey, president of the corporation and publisher of the Tri-City Trib in Cozad.

Cozad is a city of 4,500 people in the Platte River Valley of south-central Nebraska. Like other rural communities, Dorsey said, it has been hurt by the slumping farm economy.

Dorsey said the reward will be paid for leads that bring businesses employing 15 or more people to the Cozad area. The offer will remain open indefinitely.

In 1982, the North Platte Development Corp. offered $1,000 to anyone who could provide a tip that would bring a manufacturing or processing plant to Lincoln County. Nothing resulted from the offer, said Andy Baird, executive director of the corporation.

“It’s a creative method,” he said. “I just don’t think it will work.”

Last year, Gage County Industrial Corp. offered $1,000 for tips leading to the recruitment of companies employing 25 or more people in manufacturing.

The offer has attracted some good leads, but no new manufacturing plants, said Diane Schwenke, executive director of the Beatrice Chamber of Commerce.