Embedded developer helps focus county’s economic goals

Tucked away in the northwest border of Virginia and dubbed “Virginia’s Little Switzerland,” Highland County, Va. is an isolated yet idyllic place, far from major highways and beloved by residents and visitors alike for its mountainous terrain and picturesque landscape.  

With just over 2,000 residents, Highland County has historically relied on tourism and agriculture for economic activity but is facing many of the challenges that America’s smaller, more rural counties face: a declining population and economic stagnation. Though it’s close to the heavily traveled I-81, the county is too far away from the highway to benefit from drop-in visitors. 

In response, local officials and the community have searched for ways to diversify and revitalize their economy, from promoting their annual Maple Festival to the formation of the Highland Economic Development Authority (HEDA), the host organization that was matched with the fellow Landdis Hollifield through the Economic Recovery Corps (ERC) initiative. 

The corps helps under-resourced local governments through a collaboration between the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the International Economic Development Council and national partners — including NACo — by placing mid-level economic development professionals in communities to achieve specific objectives. Rather than distributing grant dollars or managing technical assistance, the ERC is the rare federal program that increases local government capacity by paying for an economic developer to work in a community for two-and-a-half years. 

Hollifield arrived in Highland County as a fellow in February 2024, where she expected to help implement a preprepared strategic plan for economic development. Instead, she found what she described as more of a “wish list” of what the county wanted to accomplish, with no real steps, objectives or timeline for implementation. But coming from a small town herself, she understood that the first step toward making change was building trust, so she sat down with local officials and just talked — with no agenda, no plan. 

“Trust-building isn’t a separate step here, it’s the work,” Hollifield said. 

The open lines of communication that stemmed from this trust allowed her to understand what the county needed most and what it was best positioned to achieve. 

Hollifield’s background shaped her approach from the start. As a former journalist, she knew how to read a community — going door to door, sitting in on meetings, listening before proposing. And drawing on prior work in ecotourism, she identified Highland County’s scenic landscapes as an underleveraged asset, ultimately securing funding for new trail signage and visitor infrastructure that made the county more accessible to tourists. 

This proved to be a successful plan, as Hollifield helped Highland County secure more than $2.4 million in funding for the renovation of the Highland Inn and other revitalization projects from sources that included the Appalachian Regional Commission, HUD Congressionally Directed Spending and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources’ Virginia 250 Preservation Fund. 

The Highland Inn is in the heart of Highland County but has been closed for more than seven years due to catastrophic flooding. However, efforts at restoration have been successful, and Hollifield expects developers to begin to submit bids to participate in the Inn’s restoration over the next few months. 

Although Hollifield’s fellowship ends in July, she is focused on ensuring that Highland County has sustainable systems that can continue long past her tenure. She emphasized the importance of capacity-building programs, noting that HEDA has only one staff member, who is a retiree working part-time. Funding is certainly essential to carrying out these kinds of projects, she notes that “capacity building is what allows funding to actually do its job.” 

Hollifield believes Highland County can serve as an example for other counties with similar demographics. 

“If other counties take anything from this, it’s that scale shouldn’t limit ambition,” she said.