{"id":28002,"date":"2025-03-26T17:42:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T17:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/?post_type=news&p=28002"},"modified":"2025-05-08T13:53:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T13:53:02","slug":"team-neo-leader-matt-dolan-economic-prospects-good-for-tuscarawas-county-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/news\/team-neo-leader-matt-dolan-economic-prospects-good-for-tuscarawas-county-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Team NEO leader Matt Dolan: Economic prospects good for Tuscarawas County in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With special thanks to Jon Baker, Reporter, Tuscarawas Times<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dolan, the new head of Team NEO, northeastern Ohio’s economic development organization, visited Tuscarawas County on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Dolan, the new CEO of Team NEO\u00a0\u2012\u00a0the organization responsible for economic development in the 14 counties of northeast Ohio, said he believes the economic prospects for Tuscarawas County are good in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we continue to work at the pace we’re working on, good. The reason we can’t say great is we are facing a number of head winds right now, and those head winds are not unique to Tuscarawas County. They’re facing Ohio, they’re facing the United States. We’re going to have to up our game because we’re competing with the world. So, it is important that we have our educational partners working with the businesses so that the future needs of 2025 and beyond of the players are being met,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Important items for economic development<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted his organization is not involved in dealing with the shortage of affordable housing, which is a problem both locally and nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Housing is a huge part of economic development,” Doland said. “So, we have to understand who in our partnerships is going to work on housing because we’ll work on expansion. We’ll work on research sites. We’ll work on attraction. We’re working on talent. But we don’t work on housing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added the availability of infrastructure, entertainment and hotels are equally important. “Those are all part of economic development. We don’t play a part in those, but if they don’t do their job, it’s hard for us to sell Tuscarawas County. It’s hard for us to sell Cuyahoga County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The other message is we’re all going to do better in the 14-county region if we speak as a region. So, one of the points I want to make is it is good for Cuyahoga County when Tuscarawas County does well. It is good for Tuscarawas County when Summit County does well.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening tour<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dolan was in Tuscarawas County as part of a listening tour through each of the 14 counties represented by Team NEO. He met with the board of directors of the Tuscarawas Economic Development Corp., talked with local mayors and township trustees and visited the Battle Motors and ProVia plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaeffler Group plant<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dolan talked about the new Schaeffler Group plant that is going to be built in the north end of Dover. The facility will manufacture electric beam axles and electric drive train systems to support the hybrid\/EV industry and is expected to bring 450 jobs to the area. Schaeffler is investing $60 million in the plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More on Schaeffler: Schaeffler Group USA breaks ground on new facility in Dover; site will employ 650 workers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’ve been on the job now for a little over 40 days, and I think I’ve heard Schaeffler probably nearly every one of those days,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed out that bringing the plant to Dover was difficult, and it took time. “It’s a big win, but it’s the overnight sensation that took a long time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Starlin, senior director, project management for Team NEO, said it took two years of negotiations to bring Schaeffler here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I feel like this community put its best foot forward, in representing not only the site but all of the assets that are here and that the company could take advantage of. I think that ultimately there were a number of factors that led to their decision, but again the resources that are here, the assets that are in place really helped Schaeffler to make what they feel to make a really wise and advantageous decision,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Area ranks high in listing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starlin said the Dover-New Philadelphia area has once again been named to Site Selection Magazine\u2019s Top 100 Micropolitan Communities, moving up from being ranked 16th to third in the United States, which is a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The prospects are good (for Tuscarawas County), but they’re not going to fall into our laps. We’re going to have to work every day to make it happen,” Dolan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reach Jon at 330-364-8415 or at jon.baker@timesreporter.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"featured_media":28003,"template":"","categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28002","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neor-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28661,"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28002\/revisions\/28661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northeastohioregion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}