The Town of High River introduced the new Manager of Economic Development, Shawna Stonehouse, at Monday's council meeting. Stonehouse says our town's got a good foundation to work with.

"I think that High River has really good bones and just needs some really good flesh put on them. I've worked with a lot of small communities in Ontario and the UK, and they don't have good infrastructure downtown. Like, you have your banks here, you've got a grocery store, you've got some really good anchors in the downtown that will help create a better business environment."

She says she's here to help business in town.

"It's creating a business friendly environment. So if word gets out that High River is a great place to do business, that the council's open for business, that it's easy to get permits and planning and you can get well-trained people to work for you. If they know that, then businesses will come and locate here."

Stonehouse hopes to get lots of people involved in improving our economy.

"It's my first day, but it's shouldn't be too long until I'm able to reach out to the business community and other community members that have a vested interest in seeing this town thrive. So (I) hope that a lot of people from High River will get involved and we'll get the economy back on track and even better than it was before."

She says that one of the first things she'll do is engage with the different stakeholders in town, like businesses, chambers of commerce, key employers. Stonehouse plans to bring everyone around the same table and working towards the same goal and says the most important thing is getting the people involved to "buy in" to strategies that have been developed.