James Labar Email and Phone Number

Founded in 1978, Charlotte Center City Partners envisions and activates strategies and actions to assure Charlotte Center City is a welcoming and equitable, economically vibrant, culturally rich, and beloved place for all. The urban district management organization has specialties in economic and community development, marketing and communications, programming and events, research, and urban planning.Provide executive-level leadership with board relations, strategic planning, media and communications, team leadership, and stakeholder engagement. • Produce the overarching narrative for Charlotte’s urban core with the annual State of the Center City publication, event, and earned media. Focus on retaining, expanding, and attracting business, talent, and investment in Center City ensuring continuous and inclusive economic growth. • Lead all business recruitment and retention efforts in Center City supporting the $4.9B of new development in the pipeline for 2024/25.Create and implement programs designed to stimulate business investment and placemaking in Charlotte’s urban core. • Design and manage $6.5M+ Small Business Innovation Fund enabling main street business resiliency and delivering new diversity outcomes. • Construct and implement 2024 Reimagining Vintage Office Design Competition stimulating and supporting multiple office conversion and upfit projects. • Steward the Market at 7th Street team bolstering 50+ main street businesses with educational curriculum and retail space in 2023/24. • Co-architect of the Hub for Inclusivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (HIIVE), a small business resource hub focused on providing growth opportunities to small food and retail businesses in Center City.

The governor is the chief executive of Oregon. The Oregon Constitution charges the governor with faithfully executing the laws, making recommendations to the Legislature and transacting all necessary business of state government. As part of the Governor's Office, Regional Solutions is a uniquely Oregon approach to community and economic development that brings together the public, private and civic sectors to advance projects, solve problems, seize opportunities, and respond to emerging local needs.Led a statewide team developing interagency solutions and coordinating with public, private, and philanthropic sectors to deliver community and economic development projects.• Represent Governor in multiple settings, including state legislature, Mosier oil train derailment, and Umpqua Community College shooting.Advised Governor on housing and economic development policies and agencies’ budgets and legislative priorities. • Delivered historic investment of $336.5M+ for housing infrastructure and services in 2019.• Invested $7M+ through the Governor’s community and economic development funds for a variety of job expansion/retention and capacity building projects across the state in 2019.

Salt River Project, or SRP, is a community-based, not-for-profit organization providing affordable water and power to more than 2 million people in central Arizona. It’s made up of two separate organizations: the “Association,” a private water corporation founded in 1903, and the “District,” an electricity provider formed as an agricultural improvement district and a political subdivision of the State of Arizona in 1937. By providing these essential resources for more than a century, SRP has helped the Phoenix metropolitan area develop and thrive.Ensured sound financial sponsorships, substantive campaign programming, and strategic alignment with public policy agenda and economic development priorities.• Managed Chamber Relations and Political Action Committee teams with a $1M+ budget, executive leadership, and board of directors.Led a team collecting, preserving, and applying corporate history for an array of uses, including government relations, water and power issues, board governance, economic development, telecom, marketing, and land use development.