LAUNCH celebrates 10 years, unveils strategic plan for North Alabama

Marking a decade of service to North Alabama, LAUNCH Regional Partnership gathered elected officials, community and business leaders, and residents for a “State of the Region” address on Thursday, August 14 at Cook Museum of Natural Science in Decatur. The all-volunteer organization was created to encourage collaboration among the state’s 10 northernmost counties.

LAUNCH Chair Jim Page shared that the foundation of the coalition can be traced back to 2014, when leaders from across North Alabama asked “Why can’t the region work better together?”

From those origins came LAUNCH, the initiative to uplift the region by focusing on three pillars: workforce development, entrepreneurship, and land use. 

Singing River Trail (SRT), a 220-mile greenway system, is one of the most widely recognized projects to come out of LAUNCH. Misti Potter, Executive Director of the Singing River Trail, provided an update on the nonprofit she has led since January.

“In the last eight months we’ve updated routes and reengaged our communities along the trail. We’ve advanced multiple projects, including trails under construction, bid finalization, and fabrication of wayfinding signage. We’ve activated an interactive map on our website. We hosted, in partnership with Innovate Alabama, a highly successful Launch Tank held in Scottsboro this year, and we even beta tested some augmented reality at one of our trails,” said Potter.

Before the year is up, the Singing River Trail plans to break ground on additional miles of trail in four North Alabama counties, install more wayfinding signage, and host several ribbon cutting events for existing trails that will become incorporated into the SRT. 

In addition to celebrating successful initiatives of LAUNCH, like the Singing River Trail, the luncheon also served as a staging ground to unveil the organization’s new strategic plan. 

Dr. Kimberly Greenway of the University of North Alabama is the LAUNCH Project Lead on developing and sharing this new strategic plan, which has been in the works since January. Dr. Greenway explained that she and her team have spent the last eight months gathering qualitative and quantitative data — including U.S. Census data, surveys of elected officials, and economic data — to inform the development of this new initiative. The plan will impact all 10 counties in the LAUNCH region: Colbert, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, and Morgan.

The creators of the strategic plan envision a framework that is nimble — precise in some areas and deliberately broad in others — to allow for maximum flexibility. Further, LAUNCH leadership say their aim is to “fill in the gaps” rather than duplicate the work already being done by other organizations.

Practical goals that the new strategic plan hopes to accomplish include:

• Developing a recognizable brand for the region.
• “Speaking as one voice” to represent the region’s best interests.
• Replicating great ideas from one community to another.
• Staying ahead of infrastructure demands as the region grows.
• Supporting the regional startup ecosystem.

Page emphasized that each of the 10 counties must have an equal seat at the table. 

Closing remarks were delivered by Jeff Samz, CEO of Huntsville Hospital Health System. Samz, who leads the $3 billion regional health system, spoke about the ability of area leadership to pull together for a common cause. 

“The secret is the people involved understand that a sense of teamwork has to be nurtured and developed. It doesn’t happen by accident; it has to be maintained,” said Samz. “You have to put energy into learning how to work together, building trust, and everybody in the room has to appreciate the sense of teamwork involved doesn’t come by happenstance.”

Samz said that he hopes that this spirit of collaboration will continue to animate the region as it unites to confront challenges and build on strengths.