Port Angeles: Business leader from Australia talks up small towns that made an economic difference

PORT ANGELES — Residents in Western Australia’s tiny remote communities have engaged their collective brain matter to create and innovate.

Then, they followed up by forcefully flexing their marketing muscle to create economic prosperity from nothing.

All this without government assistance.

So said David Beurle, managing director of Innovative Leadership Australia, addressing about 100 at a Port Angeles Rotary Club meeting Wednesday. Beurle’s presentation at Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant was part of the Clallam Economic Development Council’s Community Leadership Day program.

“The first step is when people say ‘our town is going to go a different way’ and economic development came from the investment of their people,” Beurle said in a thick Australian accent.

The Economic Development Council joined with the Northwest Area Foundation to bring Beurle to Port Angeles.

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The rest of the story appears in the Thursday Peninsula Daily News.