New ED Manager Takes Off After Just a Couple of Weeks on the Job

Jeff Green | Jan 11, 2017

By the time Richard Allen was introduced as the new Manager of Economic Development at the December Meeting of Frontenac County Council, the news of his hiring was already out. Members of the county Community Development Advisory Committee (CDAC) had already been informed of the hiring. As well, Allen had made a splash the day before by walking into Kingston City Hall and announcing two years into his mandate as a member of City Council that he was resigning his council seat in order to take on the job for Frontenac County.

He said later that one of the attractions of the job were the regular hours. The job fits the stage of life he has reached, as he has recently become a father for the first time and serving as  a city councilor meant missing most evenings at home during the week.

“With this job I will be home at least some evenings during the week,” he said.

He is not home evenings this week, however.

One of the first decisions that was made at the senior staff level at the county after he was hired was to use much of the 2017 Economic Development travel budget on a single trip. Allan is joining his colleagues from the Kingston (including Mayor Bryan Patterson) and the Ontario Ministry of Food and Agriculture (OMAFRA) on a 10 day trip to China. They are visiting the headquarters of Feihe International Inc, which recently announced plans to build a $225 million processing, research and development facility in Kingston.

Feihe International will be producing baby formula at the new facility, mostly for the Chinese market, and at the start they will be making use of excess skim milk from the existing Ontario dairy industry. In the future, however, Feihe has plans to make formula out of goat's milk, and projects a need for 75 million litres of goat milk per year from Eastern Ontario in the coming years.

While there will be an impact on the job market in Frontenac County from the 200 jobs that will be created when the factory opens, the greater potential impact is on local and regional agriculture.

“For the county to be aware of those opportunities it is important to be involved right from the beginning,” Vandewal said. “With our history in agriculture and proximity to Kingston we are well positioned to be part of the supply chain, for new companies to settle here and existing ones to adjust or expand,” said Frontenac County Warden Ron Vandewal.

Before leaving for China on the ten day trip last Sunday (January 8) Allen pointed out that the scale of  the market in China is beyond anything we are used to in Eastern Ontario.

“There are 35 million babies born each year in China, that's where you see numbers like 72 million litres of annual goat milk production, come from. In terms of agriculture in Eastern Ontario, that would require over a hundred large farms, Allen said. “Then there are other agricultural infrastructure issues, such as shipping and distribution, the entire supply chain. It is a large project.”

The trip runs for ten days, and while Frontenac County is paying for Allen's flight and accommodations, many of the other costs are being covered by Feihe.

Who is Richard Allen
Richard Allen has a short commute to work each day, since he lives in rural Kingston on his family farm that is located across the road from the Frontenac County offices. He also has a family cottage on Bob's Lake on the Central Frontenac side.

After graduating from High School in Kingston he went to Concordia University where he did a degree in Fine Arts,  and  he eventually worked for Katimavik, which was a national program for youth and young adults. He was a Director at KEDCO (Kingston Economic Development Corporation) and worked in the Community Solutions Lab at the Queen’s University Smith School of business. He was elected to council from Countryside Ward in 2014.

“I’m a big fan of doing work that benefits the community, and the direction the county seems to be going is working with the communities to grow existing businesses, and to complement them with new businesses, rather than the smoke stack chasing economic development in more urban locations. We are looking for companies that compliment what we have,” he said.

He said that his work is set out in the economic development charter that Frontenac County adopted a couple of years ago and in the new branding initiative that was developed last year.

“I am familiar with much of the county, aside from Frontenac Islands, where I will be visiting when I get back from China,” he said, “but taking this job is not a stepping stone to something else for me. It is a continuation of my commitment to rural community development where I live.”

One of the tasks that dominated the agenda for Allan’s predecessor, Anne Marie Young, will not be as much a part of his responsibilities. The purchase of lands or easements for the Tichborne to Sharbot Lake section of the K&P Trail, and the final build out of the trail, will be handled by County Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender.

“The management of the trail and marketing, signage, etc will be part of the responsibilities of our department, but the trail will not be as central to my job as it was before,” he said.