Oklahoma City will be hosting the first national Empowerment Zone conference.

Monday, October 25th at 6:30, an awards reception and dinner will be held at the Petroleum Club.

On Tuesday, October 26 and Wednesday, October 27, the conference will be held at the Civic Center Hall of Mirrors.

The entire week of October 25th will be declared Empower OKC Week by Mayor Cornett.

Congressman Istook will be receiving the Mayor's Award for his legislative work for Oklahoma City's Empowerment Zone. Mayor Cornett will be the keynote speaker at the Monday night reception and dinner. Nine other awards will be given to partners, developers and developments and individuals who have made a significant impact in the Empowerment Zone.

Check out more details at the EZ website at:

www.okc.gov/planning/ez/conference

Thanks for posting the conference information Patrick! It was a terrific success!!

At the Monday evening awards dinner at the Petroleum Club, we had around 90 people attend. Mayor Cornett was a terrific keynote speaker and Congressman Istook was great! Everyone seemed to have a good time and it was great to be able to show appreciation to the winners of this years awards for their work in the Empowerment Zone.

Tuesday we had around a 100 people at the Civic Center Hall of Mirrors. Wednesday we had around 80 to 90. We had EZ reprsentatives from San Antonio, Dallas, Phoenix and Tucson.

Jim Roth was an awesome and inspiring opening speaker. At the end of his talk he shared photos of our EZ. There were very few dry eyes in the room. It was extremely moving for everyone to see the people that we have the charge to help improve the quality of their lives. A very good point to show and make. The Funders Forum was enlightening to many attendees. This was moderated by Carole Wilkenson Troy with the Center of Non Profits. Carole brought with her a representative from Chesapeak Engergy, OGE, Potts Family Foundation, Bank of America, OKC Community Foundation, EPA and the Greater OKC Chamber of Commerce. Anita Perez Ferguson was stupendous with her talk on Diversity. Susan Urbach was terrific with her talk on how to get that great idea from mind to paper and how to develop a business plan.

On Wednesday we had the very best seminar on Urban Brownfields Investment and Redevelopment: Strategies and Resources with Charlie Bartch and Bill Abolt. The room was inspired with new ideas of and partnership capabilites of how to redevelop Oklahoma City's brownfields. The luncheon speaker was Marty Kavanaugh on Traits of a Leader. The afternoon speaker was Warren Butler on the Section 108 loans.

The word from attendees was this was a conference that will make a differnence!!