Let's Build Gonave, Haiti!

About a month ago I got connected to a Haitian American who has been working with coffee exports in Haiti and now they have started their own mead.  Mead is basically a honey wine.  While the product does exists, it uses a series of secret Haitian spices, and local honey from Washington State.  The investor wants to change where the honey is obtained and is looking closely at La Gonave and our budding industry. I had an opportunity to sample his mead, which was amazing.  Next weekend I will visit the meadery that made the product.  While talking to the investor about our plans for the honeybee operation he had mentioned that he would possibly be interested in our honey production and possibly putting the meadery on La Gonave. One of the things I have been pushing from a far is that La Gonave is the best place to do business as it is a blank canvas where you can put various ideas.  The honeybee project is starting to create a rippling effect, which is w...

Before I wrote about an Innovation Park could be what La Gonave needs to spur economic development.  A business park is also something that could also help spur economic development.  In fact, it could be possible to combine the two parks into one.  Imagine the La Gonave Innovation and Business Park.  This could be an opportunity to have both tech and non-tech companies to work together. I bring up the idea of a business park because we are planning to build a honey processing plant in the city of Anse-a-Galets.  While the plant is a couple of years away, honey will be processed on the island well before a true plant is built.  The small extraction center that we will open initially at the start of 2017 will help make the case to get financing for a much larger and faster extraction plant.  Couple this with the need of having warehouse space, and you get the point. A business/innovation park is needed as a place where roads are built, dedicated po...

With the Focus City concept I had talked about how that would work, the players involved, and how it will impact La Gonave. I mentioned that manufacturing is important and even a small manufacturer would be needed in the Focus City to help echo a strong movement of investment on La Gonave.  This is why it is important for the mayor of Anse-a-Galets to help create and establish an industrial park. Now not just your typical industrial park, but one that is innovative.  My proposal is a small technology park of around 10 acres.  One acre would be set aside for a business incubator building, which would help create new technology ideas which could then build the next new company.  A couple of speculative buildings would be built to help ease the process for new firms to locate into the park.  Our idea would be a 10,000 sq. ft and a 15,000 sq. ft speculative buildings.  Also just outside of the park would be a biomass/fuel power plant.  While the po...