Don Holbrook, CEcD, FM

Don Holbrook is a certified economic development professional and a fellow member of the International Economic Development Council in Washington, DC. He has over 15 years direct experience at the CEO level of public sector economic development organizations and 5 years as a site location consultant specializing in entertainment based destination locations that create major tourism outcomes for locales such as Theme parks, Resort/Hotels, Casino Resorts, Water parks, Family Entertainment Centers and Eco-tourism projects.

He specializes in developing catalyst projects to attract private sector investment into destination projects. His unique approach of developing meaningful public private partnerships has created a unique Art of the Deal Today. Holbrook is a consummate professional on all aspects of public and private sector finance and brings a get it done approach to such projects. He has worked on over $1B in investments in his career and created over 50,000 jobs as a result of his projects.

Holbrook is the author of two books "The Little Black Book of Economic Development", published in 2007 and "Who Moved My Smokestack?" published in 2008. His next book, "The Next America- an inconvenient economy!" comes out in late 2010. He is a featured keynote speaker on globalization, fearless leadership in times of economic chaos and the Art of the Deal Today. He is one of the most published thought leaders in the field of economic development. He has appeared on Fox Morning News, NBC Evening News and has been interviewed by the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times and numerous other local television and printed news media.