By Jacob Mathias

The Portage County Business Council is developing a new community marketing website to attract and welcome prospective employees and residents to the area.

PCBC Executive Director Todd Kuckkahn said the website will be a one-stop shop for prospective residents of Portage County. Information related to education, housing, business, lifestyle and other quality of life information will be included.

The currently-unnamed website is the result of New Era, a workshop comprised of citizens dedicated to improving communities.

“The person can go into this one portal and filter through and get to all that rather than having to Google search or probe all over the internet to find things,” said Kuckkahn, who expects employers will provide a link to the new website when they send out job opening information.

The PCBC’s current website has brief entries under the topic of Portage Co. life, but the new site will be much more detailed and direct visitors to more exact information they are seeking.

“This community website will be more for talent attraction and retention,” said Angel Whitehead, PCBC marketing communications coordinator.

A calendar of events will also feature on the site.

“If there are other family members involved in the decision to come to our community, those family members can go to the same portal and find out what they’re interested in,” said Kuckkahn.

The PCBC is working with local schools, the Stevens Point Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, and municipal government to gather information needed for the site. More organizations will be contacted for input as the PCBC furthers development of the site.

While the website is not currently named, the PCBC is expecting to choose the name in the next week from over 30 entries they received as part of a contest.

The website is being developed by Wausau-based Virtual Vision Computing, which also has a Stevens Point location. Kuckkahn is expected the site to be completed sometime this fall but said it could be as late as the end of the year.

“We always try to keep business within the membership,” said Kuckkahn.

More information on the PCBC can be found on their website.