The area’s first economic summit on jobs took place at the Dothan Civic Center Wednesday.

The meeting brought business professionals and local government leaders together to work on ways to bring more industry to the Wiregrass.

Hundreds of people from local businesses and government agencies gathered to listen to experts and formulate ideas to move in the direction to bring new, high paying jobs to the area; something which they say is going to require a lot of work.

September 1st marks the beginning of what Dothan Mayor Mike Schmitz hopes will become an annual tradition.

The first ever economic summit on jobs was held at the Dothan Civic Center, attracting over 200 businesses and government leaders.

"This is just the start. What a great turnout and now we have a lot of work to do," Mayor Schmitz said.

The focus of the summit is to bring in more industry and high paying jobs.

According to experts the competition to bring in new industries is global and Dothan must be able to break away from the crowd.

“Companies are looking for investment and profit return. [They’re] looking at the world now, the world economy and is our dot going to pop on that Doppler for that company that’s looking in our perspective area,” asked Matt Parker, president Dothan Area Chamber of Commerce.

Attendees broke into seven groups. Each group focused on a specific aspect of our economy, and created a plan.

"We wanted to get people together that had a common interest under the theme of creating jobs and let them come up with what they felt like they could do to help our community develop more jobs," said Houston Co. Commission Chair Mark Culver.

At the end of the day the seven groups presented their plans and will be working over the next year to implement them.

One of the main goals of the summit is to get those high paying jobs in the area so people don’t leave due to lack of opportunity.

The speakers did say Dothan was lucky to have such great assets in medical, agriculture and recreational fields.