Ascension, LLC is seeking a highly analytical and detail-oriented Economic Research and Data Analyst to support the development of Kent County, Maryland’s 2027 Economic and Tourism Development Strategic Plan.

The selected consultant will collect, organize, validate, analyze, and interpret economic, demographic, workforce, business, industry, and tourism data. The analyst will transform quantitative and qualitative information into defensible findings, visualizations, performance measures, and recommendations that Kent County can use to guide economic and tourism development decisions over the next five years.

This role is important because the strategic plan must be grounded in current research and credible evidence—not general assumptions. The analyst’s work will support the identification of priority industries, competitive advantages, workforce needs, business-development barriers, tourism opportunities, and realistic measures for evaluating implementation progress.

The ideal candidate is an experienced economic researcher who understands how local governments use data to make decisions. The individual must be comfortable working with incomplete or differently structured datasets, reconciling information from multiple sources, documenting assumptions, identifying limitations, and explaining technical findings to nontechnical stakeholders.

Kent County requires the plan to address business attraction and competitiveness, business retention and expansion, entrepreneurship and small-business development, workforce development, and tourism development. It must include actionable short- and medium-term strategies, objectives, and performance measures.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Economic Research and Data Analyst will serve as the project’s primary quantitative research resource. Working under the direction of the Strategic Planning Project Lead, the analyst will establish the analytical foundation for the strategic plan and support the conversion of data into practical, evidence-based recommendations.

The analyst will evaluate Kent County’s economic identity and competitive position, assess industry and workforce conditions, compare Kent County with appropriate peer jurisdictions, and identify trends affecting business growth and tourism. The role will also support the analysis of stakeholder interviews, community meetings, business discussions, and partner input.

Kent County will provide certain data sources it already licenses or possesses, including Tourism Impact Studies, ESRI information, and Lightcast reports. The consultant team must compile other publicly available sources, including USDA Agricultural Census and Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data. Independent economic modeling is not required unless proposed as a value-added enhancement.

The successful candidate must be:

• Self-directed and able to complete assignments with limited supervision.
• Organized and disciplined in maintaining data traceability.
• Skilled at distinguishing reliable findings from unsupported conclusions.
• Comfortable working within a firm-fixed-price environment.
• Able to manage competing research needs and milestone deadlines.
• Responsive to review comments and changing analytical priorities.
• Capable of communicating statistical or economic findings in plain language.
• Careful not to overstate what the available data supports.

Position Responsibilities and Anticipated Activities

The Economic Research and Data Analyst will:

• Collect economic, demographic, workforce, business, industry, agricultural, infrastructure, and tourism data from County-provided and publicly available sources.
• Review the 2022 Economic and Tourism Development Strategic Plan, implementation information, existing studies, County plans, regional strategies, and related background materials.
• Develop a structured data inventory identifying each source, period covered, geographic level, methodology, limitations, and intended analytical use.
• Validate source data for completeness, consistency, duplication, missing values, and apparent anomalies before incorporating findings into the strategic plan.
• Analyze employment, wages, labor-force characteristics, population trends, industry concentration, business composition, workforce availability, and other relevant economic indicators.
• Assess Kent County’s current economic conditions, business environment, competitive position, and emerging opportunities.
• Identify three to five potential priority sectors using defensible indicators such as employment concentration, growth, wages, supply-chain relationships, local assets, infrastructure requirements, workforce availability, and market opportunity.
• Compare Kent County with approximately three to five peer counties or jurisdictions selected based on rural profile, economic composition, industry mix, tourism characteristics, and other relevant factors.
• Evaluate business attraction and competitiveness factors, including infrastructure, zoning, permitting, workforce, property availability, business costs, access to markets, and institutional support.
• Assess business-retention and expansion conditions, including workforce barriers, infrastructure constraints, County responsiveness, communications, supply-chain opportunities, and business-support practices.
• Map the entrepreneurship and small-business support ecosystem, including available lenders, mentors, technical-assistance providers, educational institutions, and Small Business Development Center resources.
• Analyze current and projected workforce needs by industry and occupation, including skills, education, training, labor availability, and barriers involving housing, transportation, childcare, and digital access.
• Evaluate tourism-related data concerning visitor activity, lodging, amenities, recreation, attractions, waterfront assets, wayfinding, events, cultural resources, and high-value visitor groups.
• Integrate quantitative research with qualitative findings from stakeholder interviews, community meetings, business discussions, and County leadership sessions.
• Code and categorize stakeholder comments to identify recurring themes, differences among stakeholder groups, and issues requiring further validation.
• Create charts, tables, maps, dashboards, summary exhibits, and data visualizations suitable for inclusion in technical reports, executive briefings, and public-facing materials.
• Develop concise data summaries explaining what each finding means for County strategy, rather than merely presenting statistics.
• Support the development of strategic goals, action plans, resource requirements, implementation priorities, and short-term and medium-term recommendations.
• Design practical performance measures, baseline indicators, targets, data sources, reporting frequencies, and responsible parties for tracking plan implementation.
• Draft technical report sections describing research methods, economic conditions, peer benchmarking, industry findings, workforce analysis, tourism analysis, and supporting conclusions.
• Maintain source citations, research notes, analytical assumptions, calculation methods, file versions, and data lineage sufficient for independent quality review.
• Conduct quality-control reviews to confirm that narrative findings agree with source data, charts, tables, maps, and calculations.
• Respond to County and project-team comments during the 25%, 50%, 75%, and final review cycles.
• Support preparation of presentation materials for the Economic and Tourism Development Commission, County staff, stakeholders, and the Board of County Commissioners.

Analytical Tools and Processes

The analyst should be proficient with a combination of the following tools and methods:

• Microsoft Excel, including pivot tables, formulas, data validation, lookups, charts, Power Query, and structured workbooks.
• Power BI, Tableau, or comparable business-intelligence and visualization software.
• ESRI ArcGIS, ArcGIS Online, or comparable geographic-information-system tools.
• Lightcast, QCEW, U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, USDA Agricultural Census, and related public datasets.
• Data-cleaning, normalization, reconciliation, and quality-control techniques.
• Descriptive statistics, trend analysis, peer benchmarking, industry analysis, and workforce analysis.
• Qualitative coding and thematic analysis for interviews and stakeholder comments.
• Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for technical reporting and executive communication.
• Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, or comparable collaboration and document-management platforms.
• Version control, source tracking, analytical review checklists, and reproducible calculation methods.

The County does not require independent forecasting or advanced economic modeling. Accordingly, candidates do not need to be econometricians, but they must be capable of conducting rigorous applied economic analysis and translating the results into strategic recommendations.