Catherine Bieterman has been serving as the Economic Development Director for the City of Beachwood since 2022. She has been in the field of Economic Development since 2005, serving as Director of Economic Development for the City of Painesville and prior served various supporting roles for Chambers of Commerce including Executive Director of the Streetsboro Area Chamber of Commerce and intern for government affairs division of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce while attending Youngstown State University.
She has been recognized for her ability to support asset based economic development and her efforts in regional collaboration. She has been instrumental in projects related to business financing, brownfield revitalization, mixed-use redevelopment, energy and sustainability and strategic community and urban revitalization. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a Major in Public Administration. Catherine is passionate about supporting business growth and commercial revitalization and actively pursues collaborative partnerships that support the greater region.
Some of her most recent projects within the City of Beachwood include the restructuring of a Community Improvement Corporation (CIC). Under this CIC a new Revolving Loan Committee and Innovation Committee have been formed to oversee a new $1 million-dollar revolving loan fund which has been established to support investments in emerging industry clusters and revitalization for commercial office buildings. She has also been working on a new Commercial Office Building Technical Assistance Program that will support owners of commercial office buildings within the City in exploring new opportunities to finance investments, lower operating costs and increase energy efficiency. As of late she has been gathering regional support to open new site development opportunities by working in partnership with the City of Cleveland, Team Neo and the Cuyahoga County Department of Development, enabling City leaders to acquire 43 acres at Harvard Road and I-271 to the west of Eaton Corporation.
In addition to these items, she has also formed a new One Stop Business Resource Center with a virtual platform and a new podcast series called the Beachwood Business Compass Podcast. This Center is designed to share the resources that exist here within Northeast Ohio to support the growth of small businesses.
Transcript
Catherine Bieterman: I’ve been involved in economic development for 20 years now. I often hear Northeast Ohio referred to as one of the hardest working most dedicated regions in the state of Ohio and I think that’s because we have so many municipalities and so many communities that it takes us extra force to be able to come together and drive that change and team NEO is the leading entity that really brings us all together under that umbrella. Collaboration really is the bridge to building a strong economy and a strong region here for Northeast Ohio and I think there’s a lot of opportunity for us to share best practices and continue to talk amongst one another as we’re working through complex projects and complex situations and that really enables us to become better economic development directors overall. I think what drives me is really seeing change and being a small part of something much bigger. This recognition really inspires me to be able to think more creatively continue to move forward in a profound way going now into the future.