For Jeff Gregory, successful community development doesn’t mean growth for growth’s sake. It isn’t about allowing just any business to come into the community and set up shop. As the long-time Mayor of the City of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Gregory and the team at the Elizabethtown-Hardin County Industrial Foundation want to ensure that incoming businesses are genuinely interested in Elizabethtown, and that the relationship will be mutually beneficial.
“We don’t take them all,” says the Mayor. “They have to be a fit that we feel can help our community. Can we see ourselves forming a partnership with them to advance our community in the future?”
A third-generation resident, Mayor Gregory has devoted much of his personal and professional life to Elizabethtown (often called E-town) and Hardin County. Following a career in law enforcement spanning over 20 years as a Kentucky State Trooper, he entered politics. Successfully becoming Mayor in 2018, Gregory was re-elected in 2022. A determined leader, he has helped to oversee exceptional economic growth and job creation for workers of all ages as well as veterans.
Celebrating 70 years
Mayor Gregory is quick to credit others with Elizabethtown’s ongoing success, including city staff and Andy Games, President and Chief Operating Officer at the Elizabethtown-Hardin County Industrial Foundation (EHCIF). Previously serving as EHCIF Vice President, Andy took over from his father, Rick Games. Serving as President for 25 years, Rick is now Vice President of the Foundation, which was originally formed in January 1956.
All those years ago, the EHCIF launched thanks to some local business executives focused on creating jobs for Elizabethtown. By the early ’60s, the city was recruiting well-known companies like Dow Chemical, Crucible Magnetics, and the Gates Rubber Company. The EHCIF’s mission, it states, is “to create jobs and elevate Hardin County as the top destination for advanced manufacturing, distribution, and industrial companies from across the nation and around the world.”
Another factor behind E-town’s success is vision for growth and prosperity. “We’ve had great leadership forever,” says Games, “and a lot of good Mayors over the last 50 years.” Mayor Gregory agrees and praises James R. Pritchard. Serving as Mayor in the ’70s and into the ’80s, Pritchard and other community leaders spearheaded Elizabethtown’s industrial boom starting about 50 years ago. This saw the city recruiting industry, developing industrial parks long before many other communities, and implementing an Occupational Tax. “They’re the ones who bit the bullet—and got a lot of the political pressure at the time for doing it—but it’s made all the difference in what we look like now,” adds Games.
Location, low taxes, and tailored training
For years, Rick Games liked to say that Elizabethtown was a day’s drive from two-thirds of the United States. On Interstate 65 in the heart of Kentucky, it is easy to get east or west with the Bluegrass Parkway (officially the Martha Layne Collins Blue Grass Parkway), and the Western Kentucky Parkway (Wendell H. Ford Western Kentucky Parkway), just five minutes from two industrial parks. The city also has the nearby Elizabethtown Regional Airport (EKX), and two major railway lines. “Our central location has always been our calling card,” says Mayor Gregory.
Along with its prime location, Elizabethtown-Hardin County stands out for many other reasons, including low taxes and quality education. Long-established school districts are highly ranked, and the area is home to the Elizabethtown Community and Technical College (ECTC), part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). Offering classes at five locations within Hardin County, Washington County, Grayson County, and Meade County, the KCTCS serves residents in 10 counties.
“Our community college is one of 16 regional campuses within the KCTCS and our campus has been here since the late ’60s,” says Games. Along with courses in accounting, business administration systems, and health sciences, the KCTCS offers classes in air conditioning and refrigeration, manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and other hands-on trades. This includes training for industrial partners and certificates in electrical, welding, plumbing, and more.
“If you come in and need training in something specific to your industry, they will build a program and train your people,” says Mayor Gregory. “Whatever industry comes in, they will work with that industry to develop a curriculum that is specific to them, and they will train their people at our community college. It is basically tailored training.”
Welcoming major players
In late 2021, Kentucky announced the $5.8 billion BlueOval SK Battery Park in Glendale, Kentucky. This saw KCTCS and ECTC build a new, specialized training facility and in May 2024, Governor Andy Beshear was joined by community and business leaders for the park’s ribbon-cutting. The park—home to the world’s biggest battery plants—was slated Kentuckians for thousands of new jobs. The massive facilities opened and started making batteries in January 2025, with about 1,500 employees, but by December, it was announced the facility would close, with the joint venture dissolved.
Although this saw job losses, it revealed the area’s resilience. The facility is now in a reboot, and will see Ford Energy (a wholly owned Ford Motor Company subsidiary) take over the site, which will be used for making U.S.-assembled, grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS). Set to be up and running by 2028, the property will be the home to over 2,100 workers, with a second facility coming online soon after. In the middle of the pandemic, Canadian packaging giant Kruger opened a massive new facility, representing one of 14 different countries with a presence in the industrial park.
Managed by the Elizabethtown-Hardin County Industrial Foundation, the area is also home to the T.J. Patterson Industrial Park and the Gil Niceley, Sr. Industrial Park, named in honor of the long-time farmer and furniture store owner. Nicely served in the Army Air Corps and during WWII, he was aboard the Straight Flush, the B-29 aircraft that served as the lead weather reconnaissance plane during the bombing of Hiroshima. “Gil had a lot of history here,” says Mayor Gregory. “He was a great citizen, and we thought that it would be appropriate to continue to name that area after him because of all the things he’s done, not only for the city but for the country.”
Some of the largest manufacturers in the area include Metalsa, which makes truck frames for Ford, and Altec, which manufactures products like telecommunication and electrical utility trucks. And, apart from the County school system, other key employers include Baptist Health Hardin and Fort Knox, a sprawling military base home to about 12,000 individuals and a big draw to the area.
A rich business landscape
Along with large manufacturers, many other businesses are coming to E-town. The area’s sixth McDonald’s is in the works, and the city is home to two Chick-fil-A’s. On the grocery side, there is Publix, and Elizabethtown’s third Kroger’s will be the largest in the state of Kentucky. The city also punches above its weight in hotels, while numerous other restaurants, clubs, entertainment venues, shops, and the Lincoln Trail Area Development District (LTADD) also boost the area’s popularity.
The LTADD encompasses seven counties, with Elizabethtown serving as a hub. Many drive to Elizabethtown for work, and the area sees an estimated daily daytime population exceeding 110,000. And for those wanting to permanently settle in the city, Elizabethtown has seen the creation of several thousand housing units since 2021.
A great place to build a business, Elizabethtown is also building a reputation as a sports and entertainment hub. Opened in 2012, the multi-million-dollar Elizabethtown Sports Park is a sprawling, 158-acre complex with dozens of baseball and soccer fields, pedestrian trails, and more. The Sports Park is a major destination from March to October for anything sports-related in the eastern half of the U.S., with people coming from all over to play baseball, soccer, football, and lacrosse. The area recently hosted about 100 soccer teams and 50 baseball teams, most of them from out-of-state.
To attract concert-goers, construction is underway for a new 10,000-seat outdoor concert venue. Estimated to cost about $40 million, the venue will host between 35 and 50 shows a year. “What we are trying to do is fill the space in between the weekends,” states Mayor Gregory. “So for your Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday crowds, we are bringing people into our city for concerts, while the weekends are usually maintained by the Sports Park. We want people here just about every day of the week, and think the concert venue and Sports Park will be very compatible and complement each other.” Set to open in the first quarter of 2027, the yet-to-be-named venue will be large enough to host big-name acts.
Ranked number one for startup growth in the nation, Elizabethtown is the fastest-growing city in the state of Kentucky. The city’s success stems from extensive planning and solid leadership. “We’ve never had anybody come in and deflate the balloon. The balloon keeps getting bigger, and keeps going up,” says Games. “Jeff has done a phenomenal job for seven years now, and it’s been the case that each Mayor has been a building block on what the previous Mayor has done.”
Quality of life
Along with solid business attraction and retention, Elizabethtown provides an outstanding quality of life for its residents. With robust police and fire departments, 2023 saw Elizabethtown ranked as one of the five safest cities in the United States per capita by the FBI. Public safety remains a top priority.
“I’ve said this a million times over seven and a half years, but if people feel your city isn’t safe or clean, you can’t do the rest of the work,” says Mayor Gregory. “You need those pillars in place as a foundation to build upon. So we work hard on public safety and making sure we keep a good, clean city to be attractive to people who want to come here, so we can do the rest of these things.”
Preparing to run as Mayor for the third time and buoyed by a strong and enthusiastic team, Jeff Gregory welcomes the coming years and looks forward to continuing to raise the profile of Elizabethtown and Hardin County.
