The staff and board of the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance often talk about the pipeline, but they’re not speaking of a tube with water, oil or some other fluid running through it.

The pipeline is what they call the listing of all the economic development prospects the alliance is currently working with.

That pipeline is now as full as it’s been since the alliance was formed in 2011 through the merger of the old Fort Dodge Area Chamber of Commerce and former Development Corporation of Fort Dodge and Webster County.

There are 16 prospects in the pipeline that represent $1.2 billion worth of potential investment, according to Dennis Plautz, the chief executive officer of the alliance.

He said there’s no guarantee that any of those prospects will ever come to Webster County. But he said the fact that there are that many prospects shows that the work of the alliance is paying off.

Plautz singled out the work of Kelly Halsted, the alliance’s economic development director, for the success in developing prospects.

“The efforts that Kelly has put in, that the alliance is putting in, are getting us better results,” he said,

“We’re not throwing mud at the wall, hoping something sticks,” he added.

While the list of prospects grows, existing businesses are also expanding.

As an example, Plautz noted that CJ Bio America, a maker of amino acids and fertilizer, is doing a $51 million expansion at its plant in the industrial park called Iowa’s Crossroads of Global Innovation.

Also, Josephson Manufacturing Co., a maker of radiators and cooling packages for heavy equipment, completed a $6 million expansion of its downtown plant last year.

And AML Riverside LLC, a maker of veterinary medicines, now employs 60 people. Plautz said the company had to have 30 employees by the beginning of this year as a requirement of some of the incentives it received to come to Fort Dodge.

Between 2008 and 2018, local wages have increased by 24.5 percent, according to Growth Alliance statistics.

Economic development isn’t the only mission of the Growth Alliance. It also has a community development function.

One of the most visible elements of that community development mission is a program called Leadership Fort Dodge. It aims to prepare future community leaders by introducing them to the basics of local government, education and business. There is a waiting list of people wanting to get into that program.

Jill Nelson, the alliance’s community development director, has described Leadership Fort Dodge as a “broad-based interactive experience that seeks to shape future leaders by providing them with background information and tools to become a positive force in the community.”