# Corey Parks Corey Parks, MBA, PCED, IOM, is the Chief Economic Development Officer at the [[Conway Development Corporation]] / [[Conway Area Chamber of Commerce]]. Parks is the **primary developer-side staff coordinator on Project Stratus operational matters** — distinct from [[Jamie Gates]]'s role as Council-facing spokesperson. Parks coordinates with [[City of Conway]] Transportation engineer [[Kurt Jones]] and Planning staff [[Anne Tucker]] on permits, stormwater design, and the project decision-matrix work; he is the relay between [[EMH&T]] (the project's site-civil engineer) and the City. ## Role and affiliations - Chief Economic Development Officer, Conway Development Corporation / Conway Area Chamber of Commerce. - Office at 900 W Oak Street, Conway, AR 72032. Phone: 501.932.5402 (office), 479.769.5138 (cell). - Email: `[email protected]` (Chamber/CDC domain). - Credentials: MBA, PCED (Professional Community and Economic Developer), IOM (Institute for Organization Management). ## Appearances in the corpus - **2025-01-21** — earliest appearance. The [[Project Stratus Permits Sequencing and Stormwater|Project Stratus Stormwater Call Request]] email thread initiated by [[EMH&T]]'s Robert McCurnin includes Parks alongside Kurt Jones, Felicia Rogers, and the EMH&T water-resources team. Parks at that point was actively coordinating the project's stormwater pre-application work. - **2025-06-17** — sent the "Project Stratus Required Permits - Response Needed by 6.20.25" email to [[Anne Tucker]] and [[Kurt Jones]] requesting input on a Stratus permitting timeline matrix at the request of "one of their subcontractors" (i.e., a Forgelight consultant). Attached `Project Stratus Permitting 6.17.25.xlsx`. ## Notes Parks's role appears to be the operational, day-to-day project-management interface — the staff who coordinates with the engineering firms, walks the permit timeline with city staff, and manages the project's downstream regulatory flow. The "Chief Economic Development Officer" title at the CDC implies he is the senior operational lead for industrial recruitment, with [[Brad Lacy]] (Chamber president) and [[Jamie Gates]] (deputy / senior staff) above him on the political/Council-facing side. The early-2025 stormwater coordination (six weeks before the April 1 MOU adoption) shows the project was operationally well-advanced before the Council vote. This is consistent with the broader pattern of CDC's pre-application work being substantially complete by the time the project surfaced publicly.