The award, named after former U.S. Rep. Dave Hobson of Springfield, honors regional leaders for advocacy on behalf of the Dayton area.
This award was presented at the coalition’s annual community “Fly-In” event to Washington, D.C.
Past recipients have included Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman, Barbara Mills, Derek Porter, Scott Sullivan, Gen. Lester Lyles, Gen. Tom Owen and J.P. Nauseef, who now leads JobsOhio, the state’s private development corporation.
When Church first became mayor-elect of Miamisburg in late 1991, the U.S. Department of Energy informed the city that its largest employer would soon close.
“That’s how I came into office,” Church said in a city public affairs cable television program in 2018.
More than 26 years later, Church believes the Mound, operating today as a business park, is in a good place.“I’m very pleased with how everything is falling into place,” he told the Dayton Daily News last year.
Church in the early 1990s created a coalition of elected officials and leaders to lobby the Department of Energy to take responsibility for what it had left behind, the coalition noted.
“Over 15 years and a collective $1.1 billion in environmental cleanup later, the site was redeveloped through a new community development corporation and now houses 16 businesses with 355 employees,” the coalition said. “Mayor Church’s persistence in helping create a new strategy for the Mound site has allowed it to once again become a major economic asset to the city.”
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