Look what the cat dragged in! It’s Gregg Foster, executive director of the Redwood Region Economic Development Commission, here to drink our tea!

Seriously, though: The Outpost’s John Kennedy O’Connor was delighted to welcome this SoHum boy-made-good to Humboldt Tea Time, and to hear his tales from the trenches. Foster is ideally placed to take the broad view of the Humboldt County economy, not only from his childhood during the timber years and the beginnings of the first weed boom, not only from his previous work in the development of Humboldt County air service and redundant broadband, but from his day-to-day, finger-on-pulse work with local businesses as RREDC’s lead staffer.

How well is Humboldt recovering from COVID? Are we on the brink of big new things, and will our infrastructure be able to handle those things? He has thoughts.

Full disclosure: Foster is a (blessedly) former general manager of Lost Coast Communications, the parent company of the Lost Coast Outpost, which, we learn here to our astonishment, was actually his idea.

Today’s official tea-time snack is a Bananas Foster Tartlet — coincidentally, the very nickname Gregg’s UC Davis fraternity brothers assigned him during Pledge Week. Caramelize your Cavendishes, get your PG Tips a-steepin’, then press play to join us!