Mike Brooks, who has been a fixture in Columbia's business scene for five years, announced Wednesday he is retiring from his position as the city's director of economic development and president of Regional Economic Development Inc.

Brooks decided to retire because his wife is the primary caregiver for her 92-year-old mother in Indiana. The couple will move there after Brooks leaves his job in Columbia sometime between the end of September and mid-December. Brooks announced his decision to City Manager Mike Matthes and his staff this morning.

"This is one of the hardest decisions I've made in a long time because I love what I do," Brooks said. "But at the end of the day, family tends to be the trump card."

Since coming to Columbia in 2009, Brooks, a native of Greensburg, Ind., drew attention for some of the companies he helped attract to Columbia as well as his focus on nurturing entrepreneurship.

"When he came to town, he kind of made our heads turn in terms of focus," said Vicki Russell, Tribune publisher and chairwoman of REDI.

Soon after he started, Brooks worked to help bring an IBM service center to Columbia, a move that brought hundreds of jobs to the city. Columbia had tried to recruit IBM before but had not put together a strong incentives package.

"Mike brought in the city council, the city staff, the community, the banks, etc., and we put together an outstanding proposal," former REDI Chairman Dave Griggs said. "And the results of that are here."

Still, Brooks said he is most proud of his work with Columbia's entrepreneurial community.

"The beauty of the entrepreneurial strategy is that you can do it every day," he said. "An IBM-type of project might come to a community every 10 or 15 years."

Brooks cited Beyond Meat as an example of homegrown economic development. The company uses technology developed at the University of Missouri to make meat substitutes. Although Beyond Meat is headquartered in California, it kept its first production facility in Columbia.

One of Brooks' biggest strengths has been his ability to bring together groups for economic development, Russell said.

"Mike very quietly and very carefully brought all those people together," she said. "Now when we see an opportunity that is a good fit for Mid-Missouri, � we have people from the county, city, the university."

The presence of MU, Columbia College and Stephens College gives Columbia a unique opportunity to foster this type of entrepreneurship, Brooks said. Research from universities can create the technology that drives businesses forward, and each new academic year brings a new crop of potential business leaders.

Because students interested in starting their own businesses often do not know how to access help from the community, Brooks said he has worked to help make resources visible and easy to access. The annual #BOOM entrepreneurship conference has been a key example of this type of outreach, he said.

"I hope the heart I put into entrepreneurial business becomes a foundation going forward," Brooks said. "The base we have here, it cries for entrepreneurship."

This article was published in the Wednesday, June 18, 2014 edition of the Columbia Daily Tribune with the headline "REDI chief announces retirement;�Brooks going back to home state of Indiana."