WESTLAND — Westland Mayor William R. Wild has been appointed to serve along with Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz from Burnsville, Minnesota as co-chairs to the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) Small Business and Entrepreneurship Task Force.

The mayors were selected by the president of the organization, Mayor Bryan K. Barnett of Rochester Hills, MI.

“Mayor Wild has long been a leader and a national voice on entrepreneurship and I was excited to appoint him to represent Westland on the national stage as we work on this important aspect of job creation and our economy,” commented Mayor Barnett.  “Wild is in a unique position to lead, coming from a small business background, and I am confident that he will help the USCM develop a proactive, strategic agenda through this task force.”

The Task Force is comprised of mayors from across the country who will share their experiences on how they’ve been able to grow and support small businesses and entrepreneurship in their cities. They will also hear from representatives from small businesses nationwide to learn more about how to incubate new ideas for small business growth.

The USCM is the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are over 1,400 such cities in the United States today. Wild has been engaged with the organization since he took Mayoral Office in 2007.

“It is an honor to be selected to co-chair this task force as we examine the crucial topics of business retention, growth and job creation,” Mayor Wild said.

“I look forward to sharing best practices and ideas with the nation’s Mayors as we work to strengthen the United States economy one community at a time.”

Wild has been active in including Arab Americans in his administration, while encouraging and supporting myriad Arab American businesses in the city, as detailed in this article from The Arab American News.