In 1968, six townships in Minnehaha County surrounding Sioux Falls and two northern townships in Lincoln County formed the Greater Sioux Falls Regional Planning Commission. Eventually, the remaining townships in Minnehaha and Lincoln counties were included and in 1970, the Sioux Empire Council of Governments (SECOG) was created. In December of 1970, Governor Frank Farrar created the boundaries for six regional Planning and Development Districts throughout the State of South Dakota. Under the Governor’s plan, District 2 consisted of the following six counties: Clay, Lincoln, McCook, Minnehaha, Turner and Union Counties.

In 1972, the six counties came to an agreement on how the organization would be structured, and the entity was renamed the South Eastern Council of Governments (SECOG). SECOG’s governing board consisted of local elected officials with one non-elected official serving as the non-voting Chair. The amount of dues paid to the organization determined the number of voting seats each governmental entity received on the board. The original board consisted of the three City Commissioners from Sioux Falls, three County Commissioners from Minnehaha County, the Mayor of Vermillion, and one Commissioner from Clay, Lincoln, McCook, Turner, and Union Counties.

To better address the needs of the area, SECOG’s Board was structured into two separate commissions: the Rural Commission and the Urbanized Commission. Additionally, a separate advisory board of law enforcement was formed to administer the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) funds. The Urbanized Commission eventually became the designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for transportation planning. During the early years, the agency also was the designated Community Action Program (CAP) for the southeastern area of South Dakota.

In the mid-1970s, SECOG had nearly 30 employees, a million dollar budget, and office locations in Sioux Falls and Vermillion. SECOG initially received most of its funding from the federal government. However, federal funds began to diminish and by the early 1980s, the Vermillion office was closed and staff was reduced to five people at SECOG. As SECOG began to receive more of its funding from local sources, SECOG’s focus was modified to meet the needs at the local level. Technical assistance for local governments included: ordinance certification, risk management assessments, municipal annual reports and budgets, comprehensive plans, insurance reviews, establishment of Crooks as a municipality, solid waste management and research on a number of concepts for municipal and county governments. The City of Sioux Falls also assumed a more active role in the transportation planning process with SECOG maintaining the administrative arm of the MPO.

In 2002, SECOG created the South Eastern Development Foundation, which is a regional revolving loan fund designed to assist individuals that want to create or expand a business in the region. SECOG serves as staff for the organization.

In 2006, SECOG created Dakota BUSINESS Finance which offers SBA’s 504 loan program statewide.

Over the years, SECOG has had five executive directors: Bill Choate, John Norton, Dean Nielsen, Alec Boyce, and Lynne Keller and five chairmen: Loren Carlson, John Zimmer, Steve Merrick, Rick Knobe and Ted Muenster.