Wish This Was a 60-Second Video, But. . .

. . . the hour-plus long video is still a must-see.

Bill Fruth was brought to Licking County by our LEDO, Grow Licking County Community Improvement Corporation, as part of a educational series on economic development.

Since I doubt few will watch the whole video, here's my summation from just two slides.

Bill points out that "manufacturing accounts for 41% of imported wealth" to Licking County's economy.  Bill also points out the need to focus attention on growing your existing, primary industries. 

Take away: Focus on manufacturing.

Why do public entities often need to get involved in readying industrial land? Sites are the most important element of the site selection process. Bill shows why communities need to get involved with this chart where the sale value of land versus economic benefit to a community for land.

Take away:  Economic development is ultimately a real estate transaction.

Still go watch the video.  It's chock full of lessons.

Record Employment for Licking County

Today, the October employment levels and unemployment rate numbers for Ohio were published.  They are available online.  Above is an excerpt of the 2014 numbers for Licking County.

October 2014 sets a new record for employment in Licking County.  With 81,900 employed, 2,300 more people are employed than were at the start of 2014.  More people are employed than ever before in fact.

Celebrate, Grow Licking County CIC.  It's easy to see this is a record that will keep getting broken in 2015 too.

A Notable Record

Licking County can celebrate.  All of Licking County can celebrate a metric that measures up better than any metric one can seek.

Today, the employment numbers were released for May 2014.  May showed 81,100 persons employed.

That's an all-time high in the history of Licking County.  All.  Time.  High.

It's 100 more people than were employed in July 2013 when the previous record level was noticed.

All of Licking County is seeing the benefits of true cooperation in economic development.  The Grow Licking County CIC can take hand, pat self on back.

Goodyear Joins Innovation Birthing Ward

Licking County's Southgate Corporation has proven, once again, the value of spec buildings in the industrial marketplace.  And Grow Licking County has landed another one.

Goodyear is readying the industrial building in Hebron in Central Licking County for its new product development center.  The Newark Advocate has the headline at the top of the front page today.

The next generation of manufacturing process innovations for Goodyear could get born right here.

Licking County is an innovation birthing ward, of sorts, in Ohio for just this type of thing. 

Here's just a few of the examples that came to mind after just a few sips of my coffee this morning.

Boeing has a 3D prototyping center at the Port Authority's Aerospace Center.  UTC Aerospace Systems is designing future inertial navigation systems here too.

Acuity Brands' Holophane development center is in Granville Township.  It's near the Owens Corning Science & Technology campus.

Bayer MaterialScience and its North American polycarbonate plant has a product development center that boasts a same-day turn around on prototypes and materials.

There's more.

Now, where can we house the blimps?

Learning From a Loss

What's true in sports is also true in the business world.  You can  learn more from a loss than from a win.  Often, the lessons from a loss can help you win more in the future.

I have been trying to learn from a 2008 loss, and I finally got the lesson this week.

A project nicknamed Project P. was a high-tech fabricated metal vessel project that would have brought a good number of high-tech jobs and a large capital investment to Licking County.  It started looking in mid 2007, but ended with no location anywhere in 2008.

We were flattered to be in the final five out of a search that began, in earnest, with 68 sites physically looked at in 14 states.  We were the last of seven sites looked at in Ohio to survive the cut.

Our competition was strong as we were the only northern site and the only Industrial Midwest site left standing.  Seeing the list for this client, it would have come down to supply chain and workforce productivity over lower cost labor and utility rates.

The site search process was extensive with 130+ consideration items in the RFP and a three-day, deep dive look at the community too.  The company and site selectors spent more time dissecting the livability of our community than some people who have lived their whole lives here have.

Then, the economy tanked and the project never went anywhere--a loss, for every site.

On Wednesday, site selection consultant Mark Sweeney gave a confidential debrief on it to a handful of Grow Licking County development partners.  His debrief helped show where our community and site strengths were that helped us survive deep into the process.  It also showed us where our community and site weaknesses were that could (he never said if we would have won or not) have seen us not make the final cut.

It was a valuable lesson on how to learn how to win more in the future by learning from the loss.

I bet it helps us learn more.

The NAM Growth Agenda: Licking County is Living It

The four-point Growth Agenda from the National Association of Manufacturers is a score card for policy makers at the U.S., state, and local level for ensuring the chances for a manufacturing resurgence are realized.  The agenda is familiar in many ways, not just because I've been writing about the need for a national manufacturing policy for years but also because Licking County is living it.

Goal One is really a statement of the need to embrace manufacturing, which would be the 10th largest economy in the World if it were its own country.  Investing in infrastructure and ensuring energy independence are key too.

We are doing our part in Licking County, including creating Grow Licking County with the motto "Simplifying Success" which is aimed right at making more people see that Licking County is the best place to manufacture and invest.

Goal Two is a policy challenge for innovation to find ways to spark R&D and protect intellectual property rights. 

Licking County boasts R&D from companies like Bayer MaterialScience and its prototype design center to UTC Aerospace Systems and its next generation inertial navigation systems R&D.

Goal Three is a focus on access to markets, not just a plea for more free trade agreements but also a plea to enforce fair trade too. 

Licking County manufacturers stand out for export capability, but we can always look for more ways to advocate to improve. 

Goal Four is workforce and a call to invest in skills training and focus on STEM skills.  This really could have been goal one. Though it starts with improving our national approach to funding education vs. skills training, it really is a local issue to provide a skilled workforce. 

Licking County's C-TEC is one of the few providers in Ohio of a NAM MSCC-certification for entry level workers.  While many have talked about STEM education efforts, Licking County has done it. Workforce truly is number one on our growth agenda.

Today, I'm pleased to play host for the Licking County Chamber of Commerce Manufacturer's Council.  This is the leaders of Licking County manufacturers coming together to learn from each other and grow their business.

Watching Employment: Licking County Hits Record Levels

Two charts tell the story pretty well.  There is reason for celebration in Licking County.

Record employment.  Source: Ohio LMI CLF Estimates Query

Record labor force size.  Source: Ohio LMI CLF Estimates Query

June 2013 is a record-setter in both the size of the labor force in Licking County and the number of people employed.  The 87,300 labor force size is a record high for Licking County.  The 81,100 employment level is also a record high.

These high points are pretty sure signals that Licking County is back from the Great Recession.

These are both according to today's Labor Force Estimates as published by the Ohio LMI state agency.

Though no one can take credit for this good news, I'm sure Grow Licking County will have something good to say about this--as they should.

We're a Companies Town

The "company town" concept is still valid today, just in a different way.

When I heard Susan Suver, VP from US Steel, say that at a recent Ohio development summit, it struck me.  She's right.

Though China may have whole towns of 350,000 people all employed in one single supply chain, there aren't really any true company towns left in the U.S.  What she meant is that the general concept of a company town is still valid when workforce development, economic development, local government, and the whole of the community are behind the success of a company.

When everyone in a town is working together to simplify success for a company, that's the concept of the company town still alive and kicking. 

Licking County resembles that remark and our tag line for Grow Licking County is meant to invoke the concept that we are a town big enough to have the resources to fulfill business needs, yet small enough to work for the success of one company at a time.

The company town concept remains valid, and it's another reason for a company to expand and grow here.  We're a company town.  Make that plural though.

Testimony on Increasing User Fees to Fund Development, Infrastructure

I testified at two public hearings conducted by the Licking County Board of Commissioners as they consider increasing user fees on conveyance of real estate and on vehicle licensing.  Here's what I said:

The second floor at The Works contains so much history. It also contains proof that the people of Licking County have long understood the strong link between transportation infrastructure, economic development, and jobs.  Proving that point is that the voters of Licking County in the mid-19th-century paid for the railroad connections that made Newark and Licking county the nexus of the Ohio River and Lake Erie.

It was user fees that helped pay for our canals, our railroads, and our highways that have formed the basis for growth and development in Licking County for the last 200 years.  Imagine if our forefathers hadn’t invited and attracted those investments in the past.  How much different, for the worse, would our economy be if we had not seen these past investments ever happen here?

Fast forward.  Now, in 2013, we find ourselves in a global competition for jobs that requires us to reinvest in our infrastructure and to gear up for a stronger effort in economic development.   We don’t have to go far, though, to see that we are at risk of losing ground.  Muskingum County gives land away to attract jobs.  There are some years where Perry County has spent more general fund dollars on economic development than we have.  Fairfield County has combined resources and devoted more funding to marketing in one year than we have in the last 10 years combined.  

Once ahead of others, we now risk falling behind unless we act to give a more solid financial footing to the already-successful efforts of the County-Chamber-Port Authority development partnership--Grow Licking County.  Time spent trolling for dollars can instead be spent attracting new capital investment and the jobs that come with it.

And while a modest increase in the conveyance fee for sale of real estate is only part of the equation, these investments will indeed go a long way in leveling the economic development playing field and bringing future growth opportunities, and with that job opportunities, to Licking County.

I urge the Board of Commissioners to approve the request for a conveyance fee dedicated to economic development.  I also support a permissive tax increase for infrastructure improvements.  These two user fees are both necessary to keep Licking County progressing forward.

 

Grow Licking County, Grow

Like the Tip O'Neill saying for politics, it's true that all economic development is local.

No offense to the miriad of regional and state-level organizations that dole out incentives and herd projects during the numbers stage, but no investment occurs and no job gets created without a site and a superior community effort behind it.

That's why yesterday's groundbreaking for a major expansion by the Ascena Group in Licking County was so significant. The Newark Advocate reported on the $74MM/225-job project today.

There were many hands in the successful effort to convince Ascena officials to invest here. The hands of Grow Licking County and exec Dan Evers, in particular, stand out.

He proved the tag line for the new CIC is right.   He simplified success.

Dan helped close the most notable deal of Grow Licking County's short, one-year life. His quote in the news report shows he gets it: "When you have a company as big as Ascena, to make a decision to be here twice, it's a market validation."

It is also validates the Port Authority decision to invest in a collaborative, professionally-led, totally-focused LOCAL approach with the new CIC. It's easy to be proud of our investment of resources and leadership to get it going when it works like it has to date.

Grow Licking County, grow.