Focus on Regionalism Key to Success

Washington County Mayor Dan Eldridge was elected the newest chair of the Regional Alliance for Economic Development at its annual meeting Friday, where he told members his role will be one of reviving and refocusing the struggling organization.

Eldridge was among a team of mayors that will now fill the leadership roles at the Alliance. Sullivan County Mayor Steve Godsey will serve as vice chair, Kingsport Mayor Dennis Phillips as treasurer and Patrick Wilson, executive director of the Tri-Cities Regional Airport, will be secretary.

“The opportunity today is to bring in the public sector, but we also look forward to private sector support continuing,” Eldridge said. “The Regional Alliance is a vehicle with which we can learn to compete and win as a region.”

The organization, founded in 2005 by some of the region’s most powerful private-sector players, was previously led by Newt Raff, the market president for First Tennessee Bank. But as Raff said in late 2010, the alliance would be handing over the reins to the public sector at the end of his reign to try a different approach to regional economic development.

“When contemplating the future of the alliance, we decided we needed to make changes,” Raff said Friday. “We believe this new panel can take this forward.”

Officials are hoping the public-led approach (which still does involve plenty of support, financial and otherwise, from the private sector) will mesh more easily with Gov. Bill Haslam’s and the new administration’s approach to economic development. Members are also envisioning the organization will play less of a business recruitment role and instead serve as a marketing draw for the entire region, an approach heralded and practiced by the meeting’s two guest speakers.

Ronnie Bryant, president and CEO of the Charlotte Regional Partnership, called himself an “unapologetic regionalist” and urged those gathered to see past the county, city and state lines that divide the region.

“You need to rethink the notion of competition. If you think winning is stealing jobs or companies from other cities and counties, it’s not. That’s just like reshuffling the chairs on the deck of the Titanic,” he said. “You don’t need a Charlotte. You need collaboration.”

All site selection by companies starts at a regional level, while deals are won at a local level, Bryant said. To that end, all parties with economic development in mind should be pooling their resources to “get more bang for their buck” when it comes to marketing the region.

Once a company shows interest in a region, it is then up to the specific locations to vie for the deal, according to Barry Matherly, the executive director of the private, nonprofit Lincoln Economic Development Association. He outlined one advantage a location can have: He told the Alliance members that 90 percent of the companies that visit his county want to see buildings in the prospective sites they are touring.

“The hook is the building,” he said. “It’s hard to drive by a cow pasture and have someone believe it’s a good opportunity when it looks like you don’t believe in it.”

In Lincoln County, all prospective business parks are outfitted with road, water service and other infrastructure from day one, he said, and spec buildings often follow quickly.

“Pad-ready” sites like Lincoln County’s are what the region is missing, Eldridge said, but it’s a task he thinks the Alliance is ready to conquer this time around.

“We have, and I have been one of them, often complained that Northeast Tennessee doesn’t get its fair share,” he said. “Today is the opportunity to change that.”

Cory Lewis, President of T. C. Lewis & Co. said that the most important thing to take from the meeting was a quote from Ronnie. "It's the most important thing that I heard today.  He said that we need to rethink the notion of competition.  When we're trying to attract businesses, we need to work as one - the Northeast Tennessee region.  We have to get these folks to the table before each county and city can compete for them.  We would rather have a business located in the next county rather than the next state or two states over."