Wednesday, June 4, 2014
This is the second
part of my takeaways from the Purdue – Radius Indiana economic development
meeting I was lucky to attend on May 15 in French Lick.
The second half of
the day involved three rapid fire panel discussions, which included state,
Purdue officials, mayors and a business leader.
The Importance of a Strong
Website:
One great
presentation was by Haley Roubicek about Zoom Prospector, which is the web site
the Indiana Economic Development Corp. uses to show state properties to
businesses interested in re-locating to Indiana.
Here are some
statistics the IEDC cited:
·
97% of all site selectors start their search
online
·
87% said property information should be
interactive
·
82% of Economic Development organizations
recognized the web as their #1 marketing platform
·
35,000 unique visitors visit Zoom Prospector a
year
If almost every new
relocation prospect is starting their search online, then it is pretty clear
that local economic developers need to create dynamite websites, interactive
sites that are purposely optimized for search engines and regularly updated. Otherwise you will only be reaching the 3% who start offline.
Building a Team to
Chase the Stellar Communities Program:
One of the best panels of the day was
Bedford Mayor Shawna Girgis and Jasper Mayor Terry Seitz talking about collaboration
and getting teams together to get their cities going forward.
Girgis and Seitz
said the key was to cast a wide net, ignore partisanship, and find a team of
people willing to work on specific projects and create ideas to better the
community.
In Bedford, Girgis
talked about how a multi-year push by a strong group of citizens and
stakeholders helped the city receive the Stellar Communities grant.
Skills Gap Still
Remains for Job Seekers vs. Employer Needs:
Doug Conrad, owner
of Metal Technologies and Bedford Machine and Tool, talked about his process
from the late 80s until today of growing his $50M annual revenue business.
Conrad, a former teammate of Larry Bird during
his high school days, says that their still need to be more efforts to help
train the workers of tomorrow in technical fields and in life skills. His job
applicant pool in Bedford is getting too thin and he is considering starting
his next venture elsewhere.
He believes the
local high schools should partner more closely with the employers to reduce the
skills gap.
Purdue Resources
Highlighted:
Purdue Center for Regional Development director Bo Beaulieu
started off discussing the types of businesses and sectors in the Radius
Region. He stressed the need to focus on stage 2 businesses – firms that are 10
to 99 people – and to help them grow into the great community employers of
tomorrow. Beaulieu called them the
“lifeblood” of a community.
Similar to a
presentation I attended in Harrison County, Beaulieu cited wood and paper
products as the most attractive industry in the region based off of growth and
regional exports in the industry. I have a hard time seeing that as a long-term
growth engine with the closing of numerous furniture companies in our area, and
his data was a couple years old, so I’ll withhold judgment. Perhaps there are
rapidly growing segments of that industry I am not seeing.
The Purdue team then highlighted a lot of
resources they have to help local governments and Economic development
officials.
One program of
interest is the Purdue TAP program. Dubois County is currently doing a program
called “Dubois Strong,” partnered with Kimball and helped them land the Jasper
Engines expansion. The Purdue Technical Assistance Program has an office in
Jasper and is working directly with companies to help them find efficiencies,
cost savings, and growth. Director Adam Auffart talked about how his office has
completed 28 projects for the region since opening in Jasper.
Purdue TAP also has
an office in New Albany. This program might be beneficial to many industries; I
wonder how well it is known and marketed.
Another helpful
program could be the Purdue Center for Rural Development. Joan Fulton talked
about the New Ventures Resources program, which can help start-ups with 1 on 1
counseling and workshops.
Once again, thanks
to the Crawford County Community Foundation for the invitation and directors Bonita
Coots. I hope this summary helped offer a few tips or ideas.
