EDITORIAL: Economic development—Where the buffalos roam…
By Bill Settlemyer
Executive Publisher
Timing is everything. Depending on how you look at it, the timing in my last column was either perfect or 180 degrees off.
I’m referring to my assertion that our region should focus less on chasing big economic development projects—“buffalo hunting”—and more time supporting entrepreneurial growth.
Just about the time our last issue hit the streets, we were all treated to the stunning announcement of the Vought-Alenia decision to build a major component assembly facility here for Boeing’s new 7E7 Dreamliner. The code name for this blockbuster was “Project Buffalo.”
So was I right or wrong about buffalo hunting? I’ll still check the box marked “right,” with the proviso that it’s always a great day when our region lands a project like Vought-Alenia. By all accounts, our state and regional economic development folks did everything right, aided and abetted by a nimble legislature and the natural, cultural, workforce and infrastructure benefits offered by the Charleston area.
I’m absolutely confident that Vought and Alenia made the right choice, and I’m confident they’ll look back years from now and feel as good about their decision then as they do now. And with a little luck, this announcement will attract expansion projects from other companies, aerospace-related or not.
Buffalo—the other red meat
Basking in the glow of an announcement like this one, it’s hard to knock buffalo hunting as an economic development strategy. And I think the right answer is exactly that—it’s an economic development strategy, but it shouldn’t be the economic development strategy for the region.
Why? Because buffalos tend to roam, and sometimes they go extinct. Every once in a while, I still hear someone voice the mistaken belief that landing a new manufacturer is a failsafe strategy because the investment in facilities is so great they’ll never move or close the facility.
This belief view is so outdated, especially in today’s competitive global economy. Cases in point from our own past? Remember the big Western Star truck plant announcement back in 1998? They were going to bring hundreds of jobs, but the economy tanked and they never really got off the ground. After a limited production startup, the plant closed and the company was purchased by a Daimler-Chrysler subsidiary. There was a happy ending a few years later when another Daimler-Chrysler company, American LaFrance, reopened the facility to build fire trucks and ambulances.
Example No. 2 is the Corning lens plant, announced in 1997 with great fanfare as an example of “new economy” high-tech manufacturing. The plant made precision laser lenses used in the production of computer chips, but closed after Corning was slammed by the technology downturn.
The newly-announced Vought-Alenia facility (Project Buffalo) is part of Boeing’s “bet the company” gamble on their ability to take a big leap ahead of Airbus in airliner design, technology and manufacturing. These two companies have been slugging it out for some years now like a couple of heavyweight prizefighters. Charges of unfair government subsidies are being lobbed back and forth across the Atlantic, and Airbus recently surpassed Boeing in the number of pending aircraft orders.
Hopefully everything will go Boeing’s way, but if the Dreamliner doesn’t fly, literally or as a product line, Boeing might eventually be forced to exit the commercial airliner market, something I and most Americans would hate to see. So I’m pulling for Boeing not only because of the Vought-Alenia announcement, but because that’s our team out there on the global playing field.
More is better
After weighing the pros and cons, I have no problem with traditional “buffalo hunting” as one component of a much more comprehensive regional economic development strategy. As I suggested in my last column, we need to become more pro-active in supporting entrepreneurial growth as a complement to the traditional approach.
To be effective, such an effort must be broad-based and driven by volunteers and networks formed within our business community. In North Carolina’s Research Triangle, for example, there is a strong volunteer-driven organization called the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (www.cednc.org). Explore their web site and you’ll see that we already have a lot going on here through various local groups and organizations that’s similar to CED’s programs and initiatives.
But we really do need to “elevate our game” when it come to entrepreneurial development. Most of our private contributions and government dollars committed to economic development go to the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, which uses a small professional development team augmented by volunteers from business and government to pursue larger projects and established companies. We should not reduce our support of the alliance, but we should raise additional dollars for a much stronger focus on entrepreneurial development that can run parallel to the alliance’s efforts.
Pieces of this elevated effort are to be found now in various places—ThinkTEC, the Charleston Digital Corridor, Charleston Angel Partners and the College of Charleston’s Tate Center for Entrepreneurship, to cite several important examples. But my sense is that we probably need to create a new organization focused exclusively on driving entrepreneurship as the key to our future economic success.
This view won’t sit well with some who’ll see the idea as a threat to their particular organization or group, but at the very least I hope we can have some open, spirited and effective debate in our business community about the best way to move forward on this front. Whether you agree or disagree with my take on the issue, write me an e-mail so we can share your views with our readers.
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