By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

It had all the makings of a typical morning for David Ginn, president and CEO of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance.

It was starting in a sprint: There was an 8:30 a.m. interview in the conference room down the hall from his office, preceded and followed by phone calls to potential business leads, and then he was headed out of the office to attend a presentation by Paul Vallas, the renowned educator credited with turning around the Chicago Public School System who has since become the CEO of the School District of Philadelphia.

“I’m hoping that he’ll offer suggestions on how the business community can help improve the region’s schools,” Ginn said, barely finishing a cup of coffee.

When he’d returned and before he could have lunch, he had another round of calls to make, these to alliance allies who he feels might be critical to turning a business prospect for the tri-county region into a Lowcountry neighbor.

“As business needs have changed, the collaboration that goes into luring new businesses here has gone way beyond the typical people,” Ginn said. “For instance, if I’m meeting with a client interested in the biosciences, (the Medical University of South Carolina) or its Foundation for Research Development will be part of the discussion … perhaps someone from the South Carolina Research Authority.

“It’s kind of the next stage of implementing the AngelouEconomics report. First you identify the business clusters based on the strengths you already have in a region, and then you leverage the people you already have in those areas the draw more companies.”

Increasingly, leverage and collaboration are becoming the bywords for economic development not only in Charleston but across the state. Economic developers have realized there’s not only strength, but also a greater ability to focus a prospect’s attention if a region is talking to it with one voice instead of many.

Heather Jones, assistant county administrator for economic development in Anderson County, said she relies heavily on the Upstate Alliance to generate leads on, and to market the region to, companies that may be considering locating in the Upstate.

Being a member of the alliance helps the individual components of a region speak with one voice. However, once the lead has been generated, it’s up to the individual member counties and local organizations, such as their respective chamber of commerce, to sell the individual county.

“At the outset, it’s absolutely essential to speak with one voice, but once you’ve gotten the company’s attention, that’s when you start to talk about your area’s specific attributes and how they might make a good match for the company and its employees,” she said.

While the Charleston region has had a development alliance for quiet some time, Ginn said it’s something relatively new to some other counties in the state.

“I think part of that comes from realizing that when you’re dealing with the kind of quality corporations we all want to attract, those companies will only become frustrated if they have to talk to 46 individual counties to find a home for their facility.

“The target, as we call these companies, wants to see the market as quickly and easily as possible. I think across the state we’ve all done better at making that possible over the last couple of year.”

The growth of regional alliances has helped forge new partnerships in South Carolina’s economic development network and brought new faces to the table at the monthly meetings held by the S.C. Department of Commerce to help foster growth in the state, Ginn said.

“It really does help that we’ve come to see each other as this small group of colleagues who know each other and understand each other’s strengths and needs,” he explained. “Of course, you have to acknowledge that individually we’re all competing for many of the same companies, but at the same time, we can help each other as well.”

As an example of that collaboration in action, Ginn pointed to a conference held in Charleston two years ago by the Industrial Asset Management Council, a group of corporate real estate executives who represent the nation’s Fortune 100 companies.

“Now, this was an event we could have hosted on our own, but it just made sense to ask the (S.C.) Commerce Department and the other alliances to partner with us,” Ginn said. “These are people who might be interested in Charleston, but they’ll definitely be interested in speaking to all the assets of the state.”

Another benefit of the collaboration between development alliances is it creates a knowledge pool that crosses all borders within the state.

“Each of us meets with a lot of people on our own, and what we’ve had to be knowledgeable about for the sake of our respective communities has really changed over time,” Ginn said.

“When we sit down to talk or reach out to each other over the phone, there’s a real exchange not only about what’s happening here, there and everywhere, but what’s happening in specific industries and what’s happening on a national level in a certain business sector. That knowledge can only sharpen your outreach to prospective targets.”

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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