Economic
development makeover
analysis
by Mike Kroll
The
New Year began in Galesburg with news that Eric Voyles was resigning his
position as president and CEO of the Galesburg Regional Economic Development
Association to take a staff job with GREDA's Rockford counterpart, the Rockford
Area Economic Development Council. After about five years at the helm Voyles
last day at GREDA will be January 20th and he begins his new
position as vice president of national business development about two weeks
later in Rockford.
But
Voyles isn't the only economic development leader leaving his post locally.
Eric Hanson of the University of Illinois Extension Service will also be taking
a new position beginning next week. Hanson has been Extension's Knox County
person representing the group's Community and Economic Development group. Based
out of the same office complex as GREDA and the Chamber of Commerce in downtown
Galesburg's former Sears building Hanson has become intimately involved in
local economic development projects, most notably the courting of Chinese
investment here, but also is currently serving as interim director of the
Downtown Council. Hanson has been promoted to Extension's Unit Leader position
in Rock Island County and will move his family in the near future. He has
already put his Galesburg home up for sale and has a pending offer.
ÒThis
is a great career opportunity for me within the university system and it also
offers us the chance to live close to my wife's job as a teacher in Orion,Ó
said Hanson. ÒWe have already purchased a home in Orion that will eliminate my
wife's commute and put me within 15 minutes of my office in Rock Island. While
I will have the same title as Tony does here the character of the Rock Island
office is somewhat different and the staff a bit larger, about 25 people I
think. The building also housed Extension's regional office meaning that a
complete array of experts will be available right there. This move really is as
sudden as it might appear. The job was posted last September and I knew I had
it eight weeks ago but chose to delay the move so we could work toward
finalizing some of my projects here.Ó
Tony
Franklin, Extension's Knox County Unit Leader, acknowledged Hanson's impact in
a wide variety of areas during his time in Knox County. ÒEric has been very
busy on a variety of fronts. He has well represented not only Extension in this
area but helped to draw attention to our commitment to expanding the role of
Extension beyond rural and agricultural affairs. Eric takes a lot of pride in
what he does and it shows. His shoes will not be easy to fill but we will
definitely be looking to replace him in the near future. Eric has asked and
been granted the opportunity to devote the equivalent about one day per week to
maintaining some of his Galesburg duties while we hunt for someone to replace
him. Typically for Eric, this will be on top of his full workload running the
Rock Island County office.Ó
Both
men correctly view these as a career opportunities they cannot bypass; but this
is also a fabulous opportunity for local officials to conduct a thorough
reevaluation of how we run economic development in Galesburg and Knox County.
While Voyles may want to simply point out
that Galesburg hasn't dried up and blown away as evidence of success or
to take credit for the money sent to Galesburg by state and federal government
in the wake of the Maytag closure announcement the fact is local economic
development efforts have yielded next to nothing in nearly a quarter century. (I
wonder if Eric proudly listed the Pat Summerall Champions of Industry award on
his resume? If you don't recall this honor I am sure copies of the award
commercial are still available from GREDA's office.)
Following
millions in expenditures and lots of blue sky pronouncements and hot air what
little economic development that has occurred locally could best be described
as being accomplished despite the efforts of GREDA and its predecessors. It
could well be that GREDA's stated goal of attracting medium to large manufacturers
or warehouse [logistics] operations to the Galesburg area is simply unrealistic
in today's world or it could be that our economic development officials have
just performed badly or not at all. Given the total cloud of secrecy that has
historically shrouded all such efforts it is literally impossible to
realistically judge either the accomplishments or level of effort. However, the
absence of success is clear to anyone who cares to look and is not blinded by
rhetoric. That is why the exit of Voyles presents such opportunity to our
community.
The
primary funders of GREDA, Galesburg and Knox County, need to grasp this
opportunity to conduct an evaluation of economic development efforts and
determine if there aren't better ways to invest local dollars toward the
longterm success of the area economy. A number of questions beg to be studied
and answered:
1. How much time, effort and funds really should be
invested in efforts to attract industry to the area? Given changes in the
national economy are attracting existing manufacturing jobs a realistic
prospect?
2. Is this area really as well situated geographically
for the much touted logistics operations as claimed by Voyles and GREDA? Voyles
recently told the Register-Mail: ÒFirst and foremost, Rockford has proximity to
Chicago. It's in the natural growth ring. One of the things we've talked about
here in Galesburg is we are not in the right spot.Ó That wasn't how Voyles
described this area as he has been touting the logistics park but it is
probably a more honest appraisal.
3. Could the local economic development efforts be better
directed toward the creation of new jobs locally rather than through attracting
existing businesses? By this I don't mean mom and pop retail shops or
home-based businesses but rather encouraging local folks with skills and
capital to create small to medium firms like Bdi or Galesburg Castings. These
are businesses that offer the prospect of growth over time and that will offer
an increasing variety of blue and white collar jobs with success. These are
also businesses that are more likely to remain rather than relocate.
4. Might we want to reexamine our approach to building
our relationship with the Chinese? It is becoming clear now that the once
quietly held hope of Chinese investors buying up the 350-acre Logistics Park
and developing it to distribute Chinese manufactured goods is now lost.
However, a better approach might be to nurture the Chinese as suppliers of
manufactured goods to locally owned and operated businesses that repackage and
distribute the merchandise to American retailers or by mail-order or via the
Internet. This would require investment by local business people and take
advantage of the low-cost of Chinese manufactured products. This approach could
well result in more substantial job growth, wider variety of employment
opportunities and local business stability.
5. After a quarter-century of non-success with the
public-private partnership has the time come to abandon this model? Even former
Galesburg mayor Fred Kimbel has seen the light as he took a public job as
economic development director with a Chicago suburb. Perhaps an existing city
employee like Community Development Director Roy Parkin might be a good choice
to become Galesburg's new city economic development czar. If the city combined
the current money given annually to GREDA with a portion of the sales tax
revenue that is paying off the bonds of the Logistics Park Parkin should be
able to hire an assistant or two and devote his efforts full-time toward
assisting business growth.
6. Historically Galesburg has never really considered
non-manufacturing opportunities for economic development, has this limited
approach been short-sighted? Should we actively recruit and consider retail,
office and any other form of new local businesses part of our regular economic
development effort?
7. Maybe we should reconsider the concept behind the
Galesburg 2000 project begun in 1995 and later merged with the former Economic
Development Council (EDC) to form GREDA? This privately funded organization was
founded by existing area business men and women with an personal stake in
successfully growing the area economy. They didn't experience any more success
than GREDA or the EDC but at least we knew that this group's self-interest
wasn't going to be served by simply going through the motions of economic
development. Since private money was all that was involved they could be as
secretive as they wished and members could even make speculative investments as
part of the program that would be highly suspect under other circumstances.
Combining a new private group that pursues attraction efforts with a
city/county department responsible for zoning, planning, financial assistance
and general assistance navigating through the governmental bureaucracy might be
a real formula for success.
8. Given the relatively recent but committed
participation of the University of Illinois Extension Service in economic
development perhaps the time has come to aggressively pursue new agricultural
crops (other than corn and soybeans) that could be grown and processed locally.
For example, during World War II western Illinois was a major producer of
industrial hemp-- today hemp is used with great success in Canada and elsewhere
as an attractive alternative to wood in the manufacture of paper products. I am
sure that researchers at our state universities have many other unique and
interesting ag product ideas that would help diversify local crops, provide new
or bigger income opportunities to local farmers and create an opportunity for
new local production jobs with a little bit of creativity.
9. Has the time come to finally make economic development
truly regional? Should we be talking with officials in Warren, Henry or Mercer
counties about a more coordinated approach to attraction and development of new
jobs? After all, Galesburg is not an island. Many local folks now commute to
work outside Knox County and arguably Warren County was hurt as much or more
that we were by the closure of Butler and Maytag. The local officials in
Monmouth are already ahead of us in one respect, they reexamined their
public-private economic development operation and found it wanting. Now that
they are exploring new ways to accomplish the task wouldn't they make natural
allies in our local efforts?
Opportunities
like this don't come along that often and it would be a real shame if we simply
hire a replacement for Voyles and continue economic development efforts as
usual. The residents of Galesburg and Knox County deserve so much more that we
have yielded thus far from our investments in economic development.