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January 31, 2006 |
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 RONNIE
BRYANTCHARLOTTE REGIONAL PARTNERSHIP By Henry Bostic The key to the Charlotte Regional Partnership's (CRP) success going forward is to appropriately position the 16-county region, anchored by the Queen City, at national and international levels, the new president and CEO of the organization told Charlotte Rotarians on Tuesday. "We need to get on the right lists and create the right buzz among the right prospects," said Ronnie Bryant. "Decisions about new prospects who move to the community are not made by someone already in the region. These decisions are made by some one who has not ever lived here and probably never will." It's all about how we look to those decision-makers. The former president and COO of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance cited business moves from state to state and county to county within the region as "very sensitive issue" that the 16-county partnership is addressing head on. "Intraregional movement is a zero-sum game," Bryant said. The region's chief economic developer said the CRP has put together an internal task force to study the issue and has hired an impartial outside consultant to take "an unbiased look at all such moves within the partnership since 2000." Together they will look at what influenced those decisions, public incentives involved and the economic impact to those who lost a business and those who gained it. "There are government incentives, public money, involved in these decisions," said the former senior vice president of the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association's Economic Development Division. "Is that a good use of public funds? We want some objective data." He expects the consultant's report in late March. Bryant said the region faces two other critical issues: the quality of the region's workforce and the availability of certified pad-ready sites. The former manager with AT&T's Western Electric division said the region has a high illiteracy rate, particularly among textile workers who have been laid off. In some parts of the region there is high unemployment but the low education level of the workforce is a deterrent to recruiting new employers. "We need to address this serious problem," Bryant said. "I don't think the area can continue to fill all the new jobs being created with newcomers (as it has been doing). We must get serious about developing the skills of the unemployed and underemployed." The CRP also needs more sites for prospects to consider because the time from beginning consideration to move in is much more compressed. The region needs shelled-in buildings with appropriate zoning ready for occupancy. "If you don't have the sites ready to go, prospects will go somewhere else, he said. The region has only one mega-site now (1,000 plus acres) and it's in Chester, S.C., he pointed out. Founded in 1992, the partnership is a nonprofit, private/public organization dedicated to the planned growth and prosperity of the Charlotte region. Roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts, the region includes 12 counties in N.C. and four in S.C. Jointly they are marketed as Charlotte USA. The fellow and vice chairman of International Economic Development Council (IEDC) said CRP is one of seven regional economic planning areas in the state and is unique in that it's the only one that includes counties from another state. In a just-completed five-year vision and strategic plan required by the General Assembly, he said, "we made it clear that it is critical that our partnership include the S.C. counties." Without them we would be "dangerously close" to not having the 2 million population and 1 million workforce necessary to attract significant national and international prospects. He complimented the area's leadership for having "visionary thinking at the time because regional cooperation was in its infancy in the 1980s when the idea for the partnership surfaced. The region, the father of three said, "is light years ahead of others." At Pittsburgh, Bryant competed head-to-head with Charlotte for the relocation of General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products' headquarters and for the designation as the number two U. S. Airways hub and lost both times. "I figured if I couldn't beat Charlotte I'd join it." Speaking of airlines, Bryant said, "Many people still do not realize what we have in Charlotte Douglas International Airport. He said the airport is the difference in Charlotte's being a second- not a third-tier city. He noted that Charlotte has 635 daily flights including 125 non-stop flights to major cities and five international destinations. "We tell prospects that in Charlotte you're one stop away from anywhere in the world and that's very important to a city that wants to be a major corporate center." Tim Newman, head of the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, introduced Bryant to Charlotte Rotary, noting that he had Bryant's completed membership application in hand. Head Table: Natalie English, Tom Bartholomy, Herb Harriss, Tim Newman, Pam Meister, Will Barnhardt; Invocation: Buddy Chatfield Visitors & Guests: Don Carmichael; Health & Happiness: Worth Williamson; Song: Thomas Moore
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Revised: January 24, 2008.