MEET THE VALLEY'S AMBASSADOR TO THE WORLD

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993                   TAG: 9301260361
SECTION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ECONOMY                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                LENGTH: Medium
MEET THE VALLEY'S AMBASSADOR TO THE WORLD
If the New River Valley were a nation unto itself, the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance might be its State Department and alliance Director Franklyn Moreno its secretary of state.
Moreno is the valley's ambassador to the rest of the country - and the world for that matter. In the economic development scheme of things, it's the job of Moreno and the alliance to seek out new corporate clients and create good will for the valley.
"Our job is to go out and find those companies and let them know we have what they need and bring them back here and introduce them to the local economic developers," explained Taylor Cole, vice president of Central Fidelity Bank in Christiansburg and the alliance's president.
"They're certainly going about this in a proper way to find original prospects for the New River Valley," said Don Moore, executive director of the Montgomery Regional Economic Development Commission.
The sort of work the alliance does requires a lot of foundation-building, Moore said. It requires Moreno to spend much of his time outside the valley at trade shows and other events where he has a chance to get acquainted with industrial prospects.
Montgomery County's relationship with the alliance is "real good," Moore said.
And the alliance has helped valley governments establish a good relationship with the state Department of Economic Development and with national economic development organizations, Moore said.
He noted that Moreno is chairman of the Virginia Team, a coalition of regional economic development organizations from around the state that works with state government to bring new industry into Virginia.
Formed by chambers of commerce and local governments to market the region to outside industry, the alliance provides evidence that the valley's leaders no longer maintain a strictly parochial point of view.
The alliance focuses on industries that have not already been involved with the economic development organizations of the valley's various local governments.
"We try to stay with basic employers," Moreno said.
The alliance has more than 3,000 names of industries in its computer, which allows it to target prospective industries more specifically. That information also helps the alliance know on which industries to call when alliance representatives are attending trade shows in other states.
Through October, Moreno had worked with 59 industrial prospects, although not all those visited the valley.
During October alone the alliance was in contact with 11 industries, eight of which came about as a result of the alliance's outside marketing program. Five of those industries visited the area.
Successes last year included: Fontaine Modifications in Pulaski, which will modify trucks for Volvo-GM; Cross Creek in Floyd, an apparel maker; and Renee Composite Materials Ltd. in Giles, a truck hood manufacturer.
Seventy industrial prospects visited the valley in 1991 through the alliance's efforts. That compared with 50 visits a year earlier. The alliance has a $262,710 budget to chase after new prospects during the 1992-93 fiscal year.
"We are looking in every conceivable direction we can think to look at right now," Cole said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB