ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 31, 1996 TAG: 9607310027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
In a perfect world, the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance would have been able to kick off its strategic planning session Tuesday with an announcement about landing a major industry.
Unfortunately, the German-based automotive manufacturer that had narrowed its potential Virginia sites for a new plant to Radford opted instead to locate in Morristown, Tenn.
"We really and truly handled this prospect better than we've ever done one," said Radford Economic Development Director Jill Barr. For that, she gave a large measure of credit to new alliance Executive Director Stuart C. Gilbert, who brought all the necessary agencies to the table quickly.
"Stuart pulled this together better than I've ever seen anybody do it," Barr said. "We presented a united front."
In the unlikely event that negotiations in Morristown should fall through, she said, the company president has said Radford is next in line - and, for that matter, the top site among all those the company considered in Virginia.
What worked against the Radford location, she said, was the fact that the company already had another plant in Tennessee, transportation costs would be a little cheaper there, and there is a larger corporate presence by other major companies at the large Morristown industrial park.
The company president also had problems securing air transportation out of Roanoke. "He tried that himself on a number of occasions, and they were sold out," Barr said. The company would have needed access to international flights on short notice.
Morristown is in eastern Tennessee about 40 miles northeast of Knoxville.
"There were really a lot of little things," she said. "Things that we had no control over."
"They were absolutely flawless. Nothing else could have been done," said former alliance president Barry Evans. He said the fact that a key company executive's wife being from Tennessee probably helped Morristown's prospects.
The some 60 participants at the daylong strategy session at New River Community College found a high-tech way of achieving consensus on issues they wanted to tackle.
They used an "Option Finder" developed at Virginia Tech, which resembles a fat calculator without the visual readout. Each participant was able to vote on the importance of an issue by pressing the appropriate number on the hand-held device, and the votes were electronically tallied on the spot.
The matters being voted on were typed into a computer immediately before each vote and projected onto a wall.
Bob Gibson, national marketing director with the Virginia Economic Partnership, noted that 70 percent of manufacturing jobs come from the expansion of existing industry rather than securing new industries. The alliance involvement in working with existing industry was one of the topics under discussion during the strategy session.
Participants rated jobs as the most important issue before the alliance, followed by leadership and working with existing business. Transportation, technology and quality of life issues were also addressed.
New River Valley Planning District Commission Executive Director Dave Rundgren said the valley needs about 500 new jobs a year just for its high school graduates who do not go on to college, and more than 5,500 jobs to reduce unemployment levels to the state average. He said valley residents overall are at 68 percent of the state's average per capita income level.
"What's next? It's today's activity," Rundgren said of the alliance's first strategic planning session. "Where do we go now that we've been in business about seven years?"
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB