THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 15, 1996 TAG: 9608150001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A19 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: PATRICK LACKEY
LENGTH: 85 lines
As a young man, Barry E. DuVal was torn between becoming a minister or a public servant. He chose to be a public servant, but he recently accepted a job that might be thought to require an act of faith.
He is president of the new Hampton Roads Partnership, an organization of 53 elected, business, military and education leaders: the cream of the area's crop. Its goal is to have Hampton Roads' 10 cities and five counties cooperate - one for all and all for one - in the interest of regionwide prosperity.
Persuading elected officials from 15 localities to work together for the good of the entire region could prove as daunting a task as teaching a tone-deaf choir, its members seated in separate rooms, to sing in harmony.
But DuVal has a reputation for bringing harmony to organizations; and he believes in the benefits of regionalism, as do many of the most-powerful business leaders in Hampton Roads. They're saying that cooperation among localities is the only way this region will ever compete successfully with economic powerhouses like Charlotte.
With Hampton Roads wages running at least 12 percent under the national average and with other economic regions recruiting far more manufacturers than we are, something obviously has to be done.
There are many indications that DuVal has the right talents to lead Hampton Roads' charge. Certainly he has survived trial by fire.
He was only 30 years old and in his first week as Newport News mayor when he received horrendous news - six years ago.
Newport News Shipbuilding President Ed Campbell congratulated DuVal on his new job and added one of those by-the-ways that can cause the floor to seem to fall away. Campbell disclosed that employment at his shipyard would drop over the next five years from 30,000 to 15,000.
Those were good-paying jobs; they were the lifeblood of Newport News.
DuVal instantly developed an especially keen interest in economic development - in recruiting and keeping businesses. And the record shows he met the challenge.
After a series of aggressive moves over the next six years, he voluntarily left office this spring with Newport News boasting of more jobs than when he took over - despite a shipyard employment drop to about 18,000 and a reduction in defense spending. Obviously not all the new jobs pay well, but many do.
Newport News, under DuVal, succeeded by being proactive. For example:
Four 40,000-square-foot shell-buildings were constructed, and then businesses were recruited for them. All four buildings were sold or leased, and hundreds of jobs were created in each. ``Seventy-five percent of all prospects relocating to a state,'' DuVal said, ``want to see an existing building.''
The city had two empty shopping centers that were blights on adjoining neighborhoods. After fixing up both centers, the city recruited MCI for one and United Parcel Service for the other, thereby creating 2,500 jobs.
DuVal visited the city's leading companies and asked what could be done to keep them or help them expand.
In one nationally trumpeted success story, the local community college was recruited to train a company's workers at their job site. Rather than leave, as feared, the company expanded.
To accomplish all this, DuVal helped transform the Newport News City Council from one whose members were known to scream at each other to one whose members governed in harmony, like the public servants he believed they should be.
DuVal said he stressed teamwork on the council and adhered to the adage, ``You can get a lot accomplished when you aren't concerned who gets the credit.''
While DuVal was mayor, all the Peninsula municipalities agreed not to poach businesses from each other. In some instances, DuVal said, they helped one another recruit businesses. One hopes the mutual trust on the Peninsula is catching across the water.
Duval said the Hampton Roads Partnership provides an opportunity for the region's leadership to plan and act strategically in a way that improves both the quality of jobs and the quality of life in Hampton Roads.
``It's clear to me,'' he said, ``regions don't succeed along political boundaries anymore. They succeed along economic boundaries.''
Through proper planning and promotion, Hampton Roads can succeed as a region, DuVal said.
Judging from his record on the Peninsula, DuVal is the right man to lead the drive toward regional cooperation.
Regionalism doesn't mean merging cities, he said. Neither does it mean consolidating school districts or police forces. Individual cities still would do what they do best.
``It does mean,'' he said, ``finding ways to cooperate and to compete against the world.'' MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB