Thread: Leaders plan economic development campaign

http://www.zwire.com

Leaders plan economic development campaign
By: Paul Johnson, STAFF WRITER 06/30/2005



Staff photo by Danielle Lovell

Don Kirkman, president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, addresses group


Sobering statistics announced during annual meeting of the Piedmont Triad Partnership



GREENSBORO - Business leader Watts Carr of Greensboro didn't sugarcoat the economic problems confronting the Triad when he spoke to several hundred of his cohorts Wednesday.

Carr, a former top official in the state Department of Commerce, checked off a series of sobering statistics during the annual meeting of the Piedmont Triad Partnership economic development group at the Greensboro Airport Marriott.

The 12-county region that makes up the partnership has recorded a net loss of 45,000 jobs in the past five years, with 27,000 of the paychecks lost by manufacturing workers, said Carr, who is chairman of the group. Compared with statistics from five years ago, approximately 50,000 people are working in new jobs due to layoffs and other reasons and on average are earning 60 percent to 70 percent of what they used to make in their previous jobs, he said.

Advertisement
Today, 100,000 workers in the Piedmont make their living in what Carr called "sectors at great risk," such as furniture and textile plants under pressure from foreign competition.

"We need to work together to pull ourselves out of the ditch we're in," Carr told the business leaders.

The members of the partnership used the annual meeting to publicly kick off a $7.2 million campaign called "Better Together" to remedy the region's economic ills. The campaign will involve raising $3 million from the private sector during the next five years, said Don Kirkman of High Point, president of the organization.

The campaign, which will involve private and public dollars, will involve marketing the region to industries worldwide and coordinating economic development efforts among governments, corporations and colleges and universities.

The campaign is the most ambitious in the partnership's 14-year history, Kirkman said.

The recent success recruiting Dell Inc. to the region for its third U.S. manufacturing facility shows that the Triad can draw new and growing industries to build the foundation of a future economy, Kirkman said.

GETTING INVOLVED

For more information on the work of the Piedmont Triad Partnership or its "Better Together" campaign, call the economic development group's office in Greensboro at 669-4556 or check the Web site www.piedmonttriadnc.com.

pjohnson@ hpe.com | 888-3528


©High Point Enterprise 2005

They will need even more ideas to get manufacturing and jobs to the area if CAFTA passes and the borders stay open.