Press release from the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership:
Message to business: Dive into Northeast Indiana, the talent pool is deep
Regional Partnership Leads Effort to Market Skilled Workforce, Attract Business
(September 15, 2010) – As part of the region’s aggressive efforts to retain talent and promote economic advancement in the wake of Navistar’s recent announcements, Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry along with Bob Taylor, Chairman of the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership and President and CEO of Do it Best Corporation; and John Sampson, CEO and President of the Regional Partnership today outlined a targeted attraction initiative. This program will focus on marketing the area’s highly skilled workforce and selling Northeast Indiana as an outstanding location for job creation and business growth.
“Our talented, ready workforce is an unparalleled community asset,” said Mayor Henry. “Each individual is a resource that adds value to our area and strengthens it. We know many of the Navistar employees want to remain in our area, and we want them to stay. This initiative will use that pool of exceptional workers as a magnet to attract new jobs and economic opportunity into our region.”
“As the CEO of Do it Best, a global company proudly rooted in Fort Wayne, I know how essential a top-notch workforce is to business success,” said Taylor. “This initiative is an important investment in our region’s future economic vitality.”
Led by the Regional Partnership, this initiative transforms the Navistar challenge into a new business marketing opportunity. The current employees in the community, along with other engineering and design talent from across the region, represent a sought-after, intellectual asset desirable in a competitive global economy. The goals of this initiative are to retain this uniquely capable workforce in Northeast Indiana, to gain new jobs for the region and to expand our employer base and capital investment.
The marketing and attraction strategy will be directed toward firms seeking technical, research and design capabilities. It will publicize the availability of Northeast Indiana’s expert and efficient engineers and designers. This initiative will also leverage relationships developed with national and international site selection consultants and business relocation specialists to identify possible clients with interests in these workforce skills.
Two primary target audiences have been established:
- Fortune 500 companies with future and growing design, research and engineering needs; and
- regional and national contract engineering and design houses. Professional strengths to be showcased are in the areas of mechanical, electrical and fatigue engineering. Industry sectors emphasized include automotive, defense, aerospace, renewable energy and medical devices.
This initiative is supported by state and regional stakeholders. As circumstances require, the effort will tap into substantial resources on the local, regional and state levels. These resources can be tailored into specific tax and workforce incentive packages to aid in presenting a compelling case about Northeast Indiana to potential prospects.
“Indiana stands above all competitors in the Midwest as a place rich in adept and creative workers,” said Sampson. “Quite simply, this is the right place to grow technical innovation for the future. This initiative may have been born of some disappointment, but it has opened the door to a rare opportunity for our region and for businesses seeking to benefit from a superb workforce and our collective commitment to long-term economic progress.”This highly proficient technical and engineering talent spotlighted through this initiative is the heart of the new Northeast Indiana emerging from a legacy of imaginative design and engineering achievement deployed throughout the world.
The City of Fort Wayne, the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development Alliance, the Regional Partnership, Allen County, the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce, WorkOne Northeast, the State of Indiana, other local and regional entities and elected officials are all part of the team working together to encourage job creation and private investment in Northeast Indiana, to foster a vibrant workforce and to secure new options for Navistar employees.
About the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership: Created in 2006, the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership’s mission is to market the 10-county region and team with local economic development organizations (LEDOs) to bring new jobs and commercial investment to the area. The Partnership concluded a successful Investment campaign in October of 2006 targeting an initial operating period of five years. The NEIRP’s global marketing efforts will be on behalf of LEDO’s in Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley counties.
Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership website
Related Images:
