Our History
Background Information on Economic Development Summit
The beginnings of the process to plan for a community economic development summit actually go back to the fall of 2002, when Johnson City's City Manager, Mike West, asked a group of key City staff members, economic and business representatives from the University, and the executive directors of the Economic Development Board and the Chamber of Commerce to meet together to discuss the idea.
This happened at a time when the City had increased the pace of development of the North anchor of the med/tech corridor, and discussions were taking place with the University, the Med Tech Corridor Committee and ZHA, Inc. Consultants about the economic investment and impact of the development of the middle anchor of the corridor.
The timing seemed right to discuss the need to in some way help the community focus attention on where we were economically , our available economic resources, and to develop a vision of what we wanted the community to be like in terms of economic development five, ten, fifteen and even twenty years from now.
Drawing on documented reports such as; the Lyle Sumek Citizens Summit : Foundation for the Future Report for the City, the Economic Development Board's 2002 Strategic Planning Session Report, The Chamber of Commerce's 2002 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats Report, the Tarnoff Workforce Development Study and several University studies dealing with retail growth, employment and the local and regional economy, the group quickly decided that a community economic summit was the right format to accomplish what was needed.
There was also an intentional effort to find out what other communities had done to focus on their economic needs and opportunities in an effort to develop a collective vision and a process to help them achieve local economic success. Cities including; Asheville, North Carolina, Blacksburg, Virginia, Birmingham, Alabama, Charlotte, North Carolina and the Tennessee Cities of Nashville, Chattanooga and Memphis were contacted for information and discussions on how they focused attention and developed a vision and plans for successful local economic development success.
With all of the aforementioned information in hand, the planning group then turned their attention towards a format, location and suitable date for the first Economic Development Summit. After several meetings during the winter and spring of 2002-03 were held to discuss these issues, the group finally settled on a one-day summit format to be held at Millenium Centre on Thursday October 30th, 2003 from 8:00 AM till approximately 3:30 PM.
The Summit started with a morning plenary session to overview our economy at the state, regional and local level. It also involved the discussion of key local economic indicators. After the plenary session, the attendees split into four focus area groups for detailed discussions and to prioritize action steps that they recommended to the community to enhance economic development and growth. The four focus groups for the original summit were; Livable Communities, Workforce Development, Infrastructure and Entrepreneurship.
The Summit featured a luncheon with a keynote address followed by a report by each focus group on their proposed priority action steps for the community, and then there was time allotted for all participants to help rank the overall priorities. The final, and possibly most important part of the summit involved time spent to create a volunteer base to carry on the process that would be needed to carry forward a realistic economic development vision and an action plan for accomplishing the priority actions from the summit that would hopefully lead to local economic development successes.
There were plans for regular meetings of the focus groups and annual economic development summits so that the citizens of the community could stay updated on the progress of economic development activities that fulfill the vision and priorities set at the first annual economic development summit.
Now six years into the Economic Summit process, we can claim many significant economic development accomplishments for the community and the region and an ongoing economic development process for the community that involves some seventy-five volunteers working in five economic sector focus groups and guided by a fifteen member planning group that includes a five member Executive Committee.
As we move on the future path of the Economic Summit process, we hope to continue to focus in on our priority economic development sectors which we want to continue to grow, and to also continue and expand the key collaborative economic development partnerships that we have established over the past four years to achieve our economic development goals. For FY 2009, we are adding an education/workforce focus group and also coordinating the Economic Summit process with the State's 3 Star Economic Development Strategic Plan and Incentives program through the Department of Economic and Community Development.
For further information concerning the Johnson City/Jonesborough/Washington County Economic Summit Initiative contact:
Steve R. Baldwin
Community Development Director City of Johnson City, Tennessee
Phone: 423-434-6291 Fax: 423-434-6294
Email address: sbaldwin@johnsoncitytn.org
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