When people think of economic development, they tend to think of groundbreakings, ribbon cuttings and large companies generating lots of jobs, said Bill Cronin, president/CEO of the Pasco Economic Development Council, Inc.
In reality, though, maintaining a strong local economy means attracting new job generators and helping existing businesses to grow stronger and add jobs, Cronin said.
“The bread-and-butter is working with our existing businesses to make them more competitive, so they can go out and compete with the rest of the world. And, it ends up being the best commercial we’ve got. If we take good care of our existing business, other people will come. It’s a great testimony.
“It’s a lot easier to work with 100 companies that create one job than to recruit one company with 100 jobs,” Cronin said, during a recent East Pasco Networking Group breakfast meeting in Dade City.
Helping local companies grow means working with them “to either remove obstacles or help them make additional sales and create jobs,” Cronin told the breakfast crowd.
Attracting new companies is no simple feat, the economic development expert said.
“There’s 16,000 agencies in the United States that are all trying to recruit business. When a company is looking to locate somewhere, and they say, ‘Hey, I want to move to the Southeast’ — there’s probably 200 choices that they can choose from.
“So, they’re not trying to add you, and say, ‘Oh, what a wonderful community Pasco is, I want to figure out how to add them.’ They’re trying to cut us out of that mix because ultimately they want to cut it down to two choices that will compete with each other, using incentives.
“Our goal in those types of searches is to be included, and then to stay in the game long enough — where we don’t get cut. And then, at the very end, you use tools like incentives and work force training and things like that to be able to locate a company here,” Cronin explained.
While attracting large employers with high-paying jobs is a worthy goal, the county needs to be sure to create opportunities at every level, Cronin said.
The county needs to be sure that it has tiers of opportunity, ranging from high-wage jobs to service jobs — to avoid creating a chasm between the haves and the have-nots, he said.
“Our goal is to diversify the economy, become more competitive, and ultimately create jobs,” Cronin said. “We need to make sure we’ve got a robust economy for all of those different people.”
It’s also important to keep a pulse not only on what’s happening now, but on future needs, he added.
“Things have changed. The way we do business has changed.
“It behooves us to get a better understanding of what these changes are, so we can help businesses proactively,” Cronin said.
“Business used to come to us when they were hurting, or they had a challenge,” Cronin said.
Now, he said, “a lot of these changes are happening so rapidly, they’re (businesses) not in a position to simply respond. They need to be proactive,” he explained.
“Companies used to add jobs to become more competitive. Many don’t have that goal anymore. Some companies are actually looking to automate and cut jobs to become more competitive,” Cronin said.
Keeping abreast of the changing business needs and new workforce requirements are among the challenges that Pasco EDC addresses, as it continues to seek ways to expand opportunities for existing companies and to attract new employers to the area, Cronin said.
Published October 09, 2019
