Montana State Office of Economic Opportunity Weekly News Jan. 16, 2003

Message from Dave Gibson

This past week we released our Roadmap for a New Economy; a strategy document organized around six themes that will guide our work for the next 5-10 year. It is available online at http://state.mt.us/gov2/content/econdev/Roadmap.pdf and will be available in print January 17. While this document summarizes the past year’s work of discussions and research concerning the critical steps needed for improving our economy, it is a forward-looking document. It describes our priorities for the next year and beyond and clearly defines how we will measure our success.

In the past year, though, we have done much more than prepare this document. We devote this, our first newsletter of 2003, to a summary of 2002’s highlights; highlights that demonstrate we are already well underway in doing the things it will take to achieve sustainable, measurable improvements in our economy.

Any discussion about what has been accomplished in the past year needs to begin with an understanding of why the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity was created. The 2001 legislature clearly delineated that this office was to have a coordinating role in helping shape policy and facilitating collaboration between the various programs and entities working on aspects of economic development. None of the various grant, loan or support programs that provide assistance directly to businesses were assigned to the office – and for good reason. Our role is to make sure the myriad of programs and entities we have in Montana are effective, complement each other, and are focused on the critical leverage points of our economy.

Economic development in Montana has traditionally consisted of a number of individual programs, spread throughout different agencies or other entities, most with a fairly narrow targeted objective. Many are successful in achieving their goals. But, if you truly care about long-term economic improvement we must work to make state government more efficient and effective by focusing these programs on common objectives, evaluating their effectiveness and integrating them whenever possible. We are focused on the things that create truly sustainable economic improvements and do not require continued public subsidy over the long-term. Of course this takes time and opens up a lot of discussion about how many jobs we “created” today.

The office has also been directed to determine where there are gaps in the types of programs we have and how we can improve our overall competitiveness as a place to do business and create good paying jobs. To this end we have made major improvements over the past year in the processes we use to interact with businesses and the availability of relevant economic data, previously unavailable, that we can now provide them. We have, for example, completely restructured our BizMT web site to provide one-stop access to almost all the information an expanding or relocating business needs. Of course, identifying gaps and recommending programs or policies to fill those gaps – especially if legislative action is required– cannot possibly lead to overnight job creation or income growth. Without spending some energy to do this work, we may never reach our economic potential.

Over the past year nearly 9,000 new jobs were created in Montana. Our unemployment dropped by about one percentage point while the nation’s increased by about the same margin. More important to our economy, though, is that fact that Montana also had one of the fastest growing wage levels in the country—more than 4% and nearly twice the rate of inflation. We are headed in the right direction. Can the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, or any other single entity, take all the credit for this improvement? Of course not. Are we a significant part of the collective effort that is finally moving this state out of the economic cellar? Absolutely. The programs and policies that we have in place are starting to work and businesses are making decisions to stay and grow in this state because they believe we are headed in the right direction. It is going to take a great deal of continued effort from both the private and public sectors – federal, state and local – working collaboratively, to accelerate this trend.
Full Printable Newsletter 2002 Accomplishment Summary

Strategic Planning

We have released our final plan, the Roadmap for a New Economy — the culmination of almost a year’s work.

* Conducted strategic benchmarking of the plans & processes in Montana and other states

* Held multiple discussions with 42 different Montana industry groups and 102 different economic development organizations to identify priority areas

* Prepared the Framework for Economic Development and conducted 15 different public half-day sessions around the state to begin focusing the planning process

* Created a board of advisors to provide oversight and advice for our work. This board has convened for half-day meetings every 4-6 weeks since February

Clusters

Clusters will help us focus our resources.

* Utilizing resources such as the National Governor’s Association, we benchmarked other cluster-based economic programs in other states with particular attention on how rural states have been successful and designed a study to meet Montana’s needs

* Awarded the Montana Cluster Study contract to Regional Technology Strategies,Inc. and launched the project to ensure completion by early February 2003

* Results will give us a new look at Montana’s economy and help us align state resources to leverage Montana’s current and potential competitive advantages

Workforce Development

Achieving a workforce for the 21st Century.

* Completed The Available Labor Supply in Montana’s Rural and Urban Labor Markets study to determine our statewide workforce profile so that we can identify gaps in training/education and respond effectively to business’ workforce related needs

* Working with the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education to evaluate the current structure of the State’s 2-year

* Conducted Listening Sessions in 15 locations throughout Montana leading to Montana Job Training Program Soft Skill Program

Technology Transfer

Driving technology into local businesses.

* Awarded a $600,000 3-year Partnership for Innovation Grant to grow technology-based businesses in the state in partnership with MSU TechLink, TechRanch and the Center for Entrepreneurship in the New West

* Led the formation of a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) team working to significantly increase awards in Montana

* Held meetings with NSSTF and NASA to bring more federal technology and related businesses to Montana

* Developed a statewide IT asset inventory map

* Participated in both Montana University System outreach tours in central/eastern Montana

Business Climate

Improvement in the overall business climate in Montana is perhaps the most critical foundation issue for restoring economic health to our economy.

* Conducted more than 375 retention visits to Montana businesses in the past 12 months

* Sponsored Montana seed & venture capital forum in August

* Active proponent on developing major tax reform in Montana to encourage a more competitive business climate

Business Attraction and Retention

As we have worked hard to develop the business recruitment initiative and develop key relationships, we have also worked to capitalize on available opportunities.

* Active involvement in 36 different business recruitment projects

* Implemented a detailed due-diligence process to evaluate companies and projects seeking state assistance at the beginning of a project and to assist communities in evaluating risk

* Promoted Montana at 4 promotional events with community and private sector partners to promote Montana as a business location

o Core-Net, Spring and Fall Symposium – large companies, global real-estate

o IT-Open, Williston – large & small IT companies

o Ag-Open, Williston – large & small Ag companies

o Counties Represented: Yellowstone, Cascade, Flathead, Silver Bow, Valley, Daniels, Sheridan, Richland, McCone, Dawson, Roosevelt, Garfield, Rosebud, Treasure, Powder River, Carter, Fallon, Custer, Prairie, Wibaux

* Met with 15 major site location-consulting firms, 30 corporate real estate executives and 50 commercial real estate professionals. We are putting Montana on the map!

* Launched new BizMT web site to comply with international recruiting standards for content, functionality & access to required data. New site includes:

o Searchable commercial properties database
o Montana Business Network. This network promotes Business-to-Business interaction by putting all Montana businesses online