Officials bridge regional business gap- About 60 area economic leaders meet to discuss tri-state (IA, WI, IL) development

Tearing down geographical barriers and crossing territorial lines to form regional partnerships is a concept that isn’t easy to swallow for many in the dog-eat-dog world of economic development.

By:
M D Little
Dubuque Telegraph Herald

But if tri-state area communities are to survive and thrive in the new economy, they had better get on the "regionalism" bus. At least that’s how many area economic development officials see it.

In an attempt to build a bridge of collaboration, more than 60 tri-state area officials from the public and private sector gathered Wednesday at Bricktown in Dubuque for a summit on regionally based economic development. The event was hosted by Greater Dubuque Development Corp.

"If we work collectively, we’re much stronger in keeping existing industry, expanding existing industry and recruiting new industry," said Rick Dickinson, executive director of Greater Dubuque Development Corp. "Any one of us on our own is not as strong as the sum of the total."

Dickinson led the discussion, presenting an overview of the River Valley Initiative, Greater Dubuque’s five-year campaign to spur economic growth in the region.

Most important, Dickinson said Wednesday’s summit was an opportunity to get to know the players in tri-state area economic development – some of the names and faces he is embarrassed to admit he doesn’t know as well as he should.

"I would like to correct that, regardless of what happens in Des Moines, or Springfield (Ill.) or Madison (Wis.)," he said, referring to the budget dilemmas facing each state.

While the concept of regionalism might seem like the concept du jour in Iowa economic development circles, many states have adopted the philosophy of shared resources and talents.

Karen Merrick, regional strategies coordinator for the Iowa Department of Economic Development, said North Carolina is a shining example of the regional approach.

"(Those communities) have all said we couldn’t be where we are today if we weren’t working collaboratively."

Getting three states to work together, however, is a little trickier. Merrick, former longtime mayor of Guttenberg, Iowa, said it is about overcoming instinctive competition.

"Those old animosities have to die," she said. "We have to redefine what we consider our community."

Dickinson said there are untapped resources in the tri-states that could serve regional economic development – not the least of which are the area’s institutions of higher education.

"We need to somehow get a ribbon around that and say ‘this is a center of education,’" Dickinson said.

Perhaps there is no better example of the might of education in the tri-state area than the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

"We’re probably the closest thing to a poly-tech institution in the UW system, which means we have a lot of technical programs that can be a tremendous support to economic development in the region," said Duane Ford, dean of the College of Business, Industry, Life Science and Agriculture at UW-P.

Wednesday’s session was just the beginning, officials said, in opening up a better dialogue and being more proactive in broader-based economic development.