Good evening and welcome to PrimeTime .

I'm Bruce Haines.

It's been said that it can take a number of years to become an overnight success for Greater Fort Wayne, Inc. that number of years is ten.

The organization was created.

It was about creating hope and creating new opportunities.

And we didn't have a track record.

We had a little triad of things going on.

And, you know, there was confusion about who does what.

Maybe even a little competition going on.

Yes, it'd be good to combine the Chamber and the Alliance.

But I think the other thing we really knew was we needed to broaden the tent.

Collaborative leadership and community partnerships in a business friendly environment are absolutely paramount to achieving our goals in all of Allen County, not just the downtown area.

We really had to continue to transform and make people understand what we were trying to do and really push the edge on building that nationally recognized economy.

That was a big challenge to get people to think bigger, think bolder, and understand that the community can do a whole lot more than it was doing at the time.

When we would recruit physicians back in 2006 to probably 2010 or 12, there wasn't a lot to show physicians when they came to town.

Fast forward a couple more years and we got such great looks from physicians.

You know, we were recruiting 100 doctors a year, whereas we would kind of struggle to recruit 10 to 20 doctors before.

I don't think that you can find too many residents in this area that would not speak positively of the changes that has happened in Allen County and particularly in the Fort Wayne area.

Early 2000s, you know, there was a lot of conversation about brain drain and and those conversations don't exist anymore.

We got a lot of great activities for young people to stick around in the city.

I think one of the pivotal moments in the past ten years was in 2017 when we celebrated our very first year of positive net migration.

What's exciting about this ten year anniversary is we just celebrated six consecutive years of positive net migration.

While the surrounding states are still experiencing a loss.

I was thinking about the last ten years and how many tower cranes that we've had downtown.

I think that's been one of our best metrics.

The consistency, the confidence.

It didn't take that many years for us to start gaining confidence.

Over the last ten years, a lot has changed in economic development.

There's been a lot more emphasis on quality of place.

So you think about what's been done at the Riverfront and what's been done at the Landing.

You look at what major economic development projects like Electric Works and now with the Google announcement, you know, these are projects that are major for any size community, let alone a community the size of Fort Wayne.

I really like the way it is going over the past ten years.

I think one of the more important things to me personally is that the organization is a lot more inclusive, right?

There's a lot more diversity.

What I love about Allen County is that our collaboration and partnerships with folks like the Black and Hispanic Chamber and Amani Family Services is actually helping bring Fort Wayne together.

Our three core values of the organization are inclusivity, collaboration and results, and we've hit the cylinder on all of those.

There's opportunities for those to get engaged and get involved, particularly, you know, as I personally work on the legislative side.

Greater Fort Wayne, Inc has become the main resource for the entire business community.

And when we come together in that collaborative partnership and advocate for policy and project, that is the voice of the entire community.

Site selectors in particular, when they started to come in and see what kind of momentum we were gaining, we went way up their list with their clients.

100 years from now, when people look back at this time in Fort Wayne, I think they'll call it the golden era of Fort Wayne.

I am excited to be part of the momentum in the next ten years.

I'm excited about where we where we go with Allen County Together.

It's an economic development strategy that we rolled out just two years ago.

And I think if we've made a choice to live and work in Allen County, we should make a choice to help our community be excellent.

Participate in the plan focuses on the three pillars of the ACT plan, which is inclusivity, innovation and high growth.

It's not just downtown.

It's not just large scale economic development projects.

It's about projects in the neighborhoods, in the smaller communities, things that are impacting people's lives and are going to cause people to want to stay here and want to move here.

I think we now have the community that can come together and trust the organization to say, This is where we need to go next.

That's what we didn't have ten years ago.

We didn't have that trust.

We had to build that.

Now that we've built it, the sky's the limit.

And tonight we will learn more about Greater Fort Wayne Inc's ten years of achievements and its plan for the next decade, which is already underway.

With us is John Urbahns, Greater Fort Wayne's president and CEO.

Welcome to the show, sir.

Bruce, thanks for having me.

Happy anniversary.

Well, thank you.

It's been a great ten years, and I wonder if behind that greatness, if there isn't a little professional fatigue, if you watch that video, that's how a lot in the ten years.

It's been an amazing ten years.

And I think back on where we were, where we are now as a community and as an organization, it's been dramatic change and it's it's been exciting to be part of it.

What comes to mind when when you're watching this and you see the results, sometimes you'd really don't know how far you've gone til you take a moment and look back from that beginning of moving into a whole different organizational structure to then seize the fruits of this all already.

It seems like it's if you graft it, that's quite the angle.

Yeah.

You know, it didn't just take off right away.

It wasn't an overnight success.

I was I was at the City of Fort Wayne at the time when the merger just started being talked about between the Economic Development Alliance, the Chamber and Leadership Fort Wayne and I'll say when I came over, I thought they had everything figured out and quickly realized we had a lot of work to do still, and it took us some time to get our legs under us and really start to show momentum and take off.

Why has this been such a good time to be in economic development?

I think it's been it's, you know, Beth Goldsmith mentioned in the in the video the kind of the golden era.

It really has been a dramatic opportunity for growth in our community.

Think back to 2009 when Parkview Field opened and you see the investment that has occurred in downtown since that time.

But it's not just downtown.

It's happening throughout the throughout Allen County.

You know, great things happening in in New Haven and Huntertown, Leo-Cedarville.

That's what we're about.

We're about all of Allen County.

It seems that there is a an expression, the fullness of time.

You have to have the right leadership.

You have to have the right plan.

You have to have the right seven other things.

You know what?

What went so right with so much to have this be so full at ten.

You know, I think when we we had some momentum with some investment in downtown right when we started having the right people that, you know, at the table having the conversations.

This wasn't about when we created the organization, this conversation.

Do you keep a small board or do you have a big board?

We decided to have a big board.

I've got 56 bosses right now that are on our board of directors because we really want to make sure that we had all angles covered within the community - geographically, diversity wise, business diversity wise.

You know, we've got everything from individual entrepreneurs all the way up to your largest employer that has almost 15,000 employees locally.

So when you are now operating as a single point of contact for all aspects of life regarding business and economic development, getting there, we're trying to bring the what is it the the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

You have three agencies back ten years ago plus and then one now finding their groove.

Yeah, the idea was that we could have a bigger, bolder impact in the community.

Business leaders said if we had one group that was focused on all the initiatives of the three organizations, we could be bolder and we could challenge the community to do more than we thought we could.

And that's really been been the case.

Yeah, has to bring a smile to many, including whether you're directly involved in business or economic development or you're just within the sounds of our voices.

Second fastest growing metro in Great Lakes region, top five for most affordable place to live in the US, top ten in emerging housing market, and there's more.

A lot of great accolades for the community and it's great to see that recognition and it's great to see that translate into increased investment and increased population growth.

Because if you're if you're not growing, you're you're slowly dying.

And that's something that we need to continue to focus on.

And we just saw it to talk about that inward migration.

Yeah, one thing is we pay really close attention to is domestic migration, where people are moving around within the country.

Every every day people wake up and have a decision, do I live here or do I move somewhere else?

We've had seven straight years of positive domestic migration.

Now that follows 20 plus years of negative domestic migration.

So it's exciting to see that.

And when you I think the slide up right now was was of the Great Lakes.

You look at what's going on in Indiana, Indiana's on a positive domestic migration trend where all the states around us are seeing negative growth.

And you just look in the mirror and say it's a it's a great day to go to work.

I would view it.

You wonder how Indiana indeed has become so fortunate.

And it may well be that in the Wheel of Fortune, Indiana's spin came up.

I think in the end has done a lot to attract private investment.

It's a great place to raise a family and everybody says that, but Indiana truly is.

And when you look at tax rates in Indiana, when you look at what we've done to continue to invest in our communities, that's something that locally really turned that tide was when we started to invest in ourselves.

People from the outside started to invest in us and started to draw private investment into our community.

That's been a game changer right here in northeast Indiana and Fort Wayne.

Specifically in looking at the video and your most recent annual report as well, there are building projects and then there's building relationships.

And it seems you really do need both.

Yeah, you need you need relationships to really get things done.

That's something that we have heavily focused on, making sure that we bring everybody together.

That was part of the the impetus of Greater Fort Wayne was bring the public sector, the private sector and the nonprofit sector together.

That's why we have a broad representation on our board.

That's why I have elected officials on my board.

We have five elected officials.

We also have nonprofit leaders and we have business leaders on that.

But those relationship are how are we working with the region?

How are we working with the surrounding counties?

How are working with with the state officials?

It takes all of us to get projects done.

And they are bold indeed.

One can't help but see a couple of the more recent ones outside, as you say, of downtown as you head west on 30, Amazon, you know, and if you head south on from from Fort Wayne, you're seeing farm fields being repurposed for something incredible.

Yeah.

One of the things that we really focus on is is how that growth occurs.

You know, we've we've adopted a plan called Allen County Together, which talks about how we're going to grow from an economic development perspective.

But it goes back to those relationships.

It also ties in with the county's comprehensive plan.

So from a land use perspective, what land we see as being potentially residential, what do we see as being commercial?

So those things all have to tie together.

And you're right, there's a lot of big, bold projects going on right now.

That's really a part of what Allen County Together was focused on.

How do we focus on high growth, innovative and inclusive growth within the economic development aspect of the community.

And in fact, staying with that, there are a number of plan achievements that already have sprung from Allen County Together, and that's that that's quite a list as well, particularly as we can take a look at that together you of looking at the amount of investment.

And of course here's sort of the beginning of a wall of fame where everywhere you turn.

Everywhere you turn, theres projects going on, whether it be in downtown Fort Wayne, in New Haven, there's growth within our community.

I think you see slide right now some of the riverfront development in fields of grace that's going to be coming out of the ground over in New Haven with youth sports.

You know, one of the concepts of Allen County Together was how do we attract a billion dollars of private investment to the Riverfront.

Promenade Park was a great example of that.

But there's about $250 million worth of projects going on right now immediately adjacent to the riverfront.

And so as it moves forward, this idea of finding other collaborative industries, in this case, the notion of putting an emphasis on the citys assets with tourism and the Parks Department, everyone's now seen it's master plan season.

You have Allen County Together, the Parks and Rec folks have a plan, Visit Fort Wayne has a plan, and they are all speaking to each other.

Yeah, it goes back to how do those plans work together.

We have an economic development strategy.

It ties in closely with the comprehensive land use plan for the community.

The tourism master plan that been done by Visit Fort Wayne now ties directly into the ideas within Allen County Together.

How do we build off of tourism?

How do we build off of the music economy here in Allen County?

So one thing feeds off the other, and that's going to continue to keep that flywheel of growth going.

In addition to a $25 million venture fund for ideas that might need a little venture funding.

And how do we help entrepreneurs get started?

You look at student housing, you know, goal of 2500 new student housing beds in Fort Wayne.

Indiana Tech is already, you know, under construction with a 120 bed new facility.

Purdue Fort Wayne just announced a project that's almost 600 beds out here by your campus because if we want to help our local universities grow, it's going to be through people that need student housing.

They're seeing a lot more people coming, coming to Fort Wayne for an education.

And we know that if they come to our local universities, it's high probability they will stay here.

Retention rate of almost 80%.

Talent attraction.

Talent retention.

You can't really say one without the other Greater Fort Wayne in having several programs to encourage that.

Best-In-Class, The Intern Experience, Newcomer Socials, wherever you want to go with that.

Yeah, we really started looking at how do we help not just businesses, but how do we help individuals as well.

So the Newcomer Socials are something we started doing to help people get connected to the community, help them build relationships here in Fort Wayne now and County once they move here.

The Intern Experience is a great example.

We had a goal last year of getting about 100 interns together.

The state asked us to do a pilot up here.

We ended up with 200 over 220 interns from 23 states and eight countries that did an internship here in Fort Wayne, and we helped connect them socially during the week through different events.

We're running that program again this year.

So if companies have interns in towns, they should they should get connected with us and help them, help them get connected, help them fall in love with Fort Wayne County, not just fall in love with the community there.

And yeah, and concurrently, workforce development programs which are also diverse in their capacity.

Yeah, the workforce.

Workforce, if you talk to businesses, it's the number one issue that they're facing.

So how do we make sure that we're working with them to make sure we have the workforce of the future?

I'm really excited about the work we've done with Made by Me, which is bringing in the the trade unions, advanced manufacturing, helping kids understand there's opportunities for great professions here in Fort Wayne beyond just the college realm.

Leadership Fort Wayne's been going on for over 40 years in the community.

We're still running that program.

We have a great cohort of over 50 students a year that are learning their own leadership skills and helping to give back to the community.

Well, now membership in Greater Fort Wayne.

I don't have to be great in size or scope in order to be great in membership.

Yeah, I think that's sometimes a misnomer that we're there for big business.

We have 1300 plus investors in our members in Greater Fort Wayne Inc, representing over 90,000 employees here in Allen County.

So well over half the workforce.

Their employers are part of Greater Fort Wayne.

One of things I'm really proud of is 83% of those businesses are small businesses.

They employ under 50 people.

So a large percentage of our of our membership is not the big business that maybe people think that we are.

And in talking with those businesses earlier this year, you found some positive takeaways in your business survey.

We did.

You know, we've done a we did a survey this year, businesses here in Allen County.

We did one five years ago as well, and thought now's the time to take another look, see where we're at.

95% of those respondents said that Allen County is on the right track when it comes to economic development and the economy.

So a lot of positive, positive looks at what's going on here in our community that's going to help attract others as well.

And then the other things that that we kind of found was, you know, 69% of the of the respondents said that they were going to add headcount, they were going to add employees into the into their company, and 63% were going to increase wages and benefits.

That's a that's a good positive sign.

But I think one of the things that I really like to see was that that last piece, the 94% that are going to expand in hiring, they're going to be hiring locally.

And one thing that we've continued to watch is how does how does remote work affect the workforce here locally?

You know, if you can hire somebody, they can work remote, they could work anywhere.

But of those 69% that are expanding, 94% said they're going to hire locally here in Fort Wayne-Allen County.

That's a positive sign for us.

Well, looking ahead, we said no sooner, ten years.

I mean, it always comes up in the conversation.

Well, that was yesterday, John.

What are you going to do tomorrow?

What do you sleep in tomorrow for sure.

What are you going to do for me?

Yeah, right, so what do you see out there for all of us next?

You know, I look at the trends, I look at where we're at as a community.

All the trends are moving in the right direction.

We need to continue to work to keep us on that, on that path.

You know, I have people ask me, okay, whens enough, enough.

When do you stop doing what you're doing?

The answer is never.

You know, if you're in a race, you keep your foot on the gas, you don't let up.

There's communities that are out there looking to pass us.

You know, we're the envy of a lot of different communities.

We have to keep doing things that increase investment, increase jobs, increase wages, and just grow the economy here locally.

Because if we're not, we're going to get passed by the next community.

And we always hear, too, about the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership and again, we are not an island unto ourselves.

We are certainly at times wanting like every county wanting to believe there is a light on the hill and it's my own.

But when you get all 11 counties lights all glowing in the same space, that's pretty slight.

Our light grows better when everybody else's light is growing and the others realize that their light grows better when when our lights grow, grow, growing and glowing.

And so we work very closely together with the region, with the surrounding counties, because there's companies and people don't understand, you know, political lines.

They're not they're not making a decision decision where they live based on, you know, the county line.

They're making the decision based on a region.

And right now we're a region that's working well together.

And we're going to continue to do that and continue to grow.

So maybe this worth of side question, there's a Regional Chamber, there's a Regional Partnership there.

Greater Fort Wayne, again, what's good for one, generally speaking, eight and a half to nine out of ten times, that's going to work pretty darn well for for the other counties involved because we're all in this together, contiguous, if nothing else.

Absolutely.

What's good for us is good for them.

So whichever our specific role, we're we are focused on Fort Wayne and Allen County.

That is our geographic territory.

There's somebody like us working in DeKalb County, in Whitley County, and we work closely with them, as does the partnership and the regional chamber, because at the end of the day, there's a lot of local issues and there needs to be a local point person for getting projects done in the local community.

At the end of the day, when you look at, you know, where a company decides to invest and where they look to grow, that's a company decision.

Just as we look here locally, we're not directing them to one community or another.

If they end up in Fort Wayne, great, they end up in New Haven.

Great.

If they end up in unincorporated Allen County, great, it's going to be the same for the community.

It's not It doesn't matter.

It's the days of which which side of the road a project ends up on determines winners and losers.

We're both winners as long as they locate on one side of the road.

Yeah, there's the power of the ripple effect of the investment.

You see here too, the focus of of improving the airport, for example, even if you never have flown in a plane, ever, it's still a pretty good thing.

And you, you, you see the simpatico again between my presence, my company support and the assets around me.

Yeah, the airport's a great example of a community asset that's helping with economic development.

You know, people that live here want to be able to travel, and you're you're not going to live in a community that doesn't have good travel options.

It's also the front door for people that are coming to our community.

A lot of times, if a business is coming in, meeting with us, the airports, they're the front door to the community.

So how are we how is our community coming off to somebody that's here for the first time?

And I'll tell you, we get the pleasure.

Our team gets the pleasure of sitting down with a lot of people that are in Fort Wayne and Allen County for the first time, or maybe they haven't been here for ten or 15, 20 years.

And we show very well the commen you know, their experience here and what they see is amazing.

That's something I love about my job, getting to sit down with people and it's their first time here and just talk about all the great things that are going on and really sell our community.

Yeah, I would think the the part is if you were showing a home or you were, you know, cleaning up and detailing your car, but all aspects of life and I really do need to come together so that that in bang migration the investment you can almost see the the flow chart in your head as to how it's a true circle of economic life.

Yeah.

I think when you look at when you look at what's going on over the last ten years, I think we've got a slide on 215 project wins for the community projects that we've worked on that have led to over 13,000 new job commitments.

That's $6.4 billion in private investment.

That's a lot of investment in our community.

And that's going to make for a happy anniversary, which also is something to celebrate throughout 2024.

And you can find out more about the past ten and the next ten right there online GreaterFortWayneInc.com.

And our thanks again to John Urbahns, who is Greater Fort Wayne's president and CEO.

May the anniversary continue in the fun and everything.

Thanks, Bruce.

It's been fun.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

And thank you for allowing us to be a part of your day for all with PrimeTime .

I'm Bruce Haines.

We'll see you next week.

Goodnight.