>> Earlier this year Indiana lawmakers approved the creation of a northeast Indiana Strategic Development Commission where you're going to learn more about the commission's scope of work across our region Sullivan County area on this week's prime time and we're glad you're here.

>> I'm Bruce Haines.

With us for PrimeTime tonight is Ron Turpin, chief financial officer with Ambassador Enterprises and the chairman of the Northeast Indiana Strategic Development Commission.

>> And joining Ron is Bill Konya.

He is president of the regional chamber of Northeast Indiana and all of us would like to meet you as well if you'd like to join the conversation with any questions or comments you can do so by calling the number on screen as we widen out and run this to my right and Bill is to his right.

>> And gentlemen, thank you for being here.

We appreciate it.

Thank you for having us.

Happy to be here.

This is great.

So like any new idea, it was made known through the General Assembly.

>> But let me ask the first for starters before it became a bill in the state House, where did the idea come from for northeast Indiana strategic Development Partnership originally I believe the idea was formed by the mayor and commissioner caucus who perceived a weakness being in strategic planning on a regional basis.

They conferred with a number of groups including the regional chamber and they made the determination to see if they could get a regional development Strategic Development Commission created by the state legislature where they are fortunate because Representative Dave Hyne was very interested in it and he became the bill's author and subsequently Senator Travis Holdman carried it in the Senate they secured and getting the bill passed.

I think it passed the House by 98 to two and I can't remember what the vote was in the Senate and the commission was created and so some ideas don't necessarily require political incubation but but run this one needed the the imprimatur of the state house more official opportunity.

What sense of access to the opportunity to have bipartisan I am right.

>> I think as you look at it and one county region is pretty diverse and when we look at all the different organizations that are part of this, you have the regional chamber, the regional partnership 11 different lead economic development organizations, a number of other chambers that are there.

I think the legislature is looking at knowing that we have three big goals as a region we want to grow our population, we want to increase wages and we want to increase jobs for opportunity for all those and they are all three tied together so each person, each organization has their way of doing this and they have a role to play.

But as Bill said, there is no real plan.

>> What is the overall strategic plan that follows all of this?

And I think the legislature stepped in and said we would like to see one.

You know, northwest Indiana has something like this.

>> So this is an opportunity for us to create our own here and truly be a Beda to this concept forward and that speaks to that that question that was asked through the process about why lawmakers outside of northeast Indiana would want to support a northeast Indiana Strategic Economic Commission even though I may be that lawmaker from Evansville not necessarily knowing whether there was something that accessible to me in my role in that regard or not right.

Frankly, lawmakers throughout the state.

State government has begun to acknowledge northeast Indiana and the work that's been done here as the best example of what can and should be done elsewhere in the state.

And it's because of work that was done by John Sampson in Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, the regional chamber.

We have 16 local chambers of commerce as our members we have 11 economic development organizations in about ninety five private sector businesses and we've come to learn how to work together, how to talk together and how to make things happen on a regional basis.

A transformational basis.

We demonstrated that quite clearly during the Regional Cities program and and leverage the money we got into what eight times the amount that we actually got and it's it's been acknowledged that that we're doing things right.

And so the state wanted to support that.

>> And so across the 11 counties there are 11 commissioners that two or three there are three commissioners.

That's right.

Yeah.

At eighteen cities.

OK, all right.

So how do you get everybody in the frame for the team photo you in other words as far as those that are involved, some of the lead folks involved in the commission there's a structure for whose service there is.

>> And the nice thing about this structure is I mentioned earlier the Mayors and commissioners caucus which truly over the last several years has been an outgrowth of the regionalization that we have done.

>> So you know, 10 years ago the counties wouldn't have really talked to each other.

Now we have 11 counties, three commissioners, 18 communities with their mayors.

>> They're all meeting on a monthly basis and talking about ways to collaborate together because if you think about it I mean I live in Northeast Allen County by Leo Cedarville.

There are people who want to live in Graybeal or Leo Cedarville but work in Wabash or work in you know, Auburn and regionalization is good for all of us.

But the structure of this committee there's nine commissioners and three appointed by the governor, four by the legislature and two by the mayors and commissioners caucus.

So putting them all together, you know, has the opportunity for people really to work together and get things done.

>> And in that regard when you have the commission work structured in that sense in the legislation that says there will be accountability, there will be bipartisanship.

Yes.

But there is the every so often let snow what's going what's going on and that's where you are, right?

>> That's right.

Yeah.

The way this is written is so the bill passed was effective July 1st.

>> Correct.

And so you know, the appointments happened around that time frame so we didn't really start our work until August and the legislation says you have to have a strategic plan identified by September 30th.

Well, I've been in business a long time and you don't get a good strategic plan done overnight.

>> It takes effort.

So we went back to the authors of the legislation and said look, if we have a timeline put in place, if we have an action plan put in place and do a report back to the Legislative Council by the September 30th timeline, would that work?

And they said yes.

And so that's really where we're at right now is by this the end of this month we will have a timeline.

We will have a partner identified and hired that will help us do that work and probably for spring deliverable that we'll be able to give a report to the legislature saying here's what we found.

Here's what the recommendations are and then we will work with you on next steps as to creating a solution for those three strategic problems.

Let's spend a little extra time on on those three areas.

The part about building a per capita income, growing the population and beyond to start with any one of those you want and perhaps a sense of of how it was called forth, they certainly all sound like they're related right.

And I think they are I mean if you look at thirty years ago, you know when I mean manufacturing is still a heavy part of our economy.

I work in a company that's heavy manufacturing.

I mean it's what we do when we had Harvester here when we had other manufacturers we were over the national average in per capita income as those jobs left our economy changed and we became 80 percent of that number and work like what Bill is doing, what the regional partnership partnership has done has chipped away at that.

So we start moving up that ladder but we still have a ways to go as we continue to grow our economy and get higher paying jobs.

How do we do that as you do that you also have young people that are getting skill attainment that they're getting either certificate, they're getting two year degrees, four year degrees which makes them more attractive to the high income employers to put them in jobs that will grow the economy if we do those things, the population that grows for two reasons because our kids stay and then other people want to move here and I think you see some of those numbers as a region as a whole.

>> We have a net inflow over the last several years, not a net outflow.

You know, when you look at the last census, Allen County grew by almost nine percent, you know, in a number of other counties around us that grew in good single digits.

We're going the right way.

But a good plan with deliverables, with outcomes and with different partners identified I think helps us get there faster and build this is where that word synergy seems to kick in.

>> Oh yeah, absolutely.

In order to accomplish the the long term goals there many different components that go into achieving that.

Just give you one example, one common problem we've identified really essentially across all eleven counties is the need for housing workforce attainable housing and then define what that what that means for you and workforce.

Well, in some places workforce maybe means and people families who have incomes of twenty five to forty five thousand and others it may mean they need executive housing or professional housing.

So if communities can identify with their own needs are to attract the kind of housing they need, it will help them to find themselves economically.

We all need quality rental housing that our young people can afford to rent when they graduate from high school or college when the problems many of our communities in the region have is there isn't any affordable rental housing.

>> So that's that's just one example with this process does this regional strategic planning process does it allows each of the communities to identify their specific issues in consultation with our chambers, in consultation with their economic development organizations, in consultation with the private sector businesses, the educational institutions define those issues and then identify solutions and for the regional chamber and the RDA and others to pursue.

>> So if this if there was a flow chart behind us we might see those that you just described as inputs to the process.

The big block black box is in fact the commission and there are some other sources of more I'm sure there's that data information component and some other known information that's involved the outputs of that become recommendation strategies.

>> Yes.

And then how does the loop completed itself back to those counties, those commissioners, the cities and beyond take me from the output part.

>> Yeah, I think what you've got is so we've made the decision to hire tipster OK, which is the same organization they are a nationally recognized firm based in Texas that does this for a living.

They do these regional and local economic development plans greater Fort Wayne hire them almost two years ago to do a plan for Allen County which will be done next month and then recently the Regional Development Authority, the RDA hired this same group to help put together the plan and the process for a ready grant.

You know the up to 50 million dollars of state funding that would be available to apply for we talked to them because if we're doing a strategic development plan, people who know us best are the people we ought to be talking with.

And you know, we've talked to a number of stakeholders and a lot of the people in our community that are stakeholders in this have already met with Tippi about this other work.

So we were able to leverage off of that and save really two thirds of what a study like this would normally cost and shave really six months off the process so we can have a high quality deliverable in half the time that it would normally take to do it because this group already knows.

>> Now the nice thing about this is they're going to take that work they're doing for the RDA, take that work they're doing for greater Fort Wayne and they're going to add to it they're going to talk to all of our college presidents and learn about what they're doing to educate our young people for skill attainment.

They will talk to people in the skilled trades and find out the things they're doing, what are their needs.

They will talk to our manufacturers, talk to other businesses and find out what their needs are and help fill in all those pieces for that deliverable.

And I will say one piece of this is like many legislation that comes through this one didn't come with any dollars.

And so when we do this work, where do you find the money?

I'm pleased to say it's not the public sector we went to.

We went to the private sector and the private sector is completely funding this because we believe in what the outcome should be and believe in investing and we believe that a good plan done well will yield multiple times to the region by creating good jobs, by growing our economy, by keeping and growing young people being here.

So you talked about the outflow of this so all these people are talk to all these different stakeholders, all the work that Tip's done before all kind of goes in that box and it comes out with a report and I don't think any of us can presuppose what that report is going to say.

>> But let's assume when it comes back with is you know, we have told them the legislature has told us there are these three outcomes we want how do we grow population?

How do we grow credentialed and educational attainment and how do we grow jobs?

>> Right.

So that is the outcome.

So what we expect is based on all the stakeholders we've talked to based on our expertize is a nationally recognized firm who sees multiple economies throughout the U.S. here are the recommendations we have of what you ought to do and list them out.

>> I think then for the commission the study becomes what do we do with that and then what report do we send back to the legislature of we've commissioned this study.

Here's what they've said.

Here's what our thoughts are on this now legislature.

>> Let's hear back from you as to what your thoughts are on this right now particularly I'd say our delegation.

Yes.

What would be the big piece?

And then from there I think we meet with our other stakeholders.

You know Bill's organization, the Regional Partnership, the Leto's the and say OK, can we all embrace this and move forward on whatever is in here?

>> It's an exciting time to be involved in economic development.

It's always been but even more so now when you think of that many out side resources that are coming to bear to weigh in on more pieces of momentum and all of that.

This is the whole being greater than the sum of the parts with a lot of it because the region wants to be attractive.

It wants to be affordable.

It wants all of those things and this is a significant way of collating it sounds like all of this activity.

>> It's an exciting time.

It's a time when economic development is changing.

It has been changing for for a period of time but for a long time since like 1974 it was stagnant the way economic development was accomplished well, it's no longer that way now a lot of the jobs are knowledge based jobs, even the skilled jobs have a great deal of knowledge built into the technology jobs and so forth and so it's not just about as we refer to creating economic opportunities about raising per capita personal income a great way to judge how successful job creation is is how many dollars are now earned by by households as opposed to what with your income were last year or five years ago.

>> So the the way that economic development is evaluated, the the metrics by which it scored are changing and they should change and this is the twenty twenty one it's nineteen eighty four anymore right.

That flowcharts still has another arrow in a bubble and it says public and there's a public role I understand to talk about that.

>> Yeah.

As Tippi puts their strategy together there will be intersections there where they want to hear from different stakeholders you know the public being one of them.

So our meeting coming up on Tuesday will be a discussion with Tippee.

They've they've taken the timelines we've given them they've taken the deliverables that we've we've said we need to achieve and they're putting together what their recommendation is for the various listening tour stakeholders and timelines they need to have in order to deliver our deliverable that we're asking for .

So I think there definitely will be this is a process because it's a creation of the legislature.

>> It's a very open process.

You know, our meetings are public.

I mean we post them, the press is there and so this is not done in secret.

I mean it is and that's a good thing that the public can have input on this that we're listening to various stakeholders because it's something we all have to own.

Right.

You know, something the bill said struck me which is you know, we are in a knowledge based economy and we've all experienced over the last 18 months that is many jobs change and many jobs are done from your home anymore.

It doesn't matter anymore where you live.

You know, I could work for a company in New York City and but live in Fort Wayne , Indiana.

You know, for me I was an executive at Lincoln for a number of years.

My job moved to Philadelphia.

I didn't today what I have to be there probably not.

So that's the important piece of this economic development thing we're talking about which is it's quality a place that that is a key piece of what we're talking about.

You you think of the trails, you think of infrastructure, a reliable Internet, all of those are critical pieces of economic development to make this attractive, to have our young people want to stay and attract others to come here.

So that's all part of this planning process saying what are the things we need to do and who need to be the people that are owners of each of these so that we're not stepping over each other but we're all complement each other to get things done?

>> Yeah, and all of that seems to to complement some of the existing activities Main Street program reinvesting in rural the idea of rural broadband or perhaps or other opportunities that you've been hearing that perhaps have been waiting for a commission like this to be the idea Katcher.

>> What are the advantages that we have as our organization of regional chamber?

We provide sustained advocacy in in the region and we essentially look at at four different policy priorities or are pillars of progress as we've heard to them and those are 21st century talent.

>> What do we have to do to develop 21st century talent to attract to retain it, et cetera to to enhance employers abilities to acquire the kind of personnel that they need world class infrastructure and I mean whether it's rural broadband are one of our favorite U.S. Route 30 and converting it from a from its current status to that of freeway status from Ohio to Valparaíso or our competitive business environment which includes any regulatory or statutory issue we need to address to enhance the competitive nature of our region and the other one is rural investment and reinvestment.

And it's just exactly because of what Ron said.

I mean I live in Wabash.

Forty six miles away our staff during covid left Fort Wayne and work from home and we didn't miss a beat.

>> In fact we had the most productive year we ever had.

>> We had nineteen wins in the legislature.

We had eleven new members.

I mean we've grown the company substantially enhanced our reputation all from our homes now we now go to the office when we have a reason to be at the office but the things we've learned we don't have to be there.

>> I wonder if if covid is now the the new additional input that we didn't think about before the lessons learned from you know, as a way in which to custom tailor the findings from a strategic plan study now versus even five years ago because patterns are now shifting.

>> Yes, I learned in business over a 25 year career is that you always to be expect the unexpected right.

And that business is constantly changing and that we have to be adaptable to it.

A good strategic plan is essential to having a roadmap for success and you know, it's not that you can put on the shelf either.

>> One of the things I really like about this legislation is this is not a one and done you know, once we do this work the commission's not done and just walks away.

You know, it is an ongoing effort that we will continue to evaluate and then every five years we have to revise the plan.

>> So just as times keep changing and we've seen change over these last two years, things will look different in two more years and four years after that and so this is like any good plan adaptable to the change that we see facing the realities we face for the outcomes we want to see.

>> Bill, in your work with the regional chamber, I'm wondering if one of the benefits from the strategic planning process will also aid the work of the chamber with the idea of one region, one voice, the approach of your activity with the legislature and and and others stakeholders as well as a strategic plan such as will be developed comes comes into focus.

We will begin to understand the tools we need, the amenities we need, the various issues we have to address in order to make that plan happen.

So yeah, it's a way to to speed up our planning process actually and to increase the and the effectiveness of our advocacy.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

While we have time, would you like to recognize those that are serving on your commission with you going forward?

>> Sir, I think we have a great group of community leaders.

Senator Travis Holdman, you is has been a key advocate for us from the start myself Mike Vanover from Wells County is the commissioner but also a business owner runs a great business down the Bluffton area .

Andrew Briggs, retired banker Mayor Richard Strict from Huntington.

We have Councilwoman Sharon Tucker from here in Fort Wayne , Keith Thornton who is the city of Fort Wayne.

We have Mayor Steve McMichael in New Haven and Commissioner Carey Grodner from Kosciusko County and then Bill and then our new incoming head of the Regional Partnership CEO are both ex officio members of the group Key Advisors.

And I do want to thank Bill we have no money but we have no staff either.

>> So Bill has been gracious on giving us meeting space and giving us admin space and we certainly couldn't do this work without him and I am appreciative of that.

>> Well, and while we have an opportunity to acknowledge both gentlemen of you would like to learn more about activity taking place in our region, Ambassador Enterprises is available to be contacted.

That's assurances that's my day job.

But there's lots happening there you see by Web and by phone and by Bill's activity with the regional chamber of northeast Indiana and I and advocates that will get you there on any available search engine that's right.

So we will look forward to following along with you as we think about living locally and living regionally simultaneously.

Right.

So continue success.

Congratulations on the launch of the commission and good luck in its work.

Well, again, thank you for having us.

We have been speaking with Rod Turpan chief financial officer with Ambassador Enterprises and the chairman of the Northeast Indiana Strategic Development Commission and Bill Konya who is the president of the regional chamber of Northeast Indiana.

Bill, thanks again.

Thank you very much for having me.

And I'm Bruce Haines for all of us with prime time.

>> Thank you for watching.

Take care.

We'll see you again soon.

Goodbye