Job-creation efforts will be split roughly along Ohio 63.
Staff photo by Pat Strang Teresa Law (left), Bentley Davis (middle) from Fight for a Fair Economy and Ohio State Representative Connie Pillich hold up signs and sign petitions while protesting the JobsOhio Meeting at the Westin Hotel in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday.
By Chelsey Levingston, Staff Writer 1:50 AM Sunday, August 28, 2011
Butler County’s location will play to its advantage again under JobsOhio, which divides the state into six regions, each with a leading organization for coordinating economic development activities.
The way the regions are divided puts Butler County in two of them — the West Central region led by Dayton Development Coalition and the Southwest Ohio region led by Cincinnati USA Partnership, the economic development arm of Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.
Being in two regions of JobsOhio gives the county more job opportunities for companies looking for new locations or to consolidate operations in Ohio.
But that’s not really different from the way the county already works with Dayton and Cincinnati on development, said Butler County Department of Development Director Mike Juengling. JobsOhio just formalizes it, he said.
Katie Sabatino, spokeswoman for Ohio Department of Development, said, “We don’t want to squash relationships.”
The Ohio Department of Development will contract economic development to JobsOhio, the nonprofit formed this year under the direction of Gov. John Kasich to focus on job creation.
The other big push with the way JobsOhio says it will work is to focus on attracting, retaining and growing businesses in industry clusters — industries with unusually high investment in one geographic area.
Of the state’s nine industry clusters identified by JobsOhio, the industries seen as a strong suit to focus development efforts in the Dayton region include aviation and aerospace. In the Cincinnati region, the strong suits Cincinnati USA Partnership said it will focus on are biotechnology, consumer marketing and advanced manufacturing.
That’s not really different either, said Juengling, because those clusters already exist. It seems to Juengling the clusters will just be more a focus of resources going forward.
The six state regional organizations make up the JobsOhio Network and at a network meeting Thursday in Cincinnati, the Partnership Interim Executive Director David Dougherty talked about the Cincinnati region’s clusters.
He said the chamber’s new strategic plan unveiled that day at the same event will work on growing the area’s clusters by bringing in new companies in the related industry supply chains and work with the base of existing businesses in the cluster to consolidate operations here.
“The benefit of the clusters is you’re using firms that are already here,” Dougherty said.
The approach of putting the state in regions appears to Juengling to mean a three-way communication flow for deal making. If there’s a general rule, it looks like major transfers of companies to Ohio will come from the top down through JobsOhio, meaning JobsOhio will negotiate those deals.
The JobsOhio Network partners, Dayton Development Coalition and the Cincinnati Partnership, will work on deals with businesses eying the Dayton or Cincinnati region alone.
The cities, townships and counties will be on the ground with existing businesses to see what their needs are and pass those from the bottom up.
There may be exceptions, but the main line of communication from Butler County to the state will be through the regional partners. This is different from 88 counties trying to communicate with the state before, Juengling said. Now six organizations will have those contacts.
But an exception might be made if, for example, an out-of-state company makes initial contact with Butler County. The county will have better resources to make that deal, said Tim Miller, a spokesman for JobsOhio.
“I think there will be a quicker reaction time,” Miller said. “I think, too, it’s important from the local county perspective ... there are going to be metrics and there are going to be measurements so the people who are going to be tasked to bring different industries will be measured on how often they keep in contact with the counties.”
Butler County will be split between the two regions along Ohio 63, Juengling said. Half of Monroe, Trenton, Oxford and Middletown will provide information on available properties to the Dayton Development Coalition.
West Chester Twp, Fairfield and Hamilton will respond to the Partnership. The opportunity for more jobs comes when a prospect is only coming from one of the partners, he said.
If a site south of Ohio 63 isn’t available for a response to Cincinnati USA, then Butler County will submit a site north of Ohio 63 and vice versa. If the same prospect comes from both partners, the response from the county will be based on the split, he said.
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