Tri-Cities Economic Development Alliance entering 'pivotal year'

Published 03/01/2008 By Sharon Caskey Hayes


Three years ago, some of the region’s most influential business leaders gathered for a press conference in Johnson City to announce a new organization with lofty goals: Create 7,200 high-paying jobs in five years and raise the region’s average industry wage by 20 percent.

They called it the Tri-Cities Economic Development Alliance, hired a firm to raise funds to sustain the organization for five years, and a few months later, introduced veteran economic developer Andy Burke to lead the effort.

Now three years later, the organization is facing its “pivotal year,” said Burke, chief executive officer of the group now called the Regional Alliance for Economic Development.

“2008 is a pivotal year for this organization and I think for this region,” Burke said. “My goal right now is to have a great year.”

In his 2007 annual letter to alliance investors, Chairman Scott Niswonger said the organization continues to gain momentum toward its goal of adding quality jobs to the region. He said more than 14,000 jobs were added from the third quarter of 2005 to the third quarter of 2007, based on information from the East Tennessee State University Bureau of Business and Economic Research.

“Although we primarily credit local city and county economic development partners with this job growth, there continues to be growing value in presenting a unified region with its collective assets and amenities,” Niswonger wrote.

Just how the alliance has impacted job growth and economic development will be examined later this year. And those findings will determine whether or not the alliance will continue as it is today. More here.