Tampa Super Bowl viewers to learn of ‘Pittsburgh Nation’

Mark Holan
Staff Writer
Email: markholan@bizjournals.com

Pittsburgh economic development and job recruitment officials are marketing the city as aggressively as the city’s football team will be playing offense and defense on Sunday.

The ImaginePittsburgh.com campaign is capitalizing on the Steelers attempt to win a seventh Super Bowl with special events in markets with high concentrations of former residents, including Tampa.

The message on the “Pittsburgh Nation” T-shirts being given away at Tanks Tap Room, 13150 N. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, says it all: “The City of Champions is Growing. We Have Jobs.”

According to ImaginePittsburgh.com, employers across the 10-county Pittsburgh region are currently hiring to fill more than 20,000 jobs for a variety of in-demand careers including engineers, accountants and medical professionals.

Pittsburgh’s unemployment rate is 7.9 percent compared with 12 percent locally.

“The heart of the Pittsburgh region is the City of Champions, a place where a winning spirit has never died,” said Dennis Yablonsky, chief executive officer of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, which maintains ImaginePittsburgh.com. “Today our team’s winning and so is our economy, with jobs opening up faster than regional employers can fill them.”

The T-shirts feature a QR code on the sleeve that, when photographed with a cell or smart phone, will connect directly to the ImaginePittsburgh.com site.

The other cities are Charlotte, N.C., Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Boston, New York and Dallas, site of Sunday’s big game. Here’s a media advisory on the local event.

As mentioned in a previous blog, I’m a Pittsburgh native and will be cheering for the Steelers on Sunday. But on Monday morning I’ll be rooting for Tampa Bay, my home since 2002, to jump-start its own economic development and job growth.

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