By Tom Waltermire, Team NEO CEO

Every year, hundreds of companies in the U.S. and around the world make decisions about where to invest next for growth. Any community that does not compete for these investments is leaving jobs and opportunity to someone else.

It was only two years ago that Northeast Ohio’s business community came together to aggressively compete for these investments.  Good News: Northeast Ohio has a strong case as the right location for investment.  Bad News: We have a LOT of competition.  Many regions have excellent assets to offer, but they have been on the playing field competing for decades.

Today, the Cleveland Plus region is aggressively in the game and chalking up wins.  In just over two years, Team NEO and regional partners have helped attract more than 23 new companies and 2,500 new jobs to Northeast Ohio.

So in the face of strong competition, how do we stand out from the crowd? First, we build relationships with leading site selection consultants that are hired by companies to help them decide where to invest.  The plan includes national sales trips, prospecting at industry conferences, and hosting consultants for familiarization (FAM) tours that showcase our region as the best for business.

On Sunday, we concluded our latest FAM, where Team NEO with our partners hosted a group of influential investment location consultants for a full weekend of work and play.  After a personal greeting at the gate from Todd Payne, Chief of Marketing & Air Services Development at Cleveland Hopkins, our guests boarded a bus for a tour of the new Euclid Avenue and University Circle with a narrated tour with University Circle President Chris Ronayne.

In between dining on the field at Browns’ stadium with President Mike Keenan, enjoying the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Dinner with Timken CEO, Jim Griffiths, and attending the Bridgestone Invitational, guests also heard from PartsSource CEO, Ray Dalton about his rapidly growing biomedical company. They met with Goodyear COO, Rich Kramer to learn why the company chose to remain in Akron, they spoke to HR execs from Step2, Omnova and FedEx Custom Critical about Northeast Ohio’s talented workforce. They visited University of Akron’s Goodyear Polymer Center to learn about our region’s rich academic resources before hearing from FirstEnergy Sr. VP, Chuck Jones about our utility and then discussed entrepreneurship, emerging industries of biomedical, advanced energy and IT with a technology panel of regional partners BioEnterprise, JumpStart, Cleveland Foundation and NorTech.  They learned why Rolls- Royce chose Northeast Ohio over CA, MA and MI for the Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell System’s N. America HQ with President Mark Fleiner, and why California real estate mogul, Stuart Lichter, President of Industrial Realty Group is investing significantly in Northeast Ohio by redeveloping Goodyear, Hoover, the Lorain Ford Plant and more.

After a few days of seeing first hand what Northeast Ohio has to offer, they were overwhelmingly impressed.  With that lineup, who wouldn’t be? Key to Team NEO’s success in changing perception of our region and attracting new businesses is the engagement of Northeast Ohio business and community leaders. The people of Northeast Ohio should be proud and pleased that so many leaders are willingly volunteering their time to help Team NEO bring jobs to the Region.

With a team like this, we know we will keep winning!

Tom

For the complete itinerary of what our guests experienced, click here.

Check out this video, highlighting our recent event. Thanks again to our many partners that make these events possible.

Team NEO advances Northeast Ohio’s economy by attracting businesses worldwide to the 16-county Cleveland Plus region.  The organization is a joint venture of the region’s largest metro chambers of commerce.  Since 2007, the organization has attracted 23 new companies, 2,500 new jobs and more than $75M in annual payroll to Northeast Ohio, leading to a total regional annual impact of $150M.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 9:36 am and is filed under CEO Corner, Regional Ambassador. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.