A panel of politicians and leaders, local to national, convened Thursday evening to discuss jobs creation in Southeast Kansas.
The forum featured locals such as Iola Mayor Bill Maness to representatives from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The 15-member panel responded to audience questions about encouraging entrepreneurs or bringing in new industry, but did not volunteer ideas of its own.
“A lot of us have been having e-mail and phone conversations since the (Haldex) plant closure was announced,” Maness said. “Sometimes it’s important to see the faces — that’s why we brought everyone together here tonight,” he said.
Panel members had spent an earlier part of the day discussing among themselves ways to improve the economic climate of Allen County.
At one point, Maness addressed the panel, asking “What do we (as a region) have to do to become more attractive” to businesses?
Responses ranged from “economic gardening” to marketing the area work force’s “soft skills” to potential employers.
Economic gardening, said U.S. Commerce Department representative Mark Werthmann, is when a community creates an atmosphere for businesses to thrive.
Soft skills, added Mike Beene, operations manager for the Kansas Department of Commerce, are such things as a labor force’s work ethic and skill sets. These can be promoted in an attempt to lure in businesses that need such skills, he said.
Networking was the response to a query on how a community might target new businesses.
“It’s challenging,” said Beene. “You have 50 other states competing for the same thing.”
Beene did not know if Kansas offers any sort of incentives to get businesses to locate in the state, but did note that marketing available facilities, coupled with a skilled work force, could intrigue manufacturers.
Werthmann added that economic programs exist to help a business locate in an area such as Allen County, but the government doesn’t “become involved until a company makes a location decision” because “we don’t want to create a competitive environment of one state over another.”
If an area itself recruits a business, though, Werthmann said the Commerce Department can offer financial aid to help purchase a facility, for example. All such projects, he noted, have to center on job creation.
Also, he said, Community Development Block Grants can be used by a community as matching funds to bring in further federal dollars for economic development.
Iolan Jim Gilpin noted that “our principal focus for years has been manufacturing. We are keenly aware that the number of jobs in manufacturing is declining as a percentage of the work force.” Gilpin wanted to know if Allen County, despite its long history of success with factory jobs, should broaden its horizon as far as industry recruitment went.
“Manufacturing is still a viable sector of the U.S. economy,” Harold Stones, special projects director for Sen. Pat Roberts, said.
Werthmann, however, noted that “manufacturing is using a lot more technology and robotics than it used to. Where you once needed 10 people to do a job,” he said, “you now need only two or three.”
Being more technical, new manufacturing jobs “require a different set of skills,” Werthmann said, that rely on “more education and experience in computer qualifications and less physical labor.”
The answer, he said, is increased technological and information science training for youth to prepare them for such positions — especially if a community wishes to keep its younger workers.
BRUCE TWEEDY, executive vice president of Concept Analysis and Integration, noted that his Washington, D.C.-based company discovered Allen County through a worker who was originally from the Iola area.
“We were looking for someone in our company that had a tie to a HUBZone,” he said, noting that HUBZones are areas designated by the U.S. Small Business Administration as being “historically underutilized business zones.”
The SBA will “provide contracting assistance to small businesses located in these economically distressed communities,” its website notes.
Tweedy said Allen County is a desirable HUBZone for its “Midwest work ethic and stable work force.” However, he said, “We’re looking for a community that’s as interested in us as we are in them. It has to be a symbiotic relationship.”
There are 800 HUBZones throughout the country listed on the SBA website, Tweedy said.
“The stuff we’re doing, I can do anywhere I have an Internet connection.”
An area must market itself to stand out, he said.
Werthmann added, “There’s a lot of great ideas here (in Allen County). There’s a lot of great resources here. But you have to get a plan together for yourselves. Sometimes just getting the resources together that you already have can create a lot of amazing things.”
About 30 attended the forum in the lecture hall of Allen County Community College.
