I-90 Aerospace Corridor Conference & Expo set for May 31-June 1

Saturday, 28 May 2022 / Published in News + Updates

After a two year hiatus, the I-90 Aerospace Corridor Conference & Expo is returning to the Coeur d’Alene Resort in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho on May 31-June 1. This event, the premier aerospace-focused conference in the Inland Northwest, will feature a full line up of great industry speakers, a trade show featuring a wide cross-section of suppliers and service providers, B2B meetings with OEMs and Tier 1 and 2 suppliers, and ample networking opportunities.

To see all the participation options visit the event website.

Spokane cross-laminated timber maker plans $50M in upgrades

Saturday, 21 May 2022 / Published in News + Updates

Less than a year after buying shuttered Katerra plant, manufacturer looks to increase production

This article first appeared in the Spokane Journal of Business on May 19th, 2022. By Karina Elias.

Less than a year after buying the shuttered Katerra plant in Spokane Valley, Mercer Mass Timber LLC plans to invest $50 million in capital projects at the cross-laminated timber factory over the next two years.

The timber-products company has hired 80% of previous Katerra employees at the site since opening last fall. Starting in July, the plant, which currently has 50 employees, will hire roughly 30 additional people to run a second shift, says Jason Herman, plant manager for Mercer Mass Timber.

Envisioned capital projects include expanding the facility, adding new equipment lines, and the addition of a new product line, including glue-laminated structural components, or “glulam.”

Mercer’s main product, cross-laminated timber, or CLT, consists of several layers of kiln-dried lumber boards that are stacked in alternating directions, bonded with structural adhesives, and pressed to form a solid, straight, rectangular panel. Those wood panels are then cut to size and include door and window openings.

Glulam is constructed with all wood layers oriented in the same direction and is ideally used as structural support such as columns and beams.

About two-thirds of a mass timber building is made up of CLT and one-third is glulam, explains Herman. The facility is currently under the process of being qualified for glulam, with production most likely starting sometime in the summer.

“We’re ramping up right now,” says Herman. “With Mercer, we want to add glulam because it’s what mass timber needs.”

Mercer Mass Timber LLC is a subsidiary of the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Mercer International Inc., a global producer of market pulp and solid wood products with mills in Canada, Germany, and Australia.

Established in 1968, Mercer has over 50 years of experience operating in wood manufacturing.

The Spokane Valley CLT plant, located at 19202 E. Garland, is the company’s first factory in the U.S. and its first foray into the mass timber industry.

Mercer acquired the 253,000-square-foot facility—one of the largest CLT production facilities in North America—last summer for $50 million from Katerra Inc., which filed for bankruptcy in June and laid off 63 employees in Spokane Valley.

“We’re really excited that this landed in the right place,” says Todd Beyreuther, director of product for Mercer Mass Timber. “It would have been sad to see it go down.”

Beyreuther and Herman both were involved in the original planning and launch of the facility under Katerra, which began production in 2018. In total, the facility cost $180 million to build, says Herman.

The CLT manufacturing facility is on 37 acres of land at 19202 E. Garland, in northeast Spokane Valley.

When Mercer acquired the plant last August, the company stated in a press release that the plant represents 30% of the current North American mass timber manufacturing capacity and has a capacity to supply about 13 million square feet of five-ply panels, or about 140,000 cubic meters of yearly production.

Herman says that the plant is focused on getting into full production, and a second shift is necessary to do so.

While Katerra sought to be a one-stop-shop CLT company that included building design, manufacturing, and on-site construction, Herman says that Mercer is just focused on manufacturing.

“It’s not fully integrated from design to manufacturing to construction,” says Herman. “What’s different is we are a standalone manufacturing plant.”

The plant receives daily requests for product information and sends out 20 to 30 quotes a week, he says. It’s currently working on five projects from across the country.

Projects are made to customer specifications, says Beyreuther. Mercer works with architects, engineers, and designers to integrate wiring and plumbing systems for each project design. The company has also hired a lead from England, Nick Milestone, who, along with his team, will work with architects and engineers as they construct the buildings.

Herman declines to share annual revenue projections.

He says that lumber makes up 75% of product costs. He adds that demand is growing for mass timber, not just for buildings, but also homes, bridges, barges, and other types of structures.

In the U.S., 1,384 multifamily, commercial, or institutional mass timber projects had been built or were in design as of March, according to WoodWorks, a Washington D.C. organization that provides free project support and education resources for wood-frame and mass timber buildings and projects.

Beyreuther says that access to timber in Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia is one factor in the original decision to locate the plant in the Spokane area.

Another factor is tied to the plant’s continuing partnership with Washington State University and its Composite Materials and Engineering Center, where Beyreuther was a researcher when he was approached by investors from Katerra, in 2016, about starting a mass timber facility.

CMEC is an accredited lab where Mercer keeps equipment. Mercer’s teams are in constant collaboration with the experts at CMEC working on product prototypes, says Beyreuther.

“All the mass timber experts are here, that’s our role. It’s good to be under a good parent company,” he says.

Entrepreneurial ecosystem in greater Spokane traverses complicated terrain

Thursday, 21 April 2022 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Journal of Business on April 21, 20211. by Virginia Thomas

While funding opportunities have slowed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Spokane’s startup community remains active, bolstered by employees located throughout the U.S. and events that bring attention to new companies, some market observers here say.

According to information from proprietary market data software subscription platform PitchBook, more than $51.6 million went to startups in the Spokane area in 2021. That’s less than half the $107.6 million in funding startups here received in 2020.

Of those funds committed in 2021, nearly half—$25.3 million—was venture funding.

Steve Rector, chief investment officer at Spokane-based Cowles Ventures LLC, says that while there’s no shortage of startups to fund, cash flow to investments has slowed as investors have been more hesitant to part with their money while the pandemic persisted through a second year.

“People are preserving cash in some of the uncertainty,” Rector says. “I was a little more protective during the last 18 to 24 months, just until we got a better handle on where things were going.”

Cowles Ventures is the venture-capital arm of Cowles Co., which owns the Journal of Business through its subsidiary, Northwest Business Press Inc.

Tom Simpson, managing member of angel fund Kick-Start, president of the Spokane Angel Alliance, and president and CEO of Ignite Northwest, says that data from Pitchbook should be taken with a grain of salt.

“PitchBook data is not complete because you don’t have everything disclosed,” Simpson says. “I would be careful about drawing a meaningful conclusion and saying the Spokane region suddenly is less interesting because of a decline.”

According to PitchBook data, startups that received the greatest amount of funds in 2021 include:

•Coeur d’Alene-based additive manufacturer Continuous Composites Inc., which received $18 million in venture funding in June.

•Coeur d’Alene-based cyber security company Gravwell Inc., which raised about $7 million total from two seed funding rounds in 2021.

•Spokane Valley-based real estate startup Doorsey Inc., which raised $4.1 million in seed funding in November.

Simpson says it’s important to note the number of new startups receiving investments versus the number of follow-on investments.

In 2021, four new startups – Vega Cloud Inc., Doorsey Inc., Treasury4 Inc., and Ruumr Inc. – received funding. No new startups received funding in 2020, according to PitchBook data.

Rector says Cowles Ventures invested in two new companies in 2021—Spokane-based fintech software startup Treasury4 Inc. and Vega Cloud, which is a Liberty Lake-based software maker.

So far in 2022, investors have infused more than $7.7 million into local startups, according to PitchBook. Most of that came from a $7 million venture funding round to Spokane-based spice maker Spiceology Inc. from San Francisco-based venture capital firm Jackson Square Ventures and other undisclosed investors.

Rector says investments in Spokane-area startups are likely to recover somewhat in 2022.

“Overall, in the markets and the venture space, we’ll probably see some upticks in ’22, just because we are getting out of some of the uncertainties that were clouding us in 2020 and 2021,” Rector says.

Simpson says future successful companies could be born from local startup events, which also maintain the momentum of the community.

Sparks Weekend, to be hosted this year by Ignite and LimeLyte Technology Group Inc. from April 29 to May 1 at the Catalyst Building, at 601 E. Riverside, provides new startups with resources to launch, Simpson says.

“It’s a three-day event where people with ideas for brand-new businesses present their ideas on Friday evening,” Simpson says.

About 40 presenters will be winnowed down to 10 finalists, who will be paired with mentors to work on creating a minimum viable product, conducting market research, and refining their busines model. On Sunday, competitors will present their final plans to a panel of judges. One winner will receive $50,000 in investment capital.

“That’s something that’s been very fruitful in the ecosystem here in Spokane,” Simpson says. “For example, Spiceology was the winner of a predecessor to Sparks Weekend, which was called Startup Spokane. Kaspien, several years ago, was the product of the same business plan competition.”

Spokane Valley-based e-commerce company Kaspien Holdings Inc. is an example of a company that has benefitted from some effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Simpson says. It has increased employee numbers by hiring people to work remotely. Other startups in the Spokane area also are likely to grow this way, Simpson says.

“The broader acceptance of remote work has really helped Spokane,” Simpson says. “In the past, sometimes Spokane was at a disadvantage for recruiting. Now, we can recruit people to work for emerging Spokane companies, though the workers may live elsewhere. It’s benefitting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spokane in two ways—more talent coming in, and the ability to attract a broader base of talent, though the workers might not live in Spokane.”

Ryan Arnold, director of regional entrepreneurial strategy at North Idaho College and co-manager of the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition, says entrepreneurial events are a good way for startups to find funding and other resources.

At the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition, hosted virtually on April 13 by North Idaho College and Spokane’s University District, more than 50 student teams competed for a total of about $44,000 in awards.

In addition to funding and feedback from judges, such events provide networking opportunities. Arnold says many entrepreneurs have a small network or none at all.

“Events like these oftentimes are a sort of clearinghouse for that, where they’re not only competing, but they’re meeting new people, they’re meeting their own peers that are going through the same issues, and they’re building their own entrepreneurial network,” Arnold says.

The Northwest Entrepreneur Competition has been hosted by North Idaho College annually for about 15 years, Arnold says. In that time, the entrepreneurial ecosystem here has flourished, he says.

“What we’ve found over time is that Spokane as a region has gotten more complex as far as the ecosystem goes,” he says. “We’re doing a good job of cooperating across state lines. The ecosystem is starting to work together a lot better, more cooperatively.”

Even before the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition came along, the startup community here was connecting higher education institutions with startup investment opportunities.

“You see this in the building growth of Spokane’s University District, for instance—the physical form of these spaces and places next to the downtown core,” Arnold says. “We were trying to attract talent and resources. But now, that talent and resource is here. Those buildings and spaces are here. With that comes the opportunity to just keep building and growing.”

Arnold says startups in the health sciences, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing sectors in particular have seen significant growth here.

Rector says Spokane startups have been receiving more attention from investors based outside of the Inland Northwest.

“We’re attracting some good, strong attention nationally with some of the companies that were started here,” Rector says. “I’ve got a couple of different venture groups in the Bay Area and a couple in the Seattle area that are much more inquisitive as to what we’re doing over here.”

Evergreen Bioscience Innovation Receives $500,000 Grant to Build a Bioscience Cluster in the Spokane Region

Wednesday, 06 April 2022 / Published in News + Updates

This is a press release from Greater Spokane Inc., released on March 14, 2022.

(SPOKANE, Wash.) – The Washington State Department of Commerce has awarded a $500,000 Innovation Cluster Accelerator grant to Evergreen Bioscience Innovation (Evergreen Bio) to build a bioscience innovation cluster in the Spokane region. The successful team is led by Greater Spokane Inc. in partnership with SP3NW. Washington’s Innovation Cluster Accelerator is one portion of work supported by a $15 million CARES Act Investment by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration.

The grant dollars will grow an industry-led business development organization and drive initiatives to build a world-class health and life science contract service industry in the region. Evergreen Bio’s mission is to make the Mountain Northwest and Washington State a magnet for companies providing and consuming expert life and health science contract research, development, and manufacturing services. They will do this by promoting industry “co-opetition,” prioritizing projects to address industry needs, and acquiring, developing, and retaining top talent.

Multiple organizations and key champions have been instrumental in the success of this award, including SP3NW, Katrina Rogers Consulting, Health Sciences and Services Authority of Spokane County, Clear Solutions Biomedical, VectorPoint Ventures, Johnston Engineering, and Alturas Analytics/Needham Scientific.

“This is a very exciting opportunity that is building on a lot of the community’s great work. Evergreen Bio is what comes next from VISION 2030, the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, SP3NW, and new investments from Jubilant HollisterStier and Selkirk Pharma. Contract services across the region has been identified as a gap and Evergreen Bio can lead the economic advantage of local supply chain sourcing for pharmaceutical and medical device contract services companies. We will have the opportunity to catapult our community into one of the leaders in life science services,” said Stacia Rasmussen, Health & Life Science Business Development Manager of Greater Spokane Inc.

Evergreen Bio is focusing on five key initiatives to promote bioscience innovation including a Thriving Industry, Total Mountain Northwest Supply Chain, Global Entrepreneurship Hub, 21st Century Talent, and a World-Class Cluster.  Evergreen Bio will be the home for synergistic regional initiatives across these focus areas.

“Growing life sciences in Spokane requires a strong entrepreneurial community supported by financial opportunities. SP3NW is proud to be a part of the team bringing Evergreen Bio into existence. We already have strong interest from the private sector, entrepreneurs, finance, government, and education from current work with parallel aims of the FIRE grant programs. The grant will give us the ability to grow on this success,” said Michaele Armstrong, Associate Director of SP3NW.

About the Evergreen Bioscience Innovation

Evergreen Bioscience Innovation (Evergreen Bio) is a corporate industry-led, member-based organization that includes partners from the five economic segments of government, capital, academics, entrepreneur, and corporate.  The mission of Evergreen Bio is to make the Mountain Northwest and Washington State a magnet for companies providing and consuming expert life and health science contract research, contract development, and contract manufacturing services of medicines and medical devices, by enhancing workforce development and services to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Evergreen Bio’s purpose is to develop and promote collaborative relationships facilitating regional business growth by prioritizing and assisting in funding projects that increase our collective value as an integrated biosciences supply chain, which will expand name recognition and awareness of contract services provided within our region.

About Greater Spokane Inc.

Greater Spokane Inc. (GSI) is the Spokane region’s business development organization. GSI creates the place where organizations come together to advocate for the region, drive strategic economic growth, and champion a talented workforce. GSI is funded through a combination of private and public investment, including over 800 private-sector members; Spokane County; Washington State Department of Commerce; and the cities of Spokane, Spokane Valley, Cheney, Deer Park, Liberty Lake, Airway Heights, Medical Lake, Millwood, Newport, and the Kalispel Tribe of Indians. For more information visit GreaterSpokane.org.

About SP3NW and the FIRE grant programs

SP3NW is an early-stage, life sciences incubator located in the University District of Spokane. In alignment with the land grant mission of WSU, SP3NW supports the bench-to-business and business-to-consumer paradigm. Through the four programs of our EDA-supported Flexible Infrastructure for Resilient Entrepreneurship (FIRE), we help to grow companies with innovative new products across Washington, Idaho, and Montana. For more information visit sp3nw.org.

2021 Manufacturing Economic Impact Report for the State of Idaho

Tuesday, 15 March 2022 / Published in News + Updates

The Idaho Manufacturing Alliance (IMA) has released their 2021 Manufacturing Economic Impact Report for the State of Idaho.

This is a report of the economic footprint of Idaho’s manufacturing sector for the year 2020. The sponsor is the Idaho Manufacturing Alliance and authored by the Vandal Impact Center. The student authors are Jacob Spence, Christopher Giddings, Josh Gehring, and Keegan Opdahl. The faculty advisor is Steven Peterson, who has conducted over 150 studies on nearly every Idaho industry in his career1. The study was completed in November 2021.

IMA partners with the University of Idaho and Alturas to fulfill a long-time organizational goal of formally highlighting how important manufacturing is to the Idaho economy. IMA’s three main activities are to connect, support and promote manufacturing.

Download full report here.

Civic pride and apathy are topics of upcoming Inland Northwest Partners spring webinar

Wednesday, 09 March 2022 / Published in News + Updates

March 9, 2022 (FAIRFIELD, Wash.)—Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is accepting registrations for their 2022 Spring Webinar. Philadelphia author and urban planner, Jeff Siegler, will be sharing a new approach to help restore people’s relationship to their town and foster a sense of pride in their communities. The webinar, “Civic Apathy and Civic Pride”, is Wednesday, March 23 from 9:00 am-11:00 am. Cost is $20 for INP members and $30 for non-members. Register at www.inwp.org.

 

“Regardless of a town or city’s size, residents’ apathy can be a challenge. Too often, it is the same people who show up and address their community’s needs”, says INP Executive Director, KayDee Gilkey. “This webinar will provide small, simple steps that can be taken by communities to increase civic pride.”

 

Jeff Siegler grew up in a struggling rustbelt city and understands the devastating cost of civic apathy. After obtaining his Masters in Urban Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University, Siegler went to work on Main Street, first as a downtown manager and Business Improvement District director, and later as the Ohio Main Street State Coordinator.

 

Now a consultant, Siegler travels nationally and internationally to assist communities in their efforts to restore civic health. He places the focus on making our towns into places residents can be proud to call home rather than on economic development and tourism. Siegler founded the civic pride consulting firm, Revitalize, or Die and is a co-founding partner of Proud Places. He is currently in the process of writing his first book, titled Your City is Sick.

 

INP members meet quarterly to share common economic challenges and solutions within the eastern Washington and northern Idaho region. Topics can include technology, financing community initiatives, forging regional partnerships, civic capacity-building, business expansion and retention strategies, and talent attraction. INP often partners with local chambers or state organizations for value-added training.

For more information about INP meetings or becoming a member, visit inwp.org or email [email protected]

************************

 

Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is a non-profit organization focused on enhancing the long-term vitality of a two-state region through its core offering of educational meetings, programs, and seminars. More than 300 business and community leaders from eastern Washington and northern Idaho are members. INP is also part of a regional collaborative known as the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance (INEA), a consortium of fourteen economic development agencies. To learn more, visit inwp.org.

 

Inland Northwest Partners announces new executive director

Friday, 11 February 2022 / Published in News + Updates

February 11, 2022 (FAIRFIELD, Wash.)—Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is pleased to announce that a new executive director has been appointed. KayDee Gilkey comes to INP with more than 30 years of service to nonprofit boards on a local, regional, and state level, and is former two-term mayor of the Town of Fairfield, Washington. Gilkey is the economic development organization’s second director and assumed her position earlier this month. She succeeds Sharon Matthews, who held the position for 25 years. Matthews retired at the end of 2021.

Gilkey will concurrently remain as Directory of Industry Relations for the Washington State Beef Commission. She currently serves on the Liberty Community Education Foundation Board of Directors and serves as chapter advisor to WSU’s Alpha-Gamma-Delta chapter.

“We are so pleased to have KayDee joining us at the INP. Her expertise in non-profit leadership coupled with her passion for economic and community vitality is the perfect combination to help our organization succeed and support our mission, notes INP Board Chairman and Avista Regional Business Manager Paul Kimmell.

Inland Northwest Partners originated in 1986 as an in-house Avista economic development program and became an official non-profit corporation in 1996. In 2004, the organization developed the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance to better support community and economic development professionals from across the Inland Northwest. INP members meet quarterly to share common economic challenges and solutions within the eastern Washington and northern Idaho region. Topics include technology, financing community initiatives, forging regional partnerships, civic capacity-building, business expansion and retention strategies, and talent attraction. INP often partners with local chambers or state organizations for value-added training.

“Sharon was the consummate professional leading both organizations effectively for so long. Our Board and the entire region deeply appreciate her efforts and the positive economic impacts she helped foster here,” Kimmell said.

For more information about INP meetings or becoming a member, visit inwp.org or email [email protected]

Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is a non-profit organization focused on enhancing the long-term vitality of a two-state region through its core offering of educational meetings, programs and seminars.  More than 300 business and community leaders from eastern Washington and northern Idaho are members. INP is also part of a regional collaborative known as the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance (INEA), a consortium of fourteen economic development agencies. To learn more, visit inwp.org.

Northeast Washington to plan for tourism as state tries to replicate success of other PNW communities

Wednesday, 22 December 2021 / Published in News + Updates
This article first appeared in The Inlander on December16, 2021.

By.

During the pandemic, while some out-of-the-way outdoor recreation areas saw visitation plummet (such as Denali National Park in Alaska), many other parks saw an influx of new and returning visitors anxious to get out of the house.

Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area in northeastern Washington, for example, got 160,585 more visitors than in 2019, with a near record 1.5 million total visitors in 2020, according to parks data that goes back to the 1940s.

With campsites and trails in the area also proving popular, Pend Oreille, Ferry and Stevens counties got a taste of how tourism can benefit surrounding towns.

“We have hundreds of lakes and huge waterways, and we know that those activities are well used,” says Shelly Stevens, who runs regional marketing for the Tri County Economic Development District, which covers all three counties. “One of the results of the pandemic has been this huge influx of people that maybe weren’t outdoor enthusiasts prior.”

However, not every community has been able to manage the flow. Moab, Utah, once a uranium mining community, successfully rebranded in recent decades as a massively popular outdoor destination for hiking and biking. But with nearby Arches National Park so popular that it’s full all the time, vacation rentals driving up the cost of living, and illegal camping and dumping of human waste in the area causing issues, NPR reported this summer that the city is now trying to pump the brakes on tourism.

Luckily, there are ways to plan ahead and design destinations that are welcoming to visitors while limiting their impact. From offering free shuttles to avoid overflow parking on busy roads to designing trail systems that provide great views while discouraging people from trekking through wilderness areas, many communities have designed creative workarounds for the problems that can arise.

Now, Stevens, Ferry and Pend Oreille will start planning for the future in hopes of avoiding the pitfalls other regions have seen, as the first region in the state to receive a rural tourism support grant from the nonprofit Washington Tourism Alliance.

“The timing of this project is great because we want to get ahead of that increase in tourism to the area,” Stevens says, “so that we don’t turn into a Moab or Jackson Hole or something where all of a sudden the locals can’t afford to live here.”

When Washington became the only state in the country to close its tourism office in 2011 (amid ongoing budget concerns following the recession), the Washington Tourism Alliance stepped in to maintain some of the efforts to attract people to the state. After the state reopened the office a few years ago, the alliance became a contractor for the state, continuing its work to encourage visitors while making sure impacts are managed responsibly.

“We want to not only provide marketing for the state, but also try to build infrastructure and create tourism ecosystems that are not only great for visitors, but also for residents,” says Mike Moe, director of tourism development and strategic partnership for the alliance. “We hired a consultant who helped Oregon put their program together and we’re very excited to pilot this in northeast Washington. We have so many amazing assets up there.”

The three heavily forested counties are sparsely populated: There are only seven people per square mile, and it’s hard to throw a rock and not hit a piece of land owned by a public government agency or tribal government. Stevens County is 62 percent privately owned, Pend Oreille County is 34 percent privately owned, and Ferry County is just 18 percent privately owned, according to GIS data from the Tri County Economic Development District.

“Outdoor recreation is an asset that’s, for the most part, sitting there and is available,” Stevens says. “One of the exciting things about this program is that it’s very much based on public outreach and participation, and people coming to the table and helping decide what they want tourism to look like in a decade.”

Consultant Kristin Dahl, who runs private company Crosscurrent Collective, formerly worked for Travel Oregon, where she created a process for developing tourist destinations and addressing issues in areas that are already visited regularly.

“The Oregon tourism folks have it figured out,” Stevens says. “They have done a fabulous job especially with outdoor rec and mountain biking.”

For example, when communities along the Columbia River Gorge went through the process, they were able to create car-free travel itineraries, launch an express shuttle for visitors, open a new trail segment and park, and more.

Dahl says other communities that went through a similar process developed things like food tours, expanded trail systems, or maps of local points of interest.

“It runs the gamut,” Dahl says. “Sometimes what our communities will do is also look at their heritage, whether that’s Indigenous or industrial heritage, and look at a way to bring that history to the forefront.”

Through a series of workshops, Dahl asks communities what they want to look like in 10 years, with a “steering committee” of local leaders picking the starting points for those conversations.

The public workshops in northeastern Washington could start in March. The region has already established its committee with representatives from the Kalispel Tribe of Indians, Spokane Indian Tribe and Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, as well as regional business leaders and recreation-oriented experts. As the process wraps up, that group is meant to be the backbone that ensures projects actually come to fruition, Dahl says.

Through the process, community members will also be asked to address any tensions around tourism that already exist or that may come up in the future.

“You can’t stop the flow, unfortunately, but you can manage it and use tools to up-play or downplay when you want visitors to come,” Dahl says. “How do you continue to develop visitation in places that aren’t seeing as much so you can kind of spread the love?”

Stevens says it will be great to get the process going and to continue building the relationships that have already started to take shape in recent years in the region.

“We want to be thoughtful about the growth and what that’s going to look like,” Stevens says. “The most important thing to remember is to make improvements for the people that are already here, and enhance their quality of life, and by virtue of that others will enjoy it, too.” ♦

The Role of Public Policy in Rural Community Economic Development

Wednesday, 03 November 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared on survivalbusiness.com on October 16, 2021. By

By Paula Jensen

My husband is a mechanic. The tools of his trade are important to his work. He has a large toolbox with many drawers lined in soft black padding. His tools lay clean and organized inside each drawer for easy access when he needs the right tool for a job. Yet, when things get busy tools don’t get wiped clean, and they don’t get put back into that organized toolbox. This is when frustration levels rise, every job gets harder, and jobs take longer because he’s looking everywhere for the right tool.

Like a mechanic needs easy access to the right tools, our local community economic development (CED) organizations need easy access to the right tools — like public policy. In most rural communities, the development organization is the one group responding to the local needs that neither the market economy nor government is fully satisfying. These development organizations are working mostly alone to create solutions for housing, daycare, business retention and expansion, workforce issues, leadership development, and other quality of life issues. One organization cannot effectively tackle all these local issues alone. If the role of public policy is not in place to support development, then local frustration levels rise, every project gets harder to do, and progress takes longer because development leaders can’t grab the right tool from the toolbox.

Nine components of community and economic development

I was community coaching in a small town recently with twelve local leaders. This group represented city council members, county commissioners, and the economic development board of directors. We were mapping out their community and economic development model.

This model included the components of:

  1. business attraction
  2. existing business
  3. entrepreneurship
  4. workforce/education
  5. infrastructure
  6. quality of life
  7. leadership development
  8. storytelling/branding
  9. role of public policy

As each person was journaling their lists of activities in the nine areas, the mayor asked me for an example under the column labeled, “Role of Public Policy”. To prompt his brainstorming, I asked, “To support community economic development, have you hired a code enforcement officer or implemented the Municipal Gross Receipts Tax?”

As we worked together that evening, the group named two activities under the role of public policy – 1) Implementing Zoning and 2) Code Enforcement. Those are both good supporting public policies. Yet, as I looked over their collective work, it concerned me that a room with many elected officials could only name two public policies to support development. In that moment the story I told myself was, elected officials don’t know their role in public policy when it comes to supporting development.

So, what’s missing that could help elected officials connect the dots between the role of public policy and community economic development?

Goals of community development

A first step toward connecting those dots may be to define and understand development in your community. In addition to the nine components of the development model I listed above, below are a few general goals of any typical development organization:

Goal 1. Building Greater Community Capacity and Quality of Life

Goal 2. Nurturing Pride, Self-Reliance, and Leadership

Goal 3. Enhancing Skills and Attracting a Quality Workforce

Goal 4. Developing Businesses that are Responsive to Social and Economic Needs

Goal 5. Fostering Balanced, Fair, and Sustainable Economic Development

Example public policies to support community economic development

A next step is to explore public policies other communities are implementing to achieve their goals. Some examples of existing policies include:

  1. Investing in workforce attraction/retention incentives
  2. Prioritizing financial investments for paid staff of local housing, chamber, and economic development organizations, along with joint agreements on desired impacts
  3. Implementing a city sales tax, Municipal Gross Receipts Tax or lodging tax
  4. Implementing discretionary tax formulas to support housing improvements and business development
  5. Implementing local Main Street beautification and façade programs
  6. Creating an ecosystem of supporting local business to increase local sales tax
  7. Investing in quality-of-life and recreational amenities
  8. Utilizing Tax Increment Financing
  9. Prioritizing Planning & Zoning
  10. Owning or supplementing local daycare facilities.

 

Together, elected officials and economic development leaders can connect the dots between the role of public policy and community economic development by visioning for the future, naming the local needs, setting some goals, and innovatively developing public policy as a tool to create a thriving rural community.

About the Spokane region, Education & Workforce, Quality of Life

Thursday, 14 October 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared on advantagespokane.com on October 11, 2021.

As the economy shakes out, new and growing businesses are deciding where to locate post-pandemic. For most, the availability of skilled, trained and ready-to-work employees is a priority — if not the No. 1 criteria.

“This is going to come down to talent,” says Gary Ballew, GSI’s vice president for economic development. “We already see a scarcity of workers across the country. The ability for companies to be successful is the ability of the community to grow, attract and retain talent.”

Reliable, relevant data helps focus the search — so you know whether a community has the talent pipeline your company needs. In Spokane County, the numbers have been good and steadily getting better:

  • High school graduations. At 86.02% in 2019-’20, Spokane County’s high school graduation rate has been rising steadily for the past decade. It’s remained consistently higher than the statewide rate (83.91% in 2019-’20).
  • College attendance. In 2019, 71.2% of Spokane County residents 25 and older had attended college. That total percentage includes 40.2% of residents who had attended some college, on their way to earning a degree, or earned an associate’s degree. (That rate was higher than the state and U.S. averages.) That total percentage also includes 19.5% of residents who had bachelor’s degrees, and another 11.5% with graduate or professional degrees.
  • Civilian labor force participation. Spokane County offers the largest labor market in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. At 61.89% in 2019, the percentage of  Spokane County’s total civilian labor force — the number of employed people plus the those actively seeking work — had been rising steadily since 2015.

Advantage Spokane’s regional Data Center is packed with searchable information about talent, the business climate, infrastructure and utilities, transportation and other factors key to decision-making.

Key data curated for businesses is also easy to find on a free interactive web tool called the Vitals (the source of the talent-related data above). It’s a tool built for businesses throughout Washington and those looking to locate in the state. The Vitals bring together more than 30 key economic indicators in Washington counties or MSAs, and at the state level. The indicators reflect regions’ progress related to economic recovery, talent, business environment, infrastructure and connectivity, entrepreneurship and innovation, and place and community.

The tool makes is part of Washington in the Making, a framework for the state’s post-pandemic economic recovery created by the AWB Institute.

Commitment to education

In Spokane County, the strong numbers related to talent reflect a regional, long-term commitment to developing a talent pipeline that matches employers’ needs.

It starts with education.
The Spokane region is home to public and private colleges and universities attended by nearly 80,000 students. The county’s 14 school districts and 60 private schools provide charter programs, STEM academies, skills centers and bilingual programs in addition to high-quality K-12 education.

The region also supports training programs that ensure that the engaged, ready-to-work people in our labor force learn the skills and grow the talents that new and growing businesses need.

High quality of life

But Ballew notes that it’s just as important to be able to attract and keep skilled and talented people around, in addition to supporting quality education and training programs.

Ballew said he’s seen quality-of-life issues become more important for employers and workers, starting even before the pandemic. But now, many have experienced a shift in perspective; they’ve looking for qualities like shorter commutes and easy access to lakes, rivers, forests and mountains.

“COVID accelerated a lot of shifts,” Ballew says, “and that was one of them.”

And that important change is another good reason to consider the good life in Spokane.