Economic development.

• Position: Industry Outlook

For our second annual roundtable on economic development, we gathered a who's who of the state's movers and shakers for a discussion of trends and issues including perceived imbalances in incentive programs, the challenges in planning regionally, and the vagaries of Utah Tax Code.

Participants included Jeff Gochnour, director, State of Utah Division of Business and Economic Development (DBED); Rod Linton, director of technology, State of Utah DBED; Chris Roybal, president, Economic Development Corporation of Utah; Paul Blanchard, owner, Niblick Development; Julie Brewster, manager of community development, Utah Power; Irene Hansen, executive director, Duchesne County Economic Development; Ron Kusina, executive director, Weber Economic Development Corporation; Rick Mayfield, consultant, Utah Defense Alliance; John Rosenthal, director, Salt Lake County Economic Development; Wilf Sommerkorn, director, Davis County Economic Development; Tom Dolan, Sandy City mayor; Peggy Wallace, Utah House of Representatives; Steve Barrett, Freeport Center general manager; Mike Farmer, associate broker, Colliers Commerce CRG; Bryce Roberts, Wasatch Venture Fund associate; and Scott Parkinson, senior vice president, Bank of Utah.

Special thanks to moderator Alan Rindlisbacher, director of corporate marketing, The Layton Companies, and a former director of the Department of Community and Economic Development's National Business Development program.

In the 1960s, former Governor Calvin Rampton put together what appears to be the first proactive modern era economic development program. How has the Utah economy changed since the 1960s, and how are economic development programs involved?

FARMER: Maybe the place to start is to define what we mean by economic development today. What is economic development?

BREWSTER: Well, I think it means increasing the wealth of the citizens and the government as well.

WALLACE: In the '60s, we had two huge employers in the state: Hill Air Force Base and Kennecott. I remember what happened when the mining strike at Kennecott put all the individual businesses around Kennecott--service stations, grocery stores and other supporting infrastructure--out of business. I think that had a huge impact on the state. Since then, we've diversified the type of influence and the type of opportunities in the Utah market.

BLANCHARD: At the risk of being identified as old enough to remember this, there has been a monstrous change since the interstate freeway was built in Utah. We've become a very freeway-oriented economy. We take that for granted now, but if you go to areas away from the interstate system, you can see the difference I-15 has made.

GOCHNOUR: I think improved infrastructure and cultural amenities are imperative for economic development. People want to come here for quality of life, so if we develop our cultural amenities as well, economic development will follow.

DOLAN: It's really all about jobs. It's about getting income levels of the people up so that we can fund every other source that we need to--education, roads, infrastructures, all those kinds of things.

Let's explore some of the roles of business and industry retention and expansion programs. A number of you in the county and state programs focus on expansion of local business and industry. Let's define that more closely and help the readers of Utah Business understand economic development beyond just recruitment.

KUSINA: It starts with a strong business visit program so you have the pulse of what's happening with the major employers in your community. You also have to maintain a solid information base you update every year as you visit those companies so that you can identify key emerging issues and trends. In the end, these things help you assure that the businesses can thrive and be happy in their communities.

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PARKINSON: There's a symbiotic, almost lock-step relationship between economic development and economic education. Courses in education are probably more important for developing local business than business coming in from the outside. Local businesses want to know that their people have access to training and educational opportunities.

LINTON: The entrepreneur is probably the single most important factor in a strong economy--individuals willing to step forward and take the risk to start new businesses, with all of the heartache and headaches associated with growing those businesses. We need to pay attention to our entrepreneurs, providing them the education, the capital, the training, the infrastructure they need in order to be successful. As large businesses downsize--which many have in Utah--there is a commensurate increase in entrepreneurship. Many individuals who have been laid off and who do not want to leave Utah decide to start their own businesses, and those young businesses are really the lifeblood of our economy in Utah.

Are we paying enough attention to those entrepreneurs in our economic development programs, in the public and private sectors?

BLANCHARD: I think we've got a long way to go in our major programs; they're not on par with the rest of the country. Incubation programs away from the Wasatch Front--including one in Price I think is incredible--show us what we ought to be doing. We've got to do a better job along the Wasatch Front.

KUSINA: I think the two interesting models out there now--the Smart Sites concept, and the research universities with their associated business parks--have been especially...