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Team NEO adds leaders
By Karl Henkel
YOUNGSTOWN
Team Northeast Ohio hopes a little added bulk will help spur economic development as it prepares for its new role as a JobsOhio economic hub.
The group announced today the addition of 13 business leaders — all from the region — to serve as trustees to oversee the organization’s new responsibilities.
The nonprofit economic development organization already heads a 16-county region that includes the Mahoning Valley and becomes one of six regional hubs in the newly created JobsOhio, the brainchild of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who wanted to privatize the state’s economic and development expansion.
The new trustees will aim to increase collaboration among the region’s metropolitan areas and improve economic-development strategies.
Funding for JobsOhio, and specifically TeamNEO’s new role, will come from Ohio Third Frontier, which is set to provide $24 million to the six regional hubs during the next two years. Team NEO will learn its share of the funds sometime this week.
The new JobsOhio formula eventually will phase out similar roles at the Ohio Department of Development, which previously had a system in which 12 individuals, stationed statewide, headed economic-development assistance.
“Instead of having a single lone ranger out there doing this work, they’re contracting with established economic groups that are business-based,” Team NEO CEO Tom Waltermire said.
Waltermire said Team NEO, under the JobsOhio umbrella, will cut out the middle man (DOD). Potential businesses previously went through the DOD, which siphoned them off to regional hubs.
The new strategy comes at a cost. Kasich said he expects more than 200 layoffs at DOD in the next year, but many will come through attrition and retirements.
The increased time efficiency, however, should trickle down to other economic and development expansion organizations such as the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
“It will hopefully speed things up as far as deals go,” said Walt Good, vice president of economic development, retention and expansion at the chamber.
“From a business-attraction standpoint, we will continue to market the Youngstown-Warren area. In the past, when the DOD had a lead, they’d transfer it to us. Now the leads will come from Team NEO.”
Waltermire and Good said that by regionalizing economic development, it will better help each particular region improve in weak sectors. For instance, Youngstown has been the best statewide region when it comes to manufacturing, but western Ohio has been particularly poor, according to economic figures released by Cleveland-based economist George Zeller.
“The programs and initiatives will be tailored to the particular regions of Ohio,” Good said. “The eastern part of the state has different selling points than western or southern Ohio.”