Article Published Harvest/Holiday 2005 Edition

Repositioning a Region
Andy Burke Wants His To Be The First Of 7,200 New High-Paying Jobs In The Tri-Cities

By Scott Robertson, Editor, Marquee.

Andy Burke is, as they say, in a good place. Burke has most everything that achievement-oriented businessmen want when they start a new job. He has a challenge, the support of those individuals and businesses that will be most likely to help him meet that challenge, the expertise to succeed, and the authority to do wharhe needs to do in the process.

Burke is the new President/CEO of the Tri­Cities Economic Development Alliance (TCEDA) and his challenge is straightforward. In specific terms, he is to take the $5 million the TCEDA is currently raising, and use it to recruit businesses that will create 7,200 new high paying jobs, plus 4,000 additional support jobs and jobs created as the region's economy expands. Accomplishing this would bring the region's job creation and wage levels up to meet Tennessee's growth rates. In more general terms, says Burke, "The objective is to create high-paying new jobs, to retain the existing base and to improve per capita income. Per capita income equates to a better quality of life in the area. If you're not improving per capita income, you're falling behind. And the way you increase per capita income is by attracting jobs that pay more."

Burke has made a career of doing just that. In Oklahoma City he oversaw economic development during a period in which 40,000 new jobs were created. In Greensboro he ran the organization that kept the city's economy moving forward during a time when nearly every major industry in the region was in trouble,including furniture, tobacco and textiles.

So how does a man with these credentials end up running a start-up organization in the hills of East Tennessee? As usual, it starts with whom you know. In this case, Burke received a call from Tom Ferguson, whose consulting firm, Ferguson Development Network, was working with the TCEDA. "Tom called me in Greensboro and asked if I knew of anyone who would be likely to work in this situation," says Burke. "I said, 'Let me do some thinking and get back with you.' I knew very little about the area, aside from its proximity to Asheville [North Carolina] and to Hungry Mother [State] Park, where my family and I have vacationed. I knew it was a beautiful area. 1 did some more research, and three days later 1 called back and said, 'I might have an interest.'"

Ferguson says he was pleasantly surprised at Burke's response. "My immediate reaction was, 'If we can get Andy Burke, the search is over.' Andy possesses all the skills based on the criteria we established for this job."

Burke's interest level grew as he researched the TCEDA. "There were several things that made this intriguing from an operational standpoint," he says. "First, the board had been doing their due diligence for three years. They had done stUdies and hired consultants. They had engaged Tom, who is very knowledgeable. That lent credibility. They had engaged National Community Development Services, whom we had used in Greensboro, for their capital campaign. And the absolute top leadership in this region had signed onto this effort. That made up the start of something very successful. Every economic developer is looking for that kind of support and infra­structure."

Burke's conversation with Tom Ferguson led to an impromptu lunch meeting with Brian Ferguson, TCEDA chairman and CEO of Eastman Chemical Company. "We had a two-hour discussion, and then I went through the interview process," says Burke.That process included meetings with the leaders of the region's largest existing employers. Dr. Richard Salluzzo, CEO of Wellmont Health Systems and a co-chairman of the TCEDA capital campaign, says that Burke immediately struck him as a natural fit for the job. "I really feel he's an extraordinary and visionary economic developer. I've been around many of them. Mr. Burke's track record speaks for itself." (Among other projects, Salluzzo worked with economic developers to create an IT park in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, before he came to the Tri-Cities).

Salluzzo says Burke's demeanor Was also a strong selling point. "He's not going to be rattled by any obstacle. He understands that things won't be perfectly smooth,and he prefers start-up experiences. He likes to get an area to improve quickly. Among a strong group of candidates, he was clearly the strongest. I can see he's bringing an element of sophistication we haven't had before."

Statements like that last one might tend to rankle economic developers who are already marketing the individual communities in the region, but Burke is quick to say he's not playing the role of new sheriff in town. "We have good economic developers, both individuals and organizations, in this region. They're all accustomed to working in this environment, and they're all doing a great job. The idea of the alliance is to say we want to reposition this Tri-Cities region in the global marketplace and in the United States. That is probably the key to everything else we will do. I know how to communicate to that market. I'll need help developing the message, but out of that, hopefully we will begin to show up as a geographic area on the radar screens of some of the firms and individuals that make decisions about placing relocations and new facilities. But those deals are done at the local level. So that actually increases the work that's done here. My job and the job of the alliance is to reposition this place."

To that end, the alliance plans to implement three studies. A cluster analysis will determine the nature of the existing businesses and infrastructure in the region. A workforce analysis will determine what education levels and skill sets are available. An image survey will determine how potential employers view the region, and what misconceptions might need to be addressed. "Those studies will help determine what we do in our aggres­sive recruitment efforts," says Burke.

The alliance also plans to take full advantage of the new World Trade Center designation for the region, Burke says. "I'm looking at the World Trade Center here as a very significant opportunity to position us as a player in the global marketplace, connecting us with 300 other WTCs, and opening doors that could not be opened otherwise. The opportunity will be there. We have to do the preparation to take advantage of that opportunity."

But the very first step, says Burke, is to create a physical presence for the TCEDA, a presence that will serve as an aid to all the economic development efforts in the region. "I am hopeful that we can create a site, that we can find a developer to build a building in the area near the airport, and that we can consolidate several offices in one place so that we can build a business resource center that we can all use. That's top of my agenda. That's the way to go." In the meantime, Burke is working from an office at Northeast State Technical Community College's Wayne Basler Library. He knows that creating the new facility will be just one step in a long journey.

"Economic development is a process, not an event," Burke says. "Leadership sometimes forgets that. But not here. Here they realize it's a sustained process." And that, perhaps more than anything else, tells Burke that he is indeed in a good place.

Scott Robertson is editor of Marquee.