Tennessee Agencies Unite, Create ‘Jobs Now!’
Published Apr 07, 2003
The flavor of Tennessee’s local economic development efforts is regional, a sure recipe for success. One such cooperative initiative is Jobs Now!, a partnership of the East Tennessee Economic Development Agency, Blount Partnership, Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership and Oak Ridge Economic Partnership.
“We’re very excited about it because it’s a first for us all to come together in this fashion, raising money for economic development,” says Allen Neel, ETEDA president.
Jobs Now! began with a professional feasibility study to determine how the area stacks up among its peers, to delineate the area’s business strengths and to calculate just how much money could be raised for a collective marketing effort. In April, fund raising began.
Neel says Jobs Now! wasn’t shy about setting its five-year goals: to raise $10.75 million from public and private sources, create 35,000 jobs, generate $2.5 billion in investment and increase per capita income by $6,470.
How? “By an integrated, comprehensive approach based on attracting business, growing existing business and encouraging start-ups and entrepreneurs,” Neel says.
ETEDA is the result of a merger two years ago between Tennessee Resource Valley and a regional industrial development association composed of Tennessee Valley Authority power distributors.
“What we feel like we’ve created is a new model for regional economic development,” Neel says. “We’ve created a single point of contact, so if a company is looking at this region, all that’s needed is one phone call.”
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