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Northwest: Basic Training
In diversifying their employment base, Northwest Floridians don't always reach for the biggest prizes in economic development. Among the types of prospects mentioned frequently by local economic development officials are small and medium-sized automotive, aviation and electronics companies -- especially those that can take advantage of the region's pool of former military personnel, including some with valuable technical training.
"The industries being pursued are not 800-pound gorillas," says Jim Breitenfeld, executive director of Okaloosa County's Economic Development Council. "There aren't enough of those in an era of downsizing. You can't get those firms without significant state support, and Florida is not in the incentives game."
Says Judy Byrne Riley, senior vice president of Valparaiso Realty, a commercial development and management firm in Okaloosa County: "The incentives packages offered by neighboring states are the area's strongest competition for economic development. On the other hand, large businesses such as the Mercedes plant that just located in Alabama really don't fit the scale of our region."
While some large Florida cities and counties offer their own business incentives without state help, money isn't so plentiful in sparsely populated Northwest Florida, where 9 of the 13 counties have less than 50,000 residents, according to estimates by the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida. Economic development here isn't extravagant. While big ad campaigns get funded elsewhere in Florida, the Northwest region relies more on favorable publicity free of charge, such as Marianna's good fortune in being named to a list of the best 100 small towns in the U.S. in Norm Crampton's book "The 100 Best Small Towns in America."
Compared with their counterparts in the state's metropolitan areas, economic development officials in the region popularly known as the Panhandle work with relatively modest budgets. They court big employers from time to time, but tend to invest more time and money in improving what the region has to offer -- in particular, its pool of skilled labor and its inventory of developable sites.
"The key to industry growth is to have infrastructure, zoning and a positive business climate in place. Just talking about doing these things doesn't cut it anymore," says Larry Sassano, executive director of the Bay County Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Council.
Sassano compares the Northwest Florida regional economy to a stool with two thick legs -- the military and tourism -- and one thin one: "Our goal is to get the business climate good enough to strengthen the third, industrial leg of that stool."
Among other successful projects, Bay County's chamber of commerce worked with Trane Co., a division of American Standard, which recently opened a 100,000-square-foot facility with 225 jobs. Now the chamber is trying to lure some of Trane's suppliers to the county.
Groundwork
The public sector actively promotes commercial real estate development in parts of Northwest Florida. In Escambia County, for example, Mayor Benny Barnes is trying to expand the city of Century's 140-acre industrial park by 40 to 80 acres to add land availability to his labor surplus to attract other businesses.
Economic development officials in several Northwest counties aggressively pitch parcels near Interstate 10 as prime commercial sites. Rather than wait for the private sector to act, the Gadsden County government itself developed Quincy/Interstate Business Park at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Highway 267. Privately owned 10/90 Commerce Park is in development. Between the two, Gadsden County will have more than 1,000 acres of developable industrial sites. The private developer of 10/90 Commerce Park, Armer White, says the flow of inquiries from potential tenants was slow at first "but now we're seeing the activity pick up."
In Jackson County, at the I-10 intersection with Highway 71, hundreds of jobs have been created in recent years with the development of restaurants, motels, gas stations and a shopping center. Now the county government is investing further in the area's infrastructure, hoping to attract higher-paying jobs. "Based on the activity that's already going on out there, we've extended water and sewer out past the I-10 interchange and expect $20 million in investment commitments in the year or so ahead," says Wendell Taylor, executive director of the Marianna Chamber of Commerce.
The Labor Factor
Training has become an important element of economic development in Northwest Florida, in large part because so many military suppliers in the region have been squeezed by the Pentagon's penny-pinching.
Efforts to retain local jobs gave rise to the Technology Coast Manufacturing and Engineering Network (TCMEN) at Okaloosa-Walton Community College. David Goetsch, provost of the Fort Walton Beach campus, says TCMEN provides managerial assistance to about 30 small businesses, "most of them former Defense Department subcontractors who had no idea of how to compete for contracts, market their products, network or generally behave in the commercial world." He says 430 jobs have been created or saved since TCMEN's full implementation in 1993.
Among recent arrivals to the region's pool of available labor are former fishermen put out of work by the state's ban on net fishing. "They are looking for something to do to make a living, and they are used to hard work," says Lewis Baber, dean of career education for Gulf Coast Community College, which serves Franklin, Bay and Gulf counties. The college hopes to expand retraining opportunities by building a satellite campus within two years.
Teaching former fishermen new skills may not qualify as "economic development" in larger metropolitan areas. But in Northwest Florida, where industrial recruitment budgets are limited, good job opportunities may depend on the availability of good educational opportunities.
"Demographers say that, beginning in 1997, we'll see a dramatic increase in the number of high school graduates. They'll need jobs," says Dale O'Daniel, president of Chipola Junior College. "The future of community colleges is providing the training that creates jobs."
Growing Prison Payrolls
Prison building continues to boost the economy of Northwest Florida. The state Department of Corrections' 1994-95 annual report lists 15 major institutions and more than 5,000 employees in 16 northwestern counties.
The state corrections department expects to open a 1,200-bed prison in mid-1997 in Franklin County, creating about 350 local jobs. A prison of similar size is planned for Santa Rosa County as well.
Though prisons aren't popular everywhere, counties hungry for economic development "clamor for a clean, non-polluting, recession-proof industry with this kind of economic impact," says Bud Parmer, a site-acquisition administrator for the Department of Corrections.
Selecting sites for prisons is a bottom-up process. County representatives are asked to formally contact the Department of Corrections expressing support for construction of a prison in their area. After receiving such notification, Corrections staff describe their site needs, then tour the county to inspect available parcels -- but only after being invited to the county by publicly adopted resolution.
Open For Business
The 1995 storm damage to Florida's Gulf Coast, primarily from hurricanes Erin and Opal, isn't expected to seriously hurt the region's tourism industry this year.
Most of Northwest Florida's coastal counties west of Panama City had some coastal or bay flooding from storms last year. But because last year's worst storm damage was isolated rather than widespread, "tourism across the region as a whole is rebounding significantly faster and stronger than people expected," according to Jim Breitenfeld, executive director of Okaloosa County's Economic Development Council.
In Bay County, Larry Sassano, executive director of the Economic Development Council of the local chamber of commerce, says the cable television channel MTV has made a commitment to film its 1996 Spring Break programming in Panama City, further evidence of a quick recovery from last year's storm damage.
