Bert Caldwell: Business group takes message to new degrees

Greater Spokane Incorporated, something of a youth itself, is taking its economic development message to an unlikely constituency: middle school students and high school freshmen.

A new series of pamphlets and associated booklets sponsored by the business group links training to incomes in manufacturing, construction, health care and aerospace. High school graduates who might be looking at a minimum wage job can, with a community college certificate, pull down $23,000 as a phlebotomist — they draw blood from hospital patients — or $39,000 as a welder.

Two-year degrees open the way to a $44,000 position as a computer numerical control machinist, or $37,800 as an assistant to a physical therapist. The growth in demand for workers in some fields will increase more than 30 percent over the next decade.

Four-year degrees, and the sky’s the limit: $104,000 for an air traffic controller, for example.

Greater Spokane President Rich Hadley says the material is designed to funnel students into the professions that most make sense for Spokane’s economic future. Communities that have the skilled workers to fill jobs in those fields will prosper as they prosper. Those that do not will fall behind in the global economy.

High school students may not care about Spokane’s competitiveness, but they understand the difference between a $16,000 minimum wage income and the much-higher paychecks attainable with a little extra schooling, Hadley says.

Greater Spokane and school district officials are discussing how to get the information into student hands. The reception has been good, but the launch will take time, he says.

Greater Spokane itself was launched in February to consolidate the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce and Spokane Area Economic Development Council. The former had stressed public policy and member services, the latter recruitment of new businesses to the Spokane area, including North Idaho.

The new organization has eliminated the divide between business retention and recruitment, Hadley says. Staff members responsible for aerospace, for example, work with the 50 or so area companies already in that business, as well as potential newcomers.

Ongoing contact with local companies not only keeps Greater Spokane up on their needs, he says, it gives staff the knowledge to respond in-depth to questions about how Spokane can help companies thinking of relocating or expanding into the area.

Recent Spokane visitor state Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, says the organization is on the right track.

“We just assume students know these things,” says Kastama, who chairs the Senate’s Economic Development, Trade & Management Committee.

Kastama wants the state to move away from its focus on bricks and mortar as the building blocks of economic development to stress instead training. Greater Spokane is already there.

“What they’re conveying to me — this is cutting edge — is “It’s all about investing in workforce,’” says Kastama, adding that he may ask Spokane officials to talk about the program before his committee.

Besides restructuring its development efforts around industry clusters, Hadley says Greater Spokane will also stress accountability.

In February, the organization introduced “Spokane Vitals,” a list of indicators that will compare the area’s economic performance to that of 11 other cities competing for businesses that are also looking at the Inland Northwest.

Hadley says the talent within Greater Spokane and its board of trustees, and the increased public and private financial support the group has already garnered — funding is approaching $4 million — indicates the community likes what it sees. So far.

Kastama says he sensed the excitement, and awareness there is much yet to be done.

“The last thing you need is complacency,” he says.

Not a problem.