Job Recruiters Pool Efforts With Spokane Economic Development Groups Launch Joint Marketing Campaign

Economic development groups in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene are pooling resources to woo businesses to the Inland Northwest.

The Spokane Area Economic Development Council and North Idaho’s Jobs Plus Inc. have begun marketing Spokane and Coeur d’Alene to the Puget Sound area, the Silicon Valley, Minneapolis and Orange County, Calif.

The Spokane EDC and Jobs Plus have sent out 85,000 tabloid-sized advertisements to be inserted in four business journal publications.

“We estimate that there’s 30,000 other organizations (across the nation) that do the same thing,” said Spokane EDC interim president Ken Olson. “This may give us one leg up.”

The two groups worked together in an attempt to bring Boise-based Micron Technology Inc. to Kootenai County three years ago. Micron, however, crossed the Northwest off its list, taking away a possible 3,000 to 4,000 jobs.

The two groups also combined forces to persuade timber company Potlatch Corp. to move its headquarters to Spokane earlier this year.

The EDC has recruited businesses that brought 5,000 jobs to the region over the past 10 years, said Olson. Jobs Plus’ recruitment efforts have brought 1,842 jobs to the area since 1987.

“It’s tough. It’s extremely competitive,” said Bob Potter of Jobs Plus about bringing companies to the area.

For example, a seven-employee California high-tech company Potter recruited to the region last month was looking at five or six other states.

In recent years, Kootenai County has seen an influx of California businesses moving into the region to escape the high cost of living and frustration with the business community.

But now there’s a more positive business climate in California, so the Inland Northwest will have to take a look at other markets, said Paul Anderson, Coeur d’Alene area manager for Washington Water Power.

“Very definitely our honeymoon with California has gone away,” he said. “The Puget Sound is going to be lucrative for us.”

The advantage of the two groups working together, Anderson said, is that the region “is an economic unit unto itself. They share a lot of common facilities, an airport, labor pool and the work ethic is high.”

And Kootenai County generally is quite attractive to businesses, said Kathryn Tacke of the Idaho Department of Labor. It has a high quality of life, a high pool of semi-skilled labor and a relatively high unemployment rate at 8.2 percent, compared with nationwide numbers.

But the state isn’t one to offer lavish tax credits and incentives, Anderson pointed out.

“There are some areas that seem to put a lot on the table. That’s not the same in Idaho,” he said. “We’re not going to give away the treasury.”

, DataTimes