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Editorial: Rich Hadley’s demeanor led to his GSI success

Sat., May 10, 2014

Friday was Rich Hadley’s last as president of Greater Spokane Incorporated. Spokane is greater for the almost 21 years he led the region’s primary economic development organization.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the quality and consistency of his leadership than news this week that the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command and the Abilene (Texas) Chamber of Commerce have awarded Spokane the Abilene Trophy for the community’s outstanding support for Fairchild Air Force Base. It is Spokane’s third win since 2000.

Not bad for a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer who when hired in 1993 allowed as how he knew little about how to defend a military installation from potential closure. Fairchild has twice been bypassed by Pentagon downsizing efforts, and keeping the base open always has been a top GSI priority.

Although that has lately put GSI at odds with supporters of a Spokane Tribe casino on the West Plains, Hadley has more often been a unifier, starting with his own organization.

Organization, singular, after a 2007 consolidation finally brought the former Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce and Spokane Regional Economic Development Council together. Although the two had separate responsibilities – business advocacy and business recruitment, respectively – the organizational redundancy had become unaffordable.

But even before the chamber and EDC became GSI, Hadley already was rounding up the packs of business, civic and government leaders whose annual missions to Washington, D.C., and Olympia have become the model for community advocacy.

They’ve taken the case for Fairchild directly to the general in charge of Air Mobility, and for the North Spokane Corridor to anyone in the state Capitol responsible for transportation spending. The D.C. “fly-ins” include North Idaho as well as Eastern Washington representatives, button-holing representatives and senators on both sides of the aisle.

Every trip may not be a success in itself, but the sustained effort has paid off, most notably in the development of the Riverpoint Campus into a comprehensive health sciences education complex with a medical school at its core. Nothing else has been as transformative for Spokane’s economy since Expo ’74.

Hadley would never claim any of those accomplishments for himself. He always credits his board and staff, with which he obviously shares deep bonds of affection.

Hadley probably described his strengths best when asked in 2012 what Spokane Public Schools should look for in a new superintendent.

Get someone, he said, with “good interpersonal communication skills and the ability to motivate people toward a vision,” adding, they also “need to be a leader in the region, play a role in the community, know about government relations and understand the goals for the community.”

Hadley has been all that, as a member of the 1993 chamber search committee predicted.

“I’m very high on this man,” Kingsley Novell said. “The future of this chamber is in very good hands with Rich.”

That said it all then. Says it all now.