By Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, July 30th, 2010

A couple columns back, we talked about business groups and organizations that are having a positive impact on our region. A subsequent letter to the editor asked why we had neglected to mention our economic development organization Tucson Regional Economic Opporunties (TREO).

As it turns out, some economic developments in our region which gives us an opportunity to circle back around to the “Where’s TREO?” question.

First some background on TREO. It was founded out of the ashes of the Greater Tucson Economic Council (GTEC), which had started with grand plans but ended up focusing on landing call centers because the local workforce matched the industry. TREO was started in 2005 with a “super group” of employees including some from the economic developments staffs of the City of Tucson and Pima County. Its major funding came from those two government entities and Mayor Bob Walkup and County Supervisor Sharon Bronson were seated on the board to watch over the local tax dollars. Print this story
 
Fast-forward five years later. Raytheon Missile Systems announced two weeks ago it was passing over Tucson for an expansion and putting 300 new, high-paying jobs in Huntsville, Ala. Tucson was one of three cities on the short-list but didn’t get the nod.

Apparently Alabama offered workforce training incentives, construction/rent incentives and they put together a package that was a better fit for the expansion.

The real story here is that the decision by Raytheon is a tipping point in our region’s future. What does Hunstville have that Tucson doesn’t? A large military base? A major university?

The seeds of Huntsville’s winning this effort were planted 20 or more years ago with a vision and leaders in the government and business sector that set the table for success. Tucson never took the time to plant those seeds. Instead our seeds were planted in environmental policies and bolstering neighborhood associations.

The team that Hunstville put together kicked our fannies! As reported in Inside Tucson Business, “Brian Hilson, president of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce which is also the area’s economic development organization, said with every project that comes their way, a team is put together comprised of state and local leaders to meet with a company and learn their needs. “That team usually includes the governor, staff within the Alabama development office, chamber of commerce, city and county representatives, the mayor and the chair of our county commission and others on a need-to-know basis,” he said. “In the company’s eyes, they see us working and speaking as one team. That’s the only way we know to approach it.””

Contrast that with Tucson’s effort. Mayor Walkup, a former Raytheon executive and still a TREO board member, said he left the Raytheon negotiations to TREO. He also said he wasn’t made aware of the search when it started 18 months ago, saying he relied on Raytheon senior executives to tell TREO and for TREO to tell him.

Do you see the problem with Tucson’s approach compared to Huntsville’s? Do you see why Tucson continues to lose out on  opportunities? Do you see how vulnerable the Tucson region is when there are sharp teams like Alabama’s looking to poach our businesses?

Where is Tucson’s “team?”

• Our Pima County Board of Supervisors is firmly against copper mines but what are they doing to create jobs?

• Our Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce has no involvement in economic development.

• Our governor and legislature push for increasing the sales tax, legalizing sparklers, allowing guns to be carried everywhere and SB 1070 but can’t muster enough support to pass a jobs bill (SB 2050) or find a way to get the state off its boom-or-bust cycles.

• Our economic development organization TREO is stuck between a rock and a hard place. In order to make Tucson more attractive, it needs to have hard conversations with some of the very people at government entities who write the checks to support it.

Losing Raytheon’s expansion should be a wake-up call to this region. It’s time for TREO to stop talking and start doing. To TREO’s credit, the solution may include getting off governments’ payrolls and going to the private sector to fund economic development. But it was forced to do so because government funding is getting harder to come by.

There is a saying among cattle ranchers that fits TREO’s current predicament: “Big Hat, No Cattle.”

Contact Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone at wakeuptucson@gmail.com. They host “Wake Up Tucson,” 6-8 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Their blog is at www.TucsonChoices.com.

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