Overcoming Phoenix's economic threats

• GPEC was established to focus and coordinate considerable economic development resources to promote the Greater Phoenix region
• Its most significant and enduring contribution may be the culture of cooperation created among government%2C business and education
• We risk economic development progress if we don%27t address looming threats

The Greater Phoenix Economic Council began 25 years ago when our world and the way we interacted would be barely recognizable today.

It was 1989. The effects of the Cold War were thawing, and the world witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall. A new president was making major international trips, and people learned about it by watching the nightly news or reading their papers the next day.

In Arizona, our communities were divided. There was no collaboration among cities in the Greater Phoenix area as exists today. That competition drove this newspaper to refer to the region as a community of Balkanized cities.

A Barron's article published in December 1988, titled "Phoenix Descending: is Boomtown USA Going Bust?" raised the alert level of business leaders in the region, who gathered mayors and economic development professionals to focus on working together to address the economic crisis.

A compact was formed — created by 11 cities and towns, Maricopa County, the business community, educational institutions and economic development organizations — aligning resources and regional assets, in recognition that companies choose to expand to metropolitan areas where they find qualified labor, robust infrastructure, connected transportation and competitive business costs.

Its mission was to focus all of the region's considerable economic development resources to cooperatively promote the greater Phoenix region, and attract new business and industry, and the jobs and capital investment that came along with them.

Early successes

Working cohesively as a region, GPEC added 12 new companies to the region, nearly 3,000 new jobs and $100 million in new capital investment in its first 10 months. Working with the state Commerce Department — now the Arizona Commerce Authority — Maricopa County and the cities and towns of Greater Phoenix, GPEC has helped to score some big wins in business recruitment: Avnet, Chase Bank, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Fender Musical Instruments, Intel, USAA, Microchip Technology and Apple.

Perhaps the most significant and enduring contribution has been the culture of cooperation that GPEC has created. Our membership has grown to include 22 cities and towns, Maricopa County, and more than 180 private investors. Our mayors work together through GPEC, the Maricopa Association of Governments, and on their own on a scale that did not exist 25 years ago.

Over 25 years, we have witnessed fundamental changes in the world and our region. The advent of the Internet has narrowed the distance that was once a barrier to business, and has enabled instantaneous and worldwide connectivity. Companies and jobs can locate anywhere, and competition is no longer within our region for private capital investment and new, quality jobs — it is global.

Our region has unparalleled potential that is well within our reach. However, we are faced with looming threats that could break apart the foundation we have built in the last 25 years.

Looming threats

Our state has experienced self-inflicted harm to our brand through ill-conceived public policies and law-making. Poverty rates in Greater Phoenix are rising — recently even surpassing Detroit — with 17.6 percent of our population at or below federal poverty levels. And half of the students graduating from our schools are unable to meet acceptance standards at our state universities.

We have a responsibility to ensure our children receive the best education we can provide them. Part of that preparation entails arming them with the tools and skills they need to be assets to future industries we grow from within or recruit from outside of our region. Engagement starts with students in the K-12 system, those entering career and technical programs at our community colleges, as well as those pursuing four-year and post-graduate degrees at the university level.

The ideas and companies emerging out of the numerous incubators and accelerators peppered across the region will require a skilled labor pool. Our attention to preparing the next wave of talent will fill those future positions. The entrepreneurs and innovators in our communities are ours to lose, and collectively we can work together to do our part to bring these cutting-edge inventions and solutions to scale to address business, consumer and societal needs.

A way forward

Greater Phoenix is one of the youngest markets in the nation. Our communities are ripe with diversity, and neighborhoods are burgeoning with new local movements. From the growing "shop local" scene to the myriad of co-working spaces, there is an energy and buzz felt in our communities that is more present than ever before.

Looking back over the past 25 years, and all the success we have experienced as a region — bringing 570 companies to the region, resulting in $13 billion in capital investment, and more than 100,000 new direct jobs — we could not have achieved it all were it not for the collaboration in our communities and the leadership from our state in creating sound, pro-business legislation.

The time is ours, and the time is now, to pivot from a consumption-based economy to one anchored in advanced industries and innovation. To be more than in the middle of the pack on national rankings, and to top the nation in educational attainment and human capital performance. Our region has achieved incredible accomplishments, and we need to take a stand against accepting anything but the absolute best for the future of our region, and for our great state.

Barry Broome is president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Ioanna Morfessis is president of IO.INC and the founding president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.