Brad Whitehead's blog

Last Thursday, House Speaker John Husted spoke before the Northeast Ohio Universities Collaboration & Innovation Study Commission. This Commission consists of the presidents and board chairs of the public universities in the region plus a few at-large members. It has been working for much of this year on changes to the public higher education system in the region.

Whether this Commission will exercise the courage and leadership to pursue fundamental changes will be seen in the coming months, but Speaker Husted certainly issued a welcome and clarion call for action (Read his full remarks.) His remarks are a welcome departure in what had been an unproductive political tug-of-war between legislators and university administrators. For too long, legislators claimed that the universities are plagued by waste while administrators lamented the State’s chronic under-funding of education. The result: inaction and acrimony. Or according to Husted, the result of this wrangling was “high tuition, no reforms, and little hope for progress.”

It appears that the winds of change are blowing. Speaker Husted laid out a compelling case for change that could have been drafted by the university presidents themselves. He recounted the demographic facts and figures that highlight our growing talent imperative, noting that “a shrinking undereducated workforce is not a formula for economic success….[the demographic] trends are hard to change with a well-coordinated and executed plan, and in the absence of such a plan, NEO’s future will be at best left to chance.”

I suspect that many of you did not see the article in yesterday’s Medina Gazette about the Avon interchange and NOACA (http://wp2.medina-gazette.com/?s=county+weighs).   In it, Commissioner Steve Hambley – a leading voice of regionalism and a member of the NOACA Board – lamented that Avon had a “gun to its head.” According to the article, the Medina commissioners are even considering pulling out of NOACA so as not to be put in the same position.  Brunswick city manager Bob Zienkowski was even quoted as saying that the Avon deal “is the best of example of why regionalism won’t work here. It’s a prelude of what’s coming.”

Without a doubt, getting to the Avon deal was a painful process that generated hard feeling. And from what I understand, it involved a considerable amount of cajoling, arm-twisting, and public posturing.  It is understandable why Bob, Steve, and others would express concern.

But it would be wrong to conclude that this should cause us to beat a retreat from more regional approaches – quite the contrary, let this be a call for us to find more comprehensive, forward-looking approach so we can avoid this sort of situation in the future.

A number of us from the Fund had a session today with union leaders from across the region to discuss Advance Northeast Ohio. What struck me most about the conversation was how perceptions are often our biggest challenge -- and that we ought to tackle them head on. One of the biggest concerns raised by businesses considering a location in Northeast Ohio is our “labor situation” and the impression that we have an antagonistic labor-management relations that will make doing business competitively next to impossible.  Unfortunately, we often reinforce this image by not having labor at the table for these conversations – so companie assume that their preconceptions are accurate.  What is a pity is that we have many many examples throughout Northeast Ohio of how organized labor and management have worked together to make our companies competitive while providing opportunities for employees.

If nothing else, we should dispel the archaic myths of labor in our marketing efforts and tell a more accurate story of how our work force is competitive and collaborative – and backing it up with real examples. We are going to begin assembling these stories and sharing them with the economic development community.  Meanwhile, we look forward to working with organized labor on the various topics of Advance Northeast Ohio such as lifelong learning and developing strategies to be competitive in the global marketplace.  While conversations may not always be easy across the various sectors, we need to remain focused on our overarching goals to increase per capita income and employment.