Recruiting and Retaining

Mike Deggendorf zeroed in on a critical first topic: What does the county need to do to attract and retain business and industry?

Attorney Jerry Riffel of Lathrop & Gage observed that Jackson County is vulnerable if for no other reason than that many of its businesses are mature. This seeming vulnerability intensifies the competition between Jackson County and the suburban areas. The problem, as Riffel sees it, is that Missouri’s business retention tools are non yet as strong as its tools to attract new business. “In terms of keeping business,” said Riffel, “we’re terrible.”

When you hold 80 percent of a metro’s economic power as Jackson County did 30 years ago, concurred David Frantze of Stinson Morrison Hecker, it is inevitable that emerging suburbs would try to pick off some of the county’s business. For Frantze, the key is to think about competing as a metro area against other metro areas in this country and in the world, for that matter. “If we have the will, the plan and the target,” said Frantze, “we could become a world target, we could become a world class city.”

Katheryn Shields agreed. She detailed some of the efforts the county had made in promoting the metro including a $200,000 investment in the same. “How do we move this whole metro area forward?” she asked. “How do all of us rise on that tide?” Mike Brincks with the General Service Administration affirmed that business retention and attracting quality businesses, as well as quality people, are the critical issues.

Brien Starner of the Blue Springs Department of Economic Development regretted that communities get too caught up in the idea that economic development is “a zero sum game,” with companies threatening to move from one side of the state line to the other. “The larger issue,” he noted, “is how do we make our respective communities, Jackson County in this case, attractive?”

For all the talk of KCADC’s One KC campaign, Herb Kohn of Bryan Cave wondered if we really mean that. “Until we really believe that the world is flat and that we’re competing not with ourselves but with other regional areas,” said Kohn, “we’re going to just continue with these interesting discussions.”

“I would agree 100 percent with Herb,” said Barry Brady of Highwoods Property. “I don’t think we’re making much progress in terms of communities competing within this area with one another. We’ve got a long way to go.”

Aaron March of the White Goss law firm believes that one of the solutions is to level the playing field of incentives available on either side of the state line. He noted, too, that the county can offer more incentives to a business moving in than to one already established there. “That’s just silly,” he added. “But that’s the reality of our Missouri programs.”

Tom Riederer of the Independence Council for Economic Development was not optimistic about leveling the playing field. In the 20 years that he has been in the metro, these kind of pacts have been offered a number of times. “Somebody does a deal,” said Riederer, “and the whole compact thing falls apart.” This was something of a rule, not the exception. “We need to look at how we retain businesses,” he said emphatically, but he also clarified just how difficult those discussions can be.

For Don Reimal, mayor of the City of Independence, the solution was a political one. He argued for contacting state reps and state senators and having them look at what Kansas is doing. “Surely if Kansas can do it,” he asked, “are we so far behind in Missouri that we can’t make a change?”

“The key is the legislature,” agreed Jodi Krantz, Ingram’s new Community & Economic Development Specialist. Krantz knows whereof she speaks, having worked for the Missouri Department of Economic Development for 16 years before coming to Ingram’s. She stressed how important it is for people involved in economic development to tell their legislators what’s at stake, “so we can compete with the states around us.”

March took a slightly different tack. He noted that if you talk to the site locators for large corporations, they would tell you that companies don’t move for tax savings. They move for workforce, schools, environments, neighborhoods, intangibles, everything else that makes a city great. “If they can get some incentives on top of that,” added March, “then accountants and CEOs like it and say ‘yes.’” 

Marshaun Butler with Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City likewise saw “the quality of life” as a critical issue, not just in sustaining that quality and improving it, but in getting the word out about it.