The Danville Regional Foundation hosted economic consultant and strategist Ted Abernathy on Tuesday to share his vision of what’s waiting around the economic development corner for micropolitans like Danville.
Abernathy has extensive experience in freelance economic development and consulting. He broke down his experience into the scope of national trends, specifically economics of business, workforce, technological and societal trends in a presentation called “Good Enough Is No Longer Good Enough.”
He opened his presentation with the Dan River Region’s high points. These came out of a discussion with Middle Border Forward, the Young Professionals Group and Future of the Piedmont.
“This is mostly about change. Once you figure out that, you can make your choice of where you want to be and how you want to do it,” Abernathy said.
The points of pride included the encouraging growth of the River District and entrepreneurship. The low cost of living, access to nature and broadband system also were deemed positive aspects. Race issues, poor leadership vision and too few middle level jobs were determined to be dimensions in need of work.
Abernathy pointed out that the Dan River Region is an expansive territory. Being so spread out with lots of empty space sprinkled throughout the region make it geographical challenge. It also is best handled with a regional approach instead of municipality-based.
To improve the region, he recommended that Danville and its surrounding areas shed their old manufacturing image. From that clean slate, community leaders must intentionally create a new image. Investment into the workforce and quality of life factors should be sustained while skill attainment levels need improvement.
To make these changes, an infrastructure that excites, informs, engages and diversifies the regional leadership is necessary. The future cannot be a distant idea but something worth meditating on in order to be most informed about the next step.
Repeatedly, the need for young and diverse leadership was emphasized by Abernathy. As much as the younger generations need to be activated by the community, all ages need to be engaged.
There are trends that the Dan River Region can use. The trend to buy local and have a farm-to-table consumer experience benefit an agribusiness-centric area like the Dan River Region. Equally, what Abernathy called “the demise of distance” with handheld and mobile technology, Danville has at its fingertips what every other city may have, from entertainment to resources.
“Locally, homegrown stuff locally sourced is a hot thing right now. That helps communities like this,” he said.
The freelance economy, like the work that Abernathy himself does, is a gold mine of possibility for the region. Retiree entrepreneurship is a trend showing that the aging workforce isn’t interested in stopping work. That’s another area that Danville can support and foster.
“Today the overwhelming trend in business, especially economic development is competition,” he said. “It would be nice to pretend that you don’t have to compete against big cities that you get to compete against cities your size, but that’s the majeure of the world.”
Trends in the workforce mostly revolve around shifts in education. It’s clearer by the year that those without either a high school or college degree earn less than those with degrees. That wage difference is widening, too.
“The bar is rising. To be successful at anything, the bar is rising,” he said. “The bar keeps going up because more and more people have attainment levels. Overall by race, everyone is moving up in terms of degree. The bar will continue to rise”
Despite that raising standard, businesses still care about the soft, interpersonal skills and are ranked higher than the technical requirements. Some of the main traits are fundamental: honesty, integrity and positive attitude.
Abernathy advised the crowd to trendspot itself. DRF President and CEO Karl Stauber concluded the presentation by reminding attendees that this is the start of the conversation.
Morrison reports for the Danville Register & Bee.
No comments:
Post a Comment