Rotarian Kim Isenberg introducer Rotarian Doug Lawyer, who serves as vice president of Economic Development with the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce.
He has a demonstrated history of success in the areas of regional industrial/business recruitment, retention and expansion. He has led or participated in all aspects of economic development, which has directly resulted in the announcement of over 11,000 jobs, the investment of over $1.4B, and hundreds of millions of new wages into our community.
Doug began by sharing a white paper from the Chamber about several economic development challenges.
One challenge is our transition to an Imagination Economy. The white paper alerted the community to several pressing issues:
- Need for increase in Knox County average annual pay. Our average yearly income is $59,000, which is less than Greenville, S.C., and Huntsville, Ala., which are cities comparable to Knoxville.
- We also have a lack of growth in the 25-to-54 demographic. We have plenty of retiree types moving to Knoxville, but lots of the young talent goes to cities like Raleigh and Nashville.
- Potential impact of automation. We have lots of manufacturing in Knoxville, but automation will take some of those jobs away while hopefully creating even better-paying jobs.
Doug’s ED efforts are focused on four most-needed aspects:
- High-growth companies
- High-wage talent
- Innovative entrepreneurs
- Attractive civic furniture, what he calls “attractive city furniture, cool things that we can use as a community, such as the urban wilderness, the riverfront, greenways.”
Doug talked about where Knoxville stands in the realm of innovation, “how many patents are produced here, comparing Knoxville to peer cities in a variety of rankings and benchmarks; post-secondary enrollment in multiple degree areas; and indicators like startup funding.
These have been gathered in an Innovation Report that will be updated every-other-year to measure progress.
Doug said that the chamber has a Business Climate Council that monitors many aspects of our area’s business climate, such as—
- local, state and federal issues related to Transportation Modernization Act
- Workforce and Innovation Opportunity Act/American Job Centers
- Medicare Wage Index
- Land-use policies
- Housing, “We’re way behind the 8 ball in housing
- Access to childcare
Doug touched on other Infrastructure issues.
- Regional transportation—planes, trains, automobiles: “Is Southwest Airlines coming? I have no answer,” said Doug, but the airport is adding new gates and new parking.
- Broadband access, digital literacy: “It’s important that underserved communities have broadband and understand how to use it. We are working with nonprofit partners to help this happen.
- buses
- Housing at all price points
- Downtown multi-use stadium
Doug talked about small business entrepreneurship being drawn by the Spark Innovation Center at UT and the ORNL Innovation Crossroads. “A lot of these are in life science biotech,” said Doug, who pointed to $2 million that has been put in the 865 Opportunity Fund for
- Loans less than $50,000
- Targets minority- and women-owned businesses
- First closing: Little Vols Learning Center
- Knoxville Business Support Network
- Support of incubators & accelerators
- Working with Techstars, Spark, Innovation Crossroads
The Chamber is very much involved in nurturing our area’s workforce and talent, through—
- Knox County Schools – The 865 Academies create bridges between schools and businesses.
- Complimentary internship consulting
- Workforce service providers directory
- Home Sweet Career with UT. “Students come to UT and hunker down in their studies. This program tells UT students what’s going on in Knoxville.”
- Professional relocation and engagement services
- Employer consortium
- Life Redefined quality of life website: com
- Livability partnership
A question was asked about the fact that much of Knoxville’s office space is occupied. Doug agreed that we need office space. Some companies need 75 acres, others can fill empty buildings, but those who need 100,000 square feet are hard to fill.
Doug ran through a list of recent economic development wins:
- Hardcoat, near Pond Gap Elementary School, created 85 jobs and $66 million in investment.
- Hitachi Zosen Inova, based in Zurich, makes the equipment that converts food waste to energy. 90 jobs $6.6M.
- Safire, does advanced conversion systems. $120,000. They created the technology to keep lithium batteries from bursting into flames when punctured. 8-10 jobs now on their way to 100.
- 200 jobs now, 300 on the way. $27M.
- Axle Logistics on Central Ave., founded by two homegrown Knoxville guys. 650 jobs, $38 M.
- Canton Foods off Pleasant Ridge Road makes the mac & cheese for Chik-Fil-A and other restaurants and is under a big expansion. 250 jobs $51 M.
Doug finished by showing that he is always working on 70 different projects, many of them in the movement (logistics and drones) and power sectors. “We won’t get all of them, but we’ll get our fair share.”