By Betty Burnett
The early
and mid-1990s were years of significant change and new direction
both for the RCGA and the St. Louis region overall. In late 1993,
then-RCGA Board Chairman Earle H. Harbison Jr., president of Monsanto
at the time, set out to overcome what he saw as the fragmented
business and civic landscape of the region, in which jurisdictions
“raided” each other for jobs, resulting in decades of virtually
no new job growth. His leadership helped the RCGA to establish
the Campaign for a Greater St. Louis, a multi-year economic development
effort. Harbison also determined that the RCGA as an organization
needed bold, new leadership.
Following
an intensive nationwide search, Richard C.D. Fleming was recruited
as president and CEO of the RCGA in August 1994. Fleming came
to St. Louis with a long track record as a dynamic civic entrepreneur,
engaged in private sector and civic initiatives to revitalize
center cities and metropolitan communities in Atlanta and Denver.
He had served as both the founding president and CEO of The Downtown
Denver Partnership and then as president and CEO of both the Greater
Denver Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Denver Corp.
Upon his arrival
in St. Louis, Fleming quickly moved to transform the RCGA into
a much more effective, pro-active economic development and public
policy organization. From the very beginning, the primary goal
was ambitious: create 100,000 new jobs in the region between 1995
and 2000. To the region’s delight, this goal was actually surpassed,
with 112,000 net new jobs created. Those were heady times, and
the RCGA and its local partners were “playing offense,” capturing
the region’s share of a growing U.S. economy.
The second
five-year economic development campaign, which began in 2000,
was organized around a set of regional initiatives designed to
improve the St. Louis region. Although the economic and geopolitical
challenges that faced the entire U.S. made it virtually impossible
to enjoy another wave of job creation that was posted during the
first campaign, the region made solid progress in a number of
areas, perhaps the most notable of which was the creation of distinctive
cluster strategies to guide business development, retention and
expansion in plant and medical sciences, information technology,
and advanced manufacturing.
For the plant
and medical sciences cluster, targeted as the first area for concentrated
effort, the RCGA leadership engaged the Battelle Memorial Institute.
Battelle’s major study objectively assessed and catalogued regional
assets, benchmarked the St. Louis region against others around
the world, and made multi-year, specific recommendations for development
of this cluster.
Following
Battelle’s recommendation to establish a strong, unique branding
and marketing campaign, St. Louis’ plant and medical sciences
strategy was branded as The BioBelt: The Center for Plant and
Medical Sciences.
Today, this
growing industry cluster employs more than 16,000 primary workers,
directly supported by another 185,000 employees who are employed
in the professional and business services sector.
Investors
in the RCGA’s 2005 to 2010 economic development campaign wanted
a fresh look at St. Louis’ image in the marketplace. One of their
immediate goals was to launch a regional branding effort designed
to build on long-standing assets, as well as highlight recent
improvements to the region’s offerings.
These investors
sought to “reposition” St. Louis by promoting a multi-billion
dollar revitalization of the region’s center city; a successful
on-time and on-budget expansion of Lambert-St. Louis International
Airport; and the emergence of new industry sectors, including
the BioBelt. They also wanted to energize key industry sectors,
such as advanced manufacturing, financial services, information
technology, and transportation and distribution.
To that end,
the RCGA took a very rigorous approach to understanding how the
marketplace perceived the St. Louis region.
Through the
work of the Wilson Research agency in Washington, D.C., and Fleishman-Hillard
in St. Louis, more than 700 CEOs, site consultants, venture capitalists,
national real estate heads, and executive recruiters were surveyed
in-depth.
The results
revealed that the greatest advantage that St. Louis has over other
regions is its distinctive quality of life. By the end of 2005,
the RCGA had developed a new brand and an entire strategy to reposition
St. Louis in the eyes of its present and potential stakeholders.
The brand
the RCGA settled on was St. Louis—Perfectly Centered. Remarkably
Connected. The RCGA then developed a multi-faceted strategy to
execute this new brand.
First, the
RCGA created a very aggressive national media relations strategy
to literally recruit testimonials from people who are considered
St. Louis success stories.
For this new
print program the RCGA chose people it knew would strike a chord
with the decision-makers it had surveyed earlier.
Second, the
RCGA began reinforcing the brand and its messages through paid
advertising at the national level.
Through just
the first full year of the branding process, more than
140 million favorable media impressions about St. Louis were posted.
All of these
brand implementation efforts have driven significant economic
development pipeline and deal flow results. In fact, over the
past year, the region’s economic development pipeline has reached
an all-time high.
A major initiative
begun in 2008 that continues to this day is the so-called St.
Louis “Big Idea”—the proposal for the bi-state St. Louis region
to become a Midwestern commercial hub for the fastest-growing
economy in the world.
Three Chinese
top ranking delegations visited St. Louis in 2008 to examine the
region’s potential for becoming a hub for the 20-state region—to
become the “Heart of the Heart of America.” A trade and economic
development mission to China in March 2008, led by U.S. Senators
Kit Bond and Claire McCaskill, exceeded fondest expectations.
The St. Louis area came away with two signed agreements with the
Chinese that have enormous transformational potential for the
region.
RCGA continues
to play a pivotal role in organizing and helping spearhead the
public-private partnership effort to establish St. Louis as a
“3rd gateway point of entry” to the U.S. for China.
Going forward,
the RCGA continues to carry out its overall mission—to attract
new jobs and help retain and grow the businesses already here
in St. Louis. And to unite the region’s business community and
engage dynamic business and civic leadership to develop and sustain
a world-class economy and community.
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