While the “Campaign for a Greater St. Louis” has dramatically increased job growth and improved the economic picture of the region, it was an essential first step in an ongoing commitment to regional growth. In June 1997, the next phase of this commitment began to take shape.
Tapping into the talent of community visionaries, 12 board members were nominated to serve on the RCGA Strategy Advisory Team, charged with developing a plan to position the St. Louis region as a competitive economic force and community in the 21st century. After 16 months of intensive work, the plan is ready to be unveiled.
Designed to enable the St. Louis region to firmly establish itself as a sustainable, growing, world-class economic power, “Shaping A Greater St. Louis: New Commitment. New Energy. New Economy” is a package of eight strategic initiatives addressing the region’s most vital issues going forward. Creating such a plan took extensive research, number-crunching and a forward-thinking vision of St. Louis as economically strong, culturally diverse and equally attractive to growing business and the workforce necessary to sustain it. St. Louis was “benchmarked” against 21 competing regions in this process.
John Bachmann, RCGA chair and managing partner at Edward Jones, described the process as “powerful, in that it had a refining quality. We started with a massive amount of information and ideas, and as we progressed, certain issues came into very clear focus over and over.”
Sister Mary Jean Ryan, FSM, president and CEO of SSM Health Care, and also a member of the Strategy Team, described another virtue of the new campaign: “The region is very fragmented right now. We wanted to stress the fact that we are stronger as a region rather than as an individual county or city.”
Although the new “Shaping A Greater St. Louis” campaign is an ambitious, challenging plan, it’s a progressive plan put together by business leaders who have the very best interests of the region at heart. I appreciate the fact that the Team that created this plan is made up of some of the most informed, civic-minded leaders in this or any other region of the country.
Moreover the enthusiastic endorsement of the Strategic Initiatives and of the substantial civic investment and funding to support them by the RCGA board, Civic Progress and others, will fuel civic revitalization for the next five to 10 years.
Strategy Advisory Team members included John Bachmann, managing partner at Edward Jones; Sister Mary Jean Ryan, FSM, president and CEO of SSM Health Care; Dick Beumer, vice chairman of Jacobs Sverdrup; Ralph Clermont, managing partner at KPMG; Steve Cousins, partner at Armstrong Teasdale; David Darnell, president, Midwest Region at Bank of America; Tom Dunne, chairman and CEO of Fred Weber, Inc.; Bruce Holland, president of Holland-Hinrichs; Frank Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Falcon Products, Inc.; John Jordan, administrative director of Civic Progress; Ruth McGowan, president of MarjeM Diversified, Inc.; and Don Wainwright, chairman and CEO of Wainwright Industries.
Thanks to their efforts, the St. Louis region is poised to take its place as an aggressive player in the New Economy.
Richard C.D. Fleming
President and Chief Executive Officer
St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association
