Forum outlines effort to bolster region’s economic growth

For decades, the Wichita area has grown only very slowly, but community leaders hope a new effort unveiled Thursday will speed it up.

The Blueprint for Regional Economic Growth is aimed at recruiting executives from the 10-county region’s strongest industry clusters, asking them what their biggest problems are and having them work together to solve them.

The public can take a look at the Blueprint at a presentation from 9:30 a.m. to noon Thursday at the Meridian Center, 1420 E. Broadway Court in Newton. More information is available at www.bregsck.com.

It’s still early. At this point organizers have a proven process used in dozens of cities nationally, economic research conducted by local researchers and buy-in from much of the community’s leadership. After the public meeting, the cluster study groups will meet, talk and write plans on how to speed up their growth.

Barriers to growth could be as small as the need for 20 welders or as big as the need for a whole new research program at Wichita State University to turn out specialized engineers, organizers say.

The cluster industries are: advanced materials, aerospace, agriculture inputs and processing, data services and electronic components, health care, machinery and metalworking, oil and gas production and transportation, transportation and logistics.

“The whole emphasis at those meetings will be what business problems do you share among multiple employers and who is willing to work on a solution,” said Brad Dillon of Gilliland & Hayes in Hutchinson, one of the co-chairs of the process.

The cluster studies are supposed to be done in time for a second public meeting July 10 at the Derby Welcome Center, 611 N. Mulberry Court.

The Blueprint process locally was started by Wichita State University a year ago as it looked at what companies would be right for its Innovation Campus. The Innovation Campus is a series of privately built, corporate-owned research facilities that would draw on the university’s students and faculty. It will sit on the former golf course just east of the WSU campus.

As WSU delved into the Blueprint process, said school President John Bardo, it enlisted other people and groups throughout the region. Dillon and Charlie Chandler, CEO of Intrust Bank, will co-chair the process. Paul Masson and Jim Gollub of StarNet, specialists in alliances and regional economic development, are advising the initiative’s leaders.

Bardo said that what makes this different from past economic development efforts is that they are promoting skills and knowledge spread across a variety of industries.

He said he has heard from a range of major manufacturers in different industries that they would love more expertise in developing sophisticated new materials.

“One of the core issues for us as a university is how do we amass enough money to begin a materials engineering program, because materials will be the next area for growth for most businesses,” he said.

And that is how WSU fits into regional economic development, he said. Some problems may be solved by research, and some may not. WSU will be one piece of the potential solution to boosting growth rates for area clusters.

The responsibility for carrying out the solutions falls on the companies themselves – but they will be aided by local and state governments, the university and others, Chandler said.

This story was originally published April 1, 2015 at 9:42 AM with the headline "Forum outlines effort to bolster region’s economic growth."