First Impressions Matter

What is the first impression that a business prospect has in visiting your community? What is the initial reaction that a highly sought after rocket scientist has about your community when she visits a Fortune 500 company in your town for an employment interview. First impressions matter in economic development.

You might find this short article about how to improve the first impressions people have of your community by Alison Hanham from West Virginia University.

Hanham describes a program that you can use to gather feedback from visitors and then take action of this information to improve how your community is seen in the future.

Five Forms of Capital

You may find this thinking to be helpful. It comes from an article by David Darling from the Kansas State University Cooperative Extension Service.

There five forms of capital in a community:

1. Human Capital
2. Social Capital
3. Financial Capital
4. Engineered Capital
5. Natural and Environmental Capital

These five are defined the following way.

Human Capital is the knowledge and skills used in the production process. It includes the skills of production workers, marketing officers, financial managers, and organizational leaders. It includes the work ethic, attitudes, and values of the work force.

Social Capital is the trust and working relationships within a team, organization or a community.

Financial Capital comes in different forms to pay for tasks such as stating a business, expanding a business, or building a school.

Engineered Capital is the collection of human engineered products not already covered as human, social or financial capital. Hard-engineered capital includes physical infrastructure such as fiber optic cable, and soft-engineered capital includes the organizational and institutional infrastructure, as well as the governance of these two.

Natural and Environmental Capital includes water, mineral, scenery, and other gifts of nature.

The Economic Prospects of Growing Older

The OECD has been studying the issue of aging and the economic realities surrounding it. This is a very relevant issue for economic development. My question is "what are we doing about it from an ED standpoint?" From what I can tell, we are doing nothing. Maybe we should give some attention to this issue. Here is what the OECD is saying.

Nearly all OECD countries face the need to reform their pensions system. Some have already taken steps, while others are getting ready to. Reforms are necessary to ensure the sustainability of pay-as-you-go schemes. But this is only one part of the equation. Pension reform needs to go hand in hand with changes in the behaviour and attitudes of all actors involved to promote a longer working life.

There are essentially three aspects to this issue:

1. If nothing is done quickly to extend working lives, living standards will fall in the course of the coming decades. We know, because of the ageing of our populations, that there will be fewer and fewer persons of working age to support more and more older people. For the OECD as a whole, the dependence ratio of older people (i.e. those aged 65 and over as a proportion of those aged 20-64) will rise from the current figure of 22%, to 46% in 2050. In these circumstances, it is essential to have as many people working as possible - young people, women and especially older workers.

2. This is not an insurmountable challenge. Most countries have considerable manoeuvring room to increase the employment rate of persons between age 55 and 64. The average rate in the OECD is currently 48% -- varying from 25% or less in France and Belgium, to 70% in Switzerland.

3. While it is desirable for older workers to remain in the labour market, steps must be taken to ensure that they have real employment prospects. Their jobs must be of sufficient quality to encourage them to stay on for an extended period. This requires a veritable change in attitude on the part of all the actors concerned.

At 52, I have some growing passion about this issue. These issues matter in every community in America. We need to do our part in addressing it.

Read more here.

Sacramento Takes Aim at Biotech

The Sacramento region's biotech industry is trying to beef up. UC-Davis boasts a new bioscience lab, deep-pocket private investors are attempting to spur commercialization of products, and economic development leaders are looking to boost marketing of the region as a biotech hub.

Roughly 85 businesses in the region are counted as part of the life-science and biotechnology sector, although economic development leaders are unclear about how accurate that count is or what kind of economic impact the industry has.

A national study last year by the Brookings Institution put the Sacramento-Yolo region in a class of biotech wannabes that have made modest gains attracting the much sought-after industry but lag well behind industry forerunners such as San Francisco and Boston. For example, the 341 biotech patents developed in the Sacramento-Yolo area between 1975 and 1999 were just 6 percent of those generated by the Bay Area.

Article link.

New Bill Could Help Tribal ED

Tribal governments and American Indian entreprenuers may find it easier to raise capital for economic development if legislation introduced in Congress passes, South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson says.

Johnson said earlier this week that the Tribal Economic Enhancement Act he introduced combines tax relief, tax credits, bonding incentives and streamlined procedures for getting banks on reservations.

It will be interesting to see if this bill goes anywhere. Clearly, the tribes do need financial assistance for economic development. The question is whether the funds will be used to support the right development projects and whether enough money will be available to accomplish anything of scale.

Having spent three years working with tribes on sustainable economic development projects, I have an understanding of how hard it is to strengthen the economic base on and around reservations.

Click here to read more.

Louisiana Studies ED Programs

Louisiana Tech has won a state contract to evaluate Louisiana's economic development strategy and compare them to those in surrounding states.

The Legislature had ordered the state administration division and Department of Economic Development to have such a report made. They chose Tech from among several universities.

These are difficult studies to accomplish, especially with thin information and data available to evaluate performance over time. I know all about these things, having headed a similar two-year study of Ohio's ED programs a couple of years ago.

Article link.

Creative Communities and Economic Development

Greg King from Georgia Tech put the bug in my ear about a very interesting Business Facilities Magazine article about the role of creativity in economic development.

As I said back to Greg, I would give top priority to helping existing workers and companies become more creative. I have NEVER met a person or a business that I did not think had some type of creative talent. And I'm serious about that comment.

Here is the link to the Business Facilities article.

Thanks Greg!

Financial IT Gap in Low-Income Communities

If your economic development portfolio includes low to moderate income communities, then you may find the Milken Institute's report on Closing the Financial Technology Gap in Low-Income Communities to be useful reading. It explains why small businesses, including minority-owned enterprises, struggle with access to capital. Best of all, the report offers some solutions on how financial institutions, and I would add economic development organizations, can help.

Download the report here.

New Metropolitan Agenda Report

Those of you interested in the latest word on where metropolitan areas are headed need to read the Committee for Economic Development's (CED) new report called "A New Metropolitan Agenda."

Lots of good clear-headed thinking about what we need to do to improve the competitiveness of our metro areas for future business investment and economic development.

What are you waiting for? Click here and download the report.

This is one that our national, regional and state economic development pracitioner organizations need to pay attention to. Why? Because this is a report that is being read for our top CEO's.

Green Business Practices

Businesses are clearly moving toward sustainability. Want the proof? Go to GreenBiz.com and read the hundreds of case studies of how companies worldwide are undertaking major initiatives to green up their businesses and products.

How about a few examples?

Toyota Motor Corporation plans to construct a pilot plant for producing polylactic acid, a bioplastic made from annually renewable resources like sugar cane. The new pilot plant, to be built within an existing production facility in Japan, is envisioned to be able to produce 1,000 tons of bioplastics a year.

Toyota has long been actively involved in various fields of research and development toward promoting what it calls "global regeneration" and the creation of a recycling-oriented society. Its efforts have included initiating several practices for reducing environmental impact at every stage of a vehicle's lifecycle -- from development to production, use and disposal.

Maybe those areas targeting the "polymer industry cluster" should be talking with Toyota about bioplastics.

Read about how Vella Cheese is moving forward with solar energy at this Somona, CA plant. Go here.

Office-furniture maker Steelcase Inc. has achieved an environmental milestone in its manufacturing processes by eliminating the emissions of almost all volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from its metal-finishing operations in Michigan. VOC emissions can produce ground-level ozone, which contributes to the creation of smog. Steelcase accomplished this goal by developing new technologies to convert solvent-based painting operations to powder-coat finishing. Over the last 25 years, Steelcase has managed to reduce VOC emissions in its Michigan metal-finishing operations by 97%. Further, Steelcase was able to accomplish this milestone for approximately $25 million less than originally predicted. Steelcase is also converting to powder-coat finishing in other manufacturing facilities located in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. When the conversions are complete, the company's VOC emissions will be reduced even further.

Go here to read more abotu how Steelcase did it.

Latest Word on Urban Retail Development

A wonderful report ws just released by the Brookings Institute on real estate development finance and urban retail development. Download it here.

Here are some highlights from the report.

Despite the increase in real estate financing instruments over the past decade, inner city retail development has lagged in all but a select few cities. Indeed, even though new methods of financing have led to more liquid markets with potentially a broader appetite for risk, developers and their financial backers have continued to pursue projects primarily in top-tier cities and suburbs. (This should be no great surprise to downtown economic developers, but we need to pay close attention to what this report has to say.)

The Brookings paper examines the major changes in the real estate finance marketplace, the implications of those changes on development decisions, and public policy actions that could facilitate projects in these markets. Overall the paper finds that:

- Out of the ashes of the real estate recession of the early 1990s three major real estate financing vehicles—Real Estate Investment Trusts, Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities, and Real Estate Opportunity Funds—emerged. REITs are now the largest holders of institutional real estate, surpassing life insurance and pension funds.

- However, despite the robust economy of the 1990s, greater securitization has not led to major shifts in retail development patterns. Instead, REITs are primarily focusing their efforts on the largest investment-grade markets with proven track records. For investors searching for greater returns, along with the attendant risk, small suburban markets have been attractive, not inner city locations. The urban development that has taken place occurred in a select few cities with thriving downtowns.

- Public policy can bolster the prospects for underserved urban markets. However, rather than focusing solely on subsidies, which can lead to unsuccessful (e.g. vacant) projects, the public sector should examine strategies that mitigate risk and improve returns. This includes improving the availability of information about these markets with tools like property databases, improved demographics, and crime statistics. Also, government guarantees on permit speed and environmental conditions can also greatly reduce risk.

Corporate/Nonprofit Alliances

Is economic development ready for the next generation partnership with the business world?

Maybe we could take a note or two from others already well along this path. Here is a source you might want to investigate further, if you have been thinking about new types of alliances with companies. This is from the Marketing Science Institite and you do have to buy the report, but a summary exists here.

"More and more companies are supporting social causes while advancing their business goals. Likewise, nonprofit organizations are increasingly reaching beyond their traditional sources and modes of support to tap corporate coffers. Some collaborative efforts between companies and nonprofit organizations have moved beyond cause marketing and strategic philanthropy to encompass close, mutually beneficial, long-term relationships designed to accomplish strategic goals for each partner. Drumwright, Cunningham, and Berger label these partnerships 'social alliances'."

Social alliances can create and enhance financial capital, human capital, and social capital for both partners; however, even the best alliances can experience problems, usually the result of an organization's inexperience in working with the other sector.

Many social alliance problems are rooted in cultural differences between the sectors—some of which are real, some perceived. There are six categories of predictable problems: misconceptions, misallocation of costs and benefits, misuses of power, mismatches, misfortunes of time, and mistrust. There is no single prescription for preempting such problems. However, they can be anticipated and mitigated through a consideration of (1) the fit between the company, the nonprofit, and its cause, and (2) the structural characteristics of the nonprofit, the company, and the social alliance itself. Both may be influenced through the choice of partners.

The best social alliances involve intensive educational efforts and demand considerable learning on the part of both partners. Nonprofits have opportunities to learn business skills from companies, and companies have opportunities to learn how to motivate and energize people, manage volunteer efforts, and allocate charitable donations more effectively. Commitment to the social alliance must be diffused through both the company and the nonprofit organization. Networks of engagement within both organizations facilitate this process. Mobilization occurs through various forms of adaptation on the parts of both partners. This requires matched structures, aligned processes, compatible performance measures, and integrated managements.

Finally, if there is anything universal about successful social alliances, it is that entrepreneurship abounds. Nonprofits as well as companies have substantial entrepreneurial obligations, and "social alliance entrepreneurs" are needed within both organizations. These individuals must be both boundary spanners and boundary protectors, and most importantly, they must discern when to play these quite different roles."

My attitude is why re-invent the wheel if you don't have to.

Understanding Biotech's Real Drivers

There is scarcely a state or metro area in America that has not set its sights on developing biotech. While many are in the hunt for more biotech companies and jobs, few have looked below the surface at the driving issues associated with biotech's growth worldwide.

A recent American Enterprise Institute (AEI) conference spoke to some of these issues, which economic developers should be reminded of. Here are a few quick points on what was said about biotech's role in addressing the world's food problem.

Participants at the AEI conference described the potential for biotechnology to alleviate malnutrition in the developing world by genetically modifying agricultural products, as well as the political barriers to the use of biotechnology.

"We are facing a major problem in Africa in particular, but also to a lesser degree in central Asia with food security," said U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Andrew Natsios. "A third of Africans-200 million people-are food insecure chronically. . . . Since 1980, 50 percent of the increased productivity in the developing world in agriculture is a result of improved seed technology. . . . One of the answers to the problem of productivity is clearly seed technology, and biotech is a critical part of that."

Yet genetically modified (GM) foods remain highly controversial, largely because of the skepticism with which many Europeans greet this new technology. Many Europeans do not share American's enthusiam on genetically modified food.

These larger realities are vitally important to the future growth of commercial enterprises in the biotech/life science sector. Even larger issues loom in the world of health and medicine, where the debate about cloning, stem cell research and other issues continues to grow.

We need to keep an eye on these issues as we give shape to local biotech development strategies. To ignore them could be the ultimate kiss of death for many biotech and life science clusters across the U.S. and worldwide.

Go here to read more.

Why California Will Make It!

California has its share of problems at this time. It has to somehow fix its state budget mess, its Governor may be ousted, many companies continue to migrate across the state line, its highways remain too clogged with cars and people, and many other things. Are these problems insurmountable? Only time will tell.

I read a recent article spewing the same old "yada yada" about economic doom and despair and felt compelled to offer my perspective of California's situation.

My firm has worked steadily over the past three years on a series of economic development strategies in California. I have not given up on the "promise" or the "performance" of California's complex economy.

Despite the state's many business and economic losses over the years, the California economy continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can that be? My theory is that this is a pure example of how to convert "churn" into opportunity. It may be some of the best alchemy we will ever see in economic development. If any state can turn lead into gold, it's California. Why would I make this statement? Read on.

Much of what we do in economic development miscasts how complex economic systems function. We talk about competitive advantage, competing for deals, streamlining development processes and systems, lowering costs, reducing confusion and lots of other things. All these notions reinforce a "static" view of economic systems. They fail to capture the reality of change and the essential role of "churn" in creating new opportunities.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter had it right with his notion of "creative destruction." The idea is very consistent with a new book I just finished called: "Stuff Happens (and then you fix it!)" by John Alston and Lloyd Thaxton. Stuff does happen and churn is the natural state of both Nature and economic systems. I do not subscribe to the equilibrium theory of economics. There is no such thing as steady state. California's got churn! This is a place that actually understands that death is a part of life. As long as it continues to apply this principle to economic life, California will continue to generate more opportunities than it loses.

California is a growth engine for this nation and the world economy. It creates opportunities not only for itself, but for others. That is what growth is all about. And that is a lesson for all of us to learn from California. By the way, many Californians need to learn this same lesson from their own experience.

A New Take on Clusters

A growing number of areas are working at developing clusters. Here is an interesting take on clusters. Here's what Stephen Dunphy from the Seattle Times has to say about clusters in the Puget Sound region.

Developing World Help Network

If you combined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its billions of dollars with such organizations as World Vision, the University of Washington's Marc Lindenberg Center for Humanitarian Action, International Development and Global Citizenship and Portland-based Mercy Corps, you have an emerging cluster in trying to help the developing world.

Add to the mix people like Bill Clapp, chairman and CEO of Global Partnerships, a Seattle-based nonprofit agency that is working to eliminate world poverty, and you have a growing cluster. Clapp, for example, is a respected authority on the role of microlending in developing countries.

But it's a cluster with growth potential. The Gates Foundation alone with its billions could change the region in a fundamental way — it is already attracting some great minds and workers.

Arts Cluster

Most of the time we link the arts to culture, rightly so. But why not think of the arts as a tool for economic development? The arts are like biotech — an "industry" ripe for further development.

The cluster here spans the art world — theater, museums, orchestras, ballet, opera, writers. There's a strong music community here from a vibrant jazz scene to innovative rock bands. The city has been used to try out productions before they went to New York. We now have world-class venues for orchestras and operas.

These can be developed and attract more of those highly valued "knowledge workers." Groups such as the Corporate Council for the Arts have done a good job in raising awareness and needed funds. But to make the arts industry work as economic development, it must begin to be considered an integral part of any economic plan.

Article link.

Offshore Sourcing Trends

According to a recent CNN/Money analysis, as painful as the labor market has been lately, what's even more painful is that many of the 2.5 million jobs lost in the past few years are never coming back.

By 2004, more than 80 percent of U.S. executive boardrooms will have discussed offshore sourcing, and more than 40 percent of U.S. enterprises will have completed some type of pilot or will be sourcing IT (information technology) services," Gartner Inc. (IT: Research, Estimates), a technology consulting firm, said in a study late last year.

U.S. businesses, battered by the recent three-year bear market in stocks and an economy struggling to find its footing, have already developed a taste for super-cheap labor in developing countries, where workers are increasingly better-trained -- especially if they've spent significant time working in the United States on temporary visas.

A February survey of 145 U.S. companies by consultant Forrester Research found that 88 percent of the firms that look overseas for services claimed to get better value for their money offshore while 71 percent said offshore workers did better quality work.

Read more here

Office Market Outlook

Many people are keeping a close eye on the office real estate market given its strategic importance to many downtowns and suburban office centers. How can we expect this sector to perform over the next year? We turn to Global Insights and Grubb Ellis for some perspectives.

Global Insight does not expect new office construction to turn around until the second half of 2004. Although some local markets saw a slight improvement in demand over the last quarter, the overall office market remains in the doldrums. U.S. office vacancy rates edged up to 16.5% in second quarter from 16.3% in the first quarter¾the highest rate since the previous recession of the early 1990s. The rate at which office space is emptying has nearly doubled since 2001. With so much vacant areas and rents continuing to fall, demand for new office construction has been severely depressed. In May, seasonally adjusted new office spending registered an annual rate of just over $25 billion-- only half the rate of investment in early 2001.

With the sharp decline in the high-tech sector jobs and businesses, two of the hardest hit commercial real estate markets have been the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas. But the continued softness in manufacturing activity, which has spread to many service industries, led to substantial office vacancies in some unsuspecting areas. In the second quarter, cities such as Columbus, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, and Detroit posted vacancy rates above 20%.

According to Grubb Ellis, real estate market performance will vary considerably across U.S. metro areas over the next year. There will be lots of variation by sector (office, industrial and retail) as well. The Grubb Ellis regional forecast reports are a great source of data and insight. You can download them here.

Regional Economic Outlook

What's happening with the major U.S. regional economies? The latest Economy.com regional outlook has this to say.

Labor markets in the South and West have been fairly stable for over one year, while the Northeast and the Midwest suffered in the early months of this year but saw better results in the second quarter. While recent monthly job figures are subject to revision, they seem to be indicating greater stability for the two weaker regions as we enter the second half of the year, which should help support consumer spending and credit quality.

When measured by income growth minus transfer payments, which is a rough proxy for economic output, only the Northeast is lagging. The Midwest has improved and is keeping up with the South and West. Yet, when combining the two factors of job growth with industrial production, much of the Northeast and the Midwest remained in recession through midyear. The states in recession account for over 40% of total gross state product nationwide, indicating the risk that still faces the economy as it struggles to gain traction.

As with the broader macroeconomy, regional economic conditions will only rebound solidly once business investment improves. One factor that will determine the pace of new investment is the condition of balance sheets among firms. Business bankruptcy filings are one indicator of such conditions.

Since the recession began in early 2001, the Northeast has rather consistently seen the number of business bankruptcy filings in the region fall, and they have fallen sharply over the past six months. Filings have been elevated the longest in the West, although they too have fallen over the past six months. It is not surprising that the West saw the strongest rise in business filings given that it enjoyed such a remarkable surge in entrepreneurship during the late 1990s. Many of these firms did not survive the tech collapse in late 2000, causing further stress throughout the regional economy. Significantly, the first quarter of this year was the first time in four years that saw business filings fall in all four regions, indicating a broad improvement in balance sheets.

Economy.com outlook. (If you are a subscriber.)

Talent Retention: Advice for Companies

There has been lots of screaming and hand-wringing about the role of "talent," that is highly skilled, knowledgable and creative people, in economic development. I agree that it is an issue.

So, what can be done about the problem? The starting place is retaining the talent that a company already has--that should always be the first focus.

Here are some tools and ideas that any company can use to facilitate talent retention:

HR experts say that in order to retain people, a company must satisfy three basic groups of conditions:

(1) there must be things that satisfy people such as proper compensation, adequate job scope, met expectations, and acceptable stress levels,

(2) there must be things that create commitment such as a sense of justice and fairness, employment security, a belief that the job held is valuable and useful, and a belief that the company invests in its people, and

(3) the labor market has its own influence on employee’s decisions to leave or stay.

The labor market will always be a factor in the talent retention equation. For everyone's sake, it's a good thing there is competition for talented people.

Here are the four specific areas where every company needs to focus attention to retain its existing talent:

1. Pay: Although many have downplayed the importance of compensation, the research continues to show that people who feel well and fairly paid are less likely to leave than those who feel inadequately or unfairly paid. Companies such as Apple Computer in its heyday were well known for paying generously in both cash and in stock options. Many hundreds of employees stayed happily at Apple (and in fact did not want to leave even when times were very tough there) partly because of their perception of very fair pay. IBM retained people easily for decades (perhaps even retained too many) by offering one of the most generous pay and benefit packages in the world.

2. Benefits: This is one of the most powerful retention tools, and some research shows that the broader and more extensive the perceived benefit package is, the higher the acceptance rate is for job offers. Those companies with generous time off policies, sabbaticals, dependent care leave policies, leaves-of-absences with benefit retention, and so one are those with low turnover rates.

3. Fairness: Yes, it continues to show up in a number of studies as a key determinate of satisfaction and hence the desire to stay. While not being fairly paid may not immediately precipitate a job search, it opens the crack that eventually splits the person from the company.

4. Role Conflict: Increasingly people are torn between family, children, aging parents, and their jobs. Those companies that have instituted policies and procedures for employees to allow flexibility and control over their working time have less turnover. This flexibility can be created by flexible work hours, telecommuting, part-time or job sharing policies, and other similar practices.

As an economic developer or a workforce developer trying to help companies address these issues, you may want to keep this basic advice in mind when it comes to talent retention.

Corporate Universities

Many companies are taking education of their employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders into their own hands. Many of these efforts are called "corporate universities." The corporate university is a powerful tool for workforce development.

I recently helped Cuyahoga Community College (Cleveland, OH) prepare a business plan for its new Corporate College, which aims to help companies accomplish the same goals through strategic partnerships with employers, including their corporate universities.

Companies around the globe continue to adopt the corporate university concept. The corporate university concept involves a process—not necessarily a place—by which all levels of employees (and sometimes customers and suppliers) participate in learning experiences necessary to improve job performance and enhance business impact.

Although the actual number of corporate universities is difficult to pinpoint, some estimate that more than 2,000 exist in the United States. More importantly, the trend continues to grow. It began in North America and has spread to Europe, Asia,and the rest of the world in a limited manner. Organizations have invested heavily in this concept, sometimes with a price as high as 5 percent of payroll compensation.

Which companies have created corporate universities? Here are just a few:

-A.G. Edwards & Sons
-Accenture
-American Family Insurance
-American Re-Insurance Company
-American Skandia
-AT&T Broadband
-Barclays
-Booz Allen Hamilton
-Defense Acquisition University
-Deloitte Consulting
-Delta Air Lines
-EMC
-Envision Credit Union
-Frank Russell Company
-General Motors
-Grubb & Ellis Company
-Herman Miller
-Iams
-IBM Corporate Learning
-Infosys Technologies Ltd.
-Isvor Fiat
-Kia Motors America
-KPMG Consulting
-Masco
-NCR
-Neumann Homes
-NIIT Ltd.
-Oracle
-Orkin Pest Control
-Randstad North America
-SAP
-Schwan's
-Sprint
-STMicroelectronics
-The Limited
-Thomson Legal and Regulatory
-Wachovia Corporation

Iowa Bio-Based Products and Bio-Energy Roadmap

Iowa has a very interesting roadmap for developing bio-based products. It's worth a look if you are heading in this direction.

The Iowa Industries of the Future (IIOF)/Agriculture project was launched with the purpose of developing a vision for converting agricultural crops and residues into biobased products and bioenergy and charting a roadmap for achieving this vision.

Here is what the program's vision statement has to say:

Results: A Vision for the BioEconomy in Iowa in 2020

Iowa leads the nation in developing the BioEconomy. Growth of the BioEconomy has led to an unprecedented period of sustained economic growth in the state and has allowed Iowa to develop abundant amenities and a quality of life rated among the highest in the United States. Iowa biorefineries enjoy widespread support from Iowans because they consistently:

• produce superior products
• capture significant value for all segments of bioproduct value chains
• provide high rates of return to investors
• attract local and outside capital
• provide exciting, challenging, and lucrative jobs
• improve environmental conditions and ecological diversity

The roadmap focuses on these key issues:

- Creating the science and technology necessary to build bio-products on the future.
- Building a policy environment to support growth of the industry.
- Attracting public and private capital to invest in research, people, facilities and products and services.
- Building markets for bio-products worldwide.
- Educating and training people in the fields associated with the bio-products industry.
- Creating the standards of performance and excellence for these products.

Download the roadmap here.