Diversification key to growth over past 20 years

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According to Greg Williams, vice president of economic development for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, the growth experienced by the Springfield area during the past 20 years, and specifically, the last 10 years, places it among the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the Midwest.|ret||ret||tab|

Williams works with a five-member staff that is responsible for business and industrial attraction projects, as well as working with existing businesses on retention and expansion programs. He said that in order to ensure that businesses here today will be here in the future, working with existing businesses is the primary economic development goal of the chamber.|ret||ret||tab|

"That can focus on many variables access to capital for expansion purposes, job training programs that we can help facilitate and many financing programs," Williams said.|ret||ret||tab|

Still, Williams said the growth of the Springfield area has been an important part of being able to bring more companies and more jobs here. He said 1993 in particular was a key year in terms of the history of growth in the Springfield area.|ret||ret||tab|

"That was the year that the federal government designated Webster County as a part of our Metropolitan Statistical Area and we became a three-county MSA. Our population at that time, as a metropolitan area, rose over 250,000, and at that point in time, we began witnessing project after project of national companies," he said. "The reason being is that all of the national players have population criteria, and one of their cutoff points is 250,000. And when we got to that point we were all of a sudden on the radar screen of a lot of companies and a lot of business and industry decision makers."|ret||ret||tab|

Though Williams said his personal historical perspective on the Springfield area's economy is limited to the five years he's been with the chamber, he has studied economic trends that have occurred. He said solidification and diversification of the economic base in Springfield and the surrounding areas is one trend he's noticed. In fact, Williams said, the solidification of the economic base is the result of diversification.|ret||ret||tab|

"We are very fortunate we're blessed to not be a community that relies on one single business or one single industry for the future of our economy. We are strong in so many areas, with retail and service so strong in health care, so strong in manufacturing and education," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

Williams said the growth has been good here during the past 20 years, and it hasn't dramatically changed the dynamics of the community.|ret||ret||tab|

"We're still a midsize metropolitan area with a very, very strong work ethic ... a strong foundation, a family-friendly area," Williams said.|ret||ret||tab|

Williams said the need for a more aggressive economic development program in the Springfield area was highlighted as a result of the closing of the Zenith plant, and the concept of the Partnership Industrial Center came about in 1990. Williams said the partnership, which is made up of the chamber, its Springfield Business Development Corporation subsidiary, City Utilities, and the city of Springfield, was formed in 1992.|ret||ret||tab|

He anticipates the PIC will be full by the end of this year, and a second park, the Partnership Industrial Center West, is being planned now.|ret||ret||tab|

Williams said finding enough workers is one challenge now faced by employers here and across the country. He said that hasn't always been the case in Springfield, because the unemployment rate was higher and fewer jobs were available in years past.|ret||ret||tab|

"You look at 20 years ago and you might have had a job at 3M or GE or Kraft or Sweetheart Cup," he said. Today, "we've expanded that industrial market. You see new employers at the Partnership Industrial Center, you see the Litton project expansion in the last year of about a $60 million capital investment and expansion, looking for 300 or 400 new people."|ret||ret||tab|

But Williams said the fact that the cost of living in Springfield, which traditionally ranks eight to 10 points below the national average, is one of several individual factors that bring people to work, and to live, in the Springfield area.[[In-content Ad]]