From the Presidents Desk

Economic Pyramid

It would be simple to do a regular back to school article and talk about how important this time of year is for our kids, so I won’t. If that isn’t obvious by now, I don’t think anyone will get it. What I will mention is the value of a strong education system as it relates to growth within a community.

Many of you that have been through Leadership Morristown or have heard me speak have heard mention of the pyramid of economic development. Jack Fishman talks about the Economic Wheel of Fortune. These concepts are pretty identical but I joke with Jack that we don’t use wagon wheels very often anymore. In well rounded effective communities, education is the base of your pyramid. It is the base that supports all other development as without education and the educated workforce that comes with it, you can never reach the top of the pyramid that I would say is jobs and investment in a community that is required to spread the burden and keep a well spread
tax base.

I have worked and lived in communities that try to build the top of the pyramid first and what you usually find is that companies don’t exist in communities without a workforce or if they exist, they are typically low skill, low wage positions. The middle of the pyramid is built with things like healthcare, infrastructure, housing, long range planning, quality of life elements and all those things that everyone also forgets are very important building blocks to a successful community. They are reliant on each other.

Some community’s point of the pyramid may look different. Consider a community where tourism is the economic driver and you may see their pyramid looks a little different yet without the base of workforce and education at the bottom holding the pyramid up, the structure crumbles. Communities accomplish this in varying ways and sometimes use creative ways of importing workforce to fill those gaps. Consider one of the state’s largest hotel resorts in Nashville where nationalities are listed on employee badges. Is this to be worldly and show diversity? That is what the resort would like you to think but in reality, this is the result of a needed workforce through H-2B temporary workers program. Look at one our regional counties that has one of the most visited national parks in the country. Does the workforce look different? How many languages do you hear spoken? I see this as a positive of our region that diversity can influence our region in a positive way by building the base of our pyramid in non traditional ways as our community continues to grow.