{"id":3383,"date":"2010-12-13T08:48:55","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T13:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3383"},"modified":"2010-12-13T09:36:34","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T14:36:34","slug":"7-lessons-learned-from-the-laurentian-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/12\/13\/7-lessons-learned-from-the-laurentian-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"7 lessons learned from the Laurentian deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The magnitude of the Laurentian Aerospace deal unveiled on Friday is still sinking in.\u00a0 A slow ramp-up of 900 high paying jobs.<\/p>\n

The potential for a growing cluster of support companies, growing up around Laurentian’s airliner maintenance facility.<\/p>\n

Promising next-generation jobs for North Country workers.\u00a0 The list of positives goes on and on.<\/p>\n

So what do we know about how this project came together?\u00a0 And can this success be replicated in other communities?\u00a0 Here are some first thoughts.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Teamwork matters.\u00a0 Plattsburgh managed to achieve a remarkable level of unity and message discipline around this project.\u00a0 When the Laurentian deal seemed to be unraveling in 2008, no one panicked.\u00a0 No one started sniping or second-guessing.\u00a0 Doubtless there were feuds and tensions and doubts behind the scenes.\u00a0 Too many North Country towns and cities let that ugly stuff eclipse the goal.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 The politicians behaved themselves.\u00a0 There is a huge temptation in deals like this to push the clock, hurrying deals forward before they’re ready.\u00a0 This nearly happened with Laurentian in 2006.\u00a0 In the years that followed, however, elected officials let the business-people take the lead.\u00a0 Rep. Bill Owens joked on Friday that he wished this announcement had come before election day.\u00a0 But his patience, and the patience of other politicians, appears to have paid off.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Public investment matters.\u00a0 Laurentian’s leaders acknowledged repeatedly that this project would never have come together without the Clinton County Industrial Development Agency and the state’s Empire program.\u00a0 North Country communities need to make sure that they have investment dollars ready on hand when the right projects come along.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Canada matters.\u00a0 The simple truth is that Canada’s economy is more robust than New York’s.\u00a0 From Plattsburgh to Watertown, we need to be finding ways to make our communities more available and welcoming, to investors from north of the border, and to companies wanting to do business in Canada.\u00a0 Last month, a New Jersey pharmaceutical company announced that it was bringing 100\u00a0 high-paying jobs to Massena<\/a>, because of the proximity of Canadian markets.\u00a0 More of that, please.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 The North Country’s cities are booming.\u00a0 A lot of North Country towns and villages are struggling.\u00a0 So it’s easy to forget that our three “big” cities — Plattsburgh, Glens Falls and Watertown — are thriving, at least when contrasted with other parts of Upstate New York.\u00a0 Each has very different assets and characters, which is a good thing.\u00a0 It may be time to consider better mass transit that can transport more of our rural workers to these urban-centric jobs.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 The Adirondack Park Agency needs to study this deal.\u00a0 By all accounts, the massive Laurentian project was permitted quickly, with great coordination between various governmental agencies.\u00a0 The APA needs to sort out how to think more nimbly about similarly large projects inside the blue line.\u00a0 The Adirondack Club and Resort project in Tupper Lake has dragged on for years.\u00a0 That’s not entirely the APA’s fault, and the Adirondacks pose a far more complex regulatory environment.\u00a0 But there’s no reason the permitting process in the Park can’t be more innovative and efficient.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Garry Douglas really is that good.\u00a0 Douglas heads the Plattsburgh North Country Chamber of Commerce.\u00a0 And yes, the Laurentian deal involved a lot of people, a lot of different organizations and companies.\u00a0 But it is remarkable the number of big wins Douglas has engineered in recent years.\u00a0 From Bombardier to Novabus to the build-out of the Plattsburgh airport, he’s played a key role time and again.\u00a0 Anyone in Albany thinking about revitalizing Upstate New York should be talking to Douglas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure there are plenty of other takeaways from this deal.\u00a0\u00a0 What do you think?\u00a0 Is this a sign that the recession is slowly easing?\u00a0 A model for a new North Country prosperity?<\/p>\n

Are local leaders in your community being as smart and focused as those in Plattsburgh?\u00a0 Comments welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The magnitude of the Laurentian Aerospace deal unveiled on Friday is still sinking in.\u00a0 A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4839,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3384,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions\/3384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}