Regionalism stressed at The Compass Conference

story by Michael Tilley; photos by Joel Rafkin

Although not part of the script, the need for communities to work as regional partners was stressed during the first annual The Compass Conference.

The conference — which drew around 250 business and civic leaders from a wide range of regional communities including Ozark, Roland and Waldron — was built around the presentation of key economic data about the past, present and expected future of the Fort Smith regional economy.

Funded and managed by The City Wire and presented by Benefit Bank, The Compass is a quarterly regional economic report with data collection and analysis handled by Jeff Collins, a nationally known economist based in Springdale and co-founder of Streetsmart Data Services. Cox Communications and the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce are also sponsors of The Compass. (Link here for the fourth quarter The Compass report.)

Featured speakers at the conference were Maria Haley, director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission; Britt Reynolds, division I president for Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates; and Collins. The emcee was John Taylor, senior vice president of John Taylor Financial-Sterne Agee and a member of the board of directors at Fort Smith-based Benefit Bank.

Collins said the Fort Smith regional economy has suffered during 2009, especially with respect to job losses and sales tax collections. However, Collins predicted that the worst is over and suggested the next few fiscal quarters would begin to show improvements. He said area sectors that may see good job gains are health and education and business and professional services.

Collins strayed somewhat from the economics report to encourage communities in the Fort Smith region to live up to the region’s potential. He said the communities need to work together to find ways to maximize their resources and minimize weaknesses.

“Ask yourself, ‘Who are we and what do we do well? … What do we want to be when we grow up?” Collins said.

He also said the region “must eliminate the Friday night mentality" that often sees communities build unnecessary walls based on high school sports.

“Your neighbors are your best friends in economic development,” Collins said.

Speaking later in the conference, Haley reinforced Collins’ encouragement to act regionally. She told the crowd that companies don’t look for a specific city, they look at a region. As an example, she said, when Hewlett Packard selected Conway to place a 1,200 person technical center, the company first looked at central Arkansas as one place and then narrowed the field to Conway. But without all the attributes of central Arkansas, Conway would have not landed HP.

“Make your entire region a center of excellence,” Haley said.

The most important part of being a center of excellence, according to Haley, is having a quality workforce and quality education programs and institutions. She said the first two criteria most companies establish are the need for a quality workforce and the need for area education facilities that can train for future workforce needs.

“Your workforce is your most effective marketing tool,” Haley explained.

Haley said the Fort Smith area has a good workforce, good education systems and is working on a regional approach to economic development. But she reminded them that although roads and rail spurs an be built quickly, it requires a long-term effort to engage productive regionalism and ensure a good education system and workforce.

Reynolds said regionalism is one of the reasons HMA recently purchased Fort Smith-based Sparks Health System in a $138-million deal that became effective Nov. 30, 2009. With HMA already operating Summit Medical in Van Buren and the Fort Smith region being within the larger geographic footprint of HMA-owned hospital operations, the move was a good fit. He also said Sparks had a good foundation on which HMA thought it could build a first-class facility. (The City Wire will publish a separate story — to be posted Wednesday morning — on Reynolds’ comments related to the health care industry and recent attempts at health care reform.)