Northern Kentucky’s economic development strategy in recent years continues to drive the region forward out of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Northern Kentucky Tri-ED President and CEO Lee Crume at the monthly NKY Chamber of Commerce Eggs N’ Issues event Tuesday morning.
Founded in 1987, Tri-ED blends both private and public funds to enhance the regional business climate and foster economic cooperation between Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties.
Crume said Tri-ED has worked with 750 different companies and has invested over $9 billion in the region. Northern Kentucky has approximately 180,000 people in the workforce, helping create 72,000 different jobs.
Northern Kentucky led Kentucky in employment growth from 2015 to 2019, Crume said, and gained 11,000 jobs from 2015 to 2020 while Kentucky lost over 42,000 jobs over the same time period.
“This is our vision. This is what we get up and think about every day,” Crume said. “That is opportunity and prosperity for all northern Kentuckians. All northern Kentuckians are a really important element. We don’t work for the river cities exclusively. We don’t work for the suburban communities exclusively. If you’re in Boone, Kenton or Campbell County, from the southeast corner to the northwest corner, we work for you. Our goal is to see opportunities created and prosperity across that spectrum.”
Crume emphasized the importance of Northern Kentucky doing more than just “ambling along.” It is a prosperous community, he said, and has the capacity to supersede the economic expectations it sets for itself.
Tri-ED recruits what Crume calls tradable companies to Northern Kentucky, which are companies that have the ability to choose where they want to build a facility. One example of a tradable company in the area is Fidelity Investments in Covington. Theoretically, Fidelity could have built their facility anywhere in the eastern time zone of the U.S.
“We work with companies in the tradable job sector to help them make decisions on where to invest, build facilities and employee folks,” Crume said. “That is a very risky and challenging decision making process for most companies, because they don’t do it every day. So they need expertise and guidance to get from that. We do that with the end goal of promoting Northern Kentucky and getting them to invest here.”
In 2021, NKY Tri-ED beat their goal projections in growth and investment metrics. Northern Kentucky had $255 million in capital investment, which was 2 percent above their projected goal. They helped create 1,851 jobs, 3 percent above their projected goal and won 27 projects which was 8 percent above their goal.
NKY Tri-ED identifies four key regional industries they target: advanced manufacturing, life sciences, supply chain management and support services, and information technology. In 2021, advanced manufacturing led growth. 56 percent of the 27 new projects were in the advanced manufacturing field, along with 48 percent of the jobs added, and 61 percent of the capital investment.
“We get great manufacturing projects coming in the door every week shopping Northern Kentucky,” Crume said. “They’re really very difficult to land, but we still have a very robust manufacturing pipeline for our community.”
Crume highlighted four strategies, along with related goals, on how NKY Tri-ED can build and elevate Northern Kentucky. The first is implementing data informed community decision making. NKY Tri-ED wants to provide Northern Kentucky business and community leaders with data, insights, and a forum in order to better inform their decision-making. This will enable them to contribute to increased prosperity, growth, and equity in the region. Crume emphasized the importance of utilizing analytics in economic decision making processes.
“We’re a prosperous part of a state that sometimes focuses in other directions so us having good data can be a real challenge,” Crume said. “We launched this initiative as of the beginning of the year, and have been working with all number of partners across with the goal of bringing our community together near the end of the year, to not just talk about data and talk about what kind of information we see, but they’re really start working together on what our growth strategy is from 2022 forward.”
NKY Tri-ED’s next goal is to activate the Northern Kentucky Port Authority in order to identify, control, prepare, and promote sites for subsequent private commercial and industrial development and redevelopment that exceeds community employment and wage targets. The Port Authority holds hearings where they can decide on whether or not to pass a resolution when an organization needs to resolve a bond issue.
“What’s really important about this is that in the state there are other entities that get money from Frankfort,” Crume said. “There’s legislation that was proposed as of a couple of weeks ago, there’s an entity out there that’s going to give $46 million for industrial land development. We don’t get those types of dollars out of Frankfort because we don’t have an entity capable of receiving them. The port would help us along that journey.”
Northern Kentucky is a key port along the Ohio River. The Ohio River remains a key artery in the regional economy. The Ohio River brought the first settlers of the area into the region. NKY Tri-ED wants to identify, control, prepare, and promote sites for subsequent private commercial and industrial development and redevelopment that exceeds community employment and wage targets.
Their third goal is to deliver customized workforce solutions by addressing the current and future workforce needs of Northern Kentucky’s tradable sector industries.
Finally, NKY Tri-ED wants targeted business growth by growing and attracting tradable sector companies through the Business Retention & Expansion (BRE) program and marketing the region to compliment the existing business ecosystem.
As Northern Kentucky progresses into the 2020s, NKY Tri-ED will continue to play an integral role in developing regional economic strategies, as it has since 1987.
