It is excellent what can happen when like-minded people with common goals, come together to serve a purpose that is broader than their own individual interests. When people, communities, and organizations do that in a way that actually grows the region, it shows teamwork and an understanding that all boats can rise together. One example of that is Karen Lauerman and Don Koliboski of the Lake County Economic Alliance and all of the people that came together to make the alliance happen.
For anyone that's ever met them, they almost seem interchangeable, but the two have their strengths and play incredibly well off the other to make a combination that is more successful than either on their own. The alliance is much the same. Individual cities, real estate developers, chambers, and business organizations across Lake County long worked on developing business in each of their areas. At times they were in sync, though their efforts were not individually as effective as they could be. Leaders like Sue Reed and Dave Ryan from the Crossroads and Lakeshore Chambers, and cities like Hammond and Crown Point, and companies like NIPSCO powering the region, or the trades union building the region, came together via the LCEA to make that happen.
They have had some strong early successes with companies like Polycon in Merrillville, United Bridge Partners in East Chicago, and most recently with Oxbow Landing in Hammond, and the volume of leads and activity points to more of the same. Not every city has a full economic development team, or the time and expertise to develop relationships, follow up on prospects, and get to the right conferences. All of these are required to take the opportunity to full closure. The wise city leaders know that not every opportunity may find a home in their city, though many of their residents may be able to find good jobs should that company land in another spot in the county. Coming from outside of government and big business, it seems to make perfect sense, though no doubt it took a ton of work to get everyone on board.
At a recent visit to our great news studio, I had a chance to download the laundry list of projects that they were working on, all the players and parts involved in each of those pursuits, and the hoops that those on the front lines of bringing business to Northwest Indiana have to jump through. It's highly competitive recruiting businesses to come to our region, which provides all the more reason to do it as a team versus a bunch of individual players.
You can read up a lot more about some of the deals that have had come to fruition and what they have ongoing here. What I can tell you for certain is that these two work like a team, have strong support from many people that know what they're doing growing this region, and that teamwork sure seems to be working.
