An offer businesses aren't refusing
A business-backed non-profit formed to lure new businesses to Worcester should have $1 million in donations and a brand new CEO by the end of April. After that, Choose Worcester Inc. will set up shop and begin looking to replicate the business-recruiting success of places like Lowell, Cleveland and North Carolina.
While raising funds and hiring a chief executive are taking a few months longer than expected, Choose Worcester Board Chair and President Sumner Tilton, director of the law firm of Fletcher, Tilton and Whipple, says he’s happy with the progress of the group, formed last September.All 24 major Worcester businesses and foundations that Choose Worcester contacted have pledged funds to the effort, amounting to more than $700,000. Choose Worcester board members still have some 30 more companies and foundations to meet with. Tilton says he’s sure the group will hit the $1-million mark — the amount needed to fund operations for two years. "We haven’t had a single company turn us down," he says.
Choose Worcester is also in the process of reviewing three finalist candidates for the campaign’s first chief executive officer from a nationwide search began in December by Boston-based consultant Isaacson, Miller. All three contenders are not from Massachusetts. Choose Worcester board members David Forsberg of the Worcester Business Development Center and Cheryl LaFleur, president of National Grid, will join Tilton in interviewing the finalists. Candidates are also slated to meet with Richard Kennedy, president of the Worcester Regional Area Chamber of Commerce; City Manager Michael O’Brien and Clark University President John Bassett.
Once the CEO is hired, Tilton says, Choose Worcester will establish and staff an office before getting down to the business of defining its strategy to bring businesses to the city. The new chief executive is expected to review efforts in other communities, including looking at the Lowell Plan through which businesses in that city succeeded in drawing new industries to town.
Worcester has made some efforts in the past to draw new businesses to its midst. Off-and-on marketing efforts in the 1990s, revived in 2002 as a public-private marketing venture called the Worcester Marketing Corp., made few inroads in attracting companies to the city. The Worcester Marketing Group, funded by the Chamber and the city, was sunsetted in the summer of 2003, as the city grappled with financial constraints.
But Choose Worcester is different than past efforts, says Tilton and LaFleur. The city has never had an agency that has aggressively gone out and sought businesses to come to Worcester, Tilton says.
LaFleur says another difference in the Choose Worcester effort is that the city is prime for a lot of new opportunity right now. Besides development projects in the city, economic growth is spreading this way from the Boston area, she says. "The time is right to really sell Worcester."
Businesses backing Choose Worcester, including National Grid, will be called on beyond their funding contributions to do some marketing to bring in new companies, according to LaFleur. "We are trying to give it a business-to-business flavor," she says.
To that end, Choose Worcester will ask business and university leaders to meet with prospective corporate residents and show them around the city. Tilton says the proactive effort is long overdue. "My feeling is you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket."
Micky Baca can be reached at mbaca@wbjournal.com
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