Community development official: Region’s economy appears brighter
John F. Brothers | Herald-Standard
Steve Neubauer (left), past chairman of Fay-Penn Economic Development Council, sits with guest speaker Bill Flanagan, executive vice president of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, during the program at Fay-Penn’s annual dinner held Thursday at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington.
John F. Brothers | Herald-Standard
Ron Cole of Fay-Penn Economic Development Council holds up a jersey for Pittsburgh Penguins player James Neal. The jersey was sold during the live auction during Fay-Penn’s annual dinner held Thursday at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington.
FARMINGTON — The economic picture for southwestern Pennsylvania appears brighter as the area experiences job growth that’s attracting young, educated workers.
That’s the message heard at the annual dinner meeting of Fay-Penn Economic Development Council Thursday at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Farmington.
Bill Flanagan, executive vice president and chief public affairs officer for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, who served as keynote speaker, said, “All of us in the Allegheny Conference are as bullish on the prospects for the Allegheny Region as we have been in decades.”
The Allegheny Region is a 10-county area that includes Fayette, Greene and Washington counties, with Pittsburgh as its metropolitan area.
Looking back 30 years, Flanagan noted the 1980s were a time for high unemployment, with many people moving out of the region. But, since then, communities have been working to make investments in infrastructure, tax benefits and education that have resulted in job growth for the region.
Flanagan provided a chart of employment statistics from 2008-13 that showed Pittsburgh with 0.8 percent growth. That puts Pittsburgh ahead of nearby metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia and Cleveland as well as the United States, which showed a loss of -0.6 percent for this period.
In fact, Flanagan noted there are 23,000 jobs currently available throughout the southwest Pennsylvania region, which he said can be found on imaginepittsburgh.com. He also reported more young people who are well educated are moving into the area to take these jobs, and that’s having an impact on the region’s median age.
“The City of Pittsburgh is significantly younger than the population of the United States as a whole,” he noted.
Why the change?
Flanagan said the region now has a more diverse economy, building on historic strengths in manufacturing, financial and business services and energy. But the region also invested in human capital to create new industries in healthcare and life sciences as well as information and communications technology.
“We’ve always been good at making things and making energy, and those industries are still there,” he said. “But we took the wealth created in the last century and invested in young people. The result is companies have developed that didn’t exist 30 years ago.”
The region also enhanced the already high quality of life with investments in arts and culture, outdoor recreation and green building.
“We kept working on making this a place where people want to be,” said Flanagan.
Flanagan noted that goods-producing jobs are in decline since 1990, but improvements in technology mean that these industries are more efficient and smarter. Regional job growth has been in healthcare and social services, engineering and in arts, entertainment and recreation while government jobs have been in decline.
Energy continues to be the story in jobs, impacting economic activity in 32 counties across four states. It’s a diverse industry that includes Marcellus shale gas, prevalent in the region.
As to the future, Flanagan said a survey by the Allegheny Conference showed businesses will hire 100,000 people by the end of the decade — 60 percent from retiring baby boomers and 40 percent from new jobs.
“Today our big challenge is educating, training and attracting young people to fill jobs and those that are going to be made over the next years,” he said.
Flanagan noted one of the region’s newest businesses is Falck Safety Services, which recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its facility in Dunbar Township. Falck is a worldwide, safety-training company headquartered in Denmark that opened a health and training center in Fayette County for the oil, gas, petrochemical and construction industries.
In giving a progress report, William B. Blaney, Fay-Penn board chairman, said 12 projects were completed, 83 jobs created and retained, a $70,712 increase in taxes and $8 million in new construction in the county in 2013.
“We are pursuing our goal of supporting long-term economic growth in Fayette County,” he remarked.
Illustrating one success story, Blaney presented a program that illustrated the growth of the Fayette Business Park in Georges Township. A 1966 aerial photograph showed a rural, undeveloped area, but, with the building of roads for better transportation and the use of the Keystone Opportunity Zone that offers businesses tax relief for 10 years, the park now includes 14 buildings and 20 companies that are providing 1,785 jobs. Blaney noted the first of the KOZ programs are rolling off with businesses paying taxes to the community.
Fay-Penn is also doing well with Jim Foutz, first vice chairman of Fay-Penn, offering a financial report that showed total assets of $42.6 million.
Steve Neubauer, immediate past chairman of Fay-Penn, presented the 2014 Eberly Economic Development Award to Terrence “Tuffy” Shallenberger of Connellsville. He is the owner of businesses such as Shallenberger Construction and the Pittsburgh River Hounds professional soccer team and is involved in numerous community projects such as a recently built soccer complex in the Connellsville area.
Neubauer congratulated Shallenberger, saying, “No person works harder.”
Shallenberger accepted the award, thanking Fay-Penn, his family and Joe Hardy, who provided his company with work at Nemacolin Woodlands.
He said, “There’s a lot of good talent here, but we’ve got to get people trained. There’s a lot of opportunity here.”
Neubauer also announced four local companies as nominees for the Governor’s Community Impact Awards that celebrate Pennsylvania companies. They are Shallenberger Construction, Chevron, Johnson Matthey and Gerome Manufacturing.
Blaney also announced that a search continues for a new executive director to replace Michael Jordan Jr. who resigned in February.