There's no Holiday break for business. Just last week, a delegation of Chinese business officials visited Cleveland and Akron to scope out sites and attractive investment opportunities. The week before, Rolls Royce announced it is looking at Ohio and seven other states as potential sites for a new aircraft engine plant. Governor-elect Strickland didn't wait to be sworn in. He hopped a flight to Virginia to meet with Roll Royce officials.
Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic is a co-chair of Strickland's transition team overseeing Economic Development and Workforce issues. He says the new administration has to hit the ground running.
Don Plusquellic: We can't afford in Ohio, we can't afford in Akron to lose any opportunity. If a businessperson is interested in development, we gotta be able to respond immediately. So we're trying to build in both the short term and the long term.
Retaining jobs is also an issue as Continental Airlines faces a takeover and the California company that purchased Little Tikes in Hudson is weighing its options. Plusquellic's group is putting together an analysis of the state's Department of Development and a list of recommendations.
Don Plusquellic: We're planning on having meetings in various places to have input from a lot of people in business community, business groups, organizations who know and understand economic development who care about transportation because we have ODOT under us, all of the things that touch people in various places that we need to get stakeholder input.
On the campaign trail over the summer, Strickland said the Ohio Department of Transportation has to think beyond traffic safety and congestion and put more consideration into economic development in its funding. For instance, he's proposed doubling its spending on railroads to improve the state's infrastructure for business.
The new Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher will run the Department of Development as did his predecessor Bruce Johnson. Johnson left office last Friday to take a job in the private sector. Plusquellic was disappointed by that, saying the agency under Johnson was the most successful part of the Taft administration and never played political favors. The Democratic mayor also gives Johnson high marks for maintaining the state's commitment to international relations.
Don Plusquellic: A lot of states didn't do that. The first time a budget crunch boom, they just cut it. They kept those. They kept a commitment to help coordinate the effort at the Hanover Trade Fair. They kept the office in Israel, an office in the Far East. They've done the trade missions. It's one of the things that I think they've done well.
One of the reasons Plusquellic is overseeing the transition for economic development has been his own international outreach for business on Akron's behalf. His team's report on revamping the Ohio Department of Development is due December 29th.