Certainly aware of that — and your company offers a great example of why this an area that could be pursued on a larger scale Would love to start a discussion on how Logistics Plus could be leading a much larger cluster of companies that are based here in that niche.

You are right that old-line manufacturing isn’t going to exist as it once did — and perhaps I wasn’t specific enough when I spoke about making something.

Goods don’t have to solely be something you hold in your hand or buy off of a store rack.

Other parts of the nation have succeeded in producing knowledge-based products. Most of the biggest innovations and economic drivers of the past couple of decades have come from people who write lines of code and think about ways to share information and knowledge.

We don’t have to limit ourselves to widgets here. It could be Web-based, research based, scientific based.

Other parts of the country experienced phenomenal growth during the 90s and 00s because they latched onto technology, the Internet, medicine and other disciplines.

The qualities that George described in his latest comment could make Erie a place that would be attractive to be an incubator for future innovations — if we go after it the right way and target the right things.

We’ve done neither up until now. Instead, we’ve chased the “quality-of-life” assets that bring in tourists but do nothing to target people and companies that develop useful 21st Century technology.

Stating the obvious, that higher paying manufacturing jobs are better than lower paying tourism jobs does not attract these opportunities.
What I am trying to say is that a much broader perspective needs to embrace that the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts.
Erie has certain assets that we have right now, a diversified base of
businesses which include a great medical community, educational community, a small but yet respectable manufacturing community, a building tourism industry and many attractions such as its beaches, entertainment and sports facilities, hotels, convention center etc.,
What Erie needs is a community that has a standard of living and a lifestyle that is better suited to attracting more people. Tourism/gambling money, re-vitalizing downtown and developing its Bayfront and providing synergy for the Convention Center area and rebuilding its neighborhoods to attract ownership and residents would do a great deal towards making the Erie area a better place to live and attract people who would want to live in this area.

What Erie has that no other City in Pennsylvania has is that Erie is a PORT on the Great Lake. That port with its abilty to transport, access to
a large water supply, wind energy etc,, with an up-dated life style, educated work force together with up-dated attractions will eventually
develop to its potential. Erie has the demographics and the assets but is in the process of rebuilding its direction to fit today’s world, not what it was in the past and that is going to take time. In the meantime it needs to play all 88 keys on the piano not keep beating a dead horse of why more manufacturing jobs like the ones that were here in the past
return to this area. Those jobs have gone global but other opportunities for higher paying jobs will someday replace those jobs but we must first make this an area that people want to live and work.

Erie needs to market its assets to the nation and the globe and take advantage that it is a PORT, has water and energy potential and keep rebuilding its lifestyle so people want to live and work in this area.

Better paying manufacturing jobs in the long run are better for the Erie area but they will never happen unless the politics adopt a friendlier more efficient welcome for new business with competitive tax structure
and better educated work for with up-to-date skills suited for today’s economy, in the meantime upgrading Erie’s lifestyle and attractions to make this area a more up-to-date and attractive place to live will enhance Erie’s ability to be a better place to live and WORK.

Your original remarks about industry reviving robust apprentice programs are spot-on. The benefits of the former G.E. apprentice program of yesteryear went far beyond those factory walls. The challenge, of course, is in convincing today’s short-sighted bean-counting MBA-schooled business ‘leaders’ that such an approach would indeed be a win-win…..and then allowing them to establish and maintain high standards of admission & performance undiluted by political correctness, multiculturalism, ‘diversity’ czars, and so forth. By the way, this is one of the major challenges which would be faced by an effective Community College worthy of the appellation ‘college’ as well.

Gary B’s example of Meadville PA’s PMI is also illustrative, although I know little of its structure or operation beyond what I could find on their website (several pages returned error messages on my browser). Here I think the high degree of private sector involvement & oversight has been key to its apparent longevity and success, especially compared to several other well-known attempts to service this market. Finally, his suggestion of reuse or expansion of the existing Erie County Technical School campus in lieu of new building construction is worthy of consideration if a decision is made to proceed with such a community college. Done properly, this could be a win-win for both institutions in terms of increased resources and complementary facilities as well as a great location central to residents and transportation.

The premise of the argument is that there is some economic prospect in fortifying a manufacturing driven economy. My experience has shown that for certain niches, it is possible, but in the current environment, low cost offshore producers up to a certain quality level are winnning the marketshare and the domestic producers are consolidating both horizontally and vertically to survive. From a profitability standpoint, this is similar to a tough man contest with fairly attractive rewards for the last men standing. Erie has a lot of last men standing that will continue to stand and be very profitable. What everyone on this blog is always seeking is a way to jack up employment levels, so a consolidating industry is not likely a good choice for this unless you are actively acquiring all of the industry capacity. The players in this area with adequate resources to pursue such a strategy are relatively inexperienced in M&A and the associated integration required to successfully implement such a growth plan.

Capitalizing on a trend requires both identifying what is happening and figuring out how to get a piece of the action. Our education system here is “good” in certain regards. If you need to train people to produce products in the most efficient manner possible, inside of a larger system, the training is here. The disjoint is that the very large companies are not. However, large companies all over the U.S. are struggling with costs they cannot afford and volatile industries are outsourcing every function possible to make their costs variable. Often the per unit value of this outsourcing contains some margin, but the outsourced service provider must have flexible management policies to profit.

Therefore, if I were to pick one “manufacturing related opportunity” that is well aligned with the skills in the area which has the potential to provide a large volume of high value employment, I would seek to establish outsourced engineering and supply chain management firms to service mid-sized and larger companies in the U.S. who are seeking to obtain those services to handle their global supply base. I could go into a number of details as to how that model has to work to succeed which would put most people here to sleep, so I will summarize. The schools here churn out enough people to feed the pipeline, there are enough experienced manufacturing executives to provide the management, and growth is not capital intensive. Erie could do this.

Erie is under-marketed, for sure, but the solution can’t be found with selling the Convention Center and casino.

It’s hard to bring outsiders to conventions when the national unemployment rate is above 10 percent. Companies have been slashing their travel budgets and cutting back on the number of people they send to attend conferences and conventions.

The casino, while a nice attraction, isn’t really that unique anymore. A number of neighboring states already have, or will have, gaming.

These are nice assets to have, but they don’t solve Erie’s fundamental problem.

During its heyday, Erie made things. It produced goods that were shipped all over the world. The sale of those goods brought money into the community and created tens of thousands of great paychecks.

That base is shriveling — and it’s being replaced by jobs at hotels and casinos. Those jobs are nice to have — but they do not produce enough wealth to grow the economy.

Yes, these assets should be marketed. But we can’t rest on the idea that these assets are the key to Erie’s economic future.

Erie has a great and thriving medical community that needs to be exposed to the nation. Erie has a great educational community.
Erie’s attractions, demographics has attracted a Casino/Race Track
because of the ease of access to a major population base is fast becoming a major destin nation tourist center. Erie’s Batfront will develop because it has a Convention Center, this prime waterfront property will eventually overcome the politics that has been holding
back progress.

Erie is a great PORT on a GREAT LAKE which is a major WATER SUPPLY AND SUPPLY OF WIND ENERGY.

These assets need to be MARKETED, things like full gaming will help
because it will bring to Erie people with MONEY, most slot players are not big money people. People will say, “What has gambling, beaches, attractions have to do with high paying jobs?” If people want to come to Erie and live here because we have beaches, Casinos/Racd Tracks,
attractions, medical facilities, colleges, entertainment and we have an
educated work force maybe companies will want to locate here and look at our WATER AND ENERGY potential. It all goes hand in hand
but you have to market the PACKAGE.

Erie empty Convention Center could be used to DISPLAY and exhit
THE BEST OF ERIE , our colleges could supply the research data about how technology could be implemented to develop WATER AND ENERGY and maybe our CHAMBER OF COMMERCE could NATIONALLY MARKET “THE BEST OF ERIE”.

Erie has the assets and the potential, we just need to tell somebody!!

e

You are exactly correct, Peter. And the problem in Erie can be summed up just by reading the results from Tuesday’s election. Where do you see any heavy hitters in the win column?

We have one new face on City Council, while the old timers get their seat back for another 4 years. How do we impel change when we have a mayor who would rather stay in the background, and a council who wants nothing to do with anything but tourism. Do we really expect to see any change in the next four years??

My personal view is that those individuals (like Jim Berlin) who have the brains and experience to bring success to the city, have no desire to subject themselves to the ineptness of Erie’s so-called leadership. Simply put, those who seek elected office, too often aren’t the ones who should be in government.

Until we break the cycle started 50 years ago, the only hope is for private industry to forge their own future, with only crumbs from those who should be happy to help.