Piedmont Triad Receives Grant for Regional Economic Development
Posted: 02-03-2006 : PIEDMONT TRIAD -- The United States Department of Labor announced that the Piedmont Triad Region will receive a major grant to support a comprehensive economic development and workforce development strategy. The WIRED (Workforce Innovations in Regional Economic Development) grant will provide up to $5 million/year for three years to develop a model national economic development demonstration project in the Piedmont Triad.

PIEDMONT TRIAD -- The United States Department of Labor announced that the Piedmont Triad Region will receive a major grant to support a comprehensive economic development and workforce development strategy. The WIRED (Workforce Innovations in Regional Economic Development) grant will provide up to $5 million/year for three years to develop a model national economic development demonstration project in the Piedmont Triad. The WIRED initiative is part of the new federal Competitiveness Agenda described during President Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday night.

The project will help train workers in the region's high-growth, high-wage industry clusters, and it will establish the Piedmont Triad as a national model for a regional total systems approach to economic development, workforce development, education, and entrepreneurship.

"We are delighted that the Piedmont Triad proposal was selected for this grant," said Don Kirkman, president and CEO of the Piedmont Triad Partnership. "The WIRED grant gives us both the financial and technical resources to develop an integrated strategy to restore the Piedmont Triad's global economic competitiveness."

The Piedmont Triad proposal was one of 13 selected by the Department of Labor out of 97 proposals submitted from 42 states. Each state was limited to three proposals, and the Piedmont Triad proposal was chosen by Governor Easley to compete at the federal level. The North Carolina Department of Commerce, through the North Carolina Commission on Workforce Development, will serve as the fiscal agent for the grant.

The Piedmont Triad Partnership led an advisory committee of local workforce development, economic development, education and entrepreneurial representatives in developing the proposal. The Partnership also received support from members of the Piedmont Triad's Congressional delegation. Senators Dole and Burr and Representatives Coble, Watt, Hayes, and Foxx all wrote letters of support for the Piedmont Triad proposal.

The Piedmont Triad proposal used the recently completed Piedmont Triad Vision Plan as the foundation for the proposal. "Many of the strategies included in the WIRED proposal originated with recommendations in the Vision Plan," said Kirkman. "I believe the Department of Labor was impressed with the work already done in the Piedmont Triad to identify what is required for our region to regain global competitiveness, and I also believe the Department saw that at the regional level we have the assets to be a world-class region," he added.

The Department of Labor evaluated proposals based on three criteria: strength of regional partnership, statement of need, and system transformation strategies. The grant guidelines specified that preferences would be given to regions that were adversely impacted by globalization, military base closures, or natural disasters. The Piedmont Triad proposal was based on the substantial job losses the Region has suffered in recent years as a result of globalization.

The Piedmont Triad proposal includes six strategies that together will enhance the economic prosperity and global competitiveness of the region. The strategies are: (1) create a model regional organization, (2) cultivate employment opportunities in high-wage, high-skill, clusters, (3) align and leverage the Triad's K-12, community college, and 4-year university resources around the region's growth clusters, (4) extend economic prosperity to the Triad's rural counties and minority populations, (5) create a regional leadership development center in partnership with the Center for Creative Leadership, and (6) develop a marketing and communications strategy to promote intra-region awareness of the need for regional collaborations and an external awareness of the Piedmont Triad as a creative and innovative region.

The Piedmont Triad Partnership (http://www.piedmonttriadnc.com), one of seven regional economic development partnerships in North Carolina, is the economic development and marketing organization representing the 12-county Piedmont Triad region. The Piedmont Triad, the nation's 36th largest metropolitan area with more than 1.5 million residents, includes the counties of Alamance, Caswell, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Montgomery, Randolph, Rockingham, Stokes, Surry, and Yadkin. www.piedmonttriadnc.com