Minutes of the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Committee Meeting Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council.

Transcription

1 1/7/14 The meeting was called to order at 2:10 p.m. ROLL CALL Minutes of the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Committee Meeting Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council November 14, 2013 Staff called roll and announced a quorum was present. The following members and staff were present: Martin County Palm Beach County St. Lucie County Indian River County Interested Parties Presenters Staff Anthony Parkinson Luis Dominguez (via conference call) Scott King Kathie Smith, Alternate Ed Maxwell, Alternate Gary Hines (via conference call) Art Cobb Doug Saenz Michael Corbit Harold Smyth Helene Caseltine, Chair Mark Mathes Huntley Miller, Palm Beach County Workforce Alliance Mr. Kimberly Gramm, Director, Adams Center for Entrepreneurship FAU College of Business (via conference call) Greg Vaday Kim Koho MINUTES SEPTEMBER 12, 2013 Mr. King pointed out that on page 8 of the minutes, the name Mr. Scott should be changed to Mr. King. Mr. Doug Saenz moved approval of the minutes of the September 12, 2013 meeting as amended. Mr. Cobb seconded the motion, which carried unanimously. Motion

2 ANNOUNCEMENTS Mr. Greg Vaday stated that Staff had been working with Palm Beach County on a master planning effort for western Palm Beach County, is in the Glades area and had just completed the first series of workshops in Belle Glade/South Bay. The second set of workshops will cover the area of Pahokee Canal Point, and the unincorporated county. It will begin Saturday, November 16, continuing through November 22 taking place at Pahokee City Hall. The master plan will cover issues ranging from infrastructure planning, transportation transit, to economic development. Mr. Vaday, continued saying that the study will look at helping the Glades communities understand what the current conditions are with respect to infrastructure and what possible potentials and opportunities there might be for economic development over the next 10 years. One of the large projects which are an essential focus of the master planning effort is the intermodal logistics center, also known as ILC. Florida Crystals is largely behind the effort to develop 850 acres just directly south of Belle Glade and adjacent to South Bay which would have a huge catalytic effect in the Glades and would shape the economic development activities for the next decade. Mr. Vaday said that the West Technical Education Center in the Belle Glade which had been dormant for 10 years was reopening. They will be rolling out a construction trades program which will be free of charge for its first year. They have a number of people who have signed up for the program, which started about a week ago. In addition, the vocational school is looking to add more programming for the West Tech campus. The campus had taught automotive, diesel mechanics, engineering sills, and business entrepreneurship. Last week, Mr. Vaday toured the facility with the superintendent for western Palm Beach County, Dr. Matt Shumaker. Mr. Vaday said that the school is also providing a free pre-apprentice program which is meant to be a stepping stone to college, full time employment, and/or a steady apprenticeship with HVAC contractors, construction managers, and etc. These school activities could play an important complimentary role with regards to the ILC Intermodal Logistics Center, since training is fundamental. West Tech is looking for about a half million dollars to build out the facility. Mr. Vaday stated that it was possible that a project of that nature could be supported through a federal grant initiative. The Economic Development Administration, (EDA) has funded past community college efforts and incubators. Western Palm Beach County has a lot of challenges in terms of unemployment and distress characteristics. When EDA funds projects they are not just looking at funding but they also look at the context in which the project is funded. The area really does matter. Mr. Vaday invited anyone who was interested to attend Saturday s (November 16, 2013) charrette in Pahokee. Mr. Art Cobb expressed interest in attending and discussed the challenges of the Glades. Mr. Gary Hines discussed the South Florida ILC, Florida Crystals project. He said the sugar cane employment challenges opportunities were from mid-october to March. Mr. Hines stated they were desperate for gainful funding for year round jobs and that the Palm Beach Business Development Board has committed to fund a new position to focus entirely on the Glades area for three years. Mr. Vaday said the focus needed to be on establishing a solution to help the Glades evolve to the next level after being dominated for 100 years by one industry. Mr. Hines felt that Sugar Crystals was eager to be involved in that solution. Mr. Art Cobb felt that all resources and agencies needed to be involved in the solution, as well. Mr. Vaday referred to Mr. Cobb s previous discussion, saying the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council (TCRPC) was 2

3 excited to work with the CEDS, the tri-cities, and Florida Crystals regarding the Glades issues. The solutions need a multi-disciplinary and multi layered effort. Mr. Vaday summarized the planning effort as establishing baseline conditions indicating gaps in terms of potential funding. The funding could be for future small business development or physical infrastructure. Mr. Vaday added that TCRPC was working with the City of Miami on a project with Miami Dade College to help the college expand one of their signature programs, which is a culinary institute. However, the College currently needed to expand its operations AND was running out of room. The College has partnered with South West Overtown/Park West Community Redevelopment Agency in rehabbing an old church that was purchased by the Agency. The expansion will allow the College to include a culinary component in the hospitality program. TCRPC helped write an EDA grant for the expansion which was approved on September 25th for $900,000. Mr. Smyth asked about the hospitality curriculum. Mr. Vaday said that to his knowledge there were different streams of educational opportunities, but the shortest stream was 12 weeks. It is one of the only programs that can literally take someone without any kind of prior experience in hospitality, give them skills to work in a hotel or resort, and provide them with a career. With the expanded programmatic opportunity, the College will be able to increase their reach to a larger segment of the community. This project was about entrepreneurship and helping communities. Mr. Vaday introduced Ms. Kimberly Gramm, Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Assistant Dean, Community Relations, and Director, Adams Center for Entrepreneurship (ACE). Ms. Gramm s personal experience focuses on entrepreneurship, business development, and marketing and corporate strategies. She has been featured in Boca Raton magazine, Sun Sentinel and various other media outlets. Ms. Gramm serves on numerous boards. Mr. Vaday invited Ms. Gramm to speak to the committee today to talk about FAUs role in entrepreneurship and business incubation. Ms. Gramm gave a very detailed and thorough presentation regarding entrepreneurship. She provided a landscape of what the university is doing and how the Adams Center for Entrepreneurship is helping to drive entrepreneurs here in the Palm Beach community and service region. She reviewed the FAU Adams Center for Entrepreneurship s ecosystem and its partners and explained how FAU s strategy aligned with Florida s Economic Development Strategic Plan. She reviewed the different Adams Center for Entrepreneurship programs and events. She stressed the importance of exposing students to discovery and research as early as possible at higher learning facilities. She also talked about the Entrepreneur Boot Camp which is a fast-paced certificate course that empowers promising entrepreneurs and ambitious small business owners. The Center also provides one on one mentoring, and a series of workshops to empower attendees. She said that the upcoming months would include the following events are scheduled: a Global Entrepreneurship, (November 18-24) Week; Startup Weekend Boca Raton; Young Entrepreneurs Academy, and Business Plan Competition, (BPC), (April 9-11), which would be open to the public. She reviewed an impressive list of BPC winners. Ms. Gramm talked about a new initiative from the College of Business s ACE, with the support of the Research Park at FAU. Called Tech Runway, which is a program for mentoring entrepreneurs and their ventures based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology s Venture Mentoring Service (VMS). The project will combine VMS with university resources and the local business community to create an ecosystem that is conducive to the development of 3

4 successful technology start-ups. Tech Runway is uniquely positioned to create a highly skilled work-force and provide startup company support. Entrepreneurs/innovators can receive funding of up to $25,000 in investment money, mentoring, interns, and faculty support, along with twelve to sixteen weeks of formal education and a state of the art incubation space. She cited several examples. She stated the primary deliverables of Tech Runway s ecosystem were to implement a research and inquiry-focused curriculum-highly skilled work force and a consistent pipeline of technology start-ups. Ms. Gramm concluded her presentation by opening up the floor for questions. Mr. Vaday commented that the presentation was a very powerful overview of entrepreneurship practice and thanked Ms. Gramm for her time. Mr. Vaday pointed out that the FAU Research Park, Ms. Gramm referred to in her discussions of incubators, is expanding into the Jupiter area and is a project that the CEDS listed as one of its priority projects to help with federal funding opportunities. It is also in the CEDS plan. Ms. Gramm said that to be successful, assessments are critical to any program. Committee members had a lengthy discussion after the presentation regarding entrepreneurship and ways to enhance it. Mr. Mark Mathes, City of Fellsmere, echoed Ms. Gramm s reference to ecosystems with regards to issues to overcome early stage funding obstacles. He asked her if she could discuss the issue with not just FAU in mind, but the state of Florida. Ms. Gramm said that is was a large complex issue. She related her experience at FAU saying that it took a grass roots initiative to make it happen. The internal challenges are bigger than the external and it takes focus and awareness about the successes stories. Ms. Gramm knew if seed capital could be raised thru exposure, the outcome would be successful start up companies. Perception issues regarding the talent here in South Florida and what can be produced need to be changed. Mr. Louis Dominguez said that in his experiences with buying and selling companies, they look for companies that have solutions to current problems. He has come to the conclusion that the West Coast is more innovative, and the East Coast focus is more on operations and revenue. He asked how a change away from an operations based thinking could be promoted. Ms. Gramm said that again, it would be accomplished through awareness. He asked if any groups existed that were focused on building an ecosystem similar to FSU s. Ms. Gramm said that she did not have a clear cut answer for him as there were several organizations that all have different understandings of entrepreneurship. Ms. Gramm felt that it was a combined effort of these organizations. Mr. Dominguez asked if the there was a group or committee, such as the CEDS committee that would be qualified to present before the Governor, the identified gaps in the State s entrepreneurship efforts. Mr. King asked Ms. Gramm what number of the participants business plans were locally and FAU student based, or were entrepreneurs outside the community. Also, he asked if she knew how many were based on technology services, or medical services. Ms. Gramm said with regards to the business plans, 50 percent came from entrepreneurs outside the community, and the other 50 percent came from students. She said that the students wrote better business plans but the entrepreneurs were more realistic about operations and implementation. The types of businesses that are coming into the competition are all for profit and she stated that at last year s competition out of 250 businesses registered, only about 200 qualified and of those approximately 90 were technology based businesses. 4

5 Mr. Dominguez asked how many of the companies have been funded or were on their path to execute their business plan. Ms. Gramm said that about 45 percent have been funded and are successful (with most of those moving through year two and three of the competition.) The quality of the businesses is improving. Once a company receives funding they are moved into the incubator space at the research park. Currently there is an organization called Enterprise Development Corporation which helps them continue with the funding opportunities. Mr. Parkinson asked if FAU was working with other incubators around the country, forming relationships in order to share information. Ms. Gramm said currently has relationships with Georgia Tech, whose incubator was ranked number two world wide, and with MIT. One of her goals was to create a visiting partnership with the world s best in class incubators. Mr. Vaday said while helping Palm Beach County with the Glades Regional Master Plan, staff and consultants determined there was a lack of resources for business development and entrepreneurship. He asked Ms. Gramm if there was any way that the CEDS could help support the delivery of an entrepreneurship boot camp to the Glades even if it was through long distance learning in trying to determine the best and brightest in that area. Ms. Gramm said that absolutely yes, she would be happy to partner with the CEDS and TCRPC working toward a boot camp for the Glades area. They might be able to coordinate some video streaming and online education. She said awareness was the key to any successful entrepreneurship program. Ms. Gramm said that this type of outreach would be important to a university ability to make a difference in the community. Ms. Caseltine asked that the entire region be included in this type of program. Mr. Vaday agreed saying that there are disadvantaged communities throughout the entire region. The Federal Government is aware of these areas, but it is up to us to tell their story determining the structure of an ecosystem disadvantaged communities. Ms. Gramm believes in the saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a community to raise a company. The universities can set the tone creating a model as to what can be done to create programs to address the community s needs. Mr. Hines congratulated her on an excellent presentation. Mr. Hines felt that Palm Beach State College, who has a campus in Belle Glade, and Indian River State College would partner with FAU regarding this endeavor. Ms. Gramm said that she was at IRSC and agreed that there was positive momentum for entrepreneurship programs. Mr. Cobb thanked Ms. Gramm for the presentation and stated that awareness was essential to the success of any program. He was very excited about this program and if he had not attended the meeting today, he would not be aware of what FAU was doing. He said that he would be in contact with Ms. Gramm. Mr. Vaday and Ms. Gramm agreed to continue the discussion at a later date and Ms. Caseltine reminded all of the members that they could contact Ms. Gramm with additional questions. Ms. Gramm thanked the CEDS for their support. 5

6 PUBLIC COMMENT Ms. Miller said that FAU has a terrific program. Entrepreneurship is important to Palm Beach County and there is a lot of effort going into making is a successful endeavor. Entrepreneurship can come from innovation and from necessity. She stated that the challenge was to become focused and Mr. Vaday agreed. COMMITTEE COMMENT Ms. Caseltine wanted to bring to the attention of the CEDS, the Florida Enterprise Zone Program. The sunset review program process was underway and was scheduled to be repealed on December 31, Every ten years it goes through the sunset process. There is a real concern that the program will not be continued and it looks like it is going to be a very uphill battle to keep the program for another ten years. A task force has been created by Enterprise Florida to come up with ideas to rework the program. This is the year that everyone needs to work hard with their local legislators to support the program. Mr. Vaday stated that TCRPC adopted a resolution of support of the reauthorization of the Florida Enterprise Zone Program. Mr. Parkinson asked why there was opposition to the program and Ms. Caseltine said that some communities have taken advantage of the program s intention program in ways that were not intended. As a result, many changes have been made to the program but there is still a concern that jobs are not being created in economically challenged areas. Mr. Parkinson asked if the system could be adjusted and Ms. Caseltine said that it could, and it would be a better alternative than canceling the entire program. Mr. Cobb and Mr. Maxwell discussed the issues with creating job numbers. Ms. Caseltine said that Indian River County s program has been successful. STAFF COMMENT The next CEDS meeting is scheduled for January 9, The election of new officers will be on the agenda. Mr. Vaday wished everyone a Happy Holiday. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 3.50p.m. 6