Returning to the Garden
In Clallam County, the recession forces a rethinking of the economic development model.
by Manny Frishberg
April 2009
Seattle Business Magazine
In the Incredible Shrinking Economy, the competition among cities for new business development has reached a fever pitch. Communities of every size are outbidding each other with tax incentives and infrastructure projects to attract new enterprises to their locales.
“There are thousands of U.S. economic development organizations,” says Linda Rotmark, executive director of the Clallam County Economic Development Council in Port Angeles, a picturesque Olympic Peninsula community that has limited highway capacity and no rail link. “We have 999 competitors vying for that business, and I don’t like the odds.” Instead, Rotmark chooses what she calls “economic gardening,” or nurturing home-grown entrepreneurs.
Clallam County already had one of 11 Innovation Partnership Zones in Washington and was in line for a share of $5 million in capital grants from the state’s Community, Trade and Economic Development office to stimulate growth of industry clusters and promote job growth.
But Rotmark says the loans received through the program can only be applied to a joint venture between the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the local community college to develop marine, biotech and coastal assessment and restoration projects.
“What could we do for all the other people that are trying to invent things like the next best apple peeler and the next best survival suit,” asks Rotmark. She found her answer in a program to identify and nurture new businesses from within the community being supported by Washington Manufacturing Services (WMS), an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce. WMS was established to counter the trend toward manufacturing businesses moving offshore; instead, it helps create and grow hundreds of new manufacturing opportunities here.
Tapping into an existing network of local inventors, Rotmark worked with WMS to recruit about 17 promising entrepreneurs, including Bob Duncan, the inventor of a new kind of cold-water survival gear, and Lynn Langford, a woman in her 70s who developed a disposable funnel that makes it possible for women to urinate standing up. The entrepreneurs were put through a five-step process, which includes a class on how to communicate the benefits of their product and a computer analysis of the idea using a proprietary software tool that scores its commercial viability. WMS President John Vicklund says ideas that the software, called Merwyn, score high have an 88 percent chance of succeeding in the marketplace, far above the average for new businesses in general.
Four of five entrepreneurs in the original group continue to make progress. Two are looking for manufacturers to buy their inventions or with whom to form production partnerships. For example, Langford says that REI has shown an interest in her disposable funnel. She adds that she has spoken with an aide to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray about bringing the device to military procurement officers at the Pentagon, who are interested in supplying them to female soldiers in the field.
“There’re a lot of good reasons for doing this work,” says Rotmark. Entrepreneurs have proven “somewhat recession proof,” she explains, because they see economic adversity as an opportunity to try something new. “Part of it,” she adds, “is that we just have a lot of allegiance to people that live here and want to live here and want to grow a business.”