By Don Gardner
When selecting a home, “location, location, location” has always been the standard catchphrase.
But now more than ever, selecting the location of your business is just as important. The decision to select a new business location and the success of that company may ultimately depend upon how much that community can help grow that business.
On May 9, Macomb County Deputy County Executive John Paul Rea and Planning and Economic Development Director Vicky Rowinski discussed how important community assistance can be. The pair delivered a Tech Talk at the annual Integr8 smart technology conference at the Novi Showplace. Their talk was titled, “Location, Location, Innovation: How communities can embrace, cultivate and ignite business growth.”
“What happens if you locate in a facility that has spotty internet connectivity, or even worse, has intermittent power outages? How about if you locate in a facility that doesn’t have adequate staging facilities for sensitive materials,” Rea said. “Or let’s say you're an aerospace company and you’re having an aerospace tool that is shipped. And upon that tool being shipped, you find out it has been jostled in transit, and you need someone flown in from Texas to fix it?
“These are things that Vicky and I have had to deal with over the years. But because we are involved in this, and because we engage our industry partners, we have viable solutions that we can bring to the table.”
The discussion provided attendees with insights into the emerging tools and resources that local governments like Macomb County can deploy to aid their private-sector neighbors. From economic development incentives to next-generation infrastructure, public-sector entities across the region and state are making generational investments to ensure that companies can have the greatest success in the future.
Rowinski and Rea both addressed our changing world, from an aging population to a shift to new and developing technologies across all sectors of business and manufacturing. Macomb County is expected to add nearly 29,000 jobs to its economy in the next 10 years, many in high-tech fields. The top jobs are expected to come in professional services, healthcare and logistics. Rowinski has called it the transition from blue-collar to new-collar in Macomb County.
“We need to determine what the next 10 years will look like,” Rowinski said. “Because this next generation is growing up with this technology.”
To address the future, Macomb County is fully invested in Macomb Next, the ongoing automation of traditional
manufacturing and industrial practices using modern, smart technology.
Macomb County has a strong collection of engineers, with 7,199 mechanical engineers; 4,016 industrial engineers; 1,122 electrical engineers; 1,036 civil engineers; and nearly 1,700 other types of engineers. Those numbers have helped Michigan deploy the fourth-largest engineering, design and development (EDD) workforce in the nation. Statistical trends indicate that 10 years into the future, Macomb County will still boast one of the highest concentrations of manufacturing jobs in the nation.
Macomb County is helping to not only fill those roles but also keep our homegrown talent at home with its Fueling the Talent Pipeline. The program connects employers with educators to provide meaningful career exploration activities for students and to prepare the next generation of our workforce for the interesting and well-paying jobs offered by local companies.
Rea said with this ever-changing landscape, logistics development and growth is crucial in Macomb County.
“It’s probably one of the most interesting things for a region this size with all of this activity innovation happening,” Rea said. “That movement of goods, products, services and individuals is critical to having a vibrant economy that can continue to grow and be elastic. Historically, we have had a very rigid, point-to-point ecosystem. Now, it’s becoming so much more elastic, whether it’s just-in-time or product innovation – that entire product pipeline, from concept to consumer. That’s something that we can not only respond to but also pivot and provide your business with more and more solutions.”
So, when it comes to location, Macomb County is the place to be. To learn more about how Macomb County can help your business, go to business.macombgov.org/Business-Home or call 586-469-5100.
“The best thing about working with us is that you’re never going to get an invoice,” Rea said.
Don Gardner is a communications specialist for the Macomb County Department of Planning and Economic Development.
