NEDA members help businesses compete and grow

As we help to introduce this new Industrial & Economic Development section in the New York Real Estate Journal, I am especially grateful to the Journal for this opportunity to reach out to our many friends - longstanding, new, and still to come - in the real estate profession! The Northeastern Economic Developers Association (NEDA) represents over 500 economic development professionals working throughout the eleven northeastern states. Our members bring a huge range of skills and tools to the development table: workforce development; business-sector targeting and competitiveness; financing, tax policy, and incentives; energy and other utility infrastructure; planning, permitting, and regulation; telecommunications; transportation; business attraction and marketing strategy; and more. Many of us even know a thing or two about real estate development! If a business faces a new opportunity for growth, or a problem in a changing competitive marketplace, the chances are that they can find what they need by working with a NEDA member. Helping businesses to compete and grow is what we do. While most economic developers have their own set of tools and resources, what we're really good at is knowing who to call for the best solution to a problem, even if it's from someone else's toolbox. That's where building stronger ties to the real estate profession comes in: you have the expertise, the experience, and the real estate market knowledge to offer our businesses the best solutions to their space-related needs. We know where to go for solutions to a multitude of their other needs, and together we can build a stronger economy throughout the northeast. I'm especially excited that we're launching this section now, as our 52nd Annual Conference will be held later this year right here in the Empire State! From September 21 through 23, economic development leaders from throughout the northeast will meet in Buffalo. Our theme, "Blueprints - Breaking New Ground," will focus on the unprecedented paradigm shifts that energy issues, climate change, and other infrastructure-based changes are causing in the field. Economic developers know that they ignore these issues at their peril, and I believe that many in the real estate business will find this meeting especially interesting too. Keep watching these pages for news from your allies in economic development, and I hope many of you will come out, to Buffalo and elsewhere, so we can get to know all of you better! Robert Cormack is the 2008 president Northeastern Economic Developers Association, Wickford, R.I.