The third quarter issue of the Alliance newsletter recaps a business advisory meeting held in Northwest Indiana, reminds readers to register for the 5th Summit on Regional Competitiveness at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, highlights Frank Unick as a new Alliance Board member, provides an update on the working teams and shares articles of interest including important economic data. The Alliance remains committed to serving as a neutral platform championing initiatives and convening leaders from government, academia and the private sector to grow the regional economy.  

Alliance & NIPSCO Host Business Advisory Meeting

The Alliance would like to thank Violet Sistovaris, Executive Vice President & President, NIPSCO, for hosting an Alliance Business Advisory Board meeting with Northwest Indiana leaders and Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Senior Economist and Economic Advisor, Rick Mattoon for moderating the meeting.  In his remarks, Mattoon expressed the importance of improving the productivity of the region. He reminded the group that the region has advantages such as premier higher education institutions, transportation infrastructure, and Chicago, as a world class city.  He emphasized that with collaboration, together, we can leverage these assets and promote opportunities for the private sector thus growing businesses and the regional economy. 

Continuing this effort, the Alliance is organizing meetings with business leaders in the 3 sub regions and then a meeting of the whole to be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. For more information, please e-mail Alliance President & CEO, Kelly O'Brien, kobrien@alliancerd.org.

Comcast Newsmakers Interview Features Alliance President & CEO

Alliance President & CEO, Kelly O'Brien was featured on the "Newsmakers" segment from Comcast in July. In addition to discussing the Alliance, O'Brien elaborated on the topic: "21st Century Connectivity: Why You Should Care About Regional Economic Development."

To view the interview, please CLICK HERE.

Alliance Transportation Working Team Update

Alliance in the News

Special thanks to Steve Schlickman for raising the visibility of the Alliance. See his quote below from the Chicago Tribune article posted on September 25, 2017, titled, "90 Years Later, An Upgraded South Shore Rail Line is on Track."  In regards to the South Shore Line Double Track Extension project Schlickman said: 

If you are interested in joining the Alliance Transportation Team, please contact Kelly O'Brien at kobrien@alliancerd.org. 

Alliance Workforce Working Team Update

Alliance Workforce Team Visits Purdue Commercialization and Manufacturing Excellence Center in Northwest Indiana

Purdue University Northwest is home to the Commercialization and Manufacturing Excellence Center. This center is an excellent example of industry and academia coming together to meet workforce development needs in the 21st Century in our region. The effort was borne of a partnership between Nick Wilson, President of Morrison Container Handling Solution, and Niaz Latif, Dean of the College of Technology at Purdue University Northwest. Dr. Latif currently serves as the Executive Director of the Center. Alliance workforce associate, Tim Syth, recently had the opportunity to visit with both Dr. Latif and Nick onsite.

The Commercialization and Manufacturing Excellence Center provides facilities for industry and students to collaborate on problems and opportunities. The flexible, modular setup of the environment allows for users design and test custom production lines as well as produce small batches of products. This hands-on approach builds student skills on industry-standard equipment while also providing a place for existing businesses and inventors to test ideas. The student skills developed are geared towards an automated future where there work will be maintaining and troubleshooting production robots rather that running production machines on a daily basis.

The Center also hosts a number of events. There is a local gathering of 1 Millions Cups were people can practice pitching,  a Founders Hours event where successful founders talk about specific issues in starting and running business, and there is an IP Legal Aid event to assist those with intellectual property (IP) questions and concerns.

Nick Wilson, as the industry driver behind the effort, encouraged other industry partners to pursue in similar partnerships. “People don't understand how easy it is to get involved.” He shared that the partnership has been incredibly helpful in meeting the needs of his company as well as others in the packaging industry.

If you are interested in joining the Alliance Workforce Team and working on its agenda, please contact Kelly O'Brien at kobrien@alliancerd.org.

Overview of Alliance Board Meeting 

The Alliance Board of Directors met on both July 21st and September 11th. Paul Jones, Board Chairman, called the meetings to order.

During the July meeting, the Board nominated and elected Mr. Frank Unick to the Board as a Wisconsin member.  Please see the background article about Mr. Unick below.  Mr. Unick is filling the seat vacated by John Dickert.  Mr. Dickert resigned from the Board following his resignation as Mayor of Racine.  Mr. Dickert accepted a new position as President and CEO of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. We would like to thank Former Mayor Dickert for his contributions to the Alliance. We look forward to the partnership his new role will bring.

During the September meeting, the Board received Working Team updates and discussed the upcoming Summit on Regional Competitiveness.

The Board is scheduled to reconvene for the 4th quarter meeting in December and a Holiday Reception will follow.

New Addition to Alliance Board of Directors 

Did You Know?

The Alliance would like to thank its economist, Morton J. Marcus, for providing the following information: 

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate Alliance jobs reached a new peak in July 2017 at 5.8 million.

During the Great Recession, the Alliance lost 402,000 jobs, but since 2010 has regained all those jobs and more. 

The bounce back so far has been 536,000 jobs, for a net gain of 134,000 jobs. (See Figure 1 below)

A look inside the Alliance shows a wide disparity among the five Metropolitan areas that comprise the region.

The greater Chicago metro area, from 2007 to 2017, accounted for 135,300 added jobs.

A small gain was also recorded in the greater Milwaukee metro area of 7,100 jobs.

The remaining three metro areas all have yet to reach their July 2007 job numbers.

• The Michigan City-LaPorte metro area is 6,500 short of its 2007 level,
• The Racine metro area has to gain 1,500 jobs before it reaches its previous high.
• The Kankakee metro is only 400 shy of its 2007 peak.

Within the greater Chicago metro there are four divisions led by the Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights division’s huge 132,700 job gain, followed by:

• The Lake-Kenosha division which gained 18,900 jobs from ’07 to ’17.
• The Gary division, by contrast has a net loss of 6,500 jobs, while 
• The Elgin division trailed with an 11,800 net loss.

(See Figure 2 below)

The figure below offers the data in percentage terms, with added data for the U.S. and the three states that constitute the Alliance region. 

The take-away: Although the Alliance as a whole has recovered from the Great Recession, this is almost exclusively a bounce-back by the core area, the Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights metro division.

As a whole the Alliance region, from 2007 to this year, has grown by only 2.4%, less than a third of the national job growth rate of 6.2%.

(See Figure 3 below)