Tuesday, November 11, 2014CLEVELAND -- Team Northeast Ohio will relaunch in early 2015 as a new collaborative of northeastern Ohio businesses, foundations and JobsOhio to accelerate job growth in the region, Team NEO reports.
The new organization will retain the Team NEO name.
The functions of Team NEO along with those of NorTech, which focuses on technology-based economic development in the region, will be folded into the new entity, said Grant Goodrich, regional strategy implementation director for Team NEO. The new entity will also include functions not now performed by the two agencies, including strategy coordination across the economic development system and workforce integration.
NorTech’s board voted Monday to merge with Team NEO.
The merger will allow the specialized services and expertise of the two organizations be melded to serve the community better, said Rebecca Bagley, NorTech’s president and CEO. “It’s not meant to be just the sum of the parts of the two organizations,” she said. Development and acquisition of talent will also be integrated, she noted.
The combination of the two organizations is a step in the implementation of a strategy announced Monday by the Regional Competitiveness Council, a group of northeastern Ohio corporate, chamber of commerce and foundation leaders formed in 2013 to set goals and identify actions to strengthen the region’s economy.
“Our regional economic competitiveness strategy was built around a comparative analysis of our job-growth performance and the practices of the most successful regions,” said David T. Abbott, executive director of the George Gund Foundation and co-chairman of the Regional Competitiveness Council. “Our goal is to accelerate the pace of job creation by 50% and ultimately outperform the nation.”
The new Team NEO also will house the Regional Marketing Alliance’s Cleveland Plus campaign and will serve as the JobsOhio Regional Network Partner for northeastern Ohio, Goodrich said. Other regional economic development organizations, such as BioEnterprise, JumpStart and Magnet, will remain independent but enjoy a greater degree of cooperation with Team NEO.
The Fund for Our Economic Future also announced Monday it will join the northeastern Ohio business community to support the overhaul of the region’s economic competitiveness system.
“Our fund has been calling for greater alignment between the philanthropic and business sectors since our founding in 2004,” said Deborah Hoover, president and CEO of the Burton D. Morgan Foundation and chairwoman of the fund. “We are pleased that the business community is sharing responsibility with us for developing and implementing an integrated, sustainable strategy that simultaneously enhances economic growth and equitable access to opportunity, and enhances the system’s capacity to evaluate those efforts and hold key players accountable for outcomes.
Two transitions will accompany the merger of Team NEO and NorTech. Tom Waltermire, Team NEO’s CEO since 2006, will retire Dec. 31. Waltermire, who turned 65 this year, announced his plans at the Nov. 5 Team NEO board meeting.
Also departing is NorTech’s Bagley, who will remain with the organization through the end of the year. “I’ve decided this is a good opportunity for me to transition and pursue new opportunities,” she said.
No information has been released regarding how the executive positions may be filled..
Team NEO, in collaboration with its regional and local partners, will soon mark the attraction of 100 new company operations to Northeast Ohio since 2007, representing nearly 9,000 jobs.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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