Some History for Perspective?

Thursday April 16, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald is shown on front and landing pages of local media officiating at an opening event for a new gourmet market in downtown Pittsburgh.  So is this grand opening a rare enough event for the Allegheny County Executive that it warrants this much media coverage?  This takes us back a few years when the first piece of economic development at Greater Pittsburgh International Airport was the grand opening of a Sunoco gas station and county and State politicians all showed up to celebrate.

At the end of 2006, IBM released a marketing piece touting a “partnership” with UPMC using the following headline: “University of Pittsburgh Medical Center partners with IBM to make tomorrow’s patient care a reality”.  OK that sounds great and over the last seven years one would think IBM could be made to see the advantages of establishing some research programs in healthcare information near its partner, UPMC.  But that has not occurred.  Meanwhile in Austin, TX, AthenaHealth of Watertown [Boston], MA announces it will take 110,000 sq/ft of office in downtown and hire over 600 employees for a new development center taking advantage of Austin’s “dynamic talent pool”.  Obviously, despite the presence of CMU, Pitt, Duquesne and two dozen other higher ed institutions in metro Pittsburgh, we lack a sufficiently dynamic talent pool.

This year Pitt, CMU and UPMC announced a partnership to develop the most current technology in data analytics for the healthcare field; a great idea.  Meanwhile Massachusetts economic development officials this week announced that IBM is establishing IBM Watson Health and will be locating its new health care analytics division in the Boston area, hiring “hundreds of employees” and partnering with some of the biggest names in health care to provide an analytical software able of capturing and analyzing all a person’s health information.

On April 8, 2015 Dennis Yablonsky of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development delivered the economic development scorecard for the Pittsburgh region.  At what was called “Win Day” in previous years this year was played low key with no splashy title.  Job creation in the region dropped 22% from 2013: with 5,406 new jobs created due to the Conference’s efforts.  [Note the importance of those six extra jobs suffixed onto that number.]  On April 16, 2015 State of Georgia and Atlanta officials announced the creation of 900 new jobs by Kaiser Permanente for a midtown Atlanta location.  In one swoop and for one employer, Atlanta gains 16% of the yearly total for metro Pittsburgh.

All this is with the backdrop of the US economy gaining economic momentum.  Is Pittsburgh still locked in much of the same ol’ same ol’ where we look good when the rest of the US is suffering because we’re already so far down that we can’t drop further and thus our region looks good by comparison?  But then when economic growth returns to majority of other places, Pittsburgh and western PA is left further behind.  I’m one of those who is sick and tired of the “slow and steady” apologia that local leaders offer when it comes to discussions of Pittsburgh’s economic vitality.

On April 15, 2015 GSK, the international pharmaceutical company, announced the closing of its Moon Twp regional offices losing 274 jobs and moving operations to New Jersey.  And from all reports and plain old logic, reports have it that sooner rather than later Kraft Heinz [note the order of names in that combo] will consolidate headquarters in Kraft’s 900K sq/ft suburban Chicago campus, removing one of Pittsburgh’s most venerable and historically identified corporate names.  That would be a cruel blow for more than just the jobs and prestige: Illinois is a governmental basket case about to go bankrupt.  And no one can claim Chicago area weather is better than Pittsburgh’s.  But a more diverse corporate community and an international airport hub served by the world’s two largest carriers does have attractions.  [Ask Seattle about losing Boeing which relocated to Chicago a few years back, much to this blogger’s amazement.]  But I’ve previously blogged on losses like these as well as our minor wins like retaining downsized corporate headquarters like US Steel and how Pittsburgh simply needs to replace these legacy companies with growth engines of the future.  Kaiser Permanente, AthenaHealth, IBM Watson …where are the new companies for the 21^st and 22^nd centuries.  Is this the best we can do?