COEUR d'ALENE - "Partnerships equal prosperity," said former Idaho Department of Commerce Director Jim Hawkins.

That is a lesson Hawkins learned during his nearly 10 years of assisting Idaho's communities in their recovery from a prolonged recession in the 1980s and early 1990s.

And that is a lesson he is sharing with several local leaders who have recently started to explore a new economic development strategy for Coeur d'Alene and beyond.

"The state of Idaho was in deep trouble back then," Hawkins said in an interview last week. "We had a net outmigration during the 1980s. People were leaving the state to find employment elsewhere. We had a brain drain and we had to stop it.

"That's when the state and its communities came together and said we have to get our act together," Hawkins added.

Hawkins said he learned very quickly that economic development doesn't happen at the Department of Commerce level.

"Economic development happens at the local level," he said. "And the Department of Commerce is there as part of a team to assist in those local efforts."

Hawkins has been advising Coeur d'Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer on how to be successful at that endeavor.

"You have to identify your assets, and then you have to identify your liabilities," he said. "Then you have to work to eliminate the liabilities and enhance the assets."

Then, communities have to develop strategies to help retain and expand existing employers and build on the success of industry clusters in the region. Kootenai County has some potential clusters in aerospace technology and carbon fiber manufacturing, Hawkins added.

"That cluster effect helps because employers like to be located near similar businesses to take advantage of the trained workforce," he said. "Once you've identified the targets, everybody needs to partner up and move together toward that target."

Then a coordinated effort needs to engage government, economic development agencies, private sector employers and education institutions to make it happen.

Hawkins said that is a formula that worked very successfully to diversify Idaho's economy when jobs in the natural resource industries began declining in the 1980s.

"Coeur d'Alene was real star back then," he said, adding that the creation of Jobs Plus and the Lake City Development Corporation helped the community's economic recovery.

While not as dramatic as the 1980s recession, Hawkins said the latest recession is now behind us and he is encouraged to see Widmyer taking a fresh look at the community's economic development strategy.

"We really need to get back into that old realm, and I am willing to help do that," the Coeur d'Alene native said. "We can get this thing turned back around, but we got some tough decisions to make.

"Developing a local economic development plan for the region is a great place to start," said Hawkins, who now splits his time between Coeur d'Alene and Boise. "The community can do that with good leadership.

"I think Widmyer is on the right track."

Jobs are job one

When Widmyer ran for the mayor's office last year, one of the top issues he heard from constituents was the need for more family wage jobs in the area.

That is backed up with scientific survey data that has recently been collected by the CDA2030 effort.

Dr. Charles Buck, from the University of Idaho, said that out of all the data collected from thousands of people surveyed in the greater Coeur d'Alene area, the issue of better paying jobs rose to the top.

"Over 95 percent of respondents believed that available living wage jobs is important but only 25 percent feel that the community is doing a good or very good job on that front," Buck said in an email last week. "And 40 percent think we are doing a poor or very poor job on that front."

Respondents were given 20 different items to choose from when asked to define their vision for Coeur d'Alene in 2030. Roughly 15 percent chose more jobs, which was the No. 1 response, and the next most frequent answer was improved education.

Starting his first week in office, Widmyer began reaching out to economic development professionals and asking for their advice on how to improve the job market in the greater Coeur d'Alene area.

"I have had a lot of meetings with Jim Hawkins, and that's really where this all started," Widmyer said, adding Hawkins advised Widmyer to start refocusing the community's efforts in a coordinated way.

Widmyer said Kootenai County has a lot of resources such as Jobs Plus, Panhandle Area Council, Lake City Development Corporation, as well as urban renewal districts in Post Falls and Hayden, not to mention the city governments themselves.

"So, we have all these agencies, but all these agencies seem to be going off into their own little areas," he said. "We need to have a coordinated effort to get everybody on the same page to determine who we are going to attract, what business are we going to go for, where is the land to do this and where are they going to locate."

From there, Widmyer reached out to Idaho State Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, a longtime economic development proponent, as well as newly elected Post Falls Mayor Ron Jacobson. They were on the same page.

"Widmyer came to me a week after he was elected to talk about economic development," Henderson said. "Of course, that is my favorite subject, so I was happy to meet with him."

Henderson said Widmyer and Jacobson see the need to refocus on a new strategy for economic development and job creation, and they asked him to help.

"I suggested that he get together with all of the mayors in Kootenai County and start talking about it," Henderson said. "This is an effort that needs to happen.

"I believe it is time for a new economic strategy for economic development," he added. "And this could get things going. In my professional opinion, we have stalled."

Henderson said this effort isn't designed to supplant or interrupt any current strategy that is underway, but rather act to enhance it.

He has encouraged Widmyer and Jacobson to look at the strengths that Kootenai County has right now in carbon fiber manufacturing and aerospace technology.

"If you talk with the people at the Department of Labor, they will tell you that they have 20 or more companies focused on that," Henderson said.

He has also encouraged them to get together to define their individual identities.

"I suggested the identity for Coeur d'Alene could be an ideal site for corporate headquarters and medical industry jobs," he said, adding Post Falls could focus on redeveloping the factory outlet mall into an education area.

Post Falls has already fielded some inquiries from higher education institutions about the potential for that, he said.

"It's really the concepts that need to be developed," Henderson said. "I am looking forward to my retirement from the legislature, so I will have more time to work with them on this."

Widmyer met with the mayors and city administrators from Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls, Rathdrum and Hayden on Friday for lunch. They discussed the concept and shared a few ideas.

"It was a good informational meeting," he said. "It was good to get everyone's ideas out on the table."

Widmyer said he will be gathering more information from the cities and plans to hold another meeting at the end of the month with Randy Shroll from the Department of Commerce to discuss next steps forward.

Once he gets the local government sector to agree on a direction forward, Widmyer plans to bring in the other agencies, educational institutions and finally the private sector employers to participate in the strategy.

"Those are the people who have actually created jobs," he said. "I want to listen to what they have to say."

Next Steps

Jobs Plus President Steve Griffitts said all of the mayors sit on his board of directors, and he welcomes their new input and looks forward to partnering with them.

"I hope this continued focus on job growth is successful," he said. "The new emphasis has been good for everyone."

Tony Berns, executive director of the Lake City Development Corporation, said he has been talking with Widmyer and others about a new strategy.

"This is a perfect opportunity for a new mayor to come in and take fresh look at look at this," he said. "Since I have been here, we have been partnering on job recruitment."

Widmyer said he has been researching the way Twin Falls has been successful recently on the job creation front.

"Their success came from bringing a lot of people together," he said. "If we can bring the Department of Commerce together with our urban renewals and Jobs Plus, we could be successful.

"Basically, what we want to do is focus all our energies and get that behind Jobs Plus," he added, saying it makes sense to support and utilize the existing agencies.

For example, he said, looking at the Seltice Way corridor from Northwest Boulevard to Highway 41 and everything in between, there is a lot of potential.

"Half of that land is in Coeur d'Alene and half of it is in Post Falls," he said. "You can see what Ron Nilson (CEO of Ground Force Manufacturing) has done out there, but if you drive along you can see all of the undeveloped land - there is some 70 acres of undeveloped land out there."

He said that corridor could potentially become a jobs corridor.

"If Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene decide they want to concentrate on that corridor, we would probably have to bring someone in to do a land use study," he said. "We need to find out what is the best fit there, who should we attract."

Also, he said, the partnership should be out talking to companies that have left the area to determine why they left. On the same note, Widmyer wants to talk with employers here to determine what their employment needs will be in the next four or five years and make sure that the community can help to meet those needs.

"I want talk about this stuff with the aerospace companies and composite folks," Widmyer said. "When you think about it the job creation market is competitive as heck. You've got all kinds of states throwing freebies at people."

It's going to take a little time to pull all of these guys together and get a plan a place, he said.

Hawkins said he thinks Coeur d'Alene is on the right track with the current effort.

"In order to get things to turn around, you have to have a mayor who can get things done and I have a very positive feeling about Steve," he said. "You've got to be looking at your stars instead of your scars."