Pasco EDC fourth quarter reporting

1:27:47Bill, are you online? Mr. Kerner? I think I see you there.

1:27:51Yes, I'm here.

1:27:52Okay, so I've got a question for you. And I don't want to rush you. That's why I'm going to ask you this question now. Ten minutes or less. If not, I'm gonna come back to you. It's your call. I can do it. You sure? I can do it. Again, we don't want to rush you.

1:28:09No, I'll get I'll I'll get to the good stuff right away.

1:28:12Okay.

1:28:15Okay, well thank you. Thank you, um Mr. Chair and and thank you, Commissioner I'm reporting on uh Pasco EDC's fourth quarter reporting, uh which is also our end of the year reporting for October fiscal year. Uh if I could have someone um bring up the the first slides.

1:28:40And go ahead and advance.

1:28:44Okay, uh just real quick where we're at with our pipeline. Um we had 13 competitive projects that we won uh for this year. We've got a total of 44 active projects right now. I think it's very newsworthy because uh I just read the news of um the Business Journal and uh community of Jacksonville reported they had 43 active projects. So for our community to have 44 and them to have 43, I think is a a good barometer to compare ourselves.

1:29:14If you go to the next slide, please. And uh be happy to report the majority of them in our pipeline are manufacturing. That makes almost all of our commissioners happy. Yeah, me too. Next slide. Now this is this is what I really wanted to make sure that you saw today. Um so we ended the year with 15 total wins. Our goal was 12. Uh and as of September 30th, at about 4:30 in the afternoon, we received a commitment from a company that we're going to be

1:29:44bringing to you November 17th for 875 jobs. Very large project. That put us over not only our goal of a thousand, but our record for the most recruited jobs in any one. Fiscal year at 1,464 total jobs committed this year from WINS. I think it's not only significant in the sense that it's a record breaker, but it was amidst COVID that

1:30:14a lot of this activity was taking place. So when we look at how the business community is going, uh it is definitely going to Pasco. And of that, 104 million dollars of new capital investment. I heard earlier mention about small business and what we're doing with small business. I'll mention to you that out of that 15 projects, four were competitive were expansions here locally. And that was 104 more jobs, and 12.5 million

1:30:44of that 104 is expansions of our local business. So people are not only moving here, but moving here and continuing to grow. If I could advance the the slides, please.

1:30:58And I'm gonna go through these really rapidly. Overall, we hit the majority of our goals. Some of the things like company visits and trade shows and things like that. Last quarter were really difficult. Some converted into hybrid shows or virtual, and some were just postponed to next year. Go ahead and continue to advance the science. We do have a number of events that we did manage to attend, most of them virtual. Keep going. And some of the missions,

1:31:28this is where we get in the on the plane and go to visit companies and convince them to move here. Uh those of course were postponed. Can you join? Uh we did make some presentations. We're doing very new new styles of presentations, a lot of hybrids now. Uh go on.

1:31:46And we're still getting a lot of really good media value. So over a million dollars in estimated earn media value. Uh continue on

1:31:56Yeah. Keep going. All of this is in your packets as well too. So I'd ask you to to go to the leadership update, which is uh the last uh few slides. So we still have uh there we go, year end summer. So oh, back one.

1:32:13Um in lieu of our annual awards this year, um you all worked with us to host a black event the Pasco 2020. Uh it was our largest year for jobs recruited that I mentioned previously. And uh in addition to our our reported activities, we're continuing to focus on building resiliency, uh, to work with our small businesses to help them grow to get stronger and to administer those compliance uh requirements for the Pasco emergency business grants that we re awarded earlier this year. We're also providing

1:32:44advice to some of our peers around the state on how to handle things like resiliency and grants. And then we've started two new task forces. So our task force for food hub will be making its final recommendations later this week. And then the Office of Industrial Trends will disseminate a new real estate report that they'll be. Disseminating. And the new task forces will be on reshoring, which uh is very popular. Uh, we're talking about bringing back manufacturing to the United

1:33:14States, uh, PPE, supply chain, those types of things. And then also sustainable programming for our programs that are funded entirely by the Penny, so that um they have a game plan um to either roll out in case. um uh in case we take a different direction with the penny and the next referendum. Um and we're also gonna be adding the real estate committee to our list of committees. Okay next slide, please.

1:33:43And uh upcoming events, uh one that's noteworthy this week, we have Small Business Growing Global, October 22nd. So we're one of the first organizations to actually host an event. We'll have social distancing, some will be coming in virtually and a hybrid, but we have the Council General of Germany, the Council General of Mexico, and the Vice Council of Brazil that we be coming as well as a lot of international speakers, and that's at the Hyatt this Thursday. Also the

1:34:14Council General of Germany will be visiting some of our companies with Commissioner Starkey who leads our global competitiveness committee. So I'll stop there on the MOD and then if just touch on the penny real quick. Uh which is the next Yeah, go ahead to the first slide that says ready sites. And in summary, we've got two summary slides. Ready sites, happy to say we've got six sites evaluated and actively marketing a seventh site in progress.

1:34:44If you haven't seen the videos, you saw the one for Zephyrhills, I think, when we first started the videos. Check out our website and and look at these videos. They're top notch. Uh makes you proud to be in Pasco. Over 2,000 uh acres are evaluated for industrial projects. Internationally, some of our local companies have created export actions, over $110,000 of exporting to foreign markets. And enhanced marketing, this is another one I'm really proud of. We

1:35:14won three awards this year from the International Economic Development Council, which is the accreditation agency for economic developers. For Smart Start, it won the gold for the entrepreneurship program for our overall program uh for communities bigger than 500,000. So that means we were competing with the New Yorks, the Houstons, the Chicago's of the world. Pasco Ready Sites also won a silver award, and the Workforce Connect won a bronze award for the website,

1:35:44and the Pasco Ready Sites was. for the digital marketing that I mentioned earlier. Those are a really big deal for us and I think it's not ironic that all three of these are penny programs. Um and I will stop there. The rest is in your packet. I know that uh uh there is a a special event uh coming up and also just want to thank uh thank the board for their continued support over this this year and uh uh and thanks especially to um uh Commissioner Wells, who

1:36:14has served as our liaison to our board uh this year. We wish him the best in his new role and look forward to working. With them.

1:36:22Thank you, Mr. Cronin. We have any questions or comments for Mr. Cronin at this time? Commissioner Mariano.

1:36:26I was like I say, Bill, you've done a phenomenal job since coming here. Uh the numbers every year get better and better. So greatly appreciate all your efforts, all your connections, and your your great team that you have put together as well. Appreciate you. Thank you.

1:36:39Any other questions, comments? Commissioner Starkey?

1:36:41Um just really excited to hear about that manufacturing number. Um you know those are great jobs as used I know. Of course their number one issue is the talent pipeline. So we are all working hard on filling that. But um Uh great job on those manufacturing jobs. Wonderful. Other questions, comments?

1:37:00See none? Thank you, Mr. Cronin. Good. Appreciate it. Have a great day. You too. All right, hang tight for a second here.

1:37:09I okay are we gonna get to commission items? I got staff sitting here that can't be here this afternoon.

1:37:24Do you remember?

1:37:28No, I got jeans on

1:37:29I have Christians.

1:37:33Okay, so

1:37:36That'll be the last time you get a hold of Gavel.