University Connection: Recruiting talent as well as business

One can’t help but be impressed with ongoing economic development efforts in mid-Missouri. Both the city’s visioning process and a critical self-analysis are strong indicators of the efforts being made by the city, county and region. The recruitment of growth-oriented, innovation-based companies seems to have emerged as one common goal. I’d suggest another : the recruitment of talented, experienced individuals who can run such companies.

The Midwest has suffered an erosion of corporate headquarters, and with those losses have gone the ceos, cfos, coos, and cios who ran them. Such a talent pool is an absolute requirement for creating a community that can generate businesses and cultivate its own research and ideas.

Take San Diego. Only 20 years ago, the city committed to a plan, led by local business, university and government leaders, to focus on the recruitment of both business and talent to create an innovation-based economy from their own untapped research. Business success aside, their pool of talented professionals, ready and willing to lend a hand to the next business start-up, now numbers in the thousands. Among them are late, mid and even early career executives who see a future in being a serial entrepreneur within the community. If San Diego seems a stretch, consider Boulder, Colo. Based initially on information technology, but now expanding to other sectors, its pool of talent currently stands in the hundreds. The businesses and talent of the Boulder community have given wings to other Front Range communities of the Rockies, thereby invigorating the entire region.

For Missouri, recruiting both innovation-based businesses and talent requires a team effort. Key players will be St. Louis, Kansas City and research-based university communities such as Columbia. In the big picture, the successes of our metro centers are synergistic with efforts in mid-Missouri, and should include at least three key strategies.

First, we need to focus on attracting individuals with an affinity for Missouri. Whether the hook is being home, maintaining family connections, having a university experience, or the fulfilling desire for a different lifestyle, there needs to be some inherent personal reason to consider Missouri in the first place. While business recruitment focuses on the facts (availability and quality of workforce, as well as all the factors that relate to the cost of doing business), recruiting individuals should focus on their respective passions.

Second, attracting the kind of talent that can lead to serial entrepreneurship takes proximity — proximity to research opportunities, other professionals and businesses. The cluster effect is one that Missouri is taking seriously on its campuses and in its communities.

Consider the area that surrounds UMKC, which includes the Midwest Research Institute, the Kauffman Foundation and the Stowers Institute. The ingredients of a potential cluster come together with the Plaza, a leading medical and financial services sector and a source of cultural, shopping and entertainment amenities. In St. Louis, UMSL is creating its own community with the corporate headquarters of Express Scripts as the magnet. Rolla is examining what could be done through development of its golf course. Here in Columbia, the new neighborhood surrounding Discovery Ridge and the vision of a redeveloped downtown are two examples of joint university community efforts that should pay off long into the future.

Lastly, bringing experienced talent to town will have a lasting effect only if that talent is teamed with, and can mentor, the next generation. This is where a university town holds an advantage over metro communities. The talent pool from which to grow our own next generation of entrepreneurs, civic leaders and innovative researchers exists right here in our own backyard. We need to support internship programs and other opportunities that expose these young prospects to the most innovative of our businesses.
The University of Missouri continues to work hard to contribute to recruiting new businesses to our communities. While we can help provide a productive workforce, there is little the university can do with other recruiting aspects related to the cost of doing business. What the university can do, however, is help recruit talented individuals. A skill learned from the ongoing effort of recruiting talented faculty, it also is a skill that can add value in building our future economy.