America, The Beautiful

I'm getting a little worried about America. Ok - "little" is an understatement. I'm actually petrified. It's not that I'm scared of terrorists or nuclear war - worse. I'm scared of ignorance and complacency and entitlement and selfishness and fear. In short, I'm scared of ourselves and who we've become.

When my grandparents were immigrants, all they wanted was a better life for their children, free of the prejudice they'd escaped in Nazi Germany. They came to this county with nothing; but fueled by optimism and desire, they built a life of prosperity, just as generations of immigrants had done before.

With so much anti-immigrant sentiment today, so much disdain for new cultures and different languages, I fear that America has forgotten from where we came. We fear immigrants taking our jobs; we fear work going overseas. This work was not ours to take. The work was created by entrepreneurial Americans - immigrants - who brought brilliant ideas and processes here.

To succeed, we need to live in their legacy. Not by closing the door to progress and partnership, but by further exploring opportunities. We must educate our children in science, math and technology - and the value of education itself. We must keep our babies from having babies and encourage them instead to focus on their own education, their own capabilities, their own competitiveness and their own contribution to the world.

And we must be the example we want to set. Frustrated by America's problems and partisanship and unsure of how we can make a difference, so many of us throw up our hands and return to our wine... We don't want to though - we want to make a difference. We want to stop the bleeding. But I don't know how... I wrack my brain for that big idea that will reverse America's ill, but the cancer is just too widespread, too rampant, too ingrained for one idea to make it better. So we must move in small steps, helping one person, implementing one idea at a time. The time is now. And with the hope, optimism and hard work instilled in us by our immigrant ancestors, maybe we can make this world a better place.

New Jobs NOW

With so much talk of casinos and the Cleveland Medical Mart, is there a “Silver Bullet” to creating new jobs NOW in Cleveland Plus?

Last week, Jay Miller of Crain’s Cleveland Business wrote an article called “Coming Attractions” about Team NEO’s work. It is our job at Team NEO to attract new jobs to Northeast Ohio. This year alone, we’ve brought 749 new jobs to the region in the 5 new companies we attracted with our regional partners. In fact, since Team NEO began this work in January 2007, we’ve brought 3,000 new jobs in total. That’s $95 million in new annual payroll and $175 million in annual regional economic impact - createing incremental tax benefits and personal opportunities for families across the 16 counties of Northeast Ohio - just when we need it most.

Our work isn’t “sexy,” and you won’t find it on a ballot in November. We don’t run big billboard or glitzy television ads – frankly, we can’t afford it. The 3000 new jobs we’ve helped create were all accomplished with a modest $3 million annual budget. In case you’re counting – that’s a 20:1 Annual Return on Investment for the community. These efforts aren’t “Silver Bullet” activities. Rather, they are the combined, day-in and day-out efforts of Team NEO’s 15 hard-working staff people, our 6 chamber/economic development partners, 16 counties, our amazing funders, and the hundreds of communities that are tirelessly working to create new jobs every day.

We’re proud of our organization’s “results”. But more importantly, we’re honored to serve this great region of our 4 million neighbors by helping Northeast Ohio workers and families find long-term sustainable jobs NOW - and in the future