When the IBM Team interviewed the 54 agencies which participated in the original proposed project, they found that multiple development agencies and authorities undertook economic development in different ways in different parts of the region. This lead to fragmented economic development and diluted the message to the outside world. Even as whole, the region’s economy is too small to be visible on a national, much less on an international, scale. It can ill afford this fragmentation and dilution.

Based on the stakeholder interviews and after researching national and international best practices, the IBM Team recommended designating a single agency as the regional economic development face to the outside world. Further, the Team urged the local jurisdictions to stop thinking of economic development as a “zero-sum” game. The region needs to convince potential businesses or investors to choose it over national and global competitors. The competition between individual jurisdictions is not nearly as important as the competition that the region has to win.

In late 2011, the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) designated EDAWN as the “regional development agency” for the region. As such, EDAWN has emerged as the strongest candidate to become the single economic development face of the region. It is a public/private partnership, is fully operational, has a clear regional development strategy, and has strong leadership capable of implementing its strategy. The IBM Team recommended that EDAWN be designated as the lead entity for Recommendation #2, “Be One Strong Voice.”

The IBMers also recommended, however, that EDAWN should broaden its governance model to include true representation from local government. The Team felt strongly that to ensure accountability, the local jurisdictions needed a more robust role in EDAWN’s decision-making. After discussions with EDAWN’s board and management as to the most effective way to implement this directive, the EDAWN board formally approved the addition of a one-year rotating representative from local government as a permanent member of EDAWN’s Executive Committee. The first representative to fill this role is Andrew Clinger, Reno’s City Manager. After this year, the position on the Committee will pass to the City Manger of Sparks and the Washoe County Manager.

The IBM Team recommended that to truly empower EDAWN to fulfill this purpose, the jurisdictions needed to delegate their economic development “sovereignty” to EDAWN. For example, site selectors or potential investors which contact individual jurisdictions should be routed to EDAWN for a coordinated regional response. While this approach might result in the loss of a potential investor and associated tax revenue to a neighboring jurisdiction, the IBMers believed that for our region “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Each jurisdiction stands to gain more than it will lose through a consolidated economic development effort.

For clarification, EDAWN’s service boundaries will be used to describe its purview for purposes of the Smarter Region project. This area encompasses the Metropolitan Statistical Area for Reno-Sparks, and the I-80 Corridor between the California Stateline and the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC).