Now two years old, the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance is on track with its business-recruitment effort to attract its first companies to the region within the next year, veteran recruiter Bob Potter says.


Potter says he has made 115 sales callsto businesses that employ between five and 200 employees eachon 13 trips to California over the past two years, building leads of companies that could move here. So far, at least one executive from eight of those companies has visited the Inland Northwest.


It takes three years on average to land a company, he says. Well start to close on some cases soon.


Potter declines for now to disclose the names of the companies that are considering moving here, but says most of them are in the manufacturing sector. On average, the eight companies whose executives have visited the Inland Northwest employ 25 people. The largest company among them has about 100 workers, Potter says.


The Inland Northwest Economic Alliance is targeting manufacturing companies in Californiatypically, in Southern Californiabecause the Inland Northwest organization can demonstrate that companies there would realize a substantial cost savings in doing business in Washington or Idaho, compared with California, Potter says. Such cost savings come in the form of lower electricity costs, lower workers compensation rates, and lower real estate costs, among others.


Potter says hes expanding his efforts to include companies outside of the manufacturing sector, as well as family-owned businesses in all sectors.


Prior to joining the alliance, Potter headed the Coeur dAlene-based economic-development organization Jobs Plus for 15 years. During that time, he was involved in recruiting 70 companies to Kootenai County.


Potter has homes both in Hayden and in Southern California. Currently, he says, he spends most of his time here.


Sharon Matthews, executive director of the alliance, says Potter, who is 79 years old, will lead the business-recruitment effort at least for one more year, but has said that hell work for the organization beyond that for as long as he is able to do so.


The organization is funded by nine agencies in Eastern Washington and North Idahoincluding the Spokane Area Economic Development Council and Jobs Plus.


In addition, corporate investors that fund the effort include Avista Corp., Inland Northwest Health Services, the Spokesman-Review, Sterling Savings Bank, and Washington Trust Bank, among others.


Contact Linn Parish at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at linnp@spokanejournal.com.