The Spokane Area Economic Development Council expects this month to get some fresh ideas on how to beef up the economy here.


California-based economic-development consultant Audrey E. Taylor, who will offer those ideas, says that boosting a local economy can be tricky, because the right sectors on which a community should focus for growth might not be the obvious ones.


Will it be the ones that are growing the most? she says. It may not be. It might be plastic products, because theyre both growing and moving (plants) around. Food processing wont grow in employment, but will in output, and it isnt going offshore.


Jon Eliassen, president and CEO of the EDC, says the agency expects finely honed suggestions from Taylor.


I expect more specific direction from this than weve had from earlier efforts, Eliassen says. Weve never come up with clear implementation plans and designated the organizations that need to implement those plans.


The EDC has been working to redefine and refocus its role since former President and CEO Mark Turner left the agency last summer and Eliassen took the reins.


Recently, Taylor examined Spokanes economy at the request of a group of remaining board members of the now-defunct Focus 21 economic-development organization, who decided to spend some leftover funds on the study, Eliassen says. He says a bank with offices here provided some additional money. Taylor was to present her ideas for strategic initiatives to the former Focus 21 board members today, May 6, Eliassen says.


Then, at the end of the month, Taylor will provide the EDC with directives for the agency to pursue to bolster the Spokane-area economy, Eliassen says.


The EDC will pay Taylors group in excess of $25,000 for the additional work shes doing for the agency, he says.


Taylors 15-year-old company, Chabin Concepts Inc., of Chico, Calif., has done economic-development work for several cities and counties, including Anchorage, Alaska, and San Bernardino County, Calif.


Our expertise is how to implement economic-development strategy, says Taylor.


Taylors charge from Focus 21 was to devise ways to get the most out of four community assets here: the health-care industry, technology, Spokane International Airport, and higher education.


Her work for the EDC will be different in that shell also focus on the agencys mission, she says.


The EDCs mission is job creation and stewardship of the economy, Taylor says. Everybody is working on pieces of it. There isnt anybody looking at the whole thing, and thats got to be somebodys role. She believes the EDC should fill that role.


We didnt look at the whole economy; we were looking for certain things, Taylor says. Those things included: Who are you trying to create jobs for? and What do you have to sell? she says.


Chabin Concepts work for the EDC has included preparing an exhaustive chart on growing industry specializations here. The chart shows that employment at Spokane-area home health-care services shot up by 272 percent between 1990 and 2000, to 1,579 jobs, while jobs at air courier services skyrocketed by 1,127 percent, to 884. Employment in business services soared by 206 percent, to 2,286, while in wholesale office equipment, jobs grew by 256 percent, to 1,056.


Yet, its not enough merely to learn which industries are growing; instead, a community must apply knowledge of outside trends as it selects industries to promote that will give it the best chance of optimizing its economy, Taylor says.


For example, new rules that prohibit truckers from driving more than 11 hours a day will change distribution strategies across the nation, and because Spokane is on an interstate highway, its transportation and logistics industries have a chance to grow because of the rule change, Taylor says. Already, you have a good distribution hub, she says.


Using methodology developed by an institute at the Harvard Business School, Taylors team developed cluster maps of industries here by their share of local employment and earnings, and by their projected future shares. Taylor says those maps show that health care and education are foundation clusters, which Eliassen described as huge anchors on which we can create economic growth.


Spokane International Airport and technology, the other two assets Focus 21 targeted for study, also have strong potential here, Taylor says.


Development of technology at the budding University District here could be a fruitful generator of economic activity, she says, adding, Not every community has the potential for that. Youre fortunate that you happen to have it.


Yet, while research is being done in the medical arena here, its lacking in traditional business technology, such as metals, electronics, and wood products, Taylor says.


For example, Accra-Fab Inc., the Liberty Lake precision metal parts company, has weathered tough times because of poor markets, but what it does is very high-tech, she says. Leaders need to ask how they can help such companies compete, whether by assisting them in coming up with new processes, evaluating new products, or finding new markets. She says the managers of such companies just dont have time to do that.


Also, while its widely believed that new economy sectors will lead growth in U.S. communities in the future, old-economy sectors here such as military and government are well worth taking care of, she says.


In partly answering the question of whom Spokane needs to create jobs for, Taylor says that WorkSource Spokane, a public-private employment and training center, has more than 65,000 people in its data banks who are searching for jobs or for better jobs here. Yet, even though many Spokane-area agencies do things such as provide information that can help leaders make economic-development decisions, its hard for outside companies to find those agencies and see what they do, Taylor says.


Theres a whole bunch of organizations doing a lot of good things, but are they doing things in concert with each other? They say they are, but are they? she asks. From the simple side of it, even if its on a Web site, you need an inventory.


Part of Taylors charge is to identify those organizations and their roles. She also was asked to benchmark what has been done with earlier economic-development studies here, and whether the recommendations in those studies have been implemented.


She also discussed a number of other economic facts, saying:


The average wage paid in the Spokane area by basic industries is below that of the U.S., although the growth rate in such wages here exceeded the national rate from 1990 to 2000.


Sixty percent of adults here use the Internet, compared with 54 percent nationally. Such usage can be emblematic of a metro areas progress toward the digital economy, Taylor says.


Earnings in transportation, communication, and utilities, as a single category, shot up 161 percent between 1990 and 2000, far ahead of U.S. growth of 39 percent, which might be due to a change in the mix of the companies in those local sectors. In 2000, those earnings here were 156 percent of the national average. Earnings in finance, insurance, and real estate went up by 75 percent in the decade, ahead of the 71 percent national growth rate, but in 2000 they were still only 77 percent of the national average.