THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407180237
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: By Phil Murray, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 155 lines
The Face of Hampton Roads has changed considerably during Greg Wingfield's seven-year watch as the Southside's chief hired gun for economic development.
We've taken on a more international flavor - 115 foreign companies have operations here now. We're answering telephones for catalogers and finance companies. And our manufacturing base, in the form of shipyard welders and pipefitters, is in decline.
Friday was Wingfield's last day as president of Forward Hampton Roads, the private economic development agency that local business has pumped more than $8 million into for 11 years. The 43-year-old St. Louis native is moving up I-64 to Richmond, where he'll head a similar group.
Before leaving, Wingfield issued this call to arms: Get serious about marketing Hampton Roads on a regional basis. Put some tax money behind it. And end the competition for business within the region.
Q. Where has Hampton Roads made the most progress during your tenure?
A. The internationalization of Hampton Roads has escalated. A lot of that had to do with the increase in port services. They've done a super job of promotion, and the labor and maritime industries coming together to form a partnership - it really has helped the Hampton Roads area.
The second was on the service side - back-room operations, warehouse/distribution. They first came here because you had the port; you had great labor, particularly with military spouses and military dependents and college kids; you had locational advantages. Then we spent time thinking about targeting companies a little higher on the food chain, going after the next level of companies with regional headquarters that had a larger presence of upper-and middle-management. A lot of that goal has been accomplished.
Q. What has been your biggest disappointment in Hampton Roads?
A. One of the things I thought was going to happen along the way that didn't was more funding coming from the public sector, being more of a partner with the private sector. I thought - maybe I was naive - but I thought that if we were able to demonstrate from the private side that regional economic development works, and that we could provide direction, we could establish a track record, we could do it professionally, even-handedly, with everybody buying in to how marketing and prospect handling is done, that they would buy in.
Q. Has that been a big problem in terms of your ability to attract business?
A. I think it doesn't really provide enough resources to be able to market the area adequately. Professionally, the five economic development directors and Forward Hampton Roads - we work very well together. Where I think we could have done better is rather than each one of the cities putting out their own ads, or trying to send a singular message, we could have done a better job of pooling the money and touting the benefits of the region.
I think we've demonstrated over time that most of the new corporate activity that comes into the community is funneled through Forward Hampton Roads. It seems to me to be so logical. If that's the case, then why are we sending out singular messages? Why don't we take that money and turn around and sell regionally, sell from the top down?
Did you find resistance to that?
We do have some money. This year we have about $100,000 coming from four of the five cities - everybody but Norfolk. And Norfolk may be a player. They just need to have a better sense of how the money will be used. Put that in perspective - $100,000. Well, the Richmond area has $1.2 million from the public side being matched by a similar amount coming from the private side.
Does that make a difference?
In terms of marketing and promotion I think it does.
That's one of the things that attracted you to Richmond?
Exactly. I was attracted mainly for two reasons. One is the fact that there seems to be a true partnership developing between the public side and the private sector. That was further compounded because of the level of that partnership - $2.4 million being put into a budget. It's a good product, and with that budget you can go out and promote it.
Do you see the lack of a truly regional approach here in Hampton Roads as the primary stumbling block to economic development?
Yes, I think you can take a step even further back and say, `Why aren't we promoting the entire metropolitan area? Why do we have two economic development organizations that are promoting the area from two vantage points from across the water?' From the perspective of a corporate decision-maker or relocation consultant, they are looking at this as one market and they are looking from Williamsburg all the way down to North Carolina.
If you had to list the things you would change in Hampton Roads, what would they be?
I think the first thing I would do is not try to do anything real radical like institute regional government because that would be too far afield. But I think what needs to be examined is how you share the revenue. That's why everyone on the local level is into the economic development game - for the new revenue coming into their community. So if you take away that competition and talk about how we can share the revenue, I think that would go a long way in unifying the cities to sell regionally.
How would you do that?
I think it's going to take a mechanism to be able to pave the way for the area to cooperate. Maybe a regional authority with bonding capacity or something out there that provides an easy way for the cities to come together. But it's going to have to have creative leadership. It's going to have to have somebody with a vision to be able to pull all these elements together to crystallize it.
Have any big fish gotten away because we don't have that?
You don't know how far you would have gotten down that road had we had that mechanism in place. Could we have gotten Mercedes here had we been selling this area with a regional authority with bonding capacity? I don't know because we never got that far with them. The same with BMW. It's hard to speculate because that mechanism wasn't in place.
The biggest problem has been getting people to overcome their perceptions of what they think Virginia Beach is or what Norfolk is. Get them down here and visit and move them around and show off the area, you usually win. The area really sells itself.
What do you think will need to happen in Hampton Roads in order for this region to move from a lower-tier business location into the big leagues?
I spent a lot of time on that question. What is it going to take? Why is it Jacksonville, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham? Why is there more recognition and more media play in those markets? It sounds trite but it comes back in some cases to having a sports franchise. I didn't think I'd ever say that. What I've seen over time is the galvanizing of the citizenry around an image or around a franchise. It's somewhat superficial but you've seen it time and time again.
So what's the missing ingredient here?
It may be a sports franchise. It may be if one of our locations gets a horse-racing franchise - that may be enough to set the tourism side on fire. You add riverboat gaming that may come through in another year or two, then all of a sudden we're known as the lifestyle for horse racing or gaming. Go to the beach and enjoy the first-class tourism attractions that exist along the 64 corridor. That may do it.
Does the lack of a big corporate presence hurt Hampton Roads?
We are a community of small to mid-sized companies. I think that has been a problem over time. How much of a problem? I'm not sure. We have captured some new companies because they like to be the big fish in a small pond. We may have lost some that didn't see a number of other companies that were the same size and they didn't want to have to carry a greater percentage of the weight philanthropically or providing leadership within the business community.
I think Wella Corp. that ended up in Richmond was one of those. There were other factors that drove them to Richmond, but one of the things they did share with us was that there were a number of other large companies in the area. We worked with Transamerica that ended up in Kansas City. Early on one of their concerns - and I think we overcame it - was the fact there was only one Fortune 500 company here.
Any last thoughts?
The professionalism that the economic development community has shown over time has helped this region move forward. Now if we can just get the elected officials and the people that manage the purse strings to recognize all those day-to-day realities - that it does work - it will go a long way in revamping and revitalizing our economic development efforts. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
As head of Forward Hampton Roads, Gregory Wingfield has coordinated
the Chamber of Commerce's economic development efforts.
FILE PHOTO
by CNB