TATT Initiatives – Justine Allen, TATT Program Manager
County Updates
Abbeville – Stephen Taylor, Economic Development Director
Decrease in ROIs and unemployment hit 13.9% in May but decrease to 4.2% in October
Marketing focus in 2021 with assistance from Department of Commerce
Promise Campaign and workforce to be highlighted
Water study and public transportation study also in 2021
Oconee – Christine de Vlaming, Marketing Director, Keowee Key
Real estate is sold out at close to 4,000 residents
Keowee Key’s model of engaging volunteer professionals includes a videographer with drone capabilities, photographer, landscape designer, and project manager (see presentation during video recording for examples of their work)
Union – Annie Smith, Marketing & Development Director, USC Union
USC Union received a 88.2% success rating
Started a Bachelor of Science/Nursing degree with 16 upper division juniors and 16 upper division seniors on campus this fall
Granted 100K dollars for upgrades to facilities, including projecting microscopes
10K grant to stock a student food pantry (large need)
Athletic department competes in the national junior college league, NJCAA, and has added a women’s volleyball team
Acquired an old high school gym in Jonesville to be renovated into an indoor training facility which is huge for recruitment (only one in the league)
Union County has designated many new development regions to attract new families and business
Given that the population for the Upstate region is projected to reach 1.75 million by 2040, it is not surprising that the recently released Census Bureau population estimate showed that the Upstate added nearly 20,000 new residents between July 2017 and July 2018.
There are certainly some who will read those numbers and suggest it is just further confirmation that we are growing too fast and need to shut the doors to make sure we maintain the quality of life for those already living here.
As someone who has lived in and studied regions struggling with declining population and economic crisis, it is my opinion that the great community vibrancy and strong economy here in the Upstate is directly tied to the fact that we are a region where people want to move and stay, thus resulting in consistent population growth over the last half century.
Changing policies to specifically discourage population growth would likely have unintended consequences that could directly contribute to a decline in economic viability and quality of life while likely having limited actual impact on the total population numbers for the region.
Instead of focusing on potential policies that could hamper positive growth, for more than a decade, leaders from across the Upstate have been promoting and encouraging efforts that embrace the Upstate as a vibrant and growing region—one that supports policies, investments and practices that help us shape future growth, instead of being shaped by it.
We are at a key juncture in the future of the Upstate. The increase in traffic congestion and land being used for development in many of our counties is now noticeable and starting to impact daily life and decisions across the region.
Fortunately, there are a number of opportunities for the Upstate today to significantly impact our future growth, without trying to limit the number of new residents within our communities.
How We Move People and Goods
Much of the discussion over the last decade in the Upstate and all of South Carolina around transportation has been focused on our deteriorating roads and bridges. The investment in improving our roads that was approved by our state legislators in 2017 was a key milestone, but was only one of many steps that must be taken if we want to efficiently and affordably move people and goods across the state for years to come.
Many local communities in South Carolina, but none in the Upstate, are enhancing their road maintenance and improvements with local financial support. Providing local funding is one way communities can ensure the most utilized roads within their community are able to keep up with traffic demand while remaining safe.
In the Upstate, 94% of people get to their daily job by using a personal vehicle. While we will likely never be able to create public transportation systems that can be used by everyone, just providing alternative transportation methods that reduce the number of people in the region who get to jobs using a personal vehicle to 85 or 90% would have a dramatic improvement on our roadways.
Providing Your Voice on Comprehensive Plans
The South Carolina statutes call for cities and counties to create and revise a comprehensive growth plan every ten years. These plans are designed to serve as a guide for communities to make decisions around appropriate growth within their community. Many of our communities are currently in the process of updating their plans.
Almost all elected officials regularly say that they make their decisions based on the input they receive from their constituents. One key element of the comprehensive plans is community input. If you have questions, concerns or ideas about how your community should try to shape local growth over the next decade, participating in one of the many meetings being held in your community is a great opportunity to share your insight.
If you are interested in the comprehensive planning process within your local city or county, I encourage you to check their web site for upcoming meetings and updates throughout the planning process.
Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Nearly 90% of all workers in the United States and 95% in South Carolina work for businesses with 20 or fewer employees. Studies have also shown that being an entrepreneur or small business owner is one of the greatest ways for someone to advance their economic status and in many cases emerge from the historic cycle of poverty.
During a recent visit to the Upstate, Andy Stoll from the Kaufman Foundation said that the communities that will have the greatest overall economic success and stability are those that are able to create a culture where all potential entrepreneurs and small business owners are aware of and have access to what they need to be successful.
The Upstate region is fortunate to have a large number of entities that provide support for entrepreneurs and small business owners. There are many Upstate residents who have the potential to become small business owners, but are likely unaware of the resources available to them. Continuing to develop and enhance connections between available resources and potential small business owners and entrepreneurs is another opportunity for our region to help support growth while building a strong economic foundation that gives everyone opportunity.
Ultimately, what future we leave for our children and grandchildren will be determined by local and regional priorities and investments. Rather than turning our backs on growth and suffering the consequences, if we can embrace the fact that we are a vibrant and growing region and continue to have public dialogue and support investments that shape that growth in a positive and sustainable manner, we can ensure that the Upstate remains a leading place to live, learn, do business and raise a family for generations to come.
You can learn more about Ten at the Top and how you can become involved in regional growth initiatives at www.tenatthetop.org.
By Erin Ouzts, TATT Economic & Entrepreneurial Vitality Task Force Chair
While much of the publicity related to jobs and economic development is often centered on larger employers, the reality is that small businesses and entrepreneurs are critical to the economic success of any community or region.
In the Upstate, many people are working to cultivate an entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports individuals and small businesses. Engaging the support providers for this key economic engine has been a focus of Ten at the Top and the Economic & Entrepreneurial Vitality Task Force since the early days of the organization.
Over the last year, our Entrepreneur Support Providers Network has been hearing from local and national leaders on how to continue growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Upstate.
People, trust, values, culture. How do these attributes make our Upstate region entrepreneurs, founders and business owners more successful?
When Andy Stoll, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Senior Program Officer in Entrepreneurship and overall entrepreneurial ecosystem development leader in the U.S., talked with our Entrepreneur Support Providers by Skype last November, this is what he said we needed. As you can imagine, our practical Upstate advisors, coaches, lenders, investors, SBDC & SCORE representatives, incubators, accelerators and every organization that supports entrepreneurs were a little uncomfortable with this. We were also a little uncomfortable with the region’s lack of awareness of the amazing work we do to build a thriving base of support for our entrepreneurs.
As engagement with the Economic and Entrepreneurial Vitality driver area has grown, we knew we depend on our personal networks to match our entrepreneur clients to the appropriate network. Then we gathered professionals from around the 10 counties and realized there were many resources we didn’t know about that could be exceptionally helpful. The challenge became: How do we actively connect these new links to our network and provide appropriate resources for entrepreneurs?
Stoll explained that entrepreneur ecosystems allow entrepreneurs to more quickly access the knowledge and funding they need, shortening their time to success and potential need for additional funds. To provide unobstructed pathways, we professionals need to know others in the network, understand the strengths and special skills each brings, take the time to connect entrepreneurs to the right person, and trust our peers. When I asked how to do this, he said one of the best ways is to do something together.
What could we all do together, yet separately, to support our local entrepreneurs and increase awareness Our Entrepreneur Support Providers Network (soon to be Entrepreneur Ecosystem)? How about a regional Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration? That might work! In 2018, our ESP meetings have been geared toward individual events held within each community yet promoted collectively on shared platforms to shine a light on the extent of the many organizations involved in supporting entrepreneurs, founders and growing companies.
Ten at the Top has a Regional Resource Map with Ecosystem members’ location and information easily accessible. In the Know Upstate is the regional calendar for the events. The Global Entrepreneurship Week and Ten at the Top brands on our materials will identify us as connected.
The following resources give more information about entrepreneurial ecosystems:
Upstate, SC [November 17, 2017] – Ten at the Top (TATT), an organization created to enhance economic vitality and quality of life across the Upstate by fostering collaboration and strategic partnerships, has announced the recipients for the 2017 Hughes Investments Elevate Upstate Community Vibrancy Grants. The two recipients, each receiving $5,000, are Main Street Laurens USA for their Food Truck Plaza project and the Greenwood Arts Center for their Bee smART project.
The grants, which began in 2013, annually provide “seed funds” to support vibrancy initiatives in communities across the Upstate region. There were 22 applications for the 2017 grants and five finalists gave brief presentations before the selections were made during the Celebrating Successes Brunch presented by Fluor on Thursday, November 16, at the Greenville Marriott as part of the Our Upstate Vision Forum Series presented by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina.
“The goal of the Elevate Upstate program is to get communities thinking about what types of initiatives or programs might help spark vibrancy within their area and then provide some seed money to get some of them started,” said Hughes Investments President Phil Hughes. “In the five years we have done this program, I have been amazed by the great ideas and passion of communities across the region to grow their vibrancy and sense of place. It was a real challenge to narrow the field to five finalists and to select the recipients.”
In addition to providing $10,000 to the two winners, Hughes also pledged a $2,000 matching grant to each of the three other finalists. If they raise $2,000 towards completing their project, he will provide a matching $2,000 contribution. The other three finalists were the City of Landrum for their Art of the Horse project, the Abbeville County Farmers Market for their Farm to Fork Dinner and the City of Seneca and Blue Ridge Arts Council for their Art Wall at Monarch Park.
In the five years of the Hughes Investments Elevate Upstate Grants program, Phil Hughes and Hughes Investments has provided a total of $73,000 to help with 22 different vibrancy initiatives across the Upstate region.
The two $5,000 recipients for 2017 are:
Main Street Laurens USA | Food Truck Plaza– As a part of a larger Downtown Master Plan for the City of Laurens, the Food Truck Plaza will dedicate space within the city where food trucks will be located for residents and visitors to enjoy a variety of dining experiences. The plaza will include colored shade sails, brick pavers and picnic benches as well as power and water for the food trucks.
Greenwood Arts Center | Bee smART – The City of Greenwood received the Bee City USA award in 2016 and will use the Elevate Upstate Grant to develop educational and interactive art programs designed around the Bee City designation.
Whether hosted by Ten at the Top or another Upstate organization, over the last eight years I have participated in many events and meetings to discuss various issues that are impacting current and future growth in our region. Most of the time I leave feeling like it was a good use of my time and quality discussion, but knowing that the primary outcome will be more meetings and more discussions as part of a long process to enact change in the Upstate.
I had a very different feeling throughout the October 18th Connecting Our Future Kickoff event. Instead of being another event where the general mindset is that we have 20-30 years to strategically address our issues, there was a very different tone and sense of urgency cast by speakers and participants.
Whether related to an increase in traffic congestion on many of our roads, growth in previously undeveloped areas, potential disruptive technologies that have the ability to radically change how we think about transportation, that we have jobs going unfilled because we have potential workers who don’t have access to dependable transportation, or perhaps all of the above as well as several other factors, the message throughout the event was very clear, we have to move from discussion to action and do it now.
So, the key question is what do we do and how do we do it?
According to Carla Bailo, who was our keynote speaker and has been active in efforts to advance transportation and mobility in Columbus, Ohio, one key component is to have a business community that is willing to not only talk about how to move forward, but will also invest in making it happen.
Columbus recently received a $40 million Smart Cities grant from USDOT. Through public-private investment they have parlayed that grant into nearly a half a billion dollars in funding and in-kind support that eventually should turn Columbus into a model for using smart technology to move people and goods across a region.
In the Upstate, groups like Ten at the Top, the Upstate SC Alliance, Upstate Forever, the Riley Institute at Furman, the Upstate Chamber Coalition and many others have spent the last decade working to cultivate a spirit of collaboration and regionalism as we look at how to tackle major growth issues.
In addition, our region is fortunate to have Clemson’s International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) actively engaged in understanding and developing the future technologies that will forever change mobility. We also have companies including BMW, Michelin and many others who are major players in shaping the transportation future for our country and world.
With so many positive assets, it is imperative that we leverage them in a way that positions the Upstate for success around mobility and moving people and goods.
For many years, a common mantra in the Upstate has been “we don’t want to be Charlotte and we don’t want to be Atlanta” when talking about sprawling growth, traffic congestion and increased pollution. However, most of our current policies and investments around those issues are actually pushing us in the Charlotte or Atlanta direction instead of towards something else.
If we truly want to be a region where all residents can easily and affordably get from place to place and we do not have the negative impacts of sprawling growth and congestion, then we have to decide collectively what we want and how we are going to work together and invest our resources to create a different future.
We have many of the ingredients needed, but do we have the willingness amongst our residents, elected officials and business leaders to actually start making different choices and investments towards the future of our region?
The Connecting Our Future initiative is designed to help create a vision for what we want as a region and then develop strategies for how to get there.
Not every effort needs to be done collectively, in fact future success will require local initiatives and investments. However, if we are all working from the same playbook and moving towards the same goals, then collective success is surely obtainable.
What will be critical for the outcomes of Connecting Our Future to truly be impactful in changing the trajectory for future growth in the Upstate is that every stakeholder group must be at the table and willing to play a role in making a difference. It is not someone else’s problem or something someone else will fix for us.
The time to impact our collective future is now and it is up to all of us who call the Upstate home to play a role in ensuring that our region is a great place to live, learn, do business and raise a family for generations to come.
Ten at the Top (TATT), an organization created to foster collaboration, partnerships and strategic planning across the Upstate, has announced the finalists for the 2017 Hughes Investments Elevate Upstate Community Vibrancy Grants.
The five finalists were chosen from a total of 22 applications submitted for the two grants available in 2017. Hughes Investments is contributing at least $10,000 per year to the program with two recipients each year receiving $5,000 to support a new vibrancy initiative in the Upstate. The program began in 2013 in conjunction with a series of Community Vibrancy Workshops hosted by Ten at the Top. Since the inception of the grants program, Hughes Investments has contributed a total of $57,000 to community vibrancy initiatives in 17 communities across the Upstate.
During the Ten at the Top Celebrating Successes Brunch on November 16th the five finalists will each provide a brief overview of their initiative before the 2017 recipients are selected and announced. The cost to attend the brunch is $35, prior registration is required. The event will be held from 11:30 am -1:30 pm at the Greenville Marriott. To register go to www.tenatthetop.org.
Here are the five finalists (applying organization, project name and brief summary):
Art of the Horse – City of Landrum – In celebration of the 2018 World Equestrian Games being held in nearby Tryon, NC, the city will be displaying as public art a life size painted fiberglass horse. The city is looking to use the Elevate Upstate Grant to allow for the display to become a permanent component of the public art in the City of Landrum. Farm to Fork Dinner – Abbeville County Farmers Market – The Abbeville County Farmers Market is looking to host a “farm to fork” dinner to highlight the vital role of local farming and farmers markets in creating local vibrancy in Abbeville.
Food Truck Plaza – Main Street Laurens USA, Inc. – As a part of a larger Downtown Master Plan for the City of Laurens, the Food Truck Plaza would be a dedicated space within the city where food trucks would be located for residents and visitors to enjoy a variety of dining experiences. The plaza will include colored shade sails, brick pavers and picnic benches as well as power and water for the food trucks.
Art Wall at Monarch Park – City of Seneca and Blue Ridge Arts Council – As part of the Eagle Scout project for a local student an art wall has been created in Monarch Park, located within walking distance of Main Street Seneca. The Elevate Upstate Grant would be used to commission three-dimensional butterfly art for the wall and park.
Bee smART – Greenwood Arts Center – The City of Greenwood received the Bee City USA award in 2016 and would use the Elevate Upstate Grant to develop educational and interactive art programs designed around the Bee City designation.
The selection committee for the Elevate Upstate Grants Program includes Phil Hughes (President, Hughes Investments), Ingo Angermeier (SmartPulse), and Terence Roberts (Mayor, City of Anderson).
Welcome – Terence Roberts, TATT Chairman
Keowee Key’s model of engaging volunteer professionals includes a videographer with drone capabilities, photographer, landscape designer, and project manager (see presentation during video recording for examples of their work)
entrepreneurial ecosystem development leader in the U.S., talked with our Entrepreneur Support Providers by Skype last November, this is what he said we needed. As you can imagine, our practical Upstate advisors, coaches, lenders, investors, SBDC & SCORE representatives, incubators, accelerators and every organization that supports entrepreneurs were a little uncomfortable with this. We were also a little uncomfortable with the region’s lack of awareness of the amazing work we do to build a thriving base of support for our entrepreneurs.
What could we all do together, yet separately, to support our local entrepreneurs and increase awareness Our Entrepreneur Support Providers Network (soon to be Entrepreneur Ecosystem)? How about a regional Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration? That might work! In 2018, our ESP meetings have been geared toward individual events held within each community yet promoted collectively on shared platforms to shine a light on the extent of the many organizations involved in supporting entrepreneurs, founders and growing companies.
