The 2017 Mac Conway Awards

Significant Projects:
Apple (electronic data); Lucid Motors (electric cars); Huhtamaki (food service packaging)

Programs & Initiatives:
In-depth market analysis and research services from the Greater Phoenix Economic Council include reports on the aerospace and defense industries and the microelectronics cluster.

Did You Know?
Greater Phoenix represents 76 percent of Arizona’s economy. Maricopa County’s population grew faster than any other US county (222 people per day) from July 2015 to July 2016, part of a regional boom expected to take the area from 4.4 million people to nearly 6.4 million in the next 20 years.

Significant Projects:
Venture Global LNG, Inc. (energy); Gramercy Holdings (metals); Monsanto (chemicals)

Programs & Initiatives:
Greater New Orleans, Inc. focuses on advanced manufacturing, energy, international trade, software and digital, biosciences and emerging environmental technologies. The New Orleans Startup Fund is a nonprofit venture fund focused on business creation and innovation in the 10-parish Greater New Orleans region.

Did You Know?
The original city of New Orleans was built in a rectangle block that is today’s French Quarter. It was centered around the Place d’Armes, today’s Jackson Square.

Significant Projects:
Cerner Corporation (data processing); CVS (pharmacies); Logoplaste USA (packaging)

Programs & Initiatives:
KCADC leads industry initiatives focused on areas of growth opportunity in the Kansas City region including transportation, logistics, warehousing and distribution, bioscience, animal health and technology. TeamKC: Life + Talent works with major employers to showcase the region’s lifestyle to top talent from around the world.

Did You Know?
Ernest Hemingway worked as a cub reporter at the Kansas City Star from 1917 to 1918 and wrote the ending to his novel A Farewell to Arms while in the city for the birth of his second son.

Significant Projects:
Microsoft (data centers); Facebook (cold storage); IMT (insurance)

Programs & Initiatives:
Since 1999 the Greater Des Moines Partnership has assisted with more than 500 projects that located or expanded in the region. Targeted industries include insurance and financial services, data centers and bioscience.

Did You Know?
President Ronald Reagan held one of his first entertainment jobs as an announcer of Chicago Cubs games for WHO radio in Des Moines.

Significant Projects:
Clariant Corporation (chemicals); Evolvent Health (healthcare consulting), Guess, Inc. (apparel)

Programs & Initiatives:
Greater Louisville, Inc. and Louisville Forward serve an area of 15 counties in Kentucky and Indiana with initiatives geared toward growing investments in advanced manufacturing, business services, craft distilling, entrepreneurship and innovation, healthcare innovation, logistics and e-commerce. 

Did You Know?
The section known as Old Louisville has more Victorian homes and more pedestrian-only streets than any other neighborhood in the United States.

Significant Projects:
GM, UPS, FedEx, A.O. Smith, Warner Music, Schneider Electric

Programs & Initiatives:
Next steps for the Chamber’s Moving Forward initiative, focused on regional transit solutions, include a downtown mobility study and further study of high-capacity transit corridors that may be candidates for light rail service. In March 2016, the Chamber and other area leaders launched the Middle Tennessee Reconnect Community (MTRC) to encourage the more than 200,000 area residents with some postsecondary education, but no degree or certificate, to go back to school and complete their education. 

Did You Know?
Unemployment in the Nashville MSA fell every year from 2010 (8.6 percent) to 2015 (4.6 percent), and stood at 3.7 percent in February 2017.

Significant Projects:
Ford, Messier Bugatti Dowty, CTI, Medpace, Carl Zeiss Vision

Programs & Initiatives:
Among other efforts to track attractions and retention/expansion projects, REDI Cincinnati invites all of its more than 125 community and organization partners to submit corporate project investment data for its regular Growth Report, submitted to Site Selection for qualification in the magazine’s Conway Projects Database. Northern Kentucky Tri-ED’s NKY Boost is the organization’s award-winning business retention and expansion program, launched in 1998. Tri-ED also supports UpTech, the data-driven startup accelerator based in Covington.

Did You Know?
Unique to Greater Cincinnati, regional businesses can take advantage of two active Foreign Trade Zones, one in Kentucky and one in Ohio, both established in 1979.

Significant Projects:
Lotte Chemical (HQ and multiple plants), Tellurian (Driftwood LNG), Lake Charles Methanol, Cameron LNG

Programs & Initiatives:
The Alliance recently joined Businesses United for Improving Louisiana’s Development by Investing in Transportation, or BUILD IT, which is pushing for an increase in the state’s gasoline tax to help pay for infrastructure. Key to the region is the I-10 bridge, which many are calling to replace (at a potential cost of at least $800 million).

Did You Know?
The 180-mile Creole Nature Trail is annually home to more than 400 bird species, making it one of the Top 10 Birding Destinations in the country.

Significant Projects:
Centene, Charter Communications, Bunge North America

Programs & Initiatives:
The Chamber announced in June 2016 it had partnered with Regions Bank and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC, launched in 2005 by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter) to form the Inner City Capital Connections Program (ICCC). In early 2017, the Chamber’s Regional Higher Education Council released a report calling for the metro area to be among the Top 10 most educated regions in the country by 2025.

Did You Know?
St. Louis is ranked 20th in STEM employment among all US metro areas, with an annual mean salary of $83,180 that goes a long way in one of the nation’s most affordable regions. STEM jobs are expected to grow by 12.4 percent in the region from 2012 to 2022.

Significant Projects:
Paypal, Vetter Pharma, McDonald’s, Amazon, Shinola, Glassdoor, Caterpillar, ConAgra

Programs & Initiatives:
The Blackstone Inclusive Entrepreneurship Challenge will award up to $3 million in grant funding over three years to organizations that help underserved communities build and scale startups in Chicago. Twice each year, during Lollapalooza and Chicago Ideas Week, top university students are invited to ThinkChicago to meet with Chicago tech leaders, explore companies and attend various events including the Lollapalooza music festival. The annual invitee list has grown from 50 to 275, and recruiting has expanded from 13 Midwest universities to more than 30 nationwide.

Did You Know?
More than $3 billion was invested in Chicago-area startups between 2010 and 2014.