By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor
Lee Crume, president and CEO of the Northern Kentucky Tri-County Economic Development Corporation (Tri-ED), was the featured speaker at the May Covington Business Council Luncheon.
Crume took over at Tri-ED in April and he spoke on a wide range of issues in the discussion with CBC Executive Director Pat Frew at the Madison Event Center.
He has a bold vision for the future of Northern Kentucky’s economic development engine, following a period of transition.
Covington Business Council Executive Director Pat Frew, left, talks with Northern Kentucky Tri-ED, President and CEO Lee Crume at the CBC Luncheon at the Madison Event Center in Covington (photos by Mark Hansel).
“Personally what attracted me to this project, is the vision of building this company that will serve this community, and the thought of where are we going to go on a journey over the next two years,” Crume said. “Let’s set some big goals that we want to see this place be different 10 years from now. That’s exciting to me, to think that I get the opportunity to be a part of something like that and to build something that will go into that – I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
Most recently he served as Global Director of Business Development for JobsOhio, a Columbus, Ohio-based, non-profit organization designed to drive job creation and new capital investment.
During his time with JobsOhio, Crume helped land operation sites in Ohio from companies based in eight other countries.
In 2018, JobsOhio achieved 266 project wins with companies that committed to create 27,071 new jobs with $1.3 billion of new payroll, retain 69,905 existing jobs and invest $9.6 billion of new capital.
Crume emphasized that it took a strong group working together to achieve those results.
“This is a team game, (you have to) build a team that can go out and execute,” Crume said. “(Tri-ED has) this awesome core or nucleus to build around, but we don’t have enough bandwidth and were missing some critical positions to get things done.”
Ideally that would include adding a marketing manager, a director of economic development and some stability in the areas of research, and entrepreneurial efforts.
Crume said the results the region’s business leaders want to achieve will not come overnight.
“When I met with the board and I started to meet with the community, I started to hear where this place wants to go and what you all want this place to be and the big aspirations for this community,” Crume said. “But we’re a company, Northern Kentucky Tri-Ed, that is really in an evolution right now. There was a successful company called Northern Kentucky Tri-ED that lasted for about 30 years, did great things for this community and now this is a separate iteration of that company.”
He explained that before Tri-ED can become aspirational, it must first be fully operational.
“Quite frankly, we’re not capable as a company to go out and deliver aspirational performance,” he said. “We have a great nucleus of a team and I love what we have in terms of people, but there is much more that we need before we can go out and be the leaders in the community, and the leaders in deals, and the leaders in projects that we want to be.”
Those in attendance at the May CBC Luncheon heard new NKY Tri-ED President and CEO talk about his vision for the future of development in the region.
The first 100 days will be spent working on those operational type of things, such as chart of accounts, budgeting, reviewing job applications and hiring.
Crume emphasized that these are not things that are going to be seen in the community right away, but are things that a company today needs, to be successful.
Even as Tri-ED undergoes this evolution there are some core things that aren’t going to change.
“As an economic development company, we are always going to come back to some core metrics around trying to drive projects, trying to drive jobs, trying to drive growth in this community,” Crume said. “We’re not going to stray from that. What’s interesting to me as we move out of the first hundred days is what does this community need and how can we help be a catalyst…for the change that this community wants to see happen.”
One of the most visible changes at Tri-ED is the expansion of the board of directors.
Traditionally, the judges-executive of Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties had alternated as board chair and while they will still have a seat at the table, the private sector will play a larger role.
“One of the things we are working on is to get that cohesion and to get everybody working together on the new board and understanding their role,” Crume said. “I feel like I could not have been given a better gift than what this board is -not just the judges-executive – but the business leaders that are on there.
I think having that private-sector influence as we move forward and start becoming an aspirational company is going to be tremendously important.”
In his 25 years in economic development, Crume said cohesion is a word that is often thrown around, but not always practiced. He has begun to test the cohesiveness of TRi-ED’s team and he is pleasantly surprised with the results.
“I guess this process is about five months old, I love where we are with that,” he said. “There is not a scintilla of disagreement about where we need to go, or how we need to work together or the struggles that we’re going to experience to get there.”
One change the region may experience in the next few years, being driven by industry preference, is a return of businesses to the urban core. In Northern Kentucky that primarily means the river cities.
A few years ago, Crume said nobody was driving clients to the inner city, but now the preference has changed.
“Our clients are telling us where they want to go and overwhelmingly, they are telling us they want to go into the cool urban-core type places,” Crume said. “We’re going to try to help everybody win, but we’re going to try to help our clients achieve their goals and right now that wind is blowing toward the inner city.”
The pace at which companies want to relocate has also changed.
“My experiences over the last couple of years is the process of site location is moving very quickly and even faster than it did five years ago,” Crume said. “The question is asked like this, ‘Do you have a site I can move into right now, today?’ Once that box is checked, it goes to workforce.”
The challenge for Tri-ED is to identify or develop those assets in the community.
“Today that’s a tough question for us to answer on both sides,” Crume said. “We’ve got to be able to expertly answer those questions and provide solutions around them for when our clients come to the table.”
Crume continues to make the rounds and is on a pace for about 70 meeting with CEOs or at events like the CBC Luncheon.
He said that is critical because you can’t collaborate with people you don’t know.
“It’s not always going to be easy, at some point we’re going to get obstacles and it’s going to get hard, at some point we’re going to disagree with each other,” Crume said. “The only way to focus a problem and get through it is relationships, so we are very aggressive on that point.”
The monthly Covington Business Council (CBC) Luncheon provides opportunities for members to interact with each other, as well elected officials and community leaders. Luncheons generally include a presentation on a topic of local interest to the community and take place at the Madison Event Center in Covington.
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com
