Rich Kiley is a former Procter & Gamble executive who has been extensively involved in venture capital, company formation and technology-growth driven economic development in the CincinnatiUSA region and the State of Ohio. During his 33 years with Procter and Gamble, Rich held a variety of executive positions in Marketing, Information Technology and Corporate New Ventures.
Rich’s community activities include board and/or advisory positions at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, The Cincinnati Arts Association, The Madison E-Zone, and CincyTechUSA.
Rich graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a BS in engineering. He is married and lives with his wife Marje in Indian Hill.
Post 4 - A thiving tech region
Posted By: Rich Kiley, 4/11/2008
So we all now understand the need to have a growing economy and the critical role that technology-oriented businesses play in this, but what are our chances of success? How do we do this?
There are two clear approaches:
1. Persuade existing technology companies to locate their offices in our region, and
2. Create new technology companies that can become the MicroSoft or Cisco of the next generation.
We’re currently doing both. Led by the CincinnatiUSA Partnership, our regional chamber of commerce and their economic development partners work hard to attract new technology businesses to our region with some success, but it’s a tough job. These businesses are being aggressively courted by every region because everyone knows how important they are to economic growth.
What has generally proved more successful is to create these technology businesses ourselves. Start them from scratch here in our region and keep them here. That’s the major focus of the technology growth initiatives in our region and the states of Kentucky and Ohio – to convert all the basic technology research, innovation and entrepreneurship into thriving, growing technology companies headquartered in our region.
It’s not easy. To start a new company requires great ideas, great technology and great sales execution that can drive the adoption of new, leading edge technology in the market. And, did I mention money? Lot’s of that, too.
But, we’re doing it and it’s working. Led by a great partnership among the States of Ohio and Kentucky with regional tech growth organizations like CincyTechUSA, regional incubators, academic research centers, angel investors, venture capital funders, etc. we are making it happen. The rate of new technology companies being founded in our region is up dramatically over the last few years as these strategic growth programs have gained traction.
So, what’s for me to do? It sounds like we’ve got a good program going and all the right people working together to make it happen.
You can help by supporting this effort whenever and however you can. It can be as simple as encouraging your neighbor who is considering taking a job with a local technology start-up company to make the leap, or encouraging that young engineering graduate to stay in our region and exploit their learning here.
But moret importantly, you can provide the public support that will get the job done. This means voting yes on bond issues needed to fund this work, talking to everyone you know about how your region, the Cincinnati Region, is on the move with technology growth and generating a positive view - it’s happening here and it’s happening fast.
Post 3 - Driving Economic Growth
Posted By: Rich Kiley, 4/10/2008
In previous blogs, I’ve tried to make the case that economic growth is critical to every person, every business, every organization, every…. So, the obvious next question is: How? How do we drive economic growth in our region so that we continue to prosper and enjoy the regional lifestyle that we value so much?
The good news is that the answer is well known – drive the growth of technology-based businesses. When I was first working on the region’s technology growth program, CincyTechUSA, we looked at the comparative growth rates of our Cincinnati region versus other similar regions around the US. Depending on what statistics you use, the growth of technology companies account for over 70% of the difference in growth from region to region.
The facts are already pretty well known about the on-going decline of the manufacturing sector in the United States as well as the growth of the service sector of our economy. But if you drill down on the numbers, you quickly see that the higher paying jobs that are really driving economic growth are mostly in the technology sector.
There are lots of different definitions for the technology sector, but I think of it as those businesses that design, develop and manufacture technology goods or are the services that support the application of these goods. Don’t get too hung up on the definition – my wife’s definition of technology is anything that was invented after you were born. Our grandparents thought refrigerators, ovens and cars were technology. We think of computers, consumer electronics and advanced medical devices as technology. But our children who grew up with all these technologies will think of them as appliances. What will be the technologies of their lifetimes?
We know the names of the big, growing technology companies: MicroSoft, Apple, Verizon, Google, etc. These companies and their smaller siblings are what’s driving economic growth in our generation. We need to be part of this boom in our region.
But, how do we do this? All those big companies are already located somewhere else. Is the game over or can we still get our share of this growth to keep our regional economy thriving?
We’d better.
Post 2 - Why Care?
Posted By: Rich Kiley, 4/9/2008
Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before about the globally competitive economy, but why should I care? I’ve got a good job, my children are doing well, the housing market isn’t that bad and I think things are going pretty well. I don’t really need to worry about our regional economic growth and the global economy – things are fine.
Well, you’re right. Things are fine, right now. But what about next year, the next decade, the future that your children can have living in this region? Are you all that certain that driving regional economic growth really isn’t that important to you?
Like most people, if things are going okay, we tend to feel okay about today and the future. But we all have friends who have been laid off jobs or needed to move to another region to find a job or have seen their wages not grow as fast as their household expenses. These are all a function of living in a region where the economy is not growing fast enough to absorb all of the labor available. So wage rates tend to stay low and jobs remain scarce.
If we could get our economy growing faster the region would be a better place for all of us to live, work and play. The connection to job opportunities is easy to see. But, the broad connection to the quality of life of every citizen is frequently overlooked.
Think about it. A faster growing economy means more higher paying jobs and a larger tax base for government. That bigger tax base supports many of the things that are absolutely critical to our quality of life – police, fire, public schools, libraries, parks, etc.
A stagnant or slow growing economy means the budget for these critical public services is always in trouble. If expenses increase faster than the tax base, the only way to pay the bill is through increased tax rates. That’s really bad for everyone – it means you and I are paying higher taxes, and businesses looking to locate in our region are discouraged because of high tax rates.
A thriving economy has exactly the opposite effect – increased economic activity means increased tax revenue without having to increase individual tax rates. And, it means our region is more competitive because it has all the quality of life services that people seek without a high tax burden.
Growth is a good thing.
Post 1 - Grow or Die?
Posted By: Rich Kiley, 4/8/2008
Seems harsh, doesn’t it? But in today’s globally competitive world, it’s absolutely true – there is no “steady state” for an economy – it’s either growing or dying, and changes are occurring at an ever increasing rate.
Examples are all around us – the steel business moves to Asia so Cleveland and Pittsburgh are really hurt; the global automobile market evolves and Michigan is in deep economic trouble; and Ohio’s economy is hurting as well while centers of innovation like Boston, Austin and Silicon Valley are booming.
So, how about the Cincinnati Region? Seems like things are pretty good:
- Our economy is growing modestly
- Unemployment is reasonably low
- Our anchor companies like P&G, Kroger and Macy’s don’t seem to be going anywhere soon
So have we beat the rap? Are we simply a shining example of how at least one region can sustain modest growth and have a rosy future in the new global economy?
This kind of thinking is why we may be in the most precarious situation of all. Because our economy has continued to grow and we haven’t had the dramatic declines experienced by some of our neighbors, we’re pretty complacent. Bad idea.
Our region has been extremely fortunate compared to most of the heavy industry states. Our situation is OK for the moment, but will it stay that way if we don’t act? Almost certainly not. Global competitive forces are at work here as much as anywhere else, but like the famous quote attributed to Mark Twain – they’ll just arrive in Cincinnati 10 years later.
We can’t afford to have that happen. A growing, thriving economy is what drives almost everything else around us. I’ll talk more about this is a later blog.
Meanwhile, we all should be very thankful that we have organizations like the Cincinnati USA Partnership, CincyTechUSA, the Ohio Third Frontier Project, regional business incubators, venture investors, etc. all working hard to make certain growth in our region continues – and continues at an increasing pace.
In upcoming blogs, I’ll talk about why economic growth is so important to every person, every business and every organization in our region.