As I pen the last NETWORKS Newsletter CEO Report of 2016, I can't keep my thoughts from drifting beyond the year's final quarter to reflect on the past 12 months in their entirety, both from a professional and a very personal place. And while I was under the weather during a very busy beginning of the year, we never lifted our foot off of the accelerator and were able to close the year as strongly as we began it.

 

This time last year, I was suffering from a respiratory illness that would soon have me briefly hospitalized. Through incredibly talented medical professionals, the support of family and friends (many of whom are also colleagues), and numerous prayers that were offered from across our country, I was back to my old self in no time. Among the things that the illness taught me was exactly how incredible the NETWORKS family is, particularly our staff as they stepped in and kept so many projects and initiatives moving forward. This diligent work in the face of uncertainty led to our having arguably the most significant year since NETWORKS Sullivan Partnership was formed more than a decade ago, a year that included a community video that took on unexpected popularity and the announcement of more than 1,500 new jobs.

 

But it was this past three months that many of the more time consuming projects came to fruition, including the two announcements in December of Leclerc Foods and KPS Global. These announcements, which combined represent nearly 200 jobs, capped a year of great activity and wins and kept our momentum alive and well as we head into 2017.

 

We also had a great FIRST (our existing industry program) meeting at Bristol Motor Speedway that included a presentation from Regional Engine-MFG, a regional manufacturing organization based in Knoxville. Among its early members are NETWORKS and our own Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing (RCAM) and Bell Helicopter. Expect to hear more from this group and our partnership in the upcoming year.

 

Speaking of the RCAM and Bell, these two made some recent headlines, with the RCAM breaking ground on its expansion on a very chilly, blustery day earlier this month and Bell moving into its new customization building.

 

NETWORKS joined the RCAM, Eastman, and many of our partners in celebrating Manufacturing Week in October. Eastman and the RCAM hosted Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Randy Boyd for Manufacturing Day activities. Earlier in the week, NETWORKS hosted several members of the TNECD team for tours of the RCAM and Bell as well as a presentation of our organization and communities.

 

We once again hosted TNECD staff and other economic development partners for an appreciation event in Nashville the evening prior to the start of the Governor's Conference on Economic Development. This year, we held the event jointly with the Greene County Partnership and Morristown (Hamblen County) Area Chamber of Commerce. This represented just one of the many vehicles we found to partner with other EDOs and cement our reputation as a stalwart regional-thinking member of Team Tennessee, a notion that was submitted as I was honored to be invited to participate on a panel to discuss regionalism at the conference.

 

Our signature inbound marketing event, the Northeast Tennessee Red Carpet Tour kept in line with the Team Tennessee theme as Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce joined the Tennessee Economic Partnership (TEP), TNECD, TVA, AEP, and NETVRIDA as partners for the event. This year's event brought in our most impressive roster of site location consultants to date with representatives from CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, Global Location Strategies, Jones Lang LaSalle, KPMG, MCS Strategies, and Next Move Group. And in February, we represented the Northeastern region of our state, joining the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council, Knoxville Chamber, City of Nashville, and Williamson, Inc., as "acoustic" level sponsors at the 2016 Site Selection Guild Annual Meeting, with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, TNECD, TEP, and TVA sponsoring at the "electric" level.

 

We carried the Tennessee banner with us to the ECONOMIX conference in Atlanta, a site location consortium sponsored by ConsultantConnect. We joined ED professionals from Nashville, Knoxville, and Clarksville as a sort of tag team to tell the Tennessee story (emphasizing our respective communities, of course).

 

The work of Tri-Cities Airport, Northeast State Community College, and NETWORKS, coupled with the continued success and visibility of companies such as Bell Helicopter, Wysong Helicopter, and Eastman brought a welcome recognition in the aerospace sector when NETWORKS was listed as Top 5 Award of Excellence winner by Expansion Solutions magazine. (By the way, congratulations to Tri-Cities Airport for its partnership with TVA and BTES to upgrade its equipment to produce fewer emissions, as well as the launch of its new website.)

 

When you look at our year, from start to the flurry of the last couple of months, it has certainly been an exciting time to be part of this region and this organization. We started strong and we finished strong. We came into 2016 like a lion, but we were anything but a lamb in how we closed it.