LVEDC President and CEO Don Cunningham speaks at the LVEDC annual meeting on March 21, 2023.This column, written by LVEDC President & CEO Don Cunningham, originally appeared in The Morning Call and on the newspaper’s website on April 9, 2023. (Click here to read Cunningham’s previous columns.)
Most of the following is excerpted from an address at the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.’s 2023 Annual Meeting.
By any objective standard I’m a homer, a local, a townie – or any other term that describes some hayseed who never moved away.
There aren’t many stamps on my passport.
My zip code has always been here.
I tend to see the world from the Lehigh Valley out, not the outside in.
So, it still surprises me when people think the Lehigh Valley is part of Scranton or the Poconos. It once annoyed me.
But, as the region becomes an overnight sensation 25 years in the making, I’ve come to realize that doing things quietly is the Lehigh Valley way. It’s nice, however, to have someone from the outside understand.
It’s even better when it’s the governor.
Last month, during a rousing speech to more than 700 people at the LVEDC Annual Meeting in the ArtsQuest Center, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro stood in front of the former blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel and gave us insight into us.
“From our Main Streets to our farms, we will have a Lehigh Valley sense of values, that sort of common sense, competitive approach that figures out how to come together to get things done,” Shapiro said. “That will be the approach we take in the commonwealth.”
He was the first governor to address an LVEDC annual meeting since the organization was formed in 1995, the year that those blast furnaces fell silent.
The Lehigh Valley economic renaissance to a 21st Century economy started then.
It continues today.
Last year, the Lehigh Valley was second in the United States for regions of 200,000 to 1 million in population in new development projects. Greenville, South Carolina, had two more projects.
What is most impressive — and most important — is those 46 projects were in every main sector of our economy — from life sciences to technology to health care to advanced manufacturing and lots in between. Our strength is a balanced economy.
2022 marked the return of manufacturing as the largest part of our economy.
$8.4 billion in economic output coming from more than 750 manufacturers — and job growth five times faster than typical U.S. regions.
From this location, steelworkers made the steel that built the skylines of our cities, and the armaments that helped to win two world wars.
It’s hard to beat the poetry of that. Today, we make a little bit of everything.
My dad was one of those steelworkers, as was his grandfather before him.
Long retired, he still jokes when he’s on Long Beach Island in New Jersey — the only place I ever vacationed as a kid — that if it wasn’t for him, you couldn’t be on LBI.
Now, I don’t know if Bethlehem Steel made the steel for that causeway bridge but — if it didn’t — please don’t tell my Old Man.
I’ve heard the same pride in Crayola workers, and those of Mack Trucks, B. Braun, OraSure, FreshPet and Martin Guitar. It matters not if you’re making steel, trucks, medical devices, beer, or baked goods. There is pride in production.
America still makes things — at least here in the Lehigh Valley. It’s 18% of our economic output. It’s 12% in the U.S.
In an era of rapid change and innovation it’s good to have a stake in the ground. The Lehigh Valley has been making things for our country since the 1700s. The products have evolved but our role remains.
The pandemic increased that demand.
The tenuousness of supply chains across oceans and continents — dependent on ports, trucks and ships — was exposed. Governments and companies have a new focus on producing in the U.S. and closer to large population centers — and they’re investing in it
2022 taught us that remote work is here to stay.
And, like much in life, it brings both opportunity and challenges — a very real one for those who own office buildings. Conversations have started about when to convert and repurpose offices for housing, as professional workers now spend less time in an office and the demand for new housing grows.
It will continue as remote work is helping to attract new, young talent to the region.
The Lehigh Valley is growing and changing. It’s getting younger and more diverse.
This is one of the drivers in LVEDC’s strategic focus to target growth in the life sciences, bio-med and technology sectors, along with advanced manufacturing and creative services. The region has history in these sectors and good existing clusters.
The critical ingredient is talent.
This is one constant that doesn’t change with time.
The strength of a place remains its people and quality of life.
Our test as a community is to meet the challenges created by a rapidly changing world and the unease it creates. And to take advantage of the new while honoring our traditions.
That’s long been the strength of the Lehigh Valley. We evolve while staying the same.
Gov. Shapiro called it a Lehigh Valley sense of values.
There’s unity in being an underdog. You can do things quietly.
We’re a suburb of nowhere, our own authentic place.
And we leave things a little better than we find them.
We did that again in 2022.
Don Cunningham is the president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. He can be reached at news@lehighvalley.org.