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Leah Pappas Porner:

So good afternoon. My name is Leah Pappas Porner. I'm with the Calfee Firm. I'm joined today by my colleague Tim Day. Tim and I are actually in the Calfee Columbus office and we are sitting at socially distanced in different rooms. And interestingly enough, the Calfee office in Columbus are a few floors below JobsOhio. And in our normal time, we can see J.P. and his team walking above our atrium in their beautiful office. And so J.P. CEO and president of JobsOhio, thank you for joining Tim and I today. We really appreciate it.

J.P. Nauseef:

Thank you for having me. Thank you very much.

Leah Pappas Porner:

And just a shout out to the JobsOhio team, particularly Phil, who helped us with the organization of the webinar. You have a great team and Tim and I really appreciate their effort today. And to our clients and friends, thanks for joining and listening in. Tim and I will be watching for your questions coming in. And if it's okay with you, J.P., I'd like to leap into the first question and give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about JobsOhio. You're the third CEO and president, and just give us a flavor for the work that you're doing at JobsOhio, and what you're leading kind of some intro remarks please.

J.P. Nauseef:

Great. Well first, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you and Tim and your group today. I know we have 30 minutes. So the first question is, what about JobsOhio? I've been here since March of 2019, and I can tell you I've been involved with economic development in a prior life, 15 years ago with the Dayton Development Coalition, but the JobsOhio is unique an economic development organization. So I do think it's worth going through a little bit of a background about what this organization is because unless you're in the middle of it and be a part of the ecosystem, you might not really know what it's all about.

J.P. Nauseef:

So it was essentially in 2011, the Kasich Administration in partnership with the Ohio Legislature spun out and privatized the Ohio department of development. It's not that simple, but that's essentially what happened. Making it private. Then in 2013, JobsOhio, the now private economic development organization for the state acquired the Liquor Enterprise. The Ohio's monopoly on the spirited liquors. So JobsOhio purchased the rights for 25 years. To the Liquor Enterprise, JobsOhio operates the Liquor Enterprise and the profits from the Liquor Enterprise each year essentially fund JobsOhio's operations and the deal dollar. So there is no government or tax money that goes in to JobsOhio. It's privatized, and it has a private source of funding.

J.P. Nauseef:

The vision for the organization is that Ohio is recognized for what many of us already know and believe passionately is that it's the best place to live, work, invest and live your version of your American dream. A place where people can find balance and don't have to make the false choice between a professional successful and lucrative business opportunity and business career and success in a family or community pursuits. Our mission is economic development and JobsOhio has been focused on 10 economic development sectors. They're listed here. I won't read through them. But we don't do all things for all people. We're focused on these sectors and we build a team and resources and tools to help retain them, to grow them, to expand them and to attract businesses into that ecosystem.

J.P. Nauseef:

We have about 100 professional associates in Columbus. A thing that makes those team members unique to other economic development organizations is many of our people have significant private sector experience in those 10 economic development sectors. We operate in partnership with six regional partners around the state. So we have a go to market that includes regional partners and we maintain a presence in 10 international markets. What used to be Ohio's state outposts, JobsOhio now maintains those through consulting relationships. So we maintain warm relationships in the 10 international markets that are most important to Ohio's economy.

J.P. Nauseef:

The three things that make JobsOhio as an organization, unique compared to other economic development organizations in other States are number one, it's private. Again, obvious reasons that can be a very big advantage is that we can negotiate with other companies that we're trying to help expand and to help attract. And we are not compelled to share their private competitive information with their competitors nor with the financial markets before that company is prepared to do so. So we can communicate in private. It also allows us to be agile and to pivot and to move quickly. Quicker than a government would normally be able to move.

J.P. Nauseef:

Second, we have a stable funding source. Again, funding fluctuates with government entities over time and based on political considerations or in terms of financial crisis. JobsOhio has got stable funding and resources that come from an alternative source. The Liquor Enterprise that allows us to bring in, again, a professional team with industry experience and provide them not just with a one or two year opportunity, but I career path that becomes a strength for Ohio and for JobsOhio. It also allows us to have funds to put in place for deals. We don't necessarily have to wait for a legislative process to play out to put dollars and resources together to win big economic development deals. Again, an advantage.

J.P. Nauseef:

Third, again, we mentioned our six regional partners. What's really powerful about this in my view and again, unique is that many of us have worked with statewide organizations. Before central organizations typically have significant resources and dollars, but when it comes to doing a deal in a local community with a granularity, a lot of times the state level organization doesn't have those, the depth of those relationships at the local level. While our go-to market allows JobsOhio, and the state of Ohio to bring statewide leverage and resources, but deliver them with a soft touch and a granular approach through these regional partners. Ends up being a very powerful model.

Tim Day:

Very good. So one thing I think J.P. that I want to dimension today, I think your personal story compliments your vision or JobsOhio's vision very well. I mean, I think when you look at your background, son of immigrants, you've had military experience, you moved away from Ohio, you've come back to Ohio. And I think that story is really unique. And I think you can really approach your job in a unique way, but let's talk a little bit more about, what makes Ohio competitive? And when you're looking at our neighboring states, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, what really stands out to you on what really businesses should be thinking about on why Ohio is really the place to be?

J.P. Nauseef:

Well, the answer to... You're right the... I have an experience unique to me and it is unique. Ohio, at least the part of Ohio where I live, it's a German Irish Catholic. So walking into it, the guy named J.P. Nauseef is a little bit different to start with. We came here with an air force family. A lot of people in this part of the state come in through Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. And there actually was a term called the dread factor when people that were living in DC or another base in the country would get a letter saying that you were being assigned to Wright-Patterson, there would be dread. But then once you got here, you found how wonderful the community was, how accepting and welcoming it was, how affordable it was, what stimulating work you could get here.

J.P. Nauseef:

And then when you got your orders to leave, there was a dread factor again when you didn't want to leave. So, when I went into the air force myself, I went away to Southern California, worked in the technology and the space business and I got the letter to come back and I came back and ended up staying here and raising my family here. My wife is not from here either. She's from the East coast. So the value proposition is multi-layered. Obviously affordability is a big deal when you're comparing it to the coasts. We are, if you look at the data, our cost of living index here at Ohio is that at 94.9. If you compare the average of other states in our region, they're at 100. And the USR, they're just over 100. The US average is 100 so we're, Ohio as a state compared to the region and nationally is more affordable. If you compare it again to the larger markets, like let's say, Northern California or the Northeast corridor, our cost of living is up anywhere, depending on how you calculate it between 45% and 75% lower.

J.P. Nauseef:

So a cost affordability. But again, when you match it up against the access to talent and access to infrastructure and customers, Ohio, again, given our configuration in the Midwest and in the Eastern part of the Midwest, we are literally an hour flight, or a one day drive from 60 plus percent of the North American marketplace. And we have 200,000 graduates per year coming out of our higher ed institutions. So there's an availability of talent. There's a diversity of industry and there's a diversity of communities. So depending on what you're looking for, you have access to a market, you have access to talent and multiple industries. If you like living in the country, you can live in the country yet you can still commute into a city.

J.P. Nauseef:

So it's really the diversity and the location and affordability combination that provides an outstanding alternative for Ohio. And coming off of this COVID crisis and some of the other tragic events that have occurred in the last couple of weeks, you can see that value proposition getting stronger and stronger and stronger.

Tim Day:

Right. No, I think that's exactly right. And I can speak from experience. I just moved back to the great state myself and barely really happy to be back home. So I see the next slide up here on COVID. And that's my next question, actually, because it's 2019 was a banner year for you. A lot of recognition, economically, very successful for the state, for JobsOhio, specifically third best business climate in the country, and several other kind of odds that you received. Then the new year early into 2020 and we have a pandemic at Ohio. So I'm really interested in kind of how that unfolded for you and how did you pivot out of that and what is your goal and what are your priorities now coming out of that hopefully, and what's the path forward?

J.P. Nauseef:

Thank you. That's a great question. And then obviously we could probably ask anyone on this call and this was something unprecedented for everyone. And all of us, we're facing something that none of us had really faced before. And so, general comments about this, I feel like the team, I got to give the credit to the JobsOhio team and our partners, obviously taking the lead from the governor's leadership on this, which was just amazing. Is the, in an unprecedented environment you, a lot of times can see what people are made of and what organizations are made of. And I think what happened with us is, and me personally, I think the last time something happened similar to this in my life was 9/11. And at the time I was a junior member of a small startup company.

J.P. Nauseef:

So I wasn't really responsible for anything other than myself and I had a small one small child at the time, but we had a million people. Over a million people apply for unemployment at the fastest rate in history. Small businesses, working poor minorities, hit the hardest and will be the most challenging in the recovery. This has all been compounded by what we've seen occur with race relations in different communities and across our country. But we all saw this. I saw directly that Ohioans came together, had a common purpose, goes to the practical nature. And part of our culture in Ohio is we still work with our hands, we still build things, we're diverse in our community makeup. So people that come from a rural background and people that come from an urban background, we work with each other already. We're not isolated away from each other.

J.P. Nauseef:

So what you saw was our state come together. And I think that was really opiniomized at how we saw the governor and the Dwight administration respond. Then a courageous way, but in a very practical and empathetic way. So our team did the same. We took what we could do to be part of this team in response. The mission orientation of our team came straight to the front, how can we help Ohio in a crisis? And then we put to use our private structure, our resources and our statewide network all came into place when March 17th, that we had a board meeting that was supposed to be in Dayton around the NCAA tournament. I'll talk about that later. But our board, we asked for our board and they gave us authority to allocate up to $250 million to create economic development programs, to help soften the impact.

J.P. Nauseef:

So doing things that we hadn't done before. So we got our team together. We developed 10 new economic development programs. We deployed the capital to those that were in need, those businesses that were in need. And by our numbers right now, we impact over 300,000 jobs and over 15,000 small and medium sized businesses. Our board also allocated up to $250 million. So it was total 500 million, but up to $250 million to partner with the state of Ohio to help acquire PPE. Again, there was a global chase for scarce resources, and then JobsOhio was there so that we could move quickly. And in many cases, the state would define a requirement and our sector teams would identify a source, would negotiate with that source, would determine the logistics delivery. And we supported the acquisition of 40 million units of PPE and of the 250 million we've expanded about 70 million of those dollars.

Tim Day:

That's amazing J.P. I mean, that's got to be unique to other states.

J.P. Nauseef:

It is unique to other states and it was a seven day a week every night, I'd get and it was right. We were right there next to our government partners. I got to give, tip the hat to our government partners and our team. They really, this was an environment in a situation that they hadn't faced. There wasn't an infrastructure or an apparatus to define needs much less how we were going to distribute, procure, transparently track and account for, and this was something that was all stood up within a week.

Tim Day:

Wow. It's amazing.

J.P. Nauseef:

It was amazing. It was something else. Yes.

Tim Day:

Well done. Well, I think, it's been unique and I think something that it's been a great feedback. I've heard a lot of good stories and I think what you're able to do with the EPE and other things on the loan programs, et cetera, are really, really good. So thank you for that. One of the things that we'll be focusing on here at Calfee will be the issues of technology and innovation. And I want to switch a little bit to a topic that will fall into that category because one of the things I've heard for a couple of years now is the term Silicon Prairie and how are we going to be looking to attract businesses from the coast to the Heartland? And I think to all of what you've said before, there are a lot of advantages for business to look at Ohio and what we are able to offer them. One question, what do you think of that term Silicon Prairie and what is the status of Ohio attracting tech startups here and growing that business here in the Buckeye State?

J.P. Nauseef:

So again, this is one of those areas. Again, like you, I had moved away. I was involved in tech. Primarily it boils down to both the brand and talent and the State's position and brand as a place to attract capital all stages of capital formation and to be able to retain and attract the talent, the knowledge, essentially the knowledge economy. So I think many things that with all the pain that we've incurred in recent months, this has now provided an opportunity for the State of Ohio to do more and to recruit more. So some advantages that you're aware of, we have struggled as you know, Tim, as a state with early stage capital. You've heard it many times. We've struggled with ability to attract talent. So a couple of different ways that we are focused on doing both of those things now is where we're working on the talent production side to build innovation districts, essentially that are located and situated in a large metropolitan area urban setting that partner with anchors such as large universities to provide financial incentives for those universities to increase their production of computer science graduates.

J.P. Nauseef:

We announced one in Cincinnati, as an example. Cincinnati will be close to tripling their annual production of computer science graduates. In that same innovation district development, we will also be incentivizing a relationship between Cincinnati children's, where they will be increasing their research and development budgets and their innovation outcomes, the research outcome. So production of computer science graduates increase in research and development in health technology all centered around the development of mixed use real estate, apartments, restaurants, small startup businesses for which again, JobsOhio will be developing innovation funds where we will be partnering with Venture Capital that's already in place, a new Venture Capital to match investment dollars in startup companies. So it creates, an innovation district will create that center of gravity where you'll have multiple graduates and students in computer science or other STEM disciplines with researchers increasing their budgets and their research outcomes combined with startup companies and anchor companies all in one center of gravity. So, we hope to invest in those innovation districts, starting with Cincinnati, which we announced in February, March. Then we're working with Northeast Ohio, central Ohio partners and Toledo and Dayton region on. Again-

Tim Day:

So that is a statewide effort and something that is kind of beyond just the cities, but looking at rural areas as well as part of the districts?

J.P. Nauseef:

That's right. We're looking... Again, we want to achieve the same type of outcomes, increasing the production of the STEM degrees combined with startup development, startup companies and in an area where we can build a mixed use development and create essentially a center of gravity and a clustering and a sense of place. So the ones in the Dayton region and Toledo region will be, as a term of art definition, won't fit the exact definition of innovation district, but they will have elements and components of site development, production of STEM talent and research outcomes. Just on a smaller scale.

Tim Day:

Right. I think part of that, obviously, Ohio has a rich manufacturing background. And I think a lot of ways that technology is impacting the manufacturing sector and looking at robotics and artificial intelligence and just the use of data generally, what are some of the things that you're looking at JobsOhio to begin? I think you've mentioned STEM and other things, but re-skilling the workforce and getting people prepared for the jobs of the future.

J.P. Nauseef:

So, the DeWine Husted administration has really taken an outstanding leadership role in focusing on tech credit programs and re-skilling and up-skilling and JobsOhio through our talent initiative is partnering very closely with them, but look, the way we came in to COVID focused on talent and training and re-skilling is a bit different now that we were looking at a full employment situation and today we're looking at merely over a million displaced workers. So what we'll be doing is working again in partnership with the state to identify those individuals that have been displaced, making an aptitude assessment, getting them training and up-skilling so that we can then quickly match them with an open in demand job that had previously gone unfilled. So we're going to be focused on, the priority is going to be on those displaced workers, quickly getting them the skills and training they need so they can fill an open in demand position that had previously gone unfilled.

Tim Day:

Excellent.

J.P. Nauseef:

So we're going to be focused very aggressive on that, but we're still going to be focused on producing more at the undergraduate level and the production of town. But now we have a new, higher near-term priority which is getting displaced Ohioans back into work as quickly as we can.

Tim Day:

Right. Even more so now, given the COVID situation.

J.P. Nauseef:

Absolutely.

Tim Day:

Leah.

Leah Pappas Porner:

Yep. J.P., We have offices in Ohio and Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and we have a DC office as well. And so we have clients that are listening to you from different parts of the state. So talk a little bit about how JobsOhio leads economic development strategies that align your strategies and priorities across the state. Give the audience a little bit of flavor about how your organization is leading that economic element strategy.

J.P. Nauseef:

So, we play a role, a leadership role. We work through our JobsOhio network partners. Our primary linkage, we first want to be aligned and complimentary with the direction the administration is heading. And then we work directly with our regional partners, One Columbus in central Ohio, REDI Cincinnati in the Cincinnati region, the Dayton Development Coalition in the Dayton region, Team Neo in Northeast Ohio, and Ohio Southeast in Southeast Ohio. And we essentially lay out... And we work with those JobsOhio network partners and our primary focus with them is on business retention and expansion. And essentially for us, that's lead generation where we have a very aggressive program that works with our regional partners to make sure we're engaged and have relationships and understand what the needs are of Ohio's businesses first. 80% of our projects and the jobs that come from those projects for JobsOhio comes from those visits. 80%.

J.P. Nauseef:

Most of the headlines might be, "Hey, a big company from Europe or China or California does a ribbon cutting." But the truth is, over 80% come from those business retention expansion visits. And so we first develop our strategy, alignment with the administration, but we want to listen to the needs of our Ohio businesses first. We refine and develop the strategies from JobsOhio and the tools, and those are optimized by each of the region based on their strengths and their opportunities. So, it's pretty aggressive. We meet with our JobsOhio network partners now virtually at least twice a week to make sure we're on track for business retention and expansion that we're again, identifying workforce needs and communicating constantly between what we're doing at JobsOhio in the state, all the way to individual businesses. And I think during the COVID period of the two and a half months of the COVID period, we literally touched and communicated with nearly 2,000 individual businesses and hundreds and hundreds of local economic development partners all through this regional network. This is the power of that network that makes it happen.

Leah Pappas Porner:

One of the questions that Ohio has talked about and struggled with is broadband and access to broadband internet, particularly in rural and Southern Ohio. And that conversation has heightened due to the pandemic. I know that the Ohio house has really focused on House Bill 13, the administration is working on broadband Ohio. Talk a little bit about JobsOhio's role in increasing technology, access to technology connectivity for all of Ohio.

J.P. Nauseef:

So, I think what we've seen is broadband and broadband availability has been part of the priority of the DeWine administration and we've been working with them for the past year unchanged, but that went from being an important priority to being a critical priority based on our, all of our experiences with COVID. We all worked here. I have four kids that were doing distance learning from the house. And so it's essential. So we've been working, we'll take the lead from the administration, but we've been working on various plans because from JobsOhio's point of view, this is part of what we established last year as our diversity and inclusive economic development strategy. That the cornerstone of an inclusive economic development recovery for it to be sustainable is that includes all Ohioans, including the typically underserved population.

J.P. Nauseef:

So if we make broadband available widely, that opens up the opportunity for Ohio's economy to tap into 500,000 Ohioans that it has not been able to tap into it. It could add from our research up to $3 billion in gross state product and 25,000 new jobs. And it allows Ohio to innovate in telemedicine, telework, and distance learning all while creating an inclusivity of outcome of inclusive video of opportunity for both geographies and population. So it's a cornerstone, we're working with the DeWine administration and we'll be seeing, I think, something significant come out over the next weeks and months.

Leah Pappas Porner:

Well, good. We look forward to that. J.P. one of the questions from a company watching today is around approximately 23% of our employees are veterans and have proven to be great employees. Does JobsOhio have any resources for businesses to identify veterans in need of employment?

J.P. Nauseef:

Well, obviously that's something that's near and dear to my heart. I'm a veteran. My father is a veteran. We, because of the Ohio's history and legacy, we have a special relationship with the military and with veterans. So we have added this to the JobsOhio's strategic sectors, military, and federal, and it includes veterans. And we've added it to our workforce strategies and our talent strategy. So couple of things that we're doing, we've got the, again, a hometown heroes program that started, we started in 2004 and with minor league baseball in the Dayton area, and we've essentially brought into the NCAA basketball tournament. They have scaled it nationwide because it starts with awareness of the military member of the family and the veteran. You've seen the governor pass legislation for military families and members.

J.P. Nauseef:

And I think what you'll see from us in the coming weeks and months is building our talent and economic development initiatives that provide opportunity and tools that give veterans access to the workforce, to training, to education, and to, for me, formation of entrepreneurial businesses that they are a reliable, dependable and hardworking part of our population. And frankly, they've earned and deserve our support. And we're going to make sure Ohio is known as one of the best States in the country or military missions, military members, military families, and veterans.

Tim Day:

Excellent.

Leah Pappas Porner:

Fabulous. So we're getting close to our end. And so I see from our participants that are viewing you today, many are with companies that are out of state or have facilities that are out of state and they make the tough decisions on, where do they put their precious capital and talent and how do they invest it? So talk to us about how Ohio, in your opinion is the best place for companies to grow and thrive.

J.P. Nauseef:

Well, you've seen what's happened, especially wherever you live over the last few months, how your state has responded and how the people in your state, the leadership in your state has responded. And I think what we've seen and what we're seeing across the clients and the pipeline that we're working with is that people are really yearning, the workforce is really yearning to have a location where they can live and raise a family and not have to make a false choice between pursuing the work goals that they have and the professional goals with the family and community goals. These things could and should and must co-exist for us all that live our own version of the American dream.

J.P. Nauseef:

And Ohio is a unique place where again, it's got a diversity of communities, a diversity of industries, it's got close access to 60% of your customers and your suppliers and your markets. And it's got economic development resources to help you get the talent you're going to need and to help you establish your base of operations here in Ohio. So I would say now is a perfect time to make an establishment and make an investment here in the state of Ohio. And we're glad to help you. You can call anytime, and we're happy to sit down with you and get you here to Ohio.

Tim Day:

Excellent.

J.P. Nauseef:

Thanks.

Leah Pappas Porner:

Thank you. J.P., thank you to you and your team for your time today. Thank you to Maggie and everyone at Calfee that helped Tim and I put this webinar together. We hope that you can join us again at a later date, maybe live and in person somewhere, but if not, by this wonderful technology. So thank you to you and your team and to Tim and I want to just personally thank you for your support of our efforts.

J.P. Nauseef:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm [crosstalk 00:32:39] and looking forward to the next one in person hopefully.

Leah Pappas Porner:

Yes.

Tim Day:

Very good.

Leah Pappas Porner:

To everyone watching, thanks for participating and we hope everyone is doing well and healthy and look forward to re-engaging with you face-to-face in Columbus, people in Cincinnati or DC. Thanks so much, everyone, have a great day.

J.P. Nauseef:

Great.

Tim Day:

Thank you.

Leah Pappas Porner:

Bye-bye.

Tim Day:

Bye.

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