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To attract good companies, education in Pinellas must become top priority, says the county's assistant administrator.
By ROBERT FARLEY
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 21, 2001
PALM HARBOR -- Sunshine, fishing holes and golf courses. That used to be all an executive cared about when considering a company relocation to Tampa Bay, said Pinellas County Assistant Administrator Rick Dodge.
No longer. Now, Dodge said, the first questions from company directors are about the area's schools and whether students are being educated to meet their employment needs.
And for that reason, Dodge told the Palm Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday morning, the most important thing the county can do to attract high-quality jobs and foster a vibrant economy is make education the county's top priority.
"I think the community in Florida that puts that at the top of the list and makes it happen will draw the best-paying and most stable companies in the country," Dodge said.
That means a monetary commitment, of course, Dodge said. But perhaps more important, he said, it means training students for job opportunities in the area. That will require a new and different business involvement with education, Dodge said.
In a survey completed by nearly 1,000 county businesses, more respondents ranked the quality of public primary and secondary schools as fair or poor than those who rated the schools good or excellent.
"Part of this is a perception," Dodge said. "But we still have a disconnect with businesses."
Some observers agreed with Dodge's emphasis on improving ties between education and business.
"I think sometimes teachers today don't understand what's needed in the community," said Doug Palonder of Palm Harbor, a former teacher and owner of a Clearwater insurance agency, who co-chair of the chamber's economic affairs committee. "I think sometimes the real world does not meet the world of education."
St. Petersburg Junior College president Carl Kuttler said the county has been doing business surveys to determine their employee needs.
The college is then able to quickly respond with training to meet those needs.
"Employers want to know they can get a steady stream of workers," Kuttler said.
The region's second priority ought to be transportation, Dodge said. Twenty years ago, he said, county leaders clearly decided the county was not going to be in the transportation business.
The legacy, he said, is a transportation mess. The county's traffic woes are not limited to U.S. 19, he said, nor will the transportation problem be solved by building more and wider highways. It will take coordinated rail and bus transportation and more trolleys like the one between Clearwater Beach and St. Pete Beach.
It also means taking an active role in lobbying for a high-speed rail linking Orlando to Tampa International Airport and St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, Dodge said.
Better utilization of the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport also is a key part of the county's economic development, Dodge said. Instead of a good secondary airport, it needs to be a transportation hub.
But when it comes to Tampa Bay's bid for the 2012 Olympics, Dodge is one of its few vocal opponents.
"Those resources could be much better-spent," he said.
Sydney needed the Olympics to be discovered, he said.
"We've been discovered," Dodge said.