As published in the May 1, 2005 Toledo Business Journal
Jim Hoffman
KeyBank, president
Toledo Business Journal recently sat down with Jim Hoffman, president, KeyBank. He shared the following thoughts.
TBJ: What do you see as the most important need in the business community?
JH: Growing our local economy. To do this, you have to do three things: make sure you keep all existing business happy and here, and if they’re going to expand, facilitating their expansion. Your highest chance of getting expansion comes from people who are already here.
Secondly, we’ve got to become very competitive in attracting new business to our area.
Thirdly, having initiatives that help technology-led businesses blossom. Most new business comes from some type of technology. We have universities with tremendous professors and really smart students, and some of them do want to do some things and we need to facilitate that better than what we’ve been doing. It’s a great opportunity.
TBJ: Would you like to provide any suggested solutions?
JH: The business community needs to accept the responsibility to get this done. To have it led by anyone else would be ineffective. It starts now with creating a new organization. Reenergizing the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP) – providing new funding, new leadership, and new energy to those efforts.
TBJ: What advice would you provide for advancing the economy in our region?
JH: First of all, I think people need to stop complaining about what they think is wrong in northwest Ohio and get involved and become a part of the solution. We have way too many complainers, and I’d like to see that energy aimed at direct involvement, participation, and investment – getting things turned around.
Our region is a wonderful place to live and work with a tremendous quality of life. Most of the older industrial cities like Toledo are going through major transitions and these transformations can be difficult. Our problems are very manageable actually and certainly not insurmountable.
Also, in all communities today across the country, new leadership is emerging. While some long for the good old days, the world has changed for good. We can’t look back at how things were done. There’s a new group of interested parties with different skills, and we just need to pull them together. There’s plenty of opportunity for people to get involved in the leadership going forward, and to make a difference.
TBJ: Can you share your thoughts on the RGP's transition to a private agency?
JH: It's clear that the old model needs to change. The RGP has been around for ten years or so and it worked extremely well for a long time. We shouldn’t feel bad about what the RGP accomplished. Rather we should celebrate that, but just because it worked well for a long while in the past doesn’t mean it shouldn’t change. There are certainly problems in the RGP structure, especially getting funding from the port and all of the strings that come with that.
If you benchmark cities where economic development has really worked well, it’s private sector led with a great partnership with local government and local economic development organizations. So you’re still working with others; it isn’t going to be a one-man show.
The new RGP will be private sector led and funded. And if we work well with the governmental and economic development units, we’ll get a team that can really win.
This is a really exciting change as the business community steps up with a huge investment of money and equally important leadership. This can make a big difference if everyone pulls together.
TBJ: What is the number one thing that you personally would like to accomplish?
JH: Lead the RGP fund drive and raise $8-10 million by June 30th. I’m quite confident that we can get this job done.
TBJ: Please identify an important community organization that needs more support.
JH: COSI is a tremendous educational resource in northwest Ohio. It’s one of the best science centers in the entire country. It is very under-funded, and unless new funding is put in place it will not survive long term. Almost all science centers have public funding in place from their citizens. Science education is critical to our children, and I would like to see our citizens step up and help COSI with a tax levy or some other form of support. Our kids deserve to have COSI survive and prosper and inspire kids in science where America's and Toledo's kids are behind many other countries.
TBJ: Can you share a favorite hobby or pastime?
JH: Golf, fly fishing, and glass blowing.