.network glossary

Definitions sanctioned by locations seeking economic development as guides for their pursuit of opportunities wanted and needed by people who … live work and share things in common (source of quote) within them likely to be closest to anything official.

The Network maintains a list of the most-used operative words and phrases appearing in the plethora of economic development definitions that exist. The list is a reference, a guide for creating practical definitions of economic development that are applicable for the needs of specific communities—community is an operative word of economic development.

Economist Joseph Schumpeter is credited with coining the expression economic development (more information under economic change in Site Location Assistance.com Economic development has its roots in the Industrial Revolution. The .network glossary has a definition of industrial development and one for industrial revolution as a generic term.

Fledgling economic developers are introduced to the practice in the U.S. through programs known as basic economic development courses. Advanced educational programs are also available. For example, one that has been around since 1962 was started up as the Industrial Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma/Norman (OU/EDI).

IDRC was also quick to publish its contact directory online. The directory listed resource and service providers engaged with IDRC members in carrying out enterprise and economic development projects, especially those involving site selection. The directory was made especially useful as a free-access resource. One directory pages still exists online as originally published. It's a memento of the best of IDRC in terms of a networking resource.

Enterprise development is about making and carrying out plans to startup a new business venture or improve or expand an existing business operation, especially, as a contribution to economic development. Finding a location is part of both development processes. The Network uses the term enterprise and economic development to define the combined processes. Business location work is another way of referring to site selection.

As an example of the importance of site selection to business location work we (who we are) point to when the International Economic Development Council and the publisher of Site Selection magazine ... formed a strategic alliance to create this web site that is a source of community information for companies seeking business/facility locations (source of quote). A 2001 article in the archives of the magazine state that at ... issue was the concern of the economic development community that site selection consultants often requested a plethora of information in a short period of time (source of quote).

Felix Fantus started up a site selection consulting business around 1920 after relocating his company. Fantus, as it was called, refined such procedures as gathering information, conducting feasibility studies, and dealing with places under consideration. Fantus consultants were most likely the first advocates for standardizing the presentation of location data.

The IDRC name was later changed to International Development Research Council, a move consistent with a shift in the field of industrial development to an expanded focus on the all-encompassing economic development process. Over 20-25 years the membership grew to the point that meetings became unwieldy and opportunities for networking were reduced to the point that by the 1990s IDRC was an organization in decline.

McKinley (Mac) Conway, who introduced a magazine dedicated to the site location work and economic development in 1954, is acknowledged the founder of IDRC. He organized the initial meeting and became an early advocate for standardizing site selection data.

The above information and the transition of PSL to NAM/SSN was explained to The Network by the publisher of Plant, Sites, & Parks magazine in 1998. SSN moved from its association with NAM to become an operation of The RSH Group of Mission Viejo, CA. A principal of RSH confirmed part of this explanation of the SSN background in an interview published by California Business Minute.com, Sacramento, CA.

Marc Bailey is the self-acknowledged organizer of the first site selection data brokerage online. He he put together the American Community Network. Bailey had a brief association with Field Media of Alpharetta, GA in the late 1990s. At about the same time the owner of Field Media stated that Mac Conway was his competitor as a data broker.

The Mexican model is binational and tied to improving the status of low-skilled workers. The model includes efforts to break down all barriers to US trade and investment in Mexico, including the integration of the latter's workforce into that of US on the same as if all were Mexican Americans.

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South Carolina State Development Board (1974 -1984)

Bob Leak succeeded Milton Folds as director of the South Carolina State Development Board in the mid-1970s. Folds had hired Robert E. (Bob) Glover from Tennessee and put him in charge of prospect development and in-state site location assistance. Glover remained in the position for 10 years throughout most of Leak's tenure. During his last couple of years of working for Leak, Glover organized and directed South Carolina's first computerized economic development management system. From that he gained the experience and vision that allowed his to create The Network in 1996.

W. Milton Folds become the head of the Georgia Department of Industry and Trade in 1977now the Department of Economic Development (2004). Folds was an outstanding professional in the field of industrial development for many years. He developed successful working relationships with corporate leaders at the highest levels. He retired from economic development to become an senior executive with Kimberly-Clark, where he was in charge of site selection.

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