Frank Tombari Edc Board Chairman Believes The Stage Is Set For Continued Success

Are these the worst of times or the best of times for the Spokane Area Economic Development Council?

You could make a case for the worst of times.

Bob Cooper, the man who guided the agency to its most spectacular successes over the past decade, is gone to California.

Questions are being raised in the business community as to whether the current process of moving the EDC back under the same roof as the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce is a step toward surrendering the identity the EDC has worked so hard to establish.

And while all of this is going on, the EDC is embarking on a goal to recruit as many jobs to Spokane in the next five years as it did in the past 10.

Frank Tombari, though, weighs in on the side of the best of times.

“The climate right now is as good as it has been in the last 10 years for us to succeed,” he says. “And the impact to the economy will be tremendous if we are able to succeed.”

Tombari, a vice president in the commercial loans department of Farmers & Merchants Bank, is EDC board chairman. His one-year term began in January.

Tombari brings a Spokane native’s perspective to the task. He grew up here and attended Gonzaga Prep, then the University of Notre Dame. After working for the Old National Bank in Seattle, he returned to Spokane in 1988 to work for Farmers & Merchants Bank.

He became involved in the EDC six years ago, and served as membership chairman before he became vice chairman last year.

The master reorganization of Spokane’s promotional agencies - the Spokane and Valley chambers, the EDC and the Spokane Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau - and the doubling of expectations for the EDC, promised to make Tombari’s year as chairman challenging enough.

Then came Cooper’s departure this spring.

Some observers concluded that the EDC was fading back into the influence of the chamber, from whence it came. Tombari says no.

Sharing quarters with the chamber and the visitors bureau offers a chance to save some rent, Tombari says, adding, “I don’t know if there really are more synergies to be gained beyond that.”

He agrees that the EDC left the chamber’s umbrella to establish a clear identity. But with that identity solidified, and a very specific focus, the agency doesn’t need the physical appearance of separation, he says.

“Nowadays, your investors want you to be frugal, and that’s a big part of what co-location is all about,” he says. “We’ll be able to control our cost of rent over the next five to 10 years.”

And it’s true that under the reorganization, the chamber will take on some of the EDC’s former duties. Expansion of existing companies will fall to the chamber, along with providing basic information about Spokane and its business climate. But that is at the specific direction of the EDC board.

“The board wants us to be recruiters,” Tombari says, “recruitment and nothing but recruitment, so help us God.”

Last year, a broad-based community coalition of business, government and social agencies called Focus 21 set the goal of growing Spokane by 10,000 jobs through expansion and recruitment over the next five years. The EDC board has taken responsibility for recruiting 5,000 of those jobs, the same number of jobs it recruited during the previous 10 years.

Tombari believes the goal is completely attainable, but, “won’t happen overnight.”

Recruitment is a numbers game, he said. For every company you get to relocate or expand in Spokane, you have to work with a dozen that don’t.

“So you’ve got to have quite a war chest of leads going for you.”

Tombari says the challenge is “filling the pipeline.”

“The biggest thing we can do this year and next year,” Tombari says, “is to get that pipeline full, so in 2000, 2001 and 2002 we can close the deals that bring those 5,000 jobs here.”

A part of that effort is a referral program in which the EDC wants to turn Spokane’s entire population into sources of high-probability leads. Anyone who knows anyone who might want to move here or expand a company here should call.

“We’ve found our best success at landing a recruit is through someone who knows someone,” Tombari says. “Maybe their family is here. Maybe they went to school here and then moved away. But some kind of connection already exists.”

Tombari believes the stage is set for continued EDC success because the Legislature is helping to make the state’s business climate more friendly though subtle changes in the tax structure. And the cooperative regional recruitment approach with Jobs Plus in Coeur d’Alene means the area can offer prospective companies two distinct taxation and regulatory climates, depending on the needs.

But perhaps the biggest factor he sees is a growing communitywide awareness of the importance of the EDC’s goals.

“Look at Hoopfest or Bloomsday,” he says. “If the community gets behind something here, it seems to come together.

“If you don’t have an ambitious goal,” he adds, “it’s not a challenge, and if it’s not a challenge, I don’t think it’s any fun.”

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