BusinessReport.com

Even as Jim Clinton busily prepares for his family’s move across states and wraps up his job in North Carolina, his economic plan to grow mostly rural central Louisiana is already simmering in his mind.

“Everything is a challenge. Everything is an opportunity,” says the newly named CEO of the privately run Cenla Advantage Partnership in Alexandria. Starting Sept. 15, he will go to work on CAP’s mission to promote economic development in the 11-parish region. “The central region has remarkable potential, but hasn’t really lived up to that potential.”

Clinton readily acknowledges the challenges ahead because he already knows CAP and Louisiana from the inside. Thirty-three years ago, he co-authored the reorganization plan that brought the state’s executive branch from 250 units to 20 departments. He managed the Louisiana Superdome’s transition from public to private management as well as headed Baton Rouge’s Louisiana Partnership for Technology and Innovation and the Gulf South Research Institute.

Clinton is an Arkansas native who spent more than 30 years in Louisiana. His wife, Susan, is an Alexandria native. They maintained connections with the area after leaving when he became head of the North Carolina-based Southern Growth, a regional economic partnership, but they decided it was time to come home.

“I’ve lived in Louisiana more than I’ve lived anywhere else and have more friends in Louisiana than anywhere else,” he says. “We’re very excited about it and looking forward to being part of Louisiana.”

Upon his return, he intends to hone in on harnessing the area’s energy and commitment.

“It’s a challenge just to develop habits of cooperation and collaboration necessary to move a region forward,” he says. “I would hope the central focus of CAP’s efforts is to be that facilitator to bring the region together and achieve its collective goals through regional and collaborative action. As a state, we can’t really move forward if we’re constantly at odds with the goals and aspirations of the other regions. We need to move forward together.”

This is one of his two top goals when he hits the ground with CAP. His second goal is to build on the knowledge and skills of the region’s workforce.

And Clinton maintains there’s great material to work with. England Air Force Base’s conversion to air and business park is one of the advantages of a viable infrastructure, but the challenge is to bring those strengths together and build the capacity of the workforce in the region. Education is progressing there, but he says the area still needs to build an adult workforce to compete in the global economy.

“It’s not enough to make incremental progress. We really need a knowledge revolution and to be able to apply that knowledge in our work, community and in our lives,” he says.

Asked if he would model his growth plan off areas like Baton Rouge, Clinton clarifies central Louisiana is not Baton Rouge.

“I would certainly hope we can absorb those lessons that can be learned, but the region must build its own identity and develop,” he says. “I wouldn’t try to model central Louisiana on Baton Rouge any more than I would try to model it on Silicon Valley or Research Triangle Park. You learn the lessons from where you can learn them and apply them where you can, knowing you’ll have to tailor them to the particular culture, character and assets of that region.”

Central Louisiana, like other rural areas in the South, must deal with the reality of the country increasingly becoming a more urban nation, and more of the opportunities seem to exist for those areas, Clinton says. “As a region it has probably not focused enough on the power of technology and innovation, and it has a lot of potential to do that.”

His challenge also lies in the region’s numbers. While East Baton Rouge has about 907 people per square mile, no parish in CAP’s 11-parish region has as many as 100 people and some as few as 15.5. The Center for Rural Pennsylvania defines rural as a county or parish with fewer than 274 people per square mile. By this definition, every parish in the CAP region—including Rapides, where Alexandria is located—is rural. According to the Census Bureau, East Baton Rouge alone has 429,000 people while the entire central region barely has 360,000 people [nearly half of them are in Rapides and Avoyelles parishes].

This isn’t an obstacle to Clinton, who only views this big picture as a different kind of challenge.

“I have great affection for small towns and rural people, having been born in Portia, Ark.,” he says. “The great tension within rural communities throughout the South is this: The residents want greater economic opportunity without sacrificing the distinctly rural nature of their communities.”

Also, Louisiana itself may not be where many had hoped it would be by now for many reasons, he says. “Some of them are self-imposed and some reasons are historical or natural. You can’t endure what Louisiana endured in those hurricanes and expect to make giant leaps forward. On the other hand, I think Louisiana is in a very exciting time when great progress is possible. There seem to be more people here who are aware of the challenges and have a sense of what needs to happen, and a sense that it will happen together or not at all.”

CAREER LADDER

Jim Clinton’s professional experience:

1999-2008: Executive director, Southern Growth Policies Board

1999-2003: Director, Southern Technology Council

1988-99: President, Louisiana Partnership for Technology & Innovation

1983-88: President, Gulf South Research Institute

1982-83: Vice president/general manager, Gulf South Research Institute

1980-82: Director of administration, Gulf South Research Institute

1973-80: Assistant commissioner of administration, state of Louisiana

1976-77: Manager, Louisiana Superdome

1973-76: Director, Contractual Review, state of Louisiana

WHAT IS CAP?

History: Founded in April 2003, the Rapides Foundation named a nine-member committee that laid the groundwork for the Cenla Advantage Partnership. The foundation made a three-year, $1.5 million commitment to CAP to be used as matching funds for private investment. In 2005, an 18-member board of directors was named and work started on organizing CAP.

2008-09 vision: Create a system that produces a qualified workforce to meet the needs of Central Louisiana Organizations; 10% increase in employment from the 2005 baseline; raise income level to the national average indexed for the regional cost of living; and be the catalyst for effective, positive relationships among economic development organizations in central Louisiana.

Parishes served: Allen, Avoyelles, Catahoula, Concordia, Grant, LaSalle, Natchitoches, Rapides, Sabine, Vernon and Winn