Economic Insider — April 10, 2009

Director's Focus
Positive Signs for Our Economy

The Economic Progress Alliance, in cooperation with other economic development organizations and authorities in Crawford County, continues to meet with and learn from area businesses in an effort to support their retention and growth in the county. This year we have targeted 250 businesses and we are well on our way to meeting that goal.

As you might imagine, unfortunately, many production related firms and others are reporting weak backlogs and reductions in workforce. While unemployment in Crawford County now exceeds that experienced during the 2000-2001 downturn, our sense is that businesses and the community at large are better positioned to recover than in years passed. Rather than mass layoffs from many firms suffering from the lack of customer diversity (i.e. automotive), we seem to be experiencing more across the board reductions in workforce as a result of overall national and global economic decline.

While it is expected that unemployment in the county will continue to rise in the next few months, area manufacturers, tool and die shops, and others have made great strides in diversifying their respective customer bases, which should prove beneficial in accelerating local economic recovery. The vast majority of businesses we have interviewed have made the difficult structural changes necessary to position themselves for long term success.

We are indeed most fortunate to be able to appropriately characterize our economy as dominated by small, agile enterprises that have in large part operated within their means, without accumulating significant debt. While we in the economic development business are often desirous of landing that one large operation or mega project, it is times like these that we should appreciate the diversity and strength of a community built on small business, and entrepreneurial vision and commitment.

It is not possible to predict or sometimes even influence when economic recovery will occur, but it is very encouraging to see the quality of business leadership in our community and to know, that as a result, we are so well positioned for economic recovery.

Until next time...

Mark Turner

NW Commission Business of the Year

A Crawford County Company has been named the 2008 Business of the Year by the Northwest Commission. Optical Filters USA, LLC of Meadville received the award at the Commission's Annual Dinner held last week. Optical Filters, a family-owned business based in the United Kingdom, was established in 1988 and is today a world leader in the design and manufacture of EMI-shielded and contrast enhancement windows.

Deciding to expand into North America, the company established its first U.S. based high-tech manufacturing facility in Meadville in 2004. Opening in July of that year with three employees, one administrative and two production workers, they grew quickly and added eight more employees before the end of the year. Today, they have 35 employees, the latest additions being five young graduates from northwest Pennsylvania colleges. From 2007 to 2008, the company had a 65% growth rate and are still at the same pace.

Michael Dent, president of Optical Filters USA, in accepting the award on behalf of the company noted that "it was no accident that Meadville was chosen" for the location of their facility. Their decision was based foremost on the "high quality human resource of northwest Pennsylvania" supplemented by "low fixed infrastructure costs, excellent communications by road and air, and quality support from the region's development agencies."

Acknowledging the current difficult and challenging times everyone is experiencing, Optical Filters is very optimistic and committed to the future. "My wife, Clare, our daughter and Group CEO Nicola Fisher, and the Optical Filters family are proud to belong to this community. We will do our very best to be a wealth creator, and provider of employment and opportunity for northwest Pennsylvania."

Tech Company Receives Alliance Funding Assistance

Dynasty Software, LLC, a division of Wood Technologies of Meadville, was recently awarded funding assistance through the Alliance Revolving Loan Fund in the amount of $25,000 for working capital . The award will be used to hire an additional programmer to keep up with demand for the Dynasty software. The only surgical instrument data validation tool in the healthcare industry, it provides hospitals the ability to easily organize, modify and verify all surgical equipment and tray inventories prior to importing their instrument information into their instrument tracking software.

Dynasty was designed and created in 2007 by Sheila Wood, owner of Wood Technologies, and is solely owned and copyrighted by the company. The software was as a result of their long standing professional relationship with Steris Corporation as the only Authorized Steris Implementer of their Censitrac Instrument Management System. While implementing the Censitrac system, Wood noted a missing link and set about developing the program to solve the issue.

Currently, Dynasty is a client-based application which needs to be installed on individual computers which can raise challenges with the hospital's network security, require additional programs on every computer, and limit reporting capabilities. For that reason, Wood Technologies is working to take it to the next step as a web application which will eliminate the possible issues of a single user product and help standardize and streamline data and accessibility.

Sheila Wood established Wood Technologies in 1996 to provide consulting, training, programming and software implementation services to small and medium-sized manufacturing companies. Starting with local firms, she grew rapidly and expanded her client base to the east coast and into Canada, and going nationwide soon thereafter.

Wood's connection with Steris Corporation in 2006 presented the opportunity to diversify and expand even further. Today, Wood Technologies maintains a large client base of manufacturing and healthcare companies nationwide. The Dynasty software and the partnership with Steris Corporation offers a great opportunity to expand into the international market.

Chamber Breakfast of Champions

The Meadville Area Chamber of Commerce's April Breakfast of Champions will be held at 7:30 a.m., Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at Chovy's Italian Casual, 18228 Conneaut Lake Road. Commissioner Morris Waid will be on hand to address "The State of Crawford County."

Commissioner Waid will give insight on the challenges Crawford and all the other counties in the northwest region are facing with mandated programs and the current economic situation. Regional initiatives regarding water and sewer projects will be addressed along with future economic development for the county. Jack Lynch, County Planning Director, will join Commissioner Waid to discuss development at the Port Meadville Airport and future operation plans.

Reservations for the event is $16 for Chamber members and $18 for non-members. Contact the Chamber to make reservations by email or by calling 814-337-8030.

CareerLink Career Fair

The Pennsylvania CareerLink Crawford County will be hosting the 2009 Career Fair Career Exploration event on Thursday, April 23rd. at the Downtown Mall from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Many available job seekers are expected to be attending this event in light of the current economy.

Any employer wishing to register and reserve table space should contact the Clotilde Anderson at the CareerLink, 814-337-5574. Registration is $50 per table and includes two lunches. Reservations are due by Thursday, April 16th.