Lift Up & Lead

Economic development is about collaboration and partnerships. As demonstrated often over the last couple of years, a public/private partnership has the ability to act swiftly to meet the evolving needs of our community. As equal opportunity and access is at the core of what we do, partnering with our community based organizations is an essential component of our programs.

1. A challenging economy, competition for jobs, and capital investment
2. Uncertain workforce availability
3. Challenging environment for business growth

To Address These Challenges We Need to Have Interconnected Goals:

1. Strengthen Business Climate and Quality of Place to create a more vibrant community with capital investment. To attract new residents and tourists. (We address these through: Advocacy, Administering Redmond’s New Tourism Promotion Area, Affordable Housing Focus and Light Rail/Transportation, Development of Cultural Arts and Science Center Campaign)
2. Attract and Retain Talent so employers can find and keep the talent they want and need and to improve the area’s workforce quality, quantity, and alignment. (We address these through: Industry and Education Connections and sector roundtables, OneEastside Job Resources and Job Board, and collaborative workforce development projects)
3. Grow Jobs and Investment in our communities to create an economically diverse and resilient economy bring new jobs with new and expanding businesses. (We do this through our partnership with the Cities of Bellevue and Kirkland through the Innovation Triangle brand, Industry Cluster Economic Development like Redmond Space District brand, and Washington Interactive Network, etc.)

Regional Collaboration: When we collaborate in our economic development activities, we are stronger and more competitive in the world economy.

Improve Equality of Access and Opportunity: Leverage our existing strength with our nationally recognized program, OneEastside SPARK, to continue the collaboration across 23 cities in towns across East King County in partnership with Community Based Organization, City Economic Development Staff and Chambers of Commerce on economic development activities.

Nurture and Innovative Economy: Advocating for a business climate that supports innovation is critical to our economic resiliency.

Pursue objectives goals and report results: What gets measured gets managed and target outputs and outcomes will be identified to track progress.

If you are a leader who is looking to influence the future of our region and would like to learn more. Contact Kristina Hudson.