North Coast Targets of Opportunity
On February 16, 2007, John Melville presented his research findings indentifying targets of opportunity for economic development on the North Coast. His audience on the HSU campus consisted of staff, faculty, career counselors, current students, and recent graduates.
John Melville of Collaborative Economics (Mountain View) is the consultant to the State of California Economic Strategy Panel. He developed an approach to looking at regional economies that combines the interests of economic development (base industry clusters) and workforce development (current labor market demand and career ladders). He uses several sets of data from EDD and a proprietary database on new firm creation to look at growth indicators in 5 criteria to determine an emerging and promising industry:
- Increasing jobs
- Increasing job quality (wages)
- Increasing or steady concentration vs. CA
- Increasing firm growth
- Market connection
The California Economic Strategy Panel conducted a preliminary study of regional economies across California. We found the approach used by Collaborative Economics to be compelling. The Humboldt County Workforce Investment Board, along with Redwood Coast Rural Action, defined the region that makes most sense as our regional economy: Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte, and western Siskiyou and Trinity counties.
The Targets of Opportunity report for our North Coast region identifies 6 emerging industries that together depict a radical restructuring of our economy over the last 15 years. The Targets represent 53% of the total private sector wages in the region. They grew 39% in the period (compared to overall 1.5% growth). Their wages are higher than the regional average entry level and the regional median.
From this research, we hope to learn how the university, HSU students, and HSU faculty will benefit from and play a role in new economic development strategies for the North Coast region.