IEEP’s major source of leadership and funding must come from the business council as any effort to raise the region’s prosperity must involve private sector job creation. Three fundamental approaches will be undertaken:
Sector Strategies
The Inland Empire has competitive advantages for specific sectors that can have the greatest opportunity to create local jobs. Working with business partners in those areas, the IEEP will develop and execute strategies to expand job creation and remove obstacles to their success. Specific opportunities have already been identified in the logistics, health care, mining, housing, defense, manufacturing, medical technology and geographic information systems.
Business Voice
Through the Inland Empire Business Council, the region’s executives and entrepreneurs can become a force in the Inland Empire’s community decision-making by developing a common set of competitiveness principles regardless of the sector impacted that they want addressed to enhance the region’s job creating abilities. With those in hand, a strategy will be developed and executed to bring the full weight of the entire business sector to bear on turning those principles into reality.
Expansion
For executives and entrepreneurs to move from being a latent to a serious presence in the Inland Empire’s economic decision making, the Inland Empire Business Council must grow to include every major private entity with an interest in competitiveness and job creation. That will allow the organization to bring serious pressure to bear on issues and institutions inhibiting the region’s prosperity.
Inland Empire Education Council
With 47% of the Inland Empire’s adults having a high school or less schooling, and local students performing below par, the area’s long-term prosperity remains in jeopardy. The Inland Empire Education Council has been organized to address this issue by harnessing the talents of the region’s most successful public and private sector educational and workforce entrepreneurs. The aim is to uncover why they have been successful, develop strategies based on their ideas and bring the full weight of the IEEP network to bear on getting them integrated into the region’s K-16 public and private schools and workforce programs. The effort will work in cooperation with the education-based Federation for A Competitive Economy (FACE) as well as parental, ethnic, religious, labor and business groups.
Inland Empire Logistics Council
The logistics industry is one of the Inland Empire’s most powerful job creators due to the region’s competitive advantages for the sector. The firms are of particular importance to the area as they offer skill ladders which allow modestly educated workers to reach the middle class. The sector is also one of the least understood parts of our economy by the public and most political leaders. Importantly, logistics firms are under increasing attack by California’s regulatory agencies. Given the Inland Empire Economic Partnership’s (IEEP) commitment to raising the prosperity of the two inland counties, the organization wants to ensure that the strong growth of logistics continues within the region. For that reason, IEEP proposes to work with the various elements of the sector to foster the creation of the Inland Empire Logistics Coalition (IELC).
Healthcare Council
The Inland Empire Health Council prioritizes and focuses on influencing policy and programs that improve health outcomes and reduce overall costs for employers and employees in our region. The Health Council seeks to promote systematic reform that will increase efficiency, decrease the overall cost of health care, promote innovation in treatment and care, develop and advise on workforce pathway programs, as well as promote wellness and prevention to reduce long-term costs and increase employee productivity. The council has identified three key areas of focus: Coverage, Population Health and Workforce.