President’s Message: January, 2022
Mark Eagan, President & CEO
As we begin 2022, we also mark the one-year anniversary of the Center for Economic Growth’s affiliation with the Capital Region Chamber. Between now and then, we’ve seen the affiliation take both organization’s economic growth efforts to the next level. For example, through our new five-year shared Strategic Plan, CEG and the Chamber will work to “Cultivate shared economic prosperity by helping develop, grow, and attract businesses that invest in the region and create jobs.” People/workforce development is another strategic priority with the goal of developing and supporting “a robust and equitable talent/workforce ecosystem.”
CEG’s accomplishments through a challenging 2021 are noteworthy. CEG worked with 23 expansion and attraction prospects last year, leading to a robust pipeline for 2022. Project highlights include offshore wind developments at the Port of Albany and Port of Coeymans that will lead to 650 jobs and more than $350 million in new capital investment. CEG’s Business Growth Solutions team assisted 44 regional manufacturers with growth and productivity projects resulting in more than $47 million of economic impact. Through the Key Bank Boost and Build program, CEG assisted 450 MWBE entrepreneurs. CEG worked with 15 area manufacturing and IT companies to onboard apprentices during the past year and helped launch a new program in brewing and distilling. CEG also launched the CapNY brand and talent attraction campaign as well as the GameOn NY brand and website to market the region’s gaming cluster.
We have an optimistic outlook for 2022, with CEG having 12 active prospects with potential for more than 1,000 jobs and $1 billion in capital investment. Workforce availability will continue to be a challenge in 2022, but as of November the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metro area was doing the fifth best job among mid-sized Northeast metros of retaining its labor force, when compared to the 2019, pre-COVID level. We will certainly be testing our CapNY motto, and in 2022 it will ring true: in the Capital Region we are CAPable of aNYthing. #GoCapNY.
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