The Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) has released the report of an expert Economic Advisory Panel to develop a consensus strategy to grow the economy of the County. The report, entitled “Connecting the Dots: Accelerating Economic Growth in Montgomery County,” offers an action plan of the immediate steps necessary to transform the County’s economic climate into the top tier nationally.
The 20-member panel was led by Norman Augustine, retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, and DeRionne Pollard, nationally recognized education leader and former Montgomery College president. Their charge was to analyze years of economic development recommendations, find common themes and realign for actionable results. The panel offered priorities and actions that can successfully find public and private consensus.
In the report, the panel offered 20 recommendations with 33 implementing actions. The following 10 recommendations were identified as holding the highest priority:
- Greatly increase additional laboratory infrastructure with private developers to accommodate the critical demand surge of recent life sciences growth with an additional two million square feet of laboratory space.
- Create a global pandemic prevention and biodefense center in the County to leverage existing local strengths and further advance the stature of international leadership.
- Establish an incubator or accelerator for hospitality tech startups to expand and support the connected networks of local national hospitality headquarters.
- Create a quantum-ready workforce, a Greater Washington regional quantum innovation cluster and a quantum computing curriculum in local education and academic institutions to build an early lead in national quantum business development.
- Prepare an economic development plan for the Purple Line Corridor to strengthen direct linkages with the University of Maryland-College Park.
- Establish a $1 million public-private entrepreneurship innovation center to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem and startup formation.
- Reform the Montgomery County business incubator network to better support local incubator companies and greater entrepreneurship.
- Launch a $1 million Montgomery County Marketing Partnership Initiative to rebrand economic development.
- Benchmark a culture of superior customer service and responsiveness to business using private sector customer experience experts to measure support and identify specific areas needing attention.
- Create a Montgomery County Competitiveness Council of public members to identify long-term economic competitiveness issues and monitor progress in their resolution.
The County’s economic development efforts is powered by MCEDC, the official public-private economic development organization representing the County. It was founded in 2016.
“MCEDC is grateful to the Economic Advisory Panel, especially our co-chairs, for their commitment to Montgomery County’s future, along with their vision and expertise,” said MCEDC Board Chair Robert G. Brewer, Jr. “Connecting the Dots is the next step in our competitiveness and growth for long term economic success.”
