PIEDMONT TRIAD - The Piedmont Triad Partnership (PTP) has announced that it will lead a new regional initiative to position the Piedmont Triad as the global logistics center of the United States East Coast.  This new initiative will combine two existing initiatives—the Global Logistics Task Force of the Piedmont Triad Leadership Group and the Logistics and Distribution Roundtable of the Piedmont Triad Partnership.  The Roundtable is part of the PTP’s regional logistics and distribution cluster strategy that is supported by a U. S. Department of Labor Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grant.  The Piedmont Triad Partnership Board of Directors approved the new structure this week, following approval by the Global Logistics Task Force last week.

David Congdon, President and CEO of Old Dominion Freight Line, will chair a new Aerotropolis Leadership Board of approximately twenty-five Piedmont Triad leaders representing key stakeholder groups.  The Leadership Board will oversee committees in the following areas: (i) education and workforce development, (ii) marketing and economic development, (iii) health care and medical logistics, (iv) furnishings logistics, (v) land use and transportation planning, and (vi) general logistics and distribution.  These committees will include many participants already involved in the work of the Global Logistics Task Force chaired by High Point attorney Jim Morgan and the Logistics and Distribution Roundtable chaired by L.B. Clayton, Mid-South Region Vice President at Old Dominion Freight Line.  Morgan and Clayton are both PTP Board members.

“The new Piedmont Triad Partnership Aerotropolis initiative will create a sustainable, long-term platform to support the region’s growing strengths in transportation, distribution and logistics,” says PTP Vice Chairman Morgan, managing Partner of Morgan Herring Morgan Green Rosenblutt & Gill.  “This change will allow the Piedmont Triad Partnership to continue the work catalyzed by the WIRED grant beyond the June 30 termination of the grant,” Morgan added.

PTP President Don Kirkman said the new structure is exactly what the U.S. Department of Labor envisioned when it created the WIRED grant program—aligning economic development and workforce development efforts at the regional level to support long-term economic development built on a region’s unique competencies.  “I am grateful for the active participation and support of so many Piedmont Triad leaders over the last three years as we have worked to leverage the Piedmont Triad’s unique concentration of transportation, distribution, and logistics assets—including our Mid-Atlantic location, five Interstate highways, numerous world-class logistics providers and the new FedEx Mid-Atlantic hub—to position the region as a leading East Coast logistics center.  I particularly appreciate the time that Jim Morgan, David Congdon, and L.B. Clayton have dedicated to the design of this exciting new initiative,” Kirkman stated.

Old Dominion Freight Line CEO Congdon, who has chaired the Government and Land Use Subcommittee of the Logistics and Distribution Roundtable, is the principal architect of the new Aerotropolis initiative structure, which he sees as a critical next step in the transformation of the Piedmont Triad economy.  “The Piedmont Triad Partnership commissioned Dr. Jack Kasarda, a UNC Chapel Hill professor and an international authority on global logistics and ‘airport cities,’ to study the potential of a logistics-based economy in the Piedmont Triad, and he was of the strong belief that transportation, distribution, and logistics represent the unique selling proposition of the Piedmont Triad.  One of the advantages of this regional competency is that it will support new employment across the entire 12-county region in the very high-skilled, high-wage jobs we are recruiting in bio-pharma, electronics, medical instruments, and perishable products because they are all shipped primarily by air,” Congdon said.

The new Aerotropolis Leadership Board and committee structure should be finalized by June 30.  Staffing for the new initiative, which will be under the oversight of the Piedmont Triad Partnership Board of Directors, will be provided by the PTP.

The Piedmont Triad Partnership (PTP), one of seven regional economic development partnerships in North Carolina, is the economic development organization representing the 12-county Piedmont Triad region. The PTP is the lead organization for the U.S. Department of Labor-funded Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) initiative, which supports the development of an integrated regional economic development and workforce development strategy for the Piedmont Triad. The Piedmont Triad, the nation's 37th-largest metro region with more than 1.5 million residents, includes the counties of Alamance, Caswell, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Montgomery, Randolph, Rockingham, Stokes, Surry, and Yadkin.