Panel recommends continued public funding of job-creation organization

A City Council-appointed advisory committee Tuesday recommended to a council committee that the city and Bexar County continue funding the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation as they have the past five years.

Other recommendations included sharpening the public relations images to attract more business investment, having the foundation coordinate its new job-creation plan with other organizations that conduct economic development activities, and taking a more regional approach, such as working with Austin.

The seven-member committee, led by co-chairs Wayne Peacock, a USAA executive and now SAEDF chairman, and David Zachry of Zachry Corp., is the same panel that was organized in 2009 by then-Mayor Phil Hardberger to develop proposals to strengthen the city’s job-creation efforts.

The committee in 2009 recommended that the city and county help fund SAEDF along with private-sector companies, and that the foundation add retention and expansion of existing companies to its initial role of attracting new, outside business investments.

The committee was reconvened early this year by City Councilman Joe Krier, chairman of the council’s five-member Economic and Human Development Committee, to assess SAEDF’s performance over the past five years since receiving public funding.

The Peacock/Zachry committee’s main finding Tuesday was that the 41-year-old foundation had met or exceeded its goals the past five years.

Among the Peacock/Zachry committee’s nine recommendations was to strengthen the private sector on the foundation’s leadership team. That already occurred in September when the foundation added two private-sector representatives to its executive committee, raising the membership to 15, Peacock said.

The new members are Medtronic executive Jeff Ruiz, representing health care, and Denim Group executive John Dickson, representing information technology and security.

Peacock and Zachry told Krier they think assessments of SAEDF should be held more frequently than every five years; they should occur annually to coincide with the city’s annual review of its funding of SAEDF.

After the presentation, Peacock said he wants SAEDF to better reflect the goals of a new job-creation plan recently prepared for the city by Deloitte Consulting.

“We want one message, many voices, to tell the city’s message,” he said.

Another ongoing challenge is for the foundation to guide more than 20 other area organizations, such as chambers of commerce, to follow various goals in the Deloitte plan, and another strategy for foreign investments and exports written with the help of Washington’s Brookings Institution.

The foundation needs teams of industry leaders that can meet with companies looking to expand or relocate to convince them San Antonio is the right place for them, Zachry said.

The foundation should work more closely with other cities in San Antonio’s region, such as Austin, Peacock and Zachry said. Krier said cooperation would include working on projects such as the proposed Lone Star Rail passenger train project.

The foundation will be looking to replace President Mario Hernandez, who announced on Nov. 19 he will retire next June. Hernandez has been foundation president for 25 years.

dhendricks@express-news.net

Past coverage: Hernandez announces his retirement