By Chris Serio Martin, Truth Staff
cmartin@etruth.com
ELKHART - The sheer pace at which the people of Elkhart County lost jobs and shuttered their businesses has left the community asking what can be done to save this area.
There are few jobs for the unemployed. Credit for businesses has dried up.
The fundamental question may not be whether the recreational vehicle industry will rebound, but if it does, will it provide enough jobs at similar pay to put all these people back to work? All the social service help and financial assistance in the world will not be relevant in the long run if job opportunities do not return.
Can Elkhart County save itself?
"It's going to take time," said William P. Johnson, chairman of the Horizon Project.
In 2002, dozens of community leaders and thinkers founded a think tank to create a long-term vision for the future of Elkhart County and named it the Horizon Project.
While the Horizon Project was almost prophetic about the structure of life and work in Elkhart County, even its chairman could not have anticipated the rapid decimation of the local economy.
"I thought it was going to happen, but I didn't know it would happen like this," Johnson said.
A model of entrepreneurial spirit, Johnson ran Goshen Rubber for more than 30 years and is active in several business and civic groups.
The Horizon Project offers a vision of how the county can change and thrive, not just survive.
Before the last year of economic decline, jobs made Elkhart County hum. From 1985 through 2007, the unemployment rate averaged 4.36 percent, well below the national average, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
Today, with unemployment far above the national average and many local businesses struggling or closing their doors, the time has come to take an honest assessment of this community.
"You have to accept the facts as they are," Johnson said.
Laura Coyne, community development coordinator and a member of the Horizon Project team, is optimistic. She points out that many people are applying for government stimulus money, sharing ideas and debating what changes would be best.
"We are being motivated by fear," and that is creating new energy and relationships, she said.
Coyne is not naive. Her husband, David, a manufacturing design engineer, has been laid off.
"This is personal," she said.
It's personal for a lot of people.
"We suddenly find ourselves in a situation where we're not distracted by our success" and a false sense of sustainability, Coyne said. "That clarity of vision is giving us the opportunity to be really honest about who we are and our need for planning for our future as individuals and as a community."
Johnson and Coyne say a review of the Horizon Project may be a logical place to start.
This county possesses an entrepreneurial spirit, experienced business leaders, and a ready and willing work force, all valuable assets to a community as it looks to the future.
While Johnson said he believes our government leaders are working hard, he said it is their responsibility to bring about the necessary changes.
Can that happen?
Yes, he said, especially in light of external events occurring now.
People will turn to the government for help and for answers, he said. "They will demand and start to ask for change."
A skilled work force
On the surface, Elkhart County showed signs of growth: an increasing number of manufacturers and suppliers, low unemployment, new housing developments, population growth and new restaurants and stores.
People were working and making money. The problem?
"We created jobs," Johnson said, but we didn't attract more highly skilled workers or improve per-capita income.
For every good-paying job on an assembly line, he said, there were many more low-paying support jobs created to supply the manufacturers, such as companies selling glass, tables and plumbing fixtures. "Elkhart County became a place where you could get low-skilled labor," Johnson said.
Timothy Slaper, director of economic analysis at the Indiana Business Research Center, Indiana University, reported that Indiana's average earnings per job and personal income per capita in recent years were indeed below national and Midwestern averages.
According to the Horizon Project, Elkhart's per-capita income increased 58 percent between 1970 and 2000, compared to a national increase of 88 percent.
A community's standard of living is associated with per-capita income, according to Jeffrey Bergstrand, professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame.
"Just as families try to raise their family income to afford more goods and services and raise their standard of living, the same holds for communities," he said. "Higher-skilled jobs tend to be associated with higher incomes."
"When an economy is operating at full employment, higher-skilled jobs tend to raise per-capita incomes (without any change in jobs)," he said. "A fall in the number of jobs, such as Elkhart is experiencing, will lower per-capita income."
Low-cost labor abroad puts Elkhart County at a distinct disadvantage in a global economy. A worker hammering a nail abroad is more affordable than a worker doing the same thing in Elkhart County.
"Globalization is here to stay," Johnson said. He added that he does not believe the government can protect jobs by putting in protectionist trade policies.
"We are either going to compete or not compete," he said.
How?
Through education and training, he said.
Education
"We have made some major moves in higher education," Johnson acknowledged.
Adults now have many local choices for continuing education, including Goshen College, Indiana University South Bend's Elkhart campus and Ivy Tech.
But Johnson said few high-level jobs are available locally to keep college graduates living and working in Elkhart County, leading to a brain drain.
Elkhart County struggles with its preschool through grade 12 education, Johnson said. Certainly, educators have been trying to improve local public schools, "But we haven't made much of an impact."
"We've got to find ways to educate kids in a public school environment," Johnson said. "If we can't educate our kids, we're not going to be able to bring in those knowledge jobs necessary to raise our standard of living."
In many parts of the U.S., the technological changes and growth during the past few decades were phenomenal.
But here, the increasing labor demands of business did not require an increase in skilled labor.
Combine that with the arrival of big-box retailers, "which destroyed our downtown businesses," Johnson said. It all weakens a community's foundation and limits its ability to attract workers and their business.
What do Johnson and Coyne think is the best way to attract high-tech companies and skilled workers?
Create a place people want to live and to work.
Beauty = growth
Attractiveness is about more than looks. We are a community of innovators and hard workers, but perhaps it is time to consider more carefully what it is we build.
"New knowledge jobs will only come to attractive, vibrant towns," Johnson said.
It's no secret that urban sprawl and planned development remain problems in Elkhart County.
"Nobody wants to be told what can or cannot be done with their land," Johnson said. "We lost total control of land use."
In recent decades, "Our population grew extraordinarily fast," and stressed schools, housing and cities, Johnson said. "Eventually, that all comes full circle."
The community had difficulties meeting the educational, medical and housing needs of a rapidly changing demographic.
Proper expansion and planning is possible, as proved by other communities, Johnson said.
Perhaps now is the time to consider the best use of land as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal stimulus package, provides opportunities for new infrastructure and land-use projects.
A lot of people are reading the fine print of the stimulus package, Coyne said. Groups from social service agencies to county and city bodies are applying for money.
Coyne and Johnson agree that future planning should include the green and recreational space and cultural opportunities to attract companies and workers.
Coyne cautioned that planning efforts should include the future leaders of the county, those in their 20s and 30s. Elkhart County already offers community access to affordable living and workspace and continuing education. What kind of lifestyle do young people want? Coyne asked.
When considering the next generation, often "we see little clones of ourselves," she said. It's a mistake to plan and build for the future without their input.
Capital ideas
If the government provides infrastructure, we'll become a place "where private investors and entrepreneurs can thrive," Johnson said.
Governments do not create jobs, Johnson insists. The duty of government is to develop the infrastructure necessary to create jobs.
"Jobs can only be created in the private sector," he said.
Johnson encourages local government to attract capital-intensive industries, such as companies that develop or use new technologies. These companies employ higher-skilled workers and pay higher-than-average wages, which increases the per-capita income of a community. A community with higher per- capita income has a better chance of success in a global market.
With an increasing rate of change in the business world and the availability of cheap labor abroad, local companies and workers have to be more flexible and adaptive. That flexible work force comes with better education and diverse skills and abilities.
Coyne made it a point to clarify the difference between the employee issue and the employer issue.
"The work force can go anywhere," she said. "They'll go not only where there's work, but where they're welcome."
Workforce Development provides nuts-and-bolts support for those who've lost their jobs. Coyne said it's trying to train people for more sustainable employment. Some retrained workers find themselves on a professional track for the first time in their lives, she said.
If we don't attract new capital-intensive industries and encourage local businesses, "these (newly) well-trained motivated workers will have to leave," she said.
Johnson said if the area is able to provide good jobs for educated graduates and highly skilled workers, they will stay here and the brain drain will diminish.
It's already happening in northern Indiana. Less than 40 miles south, Warsaw -- "The Orthopedic Capital of the World" -- is home to three of the industry's five largest producers of artificial joints and related surgical instruments. Zimmer Holdings Inc. recently received tax credits and property tax abatements to create nearly 100 jobs. This company is hiring engineers, supervisors and machine operators.