NOTEWORTHY
TIP Strategies continues to grow our talented staff – in the past year we have hired six people. We hope you’ll join us in welcoming our three newest personnel:
JIM ROBERTS joins TIP as a senior consultant for entrepreneurship. He was the Founding Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council (BREC), an initiative of AdvantageWest. BREC educates entrepreneurs, creates mentoring and networking opportunities, and helps with capital formation and preparation. Jim also started and ran the Blue Ridge Angel Investors Network (BRAIN). BRAIN clients raised over $10 million, since March 2003, from local and regional angel investors.
Prior to moving to Asheville, Jim ran a successful company called FirstRound based in Charlotte, N.C. FirstRound, literally created with a $115 investment, held events for entrepreneurs in five different cities in the Carolinas. By the age of 30, Jim was named one of the
regions 40 most influential people under the age of 40 by the Charlotte Business Journal. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Advertising from the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida.
CAROLINE ALEXANDER, a consultant with TIP, has over
eight years of experience in the private and non-profit sectors in the fields of management consulting, small business development, and public and corporate finance. She specializes in research and analysis including benchmarking, cost modeling, and cost-benefit analysis as well as statistical analysis and econometric modeling.
Prior to joining TIP, she worked with MGT of America, Inc, a public sector consulting firm. Ms. Alexander’s other experience includes small business development as well as corporate and public finance. With ACCION Texas, a non-profit micro-lender, she aided numerous low-income microentrepreneurs in strengthening and growing their businesses. Prior to ACCION, she worked as a financial analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston in New York.
She holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with an international studies concentration from Davidson College in North Carolina. She also serves as Vice President for the Board of Directors of the Financial Literacy Coalition of Central Texas, a non-profit organization that provides basic financial education to youth groups, community groups, and at workplaces in Central Texas.
GEORGETTE NUGENT joined TIP Strategies in December as administrative assistant. Prior to starting at TIP, Ms. Nugent was the administrative assistant for the Regional Planning and Information Services Department at the Capital Area Council of Governments. She was also the operations manager for an online record store and the director’s assistant for an independent film company. She currently teaches yoga at a local studio in Austin.
Ms. Nugent has a degree in Film and Video from the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta, GA.
PROJECT ROUND-UP
TIP Strategies has an excellent reputation. Over 50% of our clients are repeat business
or come from direct referral. We work across the country to help
developers, communities, regions, and states build on
their assets, challenge old ways of thinking, and encourage viable options for sustainable economic success.
Just look at what we're working on now...
The Congressionally founded Delta Regional Authority (DRA) serves as a regional economic development coordinator for 240 counties and parishes throughout eight states in the Mississippi River Delta,
has hired TIP Strategies
to create a Regional
Development Plan for the
agency. With our partner on the project – Taimerica Management Company – TIP is developing a plan that includes large-scale initiatives designed to address regional challenges, as well as locally-focused tools to bolster community efforts. Emphasis within the plan is being given to designing policies, systems, and measures that enable DRA’s programs to stimulate additional private investment. As part of our stakeholder input process, the TIP team has traveled to all eight states in the Delta region to meet with state and local economic development officials about the project. The final plan will be completed in June 2007.
TIP is partnering with Broaddus and Associates to develop a Downtown Master Plan for the
City of San Marcos, Texas. Our team will examine the market potentials of the downtown; understand how the downtown can and should fit in the overall city economy; and how to further leverage Texas State University and improve the linkages between the “town and gown”. San Marcos has tremendous opportunities with their downtown. Already, one IT start-up company has moved from the university into downtown, and the city and county have a significant amount of vacant and underutilized land near
a planned Austin-San Antonio Commuter Rail station.
The Clarksville-Montgomery County Industrial Development Board hired TIP Strategies to perform a workforce availability study for the community and surrounding region. The objectives of the study are to investigate and document the demographics, qualities, and availabilities of the area work force. In addition, the TIP team is designing and conducting an inventory of the region’s military-related workforce (soldiers, spouses, and retirees) to document the unique characteristics associated with having a military installation – Fort Campbell – adjacent to the community.
Located in western South Carolina along the shores of Lake Thurmond and the Georgia border,
McCormick County is South Carolina’s least populated county, as well as one of its best-kept secrets. Through a Rural Infrastructure grant funded by the South Carolina Department of Commerce, the TIP team is assisting McCormick County to design a blueprint to guide its economic development efforts. The plan will focus on the identification of short- and long-term economic development opportunities for McCormick County, including manufacturing, retail, tourism, entrepreneurship, and retirement communities. The plan is scheduled for completion in March 2007.
TIP Strategies has recently completed an economic development strategic plan for Union County, Arkansas. Exciting news surfaced from the community a few weeks ago when hometown Fortune 500 Company Murphy Oil Corporation announced a $50 million scholarship fund called the
El Dorado Promise. Under the program, graduates of El Dorado High School receive a tuition scholarship that can be used at any accredited public or private university or community college, in Arkansas or out of state. The announcement had students, teachers, and parents jumping for joy and shedding a few tears. Congratulations to the community and kudos to the Murphy Oil Corporation for taking such a progressive and impressive step in investing in their community.
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
TIP staff members regularly present to economic development organizations, communities and at national and
international conferences on a host of issues surrounding economic development. Please contact
Catherine Turissini if you would like to have TIP Strategies as
part of your next event.
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TIP Strategies is sponsoring the opening reception for the Texas Economic Development Council’s Winter Meeting & Legislative Day on February 14th. Don’t have plans with your honey for Valentine’s Day? Come spend the evening with TIP! The next day,
Jeff Erramouspe is presenting
“Job Growth Through Innovation - An Entrepreneur's View of Economic Development” at 3 p.m. at the Sheraton Austin Hotel. View the
agenda.
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TIP Strategies is a sponsor of
InnoVenture, an innovation and venture capital conference focused on the Southeast held March 27-28, in Greenville, S.C.
Jim Roberts will be hosting a series of sessions on angel investing during the conference.
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Sean Garretson, AICP will attend the
SmartCode Workshop hosted by John Norquist and Andres Duany, March 29-31, in Austin.
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WHAT WE'RE READING @ TIP
The staff at TIP Strategies often has spur of the moment conversations about what we're reading. Here are a few of our
latest recommended reads:
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Sir Ken Robinson is author of
Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. In
this talk, he makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it (Recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA).
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The
San Francisco Chronicle’s recent article,
Scholars to consider the shrinking of
cities, by Rick DelVecchio caught our eye. Last week, scholars gathered at UC Berkeley to discuss the trend of cities that are decreasing in size for various
reasons. Not just a problem on the home front, cities across the globe are struggling to address how to deal with decreasing populations in creative ways.
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www.slate.com – Recently, TIP spent some time at a staff meeting listing what we read on a regular basis – obviously
The New York Times,
Washington Post,
Wall Street Journal, and
The Economist were at the top of many of our lists. Then Jeff stated that he reads Slate.com daily and particularly the
Today’s Papers feature, a digest of articles from major U.S. newspapers. As media continues to morph in the way it is received, it makes perfect sense to us for a digest of articles from various sources to be packaged together.
Any recommendations for us? Send your favorite articles, books, podcasts, blogs, or videos to
TIP Strategies.
