Woods:
This is KRCU’s Going Public. I'm Dan Woods. We’re talking today with Shad Burner. He's the CEO of SEMO REDI, that's the Southeast Missouri Regional Economic Development, Inc., and he was appointed CEO August 1. He's here with us to tell us about the organization, how he got to be CEO, and some of the plans for the future. Shad, good to see you.
Burner:
Yeah, Dan, good to see you, as well.
Woods:
Alright, so first of all, I guess, tell us a little bit about your background. Some folks who may not know you, and how you came to be at SEMO REDI.
Burner:
Sure, and I'll try to keep this brief, right. So, I grew up in the Bootheel. I’ve been in Cape for 20 years now. I worked at the University for a while. I got into economic development at the Cape Chamber, where I was Vice President Business Development. I did that for 3 ½ - 4 years. I left there and worked in the private sector for a little bit, but ultimately landed at the Missouri Department of Economic Development. For about five years, I worked on that team. I oversaw the southeast region and then moved up to the leadership team at the department, where I was put in charge of all the…a bunch of the recovery money that was coming down. I had a pretty large team working for me remotely throughout the state. I it did that for a couple years--a lot of really interesting work, very challenging, and, frankly, I was ready to not be traveling to Jeff City all the time. I left that group and joined Kit Bond Strategies, where one of my primary clients was SEMO REDI. For the last year, I've been helping with the reshaping of that organization as it started to look at adding new partners, other businesses getting involved, getting a strategic plan in place, and the culmination of that was hiring the CEO. And so, at first, I wasn't a candidate for that. I was trying to support that effort. But as it went along, and I saw the potential of the organization, and I saw…and I started to imagine myself not being involved, that's when I started to get interested. I went ahead and put my name forward into that search process, and here we are.
Woods:
Well, tell us, for folks who are listening, what is SEMO REDI? What are the goals of the organization? What do you guys do?
Burner:
Yeah. So, SEMO REDI is formerly known as MAGNET. It's been around for 30ish years, 30 plus years probably. It's going through a rebirth right now. When you think about where we are as a region, and you look at the economic indicators, so…we've had pretty flat population numbers for quite a while, especially when you look at all the Southeast Missouri. There’s very stagnant GDP growth. Some of these big, macro-economic trends makes us really take a step back and say, well, how are we going to impact that positively in the future. Will the same economic development efforts that were working 20-30 years ago work? Probably not. We’ve got to really think about that. So, what we're doing is taking a new approach to it. One of the things that we're really focused on is building out a regional organization. Because what…and I saw this when I was at the state…some parts of the state worked really well together. And when I was there, Southeast Missouri just didn't have a good alignment on those. What you see is the parts of the state that are working really well together do a great job of coming up to Jeff City and getting support from statewide officials and elected leaders. We just didn't have a mechanism to do that. In a variety of ways, we want to build a regional effort where we're rowing in the same direction and working well with our partners. That’s a piece of it, right? So that's one piece. We also…instead of just chasing new businesses, which is historically what economic development was, right? We really think you have to take care of what you have here, more than anything. Because we have, you know, right now, if we had a new business drop into Cape Girardeau, and they needed 1,000 employees. Can you tell me where we're going to find 1000 employees for the employer? They're not out there. They don't exist. What we really want to do is focus on, how we can build better workforce and talent development relationships with places like the university and our private businesses…so we can get involved in that. How can we be sure that the Proctor and Gambles of the world are going to stay here, and that they're going to expand here and grow here? We want to make it really attractive. How can we reduce their overall cost to do business in Southeast Missouri, so that the corporate folks are looking at that saying that's where we should be?
Woods:
And I guess you shouldn't take it for granted that the companies that are here now are going to stay here.
Burner:
Absolutely. I mean that that to me is…we need to be looking at our largest employers. And the rule of thumb is always that 80% of your job growth is going to come from existing employers. If we're not laser focused on helping those employers make it really easy to grow, then we're at risk of losing them, and that's where our job growth will come.
Woods:
So, we talked about some of the things that are happening. What are some challenges that you see with the work that you have to do?
Burner:
Yeah, I mean, none of this is easy, right? If I could go out and create a job, I'd do it tomorrow. But I don't create jobs, right? The public sector doesn't. This organization doesn't do it. What we try to do is create the conditions and support the conditions that make it easier. So, you know, when I think of the challenges, you have all the unexpected economic factors federally, you have state factors coming into play. You're trying to work on the percent that you can work on…
Woods:
And that you can control.
Burner:
That you can control, yeah, yeah. And so, there's just so…so that's all these uncontrollable things that's a factor. You also have, you know, years of when you look at Southeast Missouri, years of population decline. Well, it's a bit of a chicken and egg, right? They're going to leave because they didn't have the right kinds of jobs. You know, where I grew up…I grew up on a farm in the Bootheel. And now, where there were maybe 10 farmers, there's now one. They consolidated all that land into very large farms. Well, what did those families do? I didn't have an avenue in the Bootheel to go work on the farm, necessarily. You think about things like that and how do we reverse some of those trends. These are complicated, complex challenges to tackle that will take everybody. And that's probably the biggest piece…how do we get everyone involved and engaged and rowing in the same direction. That’s, I think, the biggest challenge we have on day one is to continue to get all the business leaders and the community leaders thinking about what are our north star items that we have to be going after every day, working hard to become as a region.
Woods:
So, I always talk challenges, but I always then like to ask about opportunities, too. So, there are opportunities, as well.
Burner:
I think there's huge opportunities. I mean, you know, we have incredible natural assets in our area when you think about some of the most fertile agricultural land in the world. We have an incredible river running right here beside us…good transportation networks. We're in the middle of the country. While we don't have a ton of available workforce, I would put our workforce up against most parts of the world. We have really good work ethic in our region, and just a history of that. We also…you know, when I think about opportunities, the university is an opportunity for us. We have 10,000-ish students here, and a lot of those are coming to Cape Girardeau from outside of the area. So, one of the efforts that I've been working on, and want to continue to work on, is how do we get more of those graduates to stay here, to stay in Southeast Missouri and build life and a family and a career here? Then the last one that I'll hit on is we have a pretty rich history of entrepreneurship in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area. We built…a lot of companies have been built here. I think that when you look at where the economy is going in the future, you're going to see more and more individuals starting businesses and less of them working for big corporations. So, a lot of these trends will likely take place, and I think we're well positioned to take advantage of this history of entrepreneurship, to take advantage of the tools we already have here, like a codefi and like the university that can support this kind of entrepreneurial effort, and then make it a little bit easier for these folks to build the companies, which is one of the hardest things in the world to do, is to start something from scratch and build it, right?
Woods:
Yeah.
Burner:
So, you want to make it as easy as possible to do that for them. So, so I think we're well positioned in a lot of different areas, if we get everybody working toward that and just clear the path as much as possible.
Woods:
So, how do you share the message of Southeast Missouri better and let people…let other folks know what's here, what's available, what opportunities are there for here?
Burner:
Yeah, that's a great question, and I think historically…and maybe this is just culturally who we are, right? We don't do a great job of telling our story in Southeast Missouri. Yeah, I’ve been here my whole life, and I don't…I can't think of any time where we've ever done a really good job of telling what it is like and why we love Southeast Missouri. So, we have five areas that we're focusing on as an organization, and one of those areas is branding and marketing. So, I really think that there's a possibility to get the whole region thinking about…how do we brand and market ourselves as a region? And then the individual communities within that playing their own role within how they brand and market their own community. So, we have to pull all this together. And I, you know, I don't have the…I don't have the exact path for it, but I know we have to be working on it. So as an organization, we will. We're going to find some experts in this to help us, and we're going to do things the right way. So, you know, I'm not an expert in branding and marketing, but I'm going to find somebody who is to help us, whether that's a contract with an outside firm or whatever that looks like as a high priority for us moving forward.
Woods:
We are talking today with Shad Burner, the CEO of SEMO REDI. Shad has a bachelor's degree in mass communication and a master's degree in higher education administration from Southeast Missouri State University. He's a certified economic developer through the International Economic Development Council and served on the board of directors for the Missouri Economic Development Council for approximately 10 years. He's a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education Program.
So, I would imagine you probably partner with city officials and chambers. I mean, who all…in your scope of things that you're looking at…you want everybody to be on the same page to some extent, to make these bigger initiatives move forward, right?
Burner:
Yeah, absolutely. Historically, economic development in this region has been very municipal driven. MAGNET was funded by the Cities of Cape, Jackson, Scott City, and Cape County, you know. And that was…that was the money coming in, and those were the folks making the decisions. SEMO REDI is…more than half of funding is coming from the private sector. What we're looking at is a world where business has a greater influence and say on how we move the community forward, and not only having the opportunity, but actually being engaged in that conversation. So, as we started to regrow this organization, one of the driving efforts was that we want more private businesses involved in investing, and we want the leaders of those businesses around the table. So right now, when you have a SEMO REDI board meeting, you have CEOs of several of our area organizations. You have mayors of multiple communities. You have city managers. You have the right people around the table to say, is this good for us? Is it not? How do we move forward? Let's go. So, you have the right people make the decision to move forward sitting around the table on a regular basis.
Woods:
And they have to look beyond just their individual area? They have to really look at the broader region, right?
Burner:
Absolutely, I mean…you know, when I think around the table of who's there, they're there because they see the need to grow the region, and it hopefully will be good for their business. But I don’t think that’s why anybody is sitting around the table. Because, you know, for most of these folks, this is home to them, too. They they're raising kids here, and they want to see the future look better than the past. And how do you do that? You get involved. You get your organization involved, your company, the city, and you work together to do that. So, I think we're moving that direction, and we got a lot of people excited and passionate about what we're doing.
Woods:
And you told me there's a lot of work to do.
Burner:
Yes, thanks for taking time to be here. So, how do you measure success?
Burner:
Yeah, so that's a great question, because I think there's a long-term measure of success. We need to be able to look back in 10 years and say the things we did were influential in helping grow the population and increase the GDP. That’s the north star. That's what we have to do. But you can't measure that today, so we have to measure activities that we think will play a role in influencing those. So, right now, we're looking…we have a pretty robust strategic plan where we're driving backward from that end goal to a point where this is the activity we need to do. What we need to have this event with the university where we're putting senior and junior students in touch with businesses in our community, and that's an activity we're going to do and repeat. It may or may not influence it, but we think that's a positive movement toward that goal of getting more population and a better workforce in our communities. So, those…and we have, you know, dozens of those kinds of measures that we're just starting to work through and think about. What is the activity that gets us one step closer to that today? What can we do in the next few months that gets us one step closer to that ultimate goal?
Woods:
So, it's going to be one of those situations…we like instant results, you know…drive thru, things we can get instantly. But this work is not going to be necessarily that.
Burner:
Yeah, this is the eternal challenge of economic development, right? What are you doing? What have you done for me lately? And, you know, I can point to…SEMO REDI helped lead a project in Jackson. This was not that long ago, with 70 new jobs, $5 million investment for a truss manufacturing facility. We were heavily involved in that project. That's an instant. That's a positive. It took six months to get there for that instant win. But, you know, so there are some like that that hopefully will be able to show. I kind of, in my head, I divide it into quick wins, big wins, and must-do's, right?
Woods:
Okay.
Burner:
So, we're going to have some things where we can go out today and get the community engaged. We're going to get that quick win within a few months. There's going to be big wins that may take three or four years, but it's worth fighting for because that's the win that we want to see. That's the effort where we're talking regional branding and marketing, where we've created a name for Southeast Missouri. If you're a site selection consultant, and you think, I want to put somebody…you know, my company wants to move somewhere in the Midwest, let's call the people from Southeast Missouri. I kind of like what they're doing, and I've been seeing a lot about them. You know, that takes a while to build that image and brand. And then there's the must-dos. There’s the day-to-day blocking and tackling of the things that have to happen, like the responding. We need to be out talking to our businesses regularly and often and responding to their needs. When I hear that employer X is having some issue because there's some flooding on their area that's causing them to not be able to get the rail cars in, how can we help solve that? Is there a grant out there? Well, it turns out there might be, but we got to get a partner in the county to work on that effort. These kinds of things are ongoing, but we have to be pretty dogged in doing that and being advocates for our business.
Woods:
Yeah. How does this all play into…we've heard a lot of talk over the past several years around the area about quality of life. The work that you're that your organization is doing. How does that play in quality of life for Southeast Missouri?
Burner:
That's a really interesting question, right? From a quality of life standpoint, you know, there's not a ton that SEMO REDI is going to do to drive the quality of life, but we're acutely aware that that's going to be a huge factor for our businesses. I think we're fortunate in, at least in the Cape-Jackson area, where we have a lot of people working on that. We have people who are thinking about that every day and working on that topic. My hope is to not try to replicate anything that's out there, to support the efforts happening. And then, there may be gaps, and economic development is a world where you fill the gaps as a community needs. There may be some areas we plug in, but if you talk to…you know, the Proctor & Gamble plant manager, quality of life is a huge issue for him, because when he wants to recruit and retain the talent out there, he knows they got to have a good place to eat. They got to have some activities to do. They got to have great schools for their kids. They got to have sports for their kids to play in, or whatever it is. But all these things that you want to have, we got to make sure are available.
Woods:
Yeah, one of the things you mentioned earlier about graduates from SEMO is that we want these folks, these talented folks, to stay in the area. That quality of life issue is one of the reasons they would stay. It's got to be appealing to them.
Burner:
That's right, absolutely, yeah, yeah. You can't…you know, if I'm a graduate, I came down here from St. Louis and went to school, spent four years, never got off campus, never did anything, spent my weekends going back to St Louis. I'm not going to stay here after. So, there's got to be enough. We've had a lot of, you know, a lot of progress in these areas. Look at what the Rusts have done when they built out their venue, and we're now having a live music in Cape. I remember a time when there was almost no live music, so we're making progress in some of those areas. And so, it's really encouraging, because I think a lot of things are coming together at the right time.
Woods:
It takes a lot of people working together to make it happen. And it, to me, it seems like SEMO REDI…you may not be directly involved, but you're watching all of this at a 30,000-foot level to see…okay, there's another piece. There's another piece, as you put your plan together.
Burner:
That's right, yeah, when we're marketing the community and the region, you know, most of that's not stuff we're doing, SEMO REDI, but it's stuff we're doing, Southeast Missouri. And so, you pull all of that in, and you lean all that, and it takes, it takes a whole eclectic group of people to make a community work. We just want to lean in and be supportive where we see things that makes a ton of sense.
Woods:
Shad, it's been good talking with you. Thanks for being here, and congratulations on the appointment. We hope to talk to you again soon.
Burner:
Yeah. Thank you, sir. Anytime.
