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Home About Us B2B Club Breaking News Contact Donate Events / Programs Feedback Ideas Incubator Industry Clusters Links / Resources Progess Funds Progress Teams Public Art / Murals Publications		Breaking News April 28, 2005 - Paper Industry Cluster seeks to strengthen ties By Dale Arendt, for Daily Tribune Editor's note: The Daily Tribune will regularly publish columns updating readers on the Community Progress Initiative's industry cluster groups. The cluster groups - designed to enhance the local economy - each have a specific focus. This week, cluster member Dale Arendt writes about the Paper and Forest Products Cluster. The Paper and Forest Products Cluster has struggled to get its arms around the breadth and impact that paper and forest products have within our community. Our mixed group of educators, paper employees, ancillary industry providers and business owners continue to wrestle with the complexities of identifying value-added or innovative opportunities in a community that has experienced significant down-sizing of the paper and forest products labor force over the past decade. Our cluster's belief is that the community is in control of its economic future. Successful small and large businesses can make the choice to continue embracing new technology, training skilled labor and using more effective local business-to-business savvy to build and sustain a vibrant local economy. We are committed to avoiding a pessimistic, "Woe is me syndrome" as it relates to paper and forest products. Instead, we choose to embrace the current economic reality of a very competitive marketplace and wrestle with the question, "What can we do that is significantly different to generate different results?" Changing a local culture is slow and difficult work. We essentially have two polarized choices to pick from: We can say that the paper and forest products industry will continue to decline and allow it to become a "self-fulfilling prophecy" with a continued negative economic impact; or, we can choose to stay empowered and optimistic, looking for new windows of opportunity in paper and forest products. Through the Community Progress Initiative, thousands of volunteer hours have been logged over the past nine months pursuing a brighter economic future for our area. Creating the opportunity for economic success takes hard work; a willingness to embrace change; and an ability to work in a collaborative fashion with others in local business and government. The members of the Paper and Forest Products Cluster have made the intentional choice to celebrate the uniqueness of our community and begin exploring additional collaborative opportunities to enhance public awareness about the importance and impact of paper on our daily lives. In addition, we desire to identify what are some business opportunities that could use our community strengths for creating new jobs. We toured the Appleton area and discussed business dynamics with five young, aggressive and savvy paper-related companies trying to identify the common thread of their business expansion, given the climate of the paper industry. Our greatest takeaway was their dynamic synergy of business collaboration. They spoke highly of not viewing one another in the business community as competitors, but rather as colleagues. It was readily apparent to the Paper and Forest Products Cluster that "our work" here in South Wood County and the town of Rome is to foster a more intentional spirit of business collaboration. So that is the focal point of our cluster. We are looking for business opportunities that currently do not exist in our area or are being outsourced to other regions. We are committed to finding ways to create new jobs and business dollars to circulate within our community. Four outcomes that we are focusing on for this year include: 1. Continue to develop an enhanced spirit of business collaboration among local businesses as it relates to paper and forest products. 2. Create awareness in the community (and beyond) of the value and importance of paper in our daily life. 3. Collaborate with the Tourism Cluster to create events that celebrate the importance of paper. 4. Establish two new small business ventures that provide services connected to the paper and forest products industries that currently either do not exist or are being outsourced to other communities.
		Copyright © 2005, Community Progress Initiative, South Wood County & Town of Rome