Opportunity Next
September 27, 2011: Our very own David Ginn, President and CEO of Charleston Regional Development Alliance Group, was our speaker today.
In his leadership role with the CRDA, David works closely with the region’s top business, academic and political leaders to shape and execute a comprehensive regional economic development strategy.
Before being named President and CEO of CRDA, David served as the executive vice president and project director for the organization.
David is from Atlanta, Georgia. He holds a degree in economics and international business from the University of Southern Mississippi. He also studied abroad at the London School of Economics. He now lives in Mt Pleasant with his wife Jean Marie and their two children.
On Tuesday David gave us a broad overview of the initiatives of CRDA.
David leads a team that serves as the catalyst of Long Term and Sustainable Growth in the Charleston three county markets. Their job is to market the region as a global competitive place for business and talent. The team facilitates the site selection process for companies considering locating to the area and they engage top business academic leaders in economic development.
David says what energizes him the most about his job, is that he gets to speak on behalf of our community and sell it as a global destination for business.
In our three county markets we have 27 cities with over 675,000 people making us the 80th largest metropolitan area in the Country out of 362.
What makes our area unique compared to the rest of the country is we are one of three locations in the world that construct wide body commercial aircrafts and test wind turbines and drive trains. Also our ports, the Medical University and the restoration institute test facility on the naval base are just a few more of our largest assets. These factors alone truly formulate our market as an International destination for business.
CRDA with the help of national business consultants and local task forces put together an economic development strategy for the region’s future.
The four Industries that we are competitive in and have core competencies that connects within our community according to CRDA includes: Advanced Security in IT (Spa War), Aerospace (Boeing), Bio Medical (MUSC), and Wind Energy (Wind Testing Facility on the Naval Base).
Submitted by Katie McCravy, Keyway Committee