President's Notes Audio Blog - August 10, 2026

Policy Priority Committees began working this past week, and the pace will increase this week. The first committees to meet were the 21^st Talent Committee & the World Class Infrastructure Committee. This week, the Local Commerce & Industry (aka Chamber Coalition), the Competitive Business Climate Committee, and the Rural Investment / Re-Investment committees will meet on Friday. Issues identified by our members were identified in the 2026 Strategic Gap Analysis, which established the Primary Objective of addressing the performance gap in workforce development through “Immediate Scaling” mandates.

• The “Burning Platform” Review: The 92% importance rating for workforce pipelines vs. our current 65% performance mark.
• 2027 Mandate - Childcare infrastructure: Define specific language for public-private subsidies and regulatory relief, building upon the HB1317 win to expand employee access.
• Talent Architecture: Finalize the Q2 2027 talent attraction campaign aimed at securing 5,000 skilled workers in the region.
• Industry 4.0 Alignment: Synchronize vocational curricula with the specific needs of anchor employers in MedTech and Advanced Manufacturing.

The entire Workforce Development Program should be coordinated with the Northeast Indiana Strategic Development Commission, as it provided funding for the Tri-Share program that now has a track record and will provide data upon which the SDC may feature in its 2027 budget request.

Committee members are volunteers from post-secondary academic and vocational education. Their input will help shape the 2027 Strategic Development Commission Plan, which should be developed in consultation with NEI, education and training providers, and Northeast Indiana employers to address the region’s workforce development needs.

This committee, and all the Policy Priority Committees, will meet twice in August, September, and October. Their work will be presented to the Executive Committee of the Regional Chamber. The proposed Legislative Policy Priority Agenda may be recommended or amended by the Executive Committee before submission to the entire board of directors for consideration.

Future President's Notes will include additional information on the balance of the committees. The 21^st World Class Infrastructure Committee also met for the first time during the past week. Next week, the Northeast Indiana Chamber Coalition, Competitive Business Climate, and Rural Investment Committees will also meet.

In the coming week, I will meet with Casey Cox, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Administrative Officer of Star Financial. Casey is to chair the Competitive Business Climate Committee. We assign Chairs and Vice Chairs of the Committees who are also members of the Board of Directors.

Board member Mike Connell, General Manager of Cardinal IG, will meet with U.S. Senator Jim Banks and staff to discuss the need to increase service from critical utilities. Each of the utilities is considered critical for the growth of business in NE Indiana.

Steven Townes will perform onboarding tasks with MSKTD this week, one of the five new members of the Regional Chamber. Once again, I want to state that these five new members were referred to us by existing members. Adding their voices to ours will keep them “at the table” and “off the menu,” as quoted by Steven Townes.

If you haven't had the opportunity to review your corporate profiles in Growth Zone and make any updates, we encourage you to do so, as the information flow in ramping up to and during the legislative session and the creation of the 2027 Legislative Agenda will be of importance to you. Committee members should expect invitations to Zeck this week to review committee advance material, ask questions, and offer comments for committee members to review.