Alliance Is Getting to the Pointe
Published Apr 22, 2008
Joe Wallace is president and CEO of GAGE, an organization that works to boost the region’s economic growth.
A healthy business economy relies as much on growing new sectors as it does on a solid existing base. With that in mind, the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville (GAGE) is working to boost the area’s economic growth on several fronts.
“GAGE formed in early 2007 and has merged with both the technology business incubator, Innovation Pointe™ and Downtown Evansville Inc.,” says Joe Wallace, president and CEO of GAGE. “We now have three operating divisions – business retention and expansion, downtown development and entrepreneurship.”
This combination of forces has furthered what GAGE itself was created to do – to bring several development entities under one umbrella to work on both public and private development initiatives. To that end, the organization has management contracts with the city of Evansville and Vanderburgh County, Wallace says.
Innovation Pointe may be the most visible aspect of GAGE’s efforts so far. The building, at 318 Main St. in Evansville, was designed to make a technological and architectural statement, Wallace says, serving as a tangible sign of efforts to raise the region’s profile both economically and culturally.
“This building represents an investment by the community to attract and incubate new businesses in ways that rival the nation’s leading growth communities,” he says. “Innovation Pointe also has been designed to promote cultural uplifting of the general public by creating spaces for the promotion of the arts and advanced educational initiatives of many varieties.”
By dividing into three specific divisions, GAGE and its partners are able to move forward on many fronts at once. The Business Retention and Expansion Division is charged with creating and maintaining working relationships within Vanderburgh County, while the Downtown Development Division narrows its focus to the downtown Evansville area.
The Entrepreneurial Division works to bring knowledge-based businesses into the county, which it does through various operations at Innovation Pointe. Its responsibilities include helping to create locally owned intellectual property, assisting with the commercialization of that intellectual property, assisting start-up businesses, attracting local offices of major technology providers and providing a place for the University of Southern Indiana to offer adult education opportunities and MBA classes, Wallace says.
In addition to his duties with GAGE, Wallace also is vice president of Innovation Pointe’s Entrepreneurship Division, so recruiting and keeping technology-based and other cutting-edge businesses is of particular concern to him.
“By collecting and inspiring the best and most ambitious minds in the area, GAGE has the opportunity to be the genesis and catalyst through which a true transformation can occur for this region,” he says. “It won’t be just about jobs and money. Entrepreneurs and creative individuals elevate the communities in which they choose to live culturally. Entrepreneurs expect and demand more from the education system, they establish and maintain exemplary neighborhoods, they refurbish historic homes and they create employment opportunities for other members of the community that are at a higher level than existed previously.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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