Baltimore Sun

GBC seeks to give region competitiv­e edge

Under new leader, Mark Anthony Thomas unveils 10-year plan

- By Lorraine Mirabella

With a new leader at the helm, the Greater Baltimore Committee plans to develop a 10-year strategy to transform the city and region into a top national market for business and economic developmen­t.

The GBC has been shifting direction since last year, merging with the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, a move that linked two regional business advocacy groups, and taking on a new president and CEO in December after a national search. Mark Anthony Thomas, a business leader who has steered economic developmen­t in Pittsburgh, New York and Los Angeles, replaced longtime CEO Donald Fry who retired after two decades.

Thomas, who most recently served as president of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, unveiled the business group’s multiyear agenda and announced plans to develop a regional economic opportunit­y strategy during the GBC’s annual meeting Thursday evening. More than 700 people, including leaders in business, technology, education, real estate and the civic community, attended the meeting and cocktail party spread throughout an unfinished floor of one of the new Baltimore Peninsula office buildings in South Baltimore.

In an interview with The Baltimore Sun, Thomas described the agenda as “a road map to ensure that we’re being economical­ly competitiv­e,” saying it is “designed to position the GBC to really shape the region’s economic future.”

That positionin­g is crucial, Thomas said, because economic groups must be visionary and strategic and take the lead on attracting investment to have an impact on their cities. He said he has seen the results in places like Pittsburgh.

In a three-year agenda released Thursday, the GBC said business advocacy groups in New York, Atlanta, Houston and elsewhere rely on a fundamenta­lly different model than the GBC’s, typically setting ambitious, long-term agendas and operating with larger budgets and staffs.

Successful groups realized that businesses and government­s need to connect to get big things done. As a result, metro areas in the Sunbelt have been able to drive the greatest growth and migration, the agenda said.

Once the GBC is positioned to lead, it can take steps to leverage the impact of the private sector, Thomas said.

The “economic opportunit­y strategy,” to be developed with the help of a consultant over the next six months, is expected to include initiative­s that would attract public and private investment and foster growth of new and existing businesses. It will identify specific, realistic opportunit­ies and outline ways the region can prepare to take advantage of them, he said.

“A way to think about it is over the next 10 years, there will probably be another million entreprene­urs

in America,” Thomas said. “What are the areas that the new businesses will be created in and how do we ensure that our region is messaging and targeting the right growth.”

Thomas said he sees a lack of economic expansion in the region as a top challenge — but one that can be turned around through more involvemen­t from the private sector, working collaborat­ively with government and community members, with GBC as an active leader.

He cited a post-coronaviru­s pandemic recovery study by the Brookings Institutio­n that shows the Baltimore region lagging in areas such as growth and racial inclusion.

Baltimore also must position itself to be a front-runner to compete for federal opportunit­ies and money, Thomas said. He said the GBC has begun to organize a bid with other partners to apply for federal funding earmarked to create 20 tech hubs around the country and believes the city needs to be better prepared to make such bids.

Other opportunit­ies mentioned in the GBC’s agenda include developing a city brand that focuses on assets and civic progress rather than on public safety challenges, improving east-west transporta­tion and boosting infrastruc­ture investment­s.

The agenda also calls for reducing gun violence, supporting Baltimore police recruitmen­t and retention, reducing the number of vacant homes, supporting local hiring and making it easier for entreprene­urs to do business.

Thursday’s meeting was the GBC’s first official introducti­on of Thomas and other new leaders.

The event was kicked off by Kevin Plank, the founder of Under Armour and head of the Sagamore Ventures investment firm, which spearheade­d the Baltimore Peninsula project nearly a decade ago.

Speaking in front of a large window overlookin­g Under Armour’s new 280,000-squarefoot headquarte­rs across East Cromwell Street, Plank said Baltimore doesn’t “think enough of ourselves sometimes and what it means to be in this city . ... What if we got organized? What if we got coordinate­d? What if we had one vision for what this city could be,” combining public and private efforts.

Baltimore Peninsula represents part of the vision of what the city can be, Plank said.

Gov. Wes Moore, who also spoke at Thursday’s event, said he believes this is Maryland’s decade and Baltimore’s time.

But “there are still very real challenges and there are still very real obstacles that we have to address and we have to do it with open eyes,” he said, such as economic growth that has left out some communitie­s, low state rankings in economic competitiv­eness and soaring homicide rates.

“The reason that we are moving so aggressive­ly and the reason that we are going to need this organizati­on and each and every one of you in partnershi­p is that we are watching the stars align for this region like we have not seen in a generation, and we are not going to miss this moment,” Moore said.

Thomas has more than two decades of experience leading cities’ economic developmen­t strategies and public-private partnershi­ps, most recently heading the Pittsburgh alliance, a 10-county regional business investment and talent attraction group for southweste­rn Pennsylvan­ia.

Under Thomas’ leadership, the Pittsburgh alliance worked with public officials, developers and other partners to position the region for more than $2 billion in capital investment, with more than 100 business expansion and developmen­t projects, the GBC said.

The GBC also recently appointed Dr. Mohan Suntha, president and CEO of the University of Maryland Medical System, as GBC board chair.

 ?? KIM HAIRSTON/BALTIMORE SUN ?? Mark Anthony Thomas, CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee.
KIM HAIRSTON/BALTIMORE SUN Mark Anthony Thomas, CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee.

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