E-A-S-T, East! East! East!

One Eastern Kentucky was the theme of February.    The title of this blog refers to a battle cry that is often heard at sporting events, whether being used for the Cats, Cards or Bears.  Team work is something we in eastern Kentucky do well in the gymnasium, but have never been successful in moving to the local political arena.

In the past few weeks, we continued our push for unity in eastern Kentucky through our quarterly luncheon series, One Eastern Kentucky.  We united multiple chambers and elected officials together again to work toward a unified plan for Economic development in Eastern Kentucky.  This quarter’s luncheon featured Lt. Governor Jerry Abramson.  We also held the kickoff visit from InSite Consulting Group in partnership with AEP-KY Power.  The initial kickoff meeting with InSite involved participants, from the eight counties served by the chamber, assessing where we stand as a region.  One comment from Mr. Joel Thornbury particularly stood out in my mind.  He said, "We need to celebrate our successes.”  In a room full of political and business leaders, I believe we found hope, as it was referred to by Mr. Joe DePriest from Letcher County.  Hope that we can overcome the boundaries in eastern Kentucky that have held us back for generations.

In basketball, you play the sport 5-on-5.  When you pick your starting five, they have a myriad of skill sets that complement one another.  The essence of a team is to capitalize off of collective strengths to outweigh individual weaknesses.  That means you have a point guard who can handle the ball, while you have a center who can rebound the ball.  You have a shooting guard who can score from the perimeter and power forwards who can post up inside.  In eastern Kentucky, we have lots of strong players (counties) but no team.  We have counties with industrial parks and counties with developed retail.  We have counties with universities and counties with Community and Technical College campuses.  The problem we have is that we have been playing 1-on-1 amongst ourselves while our competition for recruiting industry has been playing as a team; areas such as northern Kentucky (three-county coalition) and Bowling Green (seven-county coalition).  Not only do they have a team, but they have a strategy. 

For generations, our strategy has been driven by internal competition. The reality is that we've been playing 1-on-1 amongst ourselves, or 1-on-5 against the competition, which doesn't mean we are losing, it means we are disqualified or not even in the game.  Back to Joel’s comment earlier, at the end of a high pressure game, it doesn't matter who hits the last three pointer or scores the most points, the entire team celebrates the victory; even the fans who only cheer from the stands join the celebration. The solution to what's next for the economy of eastern Kentucky will come from a united effort amongst the business community and elected officials to play as a team, buy into one vision, look past our county lines and be willing to chant: E-A-S-T, East! East! East!