Last Chance to Sign up for the Pierce County Roundtable Field Meeting

The next Prosperity Partnership Roundtable Field Meeting will take place on Friday, June 15, highlighting Pierce County. Building on the success of the first Field Meeting, where 60 attendees toured Snohomish County, this trip will include stops at Boeing's Composite Manufacturing Center in Frederickson, the Tacoma Art Museum and the Port of Tacoma, as well as a lunch and roundtable discussion on the Prosperity Partnership's efforts.

Attendees will meet at the Puget Sound Regional Council at 8 a.m. to board the tour bus, and will be returned by 4 p.m. The cost to attend is $30, and includes lunch. (Alternatively, for $75, you can purchase a spot on all three remaining Roundtable Field Meetings for this year, including Kitsap County on Friday, September 14 and King County on Friday, December 14.)

Register online at prosperitypartnership.org. For more information, contact Eric Schinfeld, Associate Economic Policy Analyst, 206-587-5063, eschinfeld@psrc.org.

The Trade Development Alliance, the Pacific Northwest Ballet & the World Affairs Council invite you to...Summer Schmooze!

Thursday, June 7, 2007
5:30-7:30pm
Pacific Northwest Ballet
301 Mercer Street, Seattle Center 98109

Featuring:

  • 2007 Outbound Missions to Fukuoka, Japan and Southeast Asia
  • Brief remarks by Pacific Northwest Ballet representative
  • Promotional booths of TDA member organizations

    Gift raffle brought to you by Argosy Cruises, Uwajimaya, Mae Phim Thai Restaurant, Pacific Science Center, and World Affairs Council.

    Trade Business Cards with TDA members and the business community Re-acquaint. Introduce yourself to TDA Board Members and staff. Advertise and display your company's own promotional materials. Discover the Pacific Northwest Ballet and its Int'l dancers. Enjoy Southeast Asian cuisine and specialty beverages.

    ...and then, join us for a post-Schmooze evening at the ballet:

    REGISTRATION FOR SCHMOOZE ONLY: The cost of this event is $35.00 per person in advance and at the door. The deadline for advance registration is June 5th. We cordially ask and strongly encourage that you register in advance, so that we can get you and other attendees in the door more efficiently. Guests are welcome and encouraged to attend. For more information, please contact Eva Zemandl at 206-389-7319 or at evaz@seattlechamber.com.

    Please click here to register for Schmooze!

    OPTIONAL A special discount just for Schmoozers! "All Stravinsky" - June 7th, 7:30pm Pacific Northwest Ballet celebrates the 125th birthday of Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971), the 20th century's greatest composer for dance, with four ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Molissa Fenley.

    REGISTRATION FOR "ALL STRAVINSKY": To order tickets for this post-Schmooze performance, please click here. If you are having difficulties with registration, please contact Jennifer Klinkhammer at 206-441-2429.

    Click here to see more of our Partner’s Events

    • Prosperity Partnership E-Newsletter
    May 31, 2007

    • MBO to MBO Trade Conference Offers Key Advice to Minority Business Owners
    • Housing Strategy Shaping Up Under Regional Leadership

      MBO to MBO Trade Conference Offers Key Advice to Minority Business Owners

      The African American Partners for Prosperity successfully brought down barriers at their annual trade conference by offering real solutions to problems Minority Business Owners face - such as how to overcome historical barriers to fair and significant engagement, setting up an effective communications strategy, and successful networking.

      The Prosperity Partnership co-sponsored this event and the Partnership's Minority Economic Development Working Group was featured as one of the panel discussions.

      Seattle Councilmember David Della, Vice President of the Economic Development District and Chair of the Minority Economic Development Working Group presented the group's draft plan to identify ways to improve the business climate for the more than 32,000 minority owned businesses in the central Puget Sound region.

      The working group's strategies focus on utilizing existing resources: business assistance centers and community based organizations, trade associations and economic development councils, and governments and larger businesses. "Many organizations exist that can help support and grow MBOs," says Councilmember Della, "and our strategy is to coordinate these efforts to leverage the maximum amount of assistance for minority entrepreneurs in our region."

      "Essentially," he continued, "we are approaching the issue from the supply side. If we can build the capacity of MBOs and make them more competitive suppliers for government and large corporations, then they will be able to get the contracts they need to be successful."

      To succeed, the Minority Economic Development Working Group will figure out how these business assistance organizations interact with MBOs and each other and their roles. The group will determine where efforts can be most effective in supporting and strengthening these organizations, ensure that these programs are focused on and providing service to the wide range of diverse companies, and work to build consensus and support for these efforts from the major stakeholders in government and business.

      Enjoy King County Executive Ron Sims' keynote address on TVW.

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      Housing Strategy Shaping Up Under Regional Leadership

      The Prosperity Partnership has convened a Regional Housing Strategy Working Group to identify existing areas of broad consensus in regional housing policies and to develop strategies and actions that will help to improve access to housing close to jobs for workers of all wage levels from throughout the four-county region.

      "Housing is central to many of the other policy decisions we make as a region," says PSRC Executive Director Bob Drewel. "As our region grows, access to housing affects our transportation system, our growth management planning, our economic development prospects and much more."

      More than 30 civic leaders representing private business, affordable housing developers, government officials, and market rate developers from the central Puget Sound region have agreed to develop 2008 Action Items for the top two or three strategies that will have the most significant impact regionally in a short timeframe. The group will help craft and advise the first ever housing component of the VISION 2020 Update.

      "This will give us a sense of what else is being implemented at the regional level to inform our decisions about the strategies we choose," says Rita Ryder, Prosperity Partnership Co-Chair, Co-Chair of the Regional Housing Strategy Working Group and Vice-President of Strategic Initiatives for YWCA.

      "We are seeing our employees face longer commute challenges and many ancillary issues that come with not being able to live closer to work," says Bill Longbrake, Co-Chair of the Regional Housing Strategy Working Group and Vice Chairman of Washington Mutual, "I look forward to helping get some tangible deliverables when we complete our work in the fall."

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