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Kucharski sees bright spots in economy

By Sharon Linstedt - Buffalo News Staff Reporter
01/23/09

As Thomas Kucharski listened to the governor’s sobering State of the State address earlier this month, amid the doom and gloom he heard two of his favorite words: “biosciences” and “renewables.”

Kucharski, president and chief executive of Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, was thrilled to hear Gov. David A. Paterson single out Buffalo’s fast-growing bioscience industry as a bright spot in the economy.

He was similarly upbeat with Paterson’s call for an energy plan that would aim for 45 percent of the state’s electricity produced through energy-efficient and renewable-energy measures by 2015. The governor estimated the initiative, which would specifically focus on clean-energy vehicle research, could bring up to 50,000 new jobs to upstate New York.

“Renewables, biosciences and advanced manufacturing . . . the governor was speaking our language,” said Kucharski, whose economic development agency has drawn a bead on companies across the U. S. and around the world in those exact business sectors.

Now in its ninth year of operation, the BNE has shifted from its original mission of retaining and attracting businesses across Western New York to a more tightly defined goal of attracting companies in high-growth sectors.

Over the past year, that focus has increasingly been on companies in the fast-emerging fields of renewable energy and life sciences. It’s a quest that has sent BNE representatives crisscrossing not only the U. S., but Canada and Europe as well.

The economic development agency has spent considerable time courting firms in Germany, Spain and Western Canada with ties to the solar and wind energy industries.

“We’re on the short, short list of several firms that love our geographic location, our water and power resources, and our heritage of skill sets,” Kucharski said. “Even after everything that’s happened on Wall Street and with the economy, they are still coming to visit because we have what they need to grow.”

The BNE chief said he expects to announce two deals by the second quarter that will bring high-tech investment and jobs to the region.

“We’re going 100 miles an hour in these areas and feel we’ve made the right reaches and met the right folks. We’re positioned beautifully for the coming wave of expansions,” Kucharski said.

But the state’s fiscal problems, combined with proposals to revamp key development inducements, won’t make the BNE’s job any easier.

Front and center are efforts to dismantle the Empire Development Zone program, a key tool in the agency’s incentives arsenal. The program, which is the target of harsh criticism for failure to trigger promised jobs and investment, has been widely used to entice new companies to set up shop here.

“Empire zones got us on the map with a lot of companies, and I still believe they are an effective tool. It won’t be a death knell for the region if the program ends, but it’s something we’re watching very closely,” Kucharski said.

He said he was peppered with questions about the future of Empire Zones when attending recent sessions with site selectors and businesses alike.

“In Phoenix, Chicago, Cleveland and up in Canada, the first thing they asked about was Empire Zones. It’s a biggie,” Kucharski said.

As an example, he cited Globe Specialty Metals, which picked a languishing industrial site in Niagara Falls to produce silicon products for the solar power industry. Globe’s expected $60 million investment, leading to 500 new local jobs, would leverage $25 million in Empire Zone benefits under the current incentive framework.

The benefit package requires Globe to offer 25 percent of its state-of-the-art solar panels to spin-off renewables manufacturers, setting up a development domino effect of new companies and new jobs.

“That’s exactly the model we are hoping for,” Kucharski said. “We want to create an environment where researchers, manufacturers and suppliers can collaborate. It will create new business for existing companies and attract new ones that want to close to their business partners.”

The BNE closed its 2008 fiscal year in July with 20 “project wins,” which represent $70 million in investment, 889 new jobs and another 1,031 retained jobs. It is currently pursuing more than 160 leads and 31 specific projects.

“I don’t think I’m being overly optimistic to think we’ll match those numbers in the current year,” Kucharski said. “There’s a buzz about Buffalo Niagara that’s way beyond chicken wings and snow. We’re moving up the dial.”