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Toledo Business Journal recently met with John S. Szuch, chairman of the board, Fifth Third Bank, Northwestern Ohio. He shared the following thoughts.
TBJ: What do you see as the most important need in the business community?
JS: One of the most significant needs is the lack of leadership from the business community. Toledo used to have a network of the major corporations and banks headquartered in Toledo, which provided an ability to coordinate a group of powerful and influential leaders who exerted quite a bit of influence over economic development. There was a common voice speaking on behalf of business. The sale of many local corporations to companies not headquartered in Toledo created a leadership vacuum and the local focus was gone. No coordinated group of leaders emerged to speak on behalf of the business community.
I think this leadership void has been the single largest flaw that we've had. However, at this point, I think the privatization of the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP) should give business a concerted and focused voice. If the business community speaks out as a group through the RGP, it will have much more influence over events affecting our economic development. Revitalization of the RGP might be the single most significant event in development of the economy of northwest Ohio in the last decade or more.
We also need to decide what we are. We're a hub at the intersection of 80/90 and I-75, we have good rail, an underutilized airport, a dynamic port authority - we...