I received an email this week indicating Larry was stepping down as CEO of Ignite Fredericton and the Knowledge Park. It’s a bit disappointing as to me Larry was a kind of local economic developer that is on the endangered species list.
Larry was a fighter. I’m not saying he was belligerent or cantankerous as a general rule but he was a guy that would fight (maybe a more palatable word these days - advocate) for his community and the projects he believed in.
Over my 30 years in the business, one of the challenges with local economic development has been a hesitancy to be a full throated advocate for the local community. This is mainly because much of the funding to support regional or local economic development comes from the provincial and federal governments. You know, that whole “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” business.
But it is important for local economic development organizations to fight for their community even it it leads to friction - some times - with other levels of government and, yes, funders. The old saying “iron sharpeth iron” kind of works here - an economic development system with healthy tension between the levels of government is important.
And, of course, the other issue is that for many local economic developers the career path travels up the levels of government. So being adversarial, confrontational, etc. might not be a particularly good career move.
Larry didn’t really care about this. He already had a long and successful career with NBTel/Aliant. Knowledge Park and then Ignite was more a labour of love.
I think helmed a fairly successful organization during his time there. Fredericton has been among the fastest growing urban centres, the IT cluster really took off (including cybersecurity) and the Knowledge Park itself has been a very interesting initiative.
As many of you know the whole economic development model in New Brunswick is evolving. As I have argued all along, every community around the province should have economic development capacity. Waiting around for someone else to save your village/town or city is not a particularly good strategy. The new model will see all corners of the region have people thinking about economic development.
But it will be important for the folks leading economic development (along with elected officials and other stakeholders) to be in the advocacy business, in the promotion business, in the ‘development’ business.
At one time New Brunswick had something called the Enterprise Network which, in theory, did result in economic development capacity in all communities around the province. It was defunded more than a decade ago because as one ACOA person told me “they had become extensions of us” just meeting with local businesses and then handing them off to ACOA or Business New Brunswick. If that is what we are getting, he said, we may as well do it ourselves.
Now I think much of the criticism of the old Enterprise Network was unwarranted. Some were what I would call good, old fashioned economic development agencies.
Whatever happens, the local economic development organizations must not just be the front door triaging entrepreneurs to provincial and federal economic development funding programs. That should be a tiny or even non-existent part of their role.
These organizations are the champions of their communities - advocating for that new mining project, or tourism project or people attraction effort or newcomer settlement program or whatever. And certainly not just with government.
Larry figured this out and was good at it.
Maybe he will go into the training/mentoring business.
When I think of the start-up community in Fredericton and it's influence around NB, I think of Larry. If I want an honest opinion, I think of Larry. He might make a great politician if people could only handle the truth.
I had the pleasure of meeting Larry when I worked for the Village of Chipman in 2021. As someone who has suffered the wrath of fighting the "good fight" on more than one occasion, I found him refreshingly direct. May Larry continue to contribute to the economic well-being of New Brunswick in his own forthright way.