REMARKS AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY - SANDY K. BARUAH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - EXCELLENCE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AWARDS PRESENTATION TO CATALYST CONNECTION - PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2006

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Introduced by Charles Thomas, Chair, Catalyst Connection

Thank you, Charles, for that kind introduction. It’s a pleasure to be in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania today representing President George W. Bush.

I am pleased to be with two real leaders in Congress – Senator Santorum and Representative Hart. Senator Santorum, I would like to especially commend you on your leadership in the area of brownfields redevelopment, which is particularly critical here in Pennsylvania.

Congresswoman Hart, I know you too have been active in the area as well, but I want to commend you for your commitment to local transportation issues - specifically, your work in the Congress to secure Federal support for the I-376/Route 60 corridor. Transportation issues are a critical component of economic development and I appreciate your hard work in this important area.

It’s also a pleasure to have Tom Palisin representing the Governor here today, as well as our other dignitaries.

What we all know here today is that Catalyst Connection is a national leader in economic development. Soon a lot of other folks will know this because today I am proud to announce that Catalyst Connection is the winner of the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration “Excellence in Economic Development Award” for 2006.

Each year, EDA bestows the “Excellence in Economic Development Award” on the best and brightest examples of economic development strategy and results. Award winners are selected by a distinguished and independent panel of economic development leaders, noted academics and government officials from across America. Believe me; the competition for these awards is intense as the bar for creative and innovative economic development initiatives gets raised every year.

Pennsylvania, however, is special, as it received two EDA Excellence Awards in 2005, making this the third award in the last 2 years, illustrating Pennsylvania’s leadership in developing successful 21st Century economic development strategies. This is indeed an impressive accomplishment that everyone in Pennsylvania can be proud of.

This year, the winner of the Excellence Award for Regional Competitiveness is right here in Pittsburgh.

As the 21st Century takes shape, more and more folks realize that we are truly living in a world-wide market-place. While America is the leader today and has immense competitive advantages, we cannot take our leadership for granted. Maintaining our competitive edge will not simply just happen. We need to work together and work seriously in order to maintain our competitive advantage.

And at the end of the day, our ability to innovate is our only possible sustainable competitive advantage. It’s not location. It’s not cost of doing business. It’s not even just technology. All these factors will continually shift in a dynamic world-wide economy – but if we maintain our edge in our ability to innovate, America will continue to lead the world in growth and opportunity.

So, how do we maintain – and even strengthen – our edge in innovation? Through collaboration – regional collaboration. We must acknowledge what we all learned on the elementary school playground, that we are stronger when we stand together than when we stand alone.

We need to look beyond traditional political jurisdictions – the city boundary, the county line, even the division between States – and work together. Because the competitiveness of America’s companies is in large part tied to the competitiveness of the economic regions in which they do business. And that’s exactly what Catalyst Connection is doing right here in Pittsburgh.

Catalyst Connection serves a multi-county region in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and is committed to strengthening this region’s important manufacturing cluster and is working to diversify the regional economy.

Your focus on strong private sector participation in building regional competitiveness is critical. While governments at all levels can be important players in economic development, let’s not forget that it is the private sector that is the most important element of any successful economic development strategy. Unless the private sector is ready, willing and able to invest in a community – economic growth simply will not occur regardless how much government spends.

This partnership with the private sector is clearly evident here at Catalyst Connection, which is one reason why EDA invested $200,000 in 2006 to support your Entrepreneurial Assistance Program. We know a good project when we see it.

Yours is a strategy from which other parts of the country can learn, and part of our job as the Federal agency charged with advancing economic development is to share successful strategies with economic development practitioners across the nation.

For this reason, we have shared Catalyst Connection’s story with the rest of the nation recently through EDA’s magazine, Economic Development America, which features an extensive profile of Catalyst Connection in our Summer issue.

Through this effort, thousands of economic development practitioners across the nation will learn of the success achieved here at Catalyst Connection, and of the award I have the honor of presenting today.

As we celebrate the success of Catalyst Connection, I think it’s worthwhile to remind ourselves of what we have achieved as a nation in the past few years:

• 128,000 new jobs were created in August, and over 1.7 million jobs in the last year. That’s over 5.7 million new American jobs since August 2003;

• Just last week, the Federal Government announced that the national unemployment rate dipped to 4.7%, which many economists consider full employment;

• In July, we saw the fastest rise in consumer spending in 6 months (0.8%);

• Real, after tax incomes have risen about 15% since January 2001;

• The manufacturing sector, so important to Pennsylvania, expanded at 5.6% over the last year, and manufacturing productivity increased 3.8% in the same time period; and

• So far this year, our economy has grown at a 4% rate – and, we’ve grown strongly now for 19 straight quarters, demonstrating that, despite the challenges of unprecedented hurricanes and high energy costs, the American economy is strong, growing and resilient.

This is important not just for the nation, but for Southwestern Pennsylvania as well – because a growing national economy provides the folks here in Southwestern Pennsylvania a better opportunity to realize economic growth right here at home. It takes both smart national policies and smart local initiatives to ensure that the American dream reaches all parts of our great nation – and we are celebrating both here today.

Again, I would like to thank all of you for being here today at this important ceremony. And now, the moment we’ve been waiting for, the presentation of the award.

Senator Santorum and Representative Hart will now join me in presenting the 2006 EDA Excellence in Economic Development Award for Regional Competitiveness to Steven Zylstra, Petra Mitchell, and Charles Thomas.

It is now my distinct pleasure to present on behalf of President George W. Bush the 2006 EDA Excellence in Economic Development Award for Regional Competitiveness to Catalyst Connection.

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