BNE:
economic development, SWAT-style
By Allissa Kline; photo by kc kratt

Tom Kucharski
Buffalo native Tom Kucharski doesn’t rely on pricey ads or glossy brochures to sell his hometown. Sure, those tried and true marketing methods are sometimes useful to the self-proclaimed “cheerleader for business,” who is in his eighth year as president and CEO of Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, a regional marketing and business development organization located downtown. But those techniques alone don’t attract new businesses to the Buffalo Niagara region, and they don’t convince existing businesses to stay here.

“Because we struggled for several decades with job growth and exodus, the beauty of our area is that everybody has an opinion on what will work,” says Kucharski, who returned to the area in 2000 after stints in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. “But what seems obvious is not always as obvious as it seems … It’s a lot more complex than just slapping together some ads and collateral material and setting up a good website.”

So toss the ads and brochures to the side. Kucharski and his staff at BNE instead depend on a sophisticated collection of market and demographic data, coupled with an efficient network of regional partners, to generate business development in WNY. Accessible resources run the full gamut, from current available commercial and retail properties to regional demographics to financial incentive opportunities. Much of that information is available on the organization’s site, a key tool used to promote the region and BNE’s “Buffalo Niagara: Where Life Works” campaign. The winning combination? A wealth of data about the region and a well-rounded contact list of industrial development agencies, public utilities, government officials, bankers, attorneys, and even the competitors of a potential new company, says Kucharski.

“We have, in many cases, more information than our competitors, and that plays well with folks who really don’t have a lot of time to go through and [narrow] fifty communities down to five,” says Kucharski. “In some cases, it’s just being really good and really professional and getting the information organized in a way that’s competitive with the Southeast and out West.”

In the business development world, BNE are “community enablers,” rather than economic providers, Kucharski says. “We’re coordinators of anything you can think of in the community,” he explains. And selling a particular building or location requires quick thinking. “When [potential clients] get to us, it’s ‘We’re coming in two days, bringing five guys, we want to meet the mayor, we want to meet the three biggest competitors to our business in your area, and we want to do that in the morning and be out by 1 p.m.’ We’re like a SWAT team for economic development.”


Kucharski and BNE are doing something right. Since 1999, when BNE was established, the organization has secured $3.8 billion in regional business investment and more than thirty thousand new or retained jobs, according to BNE’s site. High-profile successes include Amherst’s GEICO customer service center, which was expected to generate twenty-five hundred jobs, and the double expansion of Citicorp North America Inc.’s facilities, which involved five hundred anticipated new jobs. Kucharski, however, is equally proud of smaller developments, such as the relocation of Buffalo Control Systems, Inc. from the former Pierce-Arrow building on Great Arrow Drive to the city’s Lovejoy district. The move signals “a leap of faith” and is spawning interest from other companies, says Kucharski. “Now two other prospects are interested in buildings across the street.”

So what is the Buffalo Niagara region’s biggest sell point? Kucharski doesn’t hesitate. “Right now, it is its people, who are highly productive,” he says. “The long-term answer is water and power. Maybe those things aren’t tippers right now, but they will be in the future. We’re sitting on two natural assets that will become much more important in the future.”

Allissa Kline is a Buffalo-based freelance writer and journalist. More information about Buffalo Niagara Enterprise is available at www.buffaloniagara.org.


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