The Day After Today

Welcome to the Bluff City's most exclusive club

May 2008
By Donnie Snow

Last July, when members of the Memphis press reported that a private community development nonprofit was successfully raising funds from the biggest businesses in the Bluff City to fund an economic development plan expected to deliver 50,000 new jobs and somewhere in the area of $6 billion of new capital investment, you could hear the collective scoff from cynics around the state. Can you blame them? Let's face it: Memphis has had more than its share of big-picture initiatives shrivel and wither away.

Citizens know it, politicians know it, and the business community certainly knows it. Backing the Bluff City is a risky venture. That's why it took the city's biggest players, unified and organized, to move the ball forward effectively on MemphisED, the economic development portion of a four-part economic growth strategy titled Memphis Fast Forward.

Lesser titans might be daunted taking on the role of catalyst in such an endeavor, but for a select group, MemphisED is just another part of the agenda for what may be the hardest club in Tennessee to join—Memphis Tomorrow (MT).

To join, one needs a demonstrated history of community involvement, and, more importantly, either to lead a local corporation/enterprise that has more than $200 million in annual revenue or more than $100 million in assets, or lead a professional services firm with annual revenue of more than $75 million. In addition, the varying annual dues can be $50,000 or more. Oh, and they cap their club at around 30 members, though so few meet the qualifications—there are currently 23 members—that inclusion is not technically competitive.

Forged in 2001 by Pitt Hyde (founder of AutoZone) and Dean Jernigan (founder of Storage USA), the elite group of chief execs work as a guiding hand on initiatives, tackling some of the city's most arresting roadblocks. The group's members do not direct the myriad respective initiatives, but offer the level of expertise and influence one expects from the leaders of the likes of FedEx Express (David Bronczek) and Southeastern Asset Management (O. Mason Hawkins). There are similar groups around the country, but not many.

Members work in strategic committees in conjunction with partnership organizations concentrating on initiatives the members feel "directly impact economic growth and opportunity," according to the organization's literature. Those areas would be, namely, human capital development, industry development and public safety.

What the group seems to do best is focus initiative goals, execute plans, build coalitions and lobby the legislature. "Our focus," says Bill Rhodes, vice chairman of Memphis Tomorrow's executive committee and president and CEO of AutoZone, "is how many ways can we make Memphis better."

Privacy and Partnerships

Working with partners such as the Memphis Biotech Foundation, the Memphis and Shelby County Music Commission and the Memphis and Shelby County Crime Commission, much of MT's movements and meetings aren't accessible to the same level of scrutiny as, say, City Hall. The group's private status and its members disinterest for publicity have resulted in minimal media coverage.

"We are here to support many organizations that are already working on initiatives—not to be in the limelight," says Gary Shorb, chairman of the executive committee and CEO of Methodist Healthcare. "When appropriate," he continues, "we'll try to use the publicity to help, but we don't need to fundraise for our expenses—the dues pay our expenses."

One partnership likely to garner limelight however is the MT-funded accreditation pilot project Ready, Set, Grow! (RSG)—a partnership with Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton Jr. and the First Years Institute and administered by the University of Memphis College of Education. The process for incorporating the business community in education initiatives is being hailed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) as an example other states should follow.

"When the business leaders came together a number of years ago to talk about economic needs, one area identified was access to high-quality early childhood education," says NAEYC's Don Owens from his Washington, D.C., office. Business leaders, he says, were inundated by requests from employees to provide such programs and determined to provide quality education, not just babysitting. But their motives, Owens says, were understandably not altogether altruistic. "Business leaders aren't stupid," quips Owens, pointing out that accredited early-ed programs help businesses recruit more competitive employees, not to mention provide more qualified homegrown talent. Owens stresses the benefit to involving the business community.

"If you don't have leaders involved, then we all sit around and talk and nothing gets done," he says. Essentially, business leaders are built to pull the trigger, not caucus.

Celebrity Status

Memphis Tomorrow's members may be reluctant to step into the limelight, but everyone who's anyone knows exactly who they are, which essentially, makes them the business-community equivalent of celebrities. And if pop culture teaches us anything, it's that celebrity capital can be invaluable when building support for a cause. And celebrity capital most likely helped MT in its impressive ability to motivate state officials to financially support MT-backed initiatives. Celebrity can also raise peer perception, something else Memphis sorely needs.

Shorb points out that Memphis is improving its statewide perception via a burgeoning biotech sector that over the past few years has yielded a steady flow of development announcements.

"The Memphis BioWorks Foundation has really been the primary driver in that development," Shorb says, referring to another MT partnership. "It is an organization that is effectively getting results; we are making a tremendous amount of progress."

MT and the University of Tennessee are trying to secure a significant investment for a new research facility. Developments like this along with gains garnered through focused strategies like MemphisED will go a long way to shore up Memphis' stunted reputation elsewhere, and, Shorb says, even at home in Memphis where reside some of the city's most cynical critics.

"Perception is very important," he says. "Attitude means a lot in any community. And part of MemphisED does specifically address this." Shorb is excited by the Chamber-led initiative.

"The detriment of past plans is that they've been way too broad."

Not this time. Now, Memphis' elite have more than civic pride at stake. MT members committed nearly half of the plan's $10.7 million first-year budget to make Memphis tomorrow's Nashville, Austin or even Atlanta.