We need to attract and develop game-changing industry to create jobs

Welcome to the first of our monthly Enterprise Great Lake Taupō columns.  I have committed to writing you a regular column on what we are thinking and doing here at EGLT.  Hopefully you find this enlightening and any questions or feedback is welcome – good or bad I’m here to listen and help.

So I suppose I should kick things off with a bit an overview of what we actually do here at EGLT.  Our goal is to attract and develop profit making enterprises that are going to employ people in the Great Lake Taupō district.

This goal is based on some rather interesting research carried out recently.  Between 2005 and 2010, the Taupō district had a population growth of 500 people, 1085 houses were built in this period yet in 2010 there were 17 less jobs then in 2005.  Basically we were pre-occupied with property and forgot about developing business and industry, resulting in less employment opportunities within our community.

The ‘develop’ part of our goal is about making our current businesses more profitable and helping them to grow, thus employing additional staff.  This is what I call our ‘bread and butter’ and will create incremental growth for the district.  Some of the initiatives to facilitate and champion our businesses include courses and mentoring, industry events, establishing networks and  sourcing research and information.

Personally, I think the key to our success is the ‘attract’ part of our goal.  “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones” – John Maynard Keyes.  We need a step change and we need some new game changing businesses that will not just create jobs but create industry too.

We have a unique opportunity here in Taupō with our geothermal resources.  Already we have   seen the likes of new milk company Miraka using these resources to their advantage. Geothermal is one of our competitive advantages and we need to utilise and promote the use of it. Some ‘out of the box’ ideas that have been thrown around include  a Taupo Marina, Aquaculture, steam driven industry parks and log processing – these might not seem possible in the short term but in the future they could be real opportunities  to create industry and employ our future people.

When I first arrived in Taupō in 1992 there were some great  examples of  ‘game-changing’ entrepreneurs who created industry including Alastair McDonald with the Taupo Bungy idea,  Mark Dumble who started Rainbow Lodge - the first backpackers in Taupo and Vaughn Brady who started the skydiving industry in Taupo - now the largest tandem skydiving zone in the world. We can also add Tuorapaki to this list, an organisation that has been very successful at what they are doing.

These enterprises start off with an idea and dedicated and focussed people turn them into viable organisations that bring new opportunities, start new trends and more importantly create many, many jobs. We want to facilitate and share these entrepreneurial  qualities, celebrate our leaders and learn from them.

So here is my challenge.  We need to attract some more game-changing businesses to the Great Lake Taupō district.  I am working on it but if you have any ideas in the meantime, please let me know.  It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen because I believe this district has a lot to offer.

 

Fritz Fröhlke – Enterprise Great Lake Taupō

Ph 07 376 7656 Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it