Description
Before COVID-19, it was easy for many to ignore (at best) or push out (at worst) manufacturing from our cities and towns - zoning away industrial land, disinvesting in infrastructure and human capital, and not considering manufacturing as part of the innovation paradigm. However, policymakers, community action groups, workforce advocates, ESO's, and many other practitioners are creating programs and policies that can build more vibrant, inclusive, and equitable manufacturing communities that last well beyond the pandemic. Through a lens of ecosystem building as an economic development strategy, we will hear about an organization leading 30+ governments in building their regional manufacturing ecosystem; a CDFI leveraging regional stakeholder partnerships to create financial tools for manufacturing businesses; and cross-sector collaborations to build a regional PPE-manufacturing supply chain.
Contributors
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Tulsi Patel, Principal, Estolano Advisors
As a solutions-oriented planner, Tulsi provides project management and research to lead a range of projects focused on inclusive community and economic development, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, and program design. She is part of the leadership team at Estolano Advisors, an urban planning and policy consulting firm.
Tulsi recently worked with Surdna Foundation’s Inclusive Economies Program to develop and refine its program measurement framework through a grantee engagement strategy. For the Trust for Public Land, Tulsi led a dynamic business engagement strategy and development of a vision and implementation plan for industrial area preservation and greening along the LA River. As project manager for the LA Bioscience Hub nonprofit, she designed and piloted the Biotech Leaders Academy summer program to provide entrepreneurship training to East LA community college students and connect them with paid internships at start-ups. Additional clients include LA Metro, California Community Foundation, Open Society Institute, Jobs to Move America, LA Regional Open Space and Affordable Housing (LA ROSAH) Collaborative, County of Los Angeles Regional Park and Open Space District, and South County Economic Development Corporation (EDC).
She serves as a Board Member for the Urban Manufacturing Alliance, a national coalition of organizations and practitioners that are building manufacturing economies for the 21st century. Tulsi was a 2017 New Leaders Council Institute Fellow.
Tulsi received a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Economics and Policy from U.C. Berkeley, and Master of Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA.
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Katy Stanton, Program & Operations Director, Urban Manufacturing Alliance
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Jessica Hemmer, Founder/Creative Director, Hemmer Design & Queen City Mask Collective
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Martine Neider, Director, Manufacturing Operations, Bay Area Urban Manufacturing Initiative
Martine Neider is the Director of Manufacturing Operations at SFMade and the Director of the Bay Area Urban Manufacturing Initiative (BAUM). She provides targeted advising on operations, production efficiency, supply chain management, and modernization to manufacturers throughout the Bay Area. Through BAUM, Martine regularly convenes dozens of Bay Area city and county governments in support of the region's manufacturing sector.
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Moriah Heaney, Community Investments Manager, Mountain BizWorks