Monday, May 16, 2005
He'd Rather Be In Philadelphia
Thomas G. Morr has spent the past six years as the Washington region's chief economic development booster. As managing partner of the Greater Washington Initiative, he coordinated the efforts of nearly two dozen local economic development agencies to recruit employers to the area since 1999.
Now he's headed north. Morr has accepted a job as president of Select Greater Philadelphia, a newly formed organization that seeks to bring companies to Philadelphia.
Morr has worked in Washington since 1973 and has had jobs in commercial real estate and in marketing Dulles International Airport. He said Friday that he hadn't been looking for a new job but the Philadelphia group "made a very attractive offer."
It involves shaping a new organization trying to improve job creation in a region with more formidable economic challenges than Washington. The number of jobs in the area has risen 10 percent in the past five years, compared with 1 percent in the Philadelphia region. "We're one of the few regions that added jobs through the economic downturn, and Tom is part of the reason," said William Couper, chairman of GWI and president of Bank of America in the region.
Morr told the GWI board of his planned move on Tuesday, and the Philadelphia organization announced it on Wednesday. Tim Priest, a vice president at GWI, is to be interim managing partner. The person appointed to the job permanently will have to navigate the competing egos and desires of economic development officials in all local jurisdictions, who oversee and fund the regional authority. Morr was said to be particularly skilled at that delicate political balance.
-- Neil Irwin
Enough Talk. Let's Eat.
Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and a member of The Washington Post Co. board, spoke Thursday night to the Economic Club of Washington about what she sees as a crisis in the nation's high schools. Some of the biggest cheers of the night, though, went to the club's president, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., the lawyer and investment banker. Instead of launching into the interminable remarks common at big, formal Washington dinners, Jordan said simply, "Thank you for being here. Please enjoy your dinner." Evidently thrilled at his brevity, the crowd burst into applause.
-- N.I.