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OPINIONS

THE BUSINESS JOURNAL

NORTH CAROLINAPress Association

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Change in leadershipgives Skybus chance

to right itself

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Ful-filling the fondest wishes of local eco-nomic boosters, an airline comes to PTI

bringing with it more direct flights and deeplydiscounted prices only to wobble financiallyand eventually fail.

It happened to Eastwind.It happened to ContinentalLite. It happened to Inde-pendence Air and AirTran.

And now, following Sky-bus’ poor early financial results and the suddenresignation this week of its charismatic, found-ing CEO, it seems like history may be repeat-ing itself.

But hold on.As much we hunger for more commercial

flights and cheaper fares, no one should thinkthat getting it is as simple as someone showingup and selling tickets. Otherwise, it would havebeen done, successfully, a long time ago.

It’s a sad truth that most start-up airlines fail,but like any area of business, even the ulti-mately successful ventures need time to workout the kinks. And that always means red inkearly on.

The difficulty is especially true at PTI. In-deed, at this point, one has to wonder whetherthe market itself can sustain Skybus. True, air-port officials say they’re drawing from a widergeographic net since Skybus started flights,but — in the end — can we fill enough seats?

Skybus is unique in that its made Greens-boro a base city. We can draw not only from ourown market, but from other areas of the coun-try as a connecting spot for flights to othercities. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t.

Analysts correctly point out some of flawsthat could sink Skybus — among them its de-cision to use primarily secondary airports, al-ways miles out of the way from the ultimatedestination of travelers.

Still, new CEO (and former CFO) MikeHodge, is convinced the concept can work. Inthe end, what Skybus needs most of all is to ex-ecute the plan it has so much faith in, whichmeans low fares, on-time service and efficientbaggage handling.

Thus, former CEO Bill Diffenderffer’s de-parture for a number cruncher like Hodgemight be exactly what the airline needs at themoment.

Sure, it’s still an uphill battle. But we knew thatall along, didn’t we? The challenge hasn’t reallychanged, though the clock continues to tick.

And we’re still wishing Skybus clear skiesahead.

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OUR VIEW

Triad must ask, “What are our skills clusters?”EDITOR’S NOTE: Andrew Brod, a leading local analyst of regionaleconomic trends, joins The Business Journal this week as a regu-lar contributor to the op-ed page. His column will appear monthly.

One of the most important terms in economic-develop-ment circles is “cluster.” An industry cluster is a groupof industries that are interrelated: they do business

with each other, they use the same infrastructure, and they of-ten hire the same types of people.

The clusters identified for the Triad include transport-logis-tics, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, health care andthe arts.

In a sense, however, the emphasis on clusters has it wrong.As we’ve seen in the Triad, industries comeand go. Nowadays, the fundamental drivers ofa region’s economic success are the skills ofits workers. The stars of the New Economyare the people whom Richard Florida calls thecreative class and Robert Reich calls symbolicanalysts: people who manipulate ideas insteadof things.

Instead of industrial clusters, perhaps weshould focus on skills clusters: groups of re-lated competencies and abilities. Skills clus-ters are often reflected in particular occupa-tions, but even occupations come and go.

Why do we focus on industries? One rea-son is that industries are easy to measure; the

most reliable economic data tend to be organized by industry.It’s not quite as bad as the joke about the man who looks forhis lost keys under the street lamp because “this is where thelight is.” It makes sense to analyze data on industries, but ulti-mately, industries are not as fundamental as skills.

When the defense industry laid off tens of thousands of peo-ple in and around San Diego in the late ’80s and early ’90s, thelocal economy managed to recover (though not immediately)because it had so many skilled people formerly employed inaerospace and related industries.

San Diego is once again a leading regional economy, but

now its industries include information technology, biotechnol-ogy, and other high-tech sectors. The region’s industriesevolved in a very favorable way, and the underlying skill setmade that possible.

The importance of skills isn’t limited to the executive suiteand design studio, the bastions of the creative class. In trans-port-logistics, more and more decision-making is beingpushed down onto the warehouse floor, where a worker muststill know how to drive a forklift but often also to operate a com-puter, one of which may well be mounted on that forklift.

Manufacturers in the Triad are having difficulty finding work-ers who know how to do simple mathematics, read meters andoperate machinery in an increasingly automated world.

When you listen to politicians on the campaign trail and theblusterers on talk radio, you’d think that the economy’sbiggest challenge is whether there will be enough jobs for ourpeople. Our biggest concern should be whether there will beenough skilled people to fill the jobs that our economy creates.

When Robert McDowell, a vice president of Microsoft,spoke at UNCG in 2006, he explained why his company re-cruits overseas: “We’re not looking for cheap talent — we’relooking for talent. But we can’t find enough people coming outof the U.S. education system with the skills we need.”

McDowell went on to note that he wasn’t just talking abouthigh-tech skills, but also communications and sales.

These issues hit hard here in the Triad. Our economy hasundergone extensive changes, and yet we have low levels ofeducational attainment when compared to other metro areas,even those in North Carolina. We’re holding our own in a tur-bulent global economy.

But as we move forward to what we hope will be a higher-growth future, there’s a question we need to ask. What are ourskills clusters?ANDREW BROD is the director of UNCG’s Center for Businessand Economic Research and a member of The Business Jour-nal’s Editorial Board of Contributors. Reach him at (336)334-4867 or AndrewBrod@uncg.edu. An archive of Brod’scolumns is available at http://cber.uncg.edu.

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VIEWPOINTANDREW BROD

PublisherDouglas W. Copeland Jr.

EditorialEditorMark SutterExecutive EditorJustin CatanosoAssociate EditorLloyd WhittingtonDesign EditorDale Edwards

ReportersLane Harvey BrownMatt EvansSteve IveyMichelle Cater RashLaura YoungsResearch DirectorStephanie NickellWashington BureauKent Hoover

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March 28 - April 3, 2008 triad.bizjournals.com The Business Journal 43