Today marks my first day as the new Chief Executive Officer for the Birmingham Business Alliance. It is an honor to step into this role for an organization whose mission I deeply believe in, and whose team I deeply admire.
Steve Ammons has been named CEO of the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA), the region’s primary economic development agency. Ammons will be responsible for leading collaboration between BBA and its community partners across the seven-county region to ensure the alignment and achievement of strategic objectives. He will begin his new role on May 30.
We are thrilled to announce that Tquila Automation, a leading automation software company, is expanding its map to the Greater Birmingham Region. This new location will create 200 new high-quality jobs with an average wage of $65,000 and expects to generate up to $21.51 million in overall economic impact over the next 20 years.
Birmingham companies announced significantly more jobs and capital investment in 2018 than in 2017, according to the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA).
In 2018, 58 companies across the Birmingham seven-county region announced 4,511 jobs and $1,026,024,686 in capital investment, compared with 3,068 jobs and $572.7 million in capital investment announced by 40 companies in 2017. The seven-county region encompasses Bibb, Blount, Chilton, Jefferson, St. Clair, Shelby, and Walker counties.
Following a record year of over 4,500 jobs and $1 billion in capital investment for the Birmingham region, President and CEO of the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA), Brian Hilson, announced he is stepping down to take another economic development position within Alabama. He will remain with the BBA until March 29, 2019.
Birmingham-based RxBenefits, a pharmacy benefits solution platform, added 76 new jobs in Birmingham last year, bringing its Birmingham employee count to 187.
In addition to adding new employees – eventually there will be 120 additional jobs in Birmingham – the company expanded its headquarters space, located at the Colonnade, and invested in technology.
The Birmingham seven-county region’s St. Clair County was recognized recently for its economic resilience in the aftermath of 2008’s Great Recession.
The Birmingham Business Alliance’s Vice President of Regional Development Nan Baldwin is involved in numerous different projects through her work, including Opportunity Zones, Alabama Communities of Excellence and transportation infrastructure talks, just to name a few. Her work all has one common purpose – to enhance the quality of life for all Birmingham residents. The BBA sat down with Baldwin recently to talk about her work and why she is passionate about it.
For Traci Wells, human resources manager at Kamtek, the greatest challenge she faces in her job is recruiting within skilled trades, specifically the tool and dye trade that Kamtek specializes in.
“Recruiters will say we can’t do it,” she said. “They literally tell us ‘You can’t do it.’”
So the team at Kamtek, a Tier 1 automotive manufacturing supplier that specializes in metal stamping and assembly and is most especially known for its work with Mercedes-Benz, decided to show recruiters they could do it – by building an apprenticeship program to help grow its own workforce, which currently employs 1,000 in Birmingham.
Dave Gray, one of Birmingham’s entrepreneurial leaders, is launching a new project, Biso Collective, a software business. Gray, who was CEO of Birmingham-based Daxko and still maintains a board seat with the company, spoke to the Birmingham Business Alliance about his new business, why Birmingham is a great place to start a company and what has driven Birmingham’s recent tech boom.
The typical vehicle today gets 40 percent better gas mileage than the typical vehicle in 1992, which is the last time the gas tax was increased. Roads, however, cost two to three times as much now, said John Cooper, director of the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT), when he spoke this week to the Birmingham Business Alliance’s Governmental Affairs Committee.
Four Birmingham entrepreneurs gave advice on how to fundraise to a packed house at Innovation Depot last week.
The Investors Roundtable was hosted by the Birmingham Business Alliance in partnership with the BBJ and Innovation Depot. The event was part of a series focused on different topics in the Birmingham startup community, with this roundtable zeroing in on small businesses that have recently raised money through various platforms.
U.S. Senator Richard Shelby will be in Washington, D.C., this week as the Senate takes two key votes aimed at ending the government shutdown.
Before heading back to D.C., Shelby spoke to Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) leadership about the shutdown and other federal policy in a policy briefing at the BBA office.
Local companies in Birmingham’s core sectors are reporting nearly 20 percent market share growth over the previous year, according to the Birmingham Business Alliance’s Business Retention and Expansion program.
The BBA staff visited 138 companies representing over 21,000 local employees last year. These companies announced 1,782 new jobs and $190 million in capital investment in 2018, a steady increase over 2017, where companies announced 640 new jobs and $96 million in capital investment.
Last year was a landmark year for innovation and technology in Birmingham, and already 2019 is shaping up to be successful as well. We sat down with the Birmingham Business Alliance’s Vice President of Innovation and Technology Jon Nugent to discuss what’s on the horizon and why tech companies are choosing Birmingham.
