CenterState reveals export strategies, $200K winner

SYRACUSE — A new regional strategy developed by CenterState CEO in a partnership with the Brookings Institution aims to double the Syracuse metro area’s exports in the next five years.

The area’s exports already total $3.3 billion and while that may seem like a large number, it lags behind other regions, CenterState CEO President Robert Simpson says. Exports account for about 8.7 percent of the Syracuse area’s gross metro product. The national average is about 11 percent.

Local companies simply can’t turn away international markets, even though many remain hesitant to make the leap into exporting, Simpson says.

CenterState announced the project with Brookings, a Washington, D.C.–based public policy think tank, in June. Syracuse is one of four pilot cities to participate in the organization’s Metropolitan Export Initiative.

The others are Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Portland, Ore.

CenterState announced the new plan and its three core strategies at its annual meeting today. The strategies include increasing export activity among the region’s top exporters, focusing on small and mid-size companies, and expanding service exports.

Also at the meeting, CenterState announced MicroGen of Ithaca as the winner of the $200,000 grand prize in this year’s Creative Core Emerging Business Competition. The contest seeks to honor the region’s most innovative and growth-oriented company.

The firm’s technology harvests the energy created by vibrations for use in a variety of applications. The company is developing a line of micro-power sources to extend rechargeable battery lifetimes.

MicroGen had been a finalist in two previous years of the competition.

Past winners of the competition include Sound Reading Solutions, Widetronix, e2e Materials, and Mezmeriz, all based in Ithaca, and BrandYourself.com of Syracuse.

For more on this story, see Friday’s issue of The Central New York Business Journal.

Contact Tampone at ktampone@cnybj.com