Economic Developer Seeking Weather Companies

In the parlance of economic promoters, a group of companies within the same industry is often described as an “economic development cluster.”

“In the Norman weather is our cluster,” said Don Wood. “An OU grad can have a career with several companies” in Norman’s growing weather industry, he said.

Wood, executive director of the Norman Economic Development Coalition, outlined his efforts to attract weather companies during a Tuesday meeting of the Norman Chamber of Commerce Weather Committee.

He said his task of building a weather cluster in Norman began shortly after he was hired in 1997. He did a study of weather industry trends in 1998. The study was updated in 2003 and financed by the University of Oklahoma, he said.

The big event for weather-related companies is the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting and trade show, Wood said. The NEDC hosted its first reception for AMS delegates in 1999 in Dallas, he said. The NEDC also has developed a weather brochure periodically updated with fact sheets on weather organizations in Norman, and video CD about the weather industry.

“New company recruitment is a unique partnership,” Wood said, “a group sport involving demographics information from the NEDC and technical specifications from weather agencies and organizations in Norman.

Wood said he is discriminating in going after companies with the potential to complement high-tech companies here. “We’re deliberate in watching companies we bring in,” he said.

“We had a meeting with company a year ago and found it was not a good fit for Norman.”

What is known as the “National Weather Center” now being built on OU’s south research campus was named for its function, Wood said. The complex will include such groups as the National Severe Storm Lab, the Center for the Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS), the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale, Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) and the National Weather Service. Private companies are sought to work alongside enterprises like WeatherNews, Weather Decision Technologies, and Vieux & Associates, already here.

Wood said Norman needs a “weather festival” and a weather museum to draw national attention to the weather center. “If we’re gonna be the National Weather Center we need a national weather museum here,” he said. “The Smithsonian [Institute] can get involved” in building exhibits for the museum, he said. “Possibly, we could become an affiliate of the Smithsonian.”

Wood also said he is working toward luring a manufacturer to Norman to produce the next generation of weather radar. “The NEDC’s role is whatever it need to be,” he said.