In 1994, Terry Tomlinson was referred to Terry Harris by former Kansas City Mayor Charles Wheeler. After discussing their separate backgrounds and expertise, they decided to form a partnership called Initiative for a Competitive Rural America.
In the 30 years since, they have visited numerous communities, evaluated many technologies for commercial development, and have reached the conclusion that America needs an independent “private option” format for economic development that provides mechanisms for local citizens to have more control of their future.
Green-G Network was created to communicate this message.
The new economic development strategy proposed by Green-G Network is perfectly positioned to use several hidden assets:
- Underutilized urban industrial areas that were originally developed along rivers and railroads as the country industrialized after WW-I, many with adjacent residential neighborhoods and commercial areas now suffering from poverty after decades of neglect;
- Rural communities that are dealing with the effects of EXTRACTIVE development where the loss of natural resources led to a loss of population, changing demographics, and shifting market conditions creating tremendous business development challenges.;
- Thousands of patents or patent pending technologies developed initially with government seed funding or grants, and which are now being “warehoused” at universities, national laboratories, private companies, or government funded agencies.
Terry Tomlinson
Terry Tomlinson was a Navy Pilot in the Vietnam War flying helicopter gunships in combat zones. He spent his post war years as a flight instructor in the Navy. After he left the service, he spent time as an agriculture and commercial lender in Illinois. He purchased and operated several successful retail and industrial businesses in Illinois and Utah. He moved to the San Francisco area in the mid 1980s where his start-up and commercial lending experience was applied to venture capital in technology transfer. He moved back to the Midwest to work on a computer voice technology project that he assisted while in the Silicon Valley. For the last 30 years, he has been working with emerging technology researchers, developers and funders in telecommunications, renewable energy, aviation fuels, and value added advanced materials using bio-based feedstock. He was a Principal Investigator for a USDA ARS managed NIFA grant to research the development of canola bio-oil to be used as feedstock for a Honeywell Sustainable Aviation Fuel manufacturing technology. In the years that Tomlinson worked in this area, he developed a significant network in National Labs, Federally Funded Labs, and Technology Transfer offices in Universities.
B.S. from Eastern Illinois University
Terry Harris
Terry Harris has over 30 years experience in Main Street and Community Economic Development Consulting.
Executive Director Positions include: Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street; MainCor – Main Street Corridor Development Corporation; City of Wilson, NC – Community Development Administrator and Wilson Downtown Development Corporation; and City of Merriam, KS – Downtown Merriam Partnership.
Consulting Contracts include: NC Cyberscape Development – using enhanced bandwidth capacity as a basis for economic development in underserved counties in rural North Carolina; Basehor, KS – Town Center Development working with a developer that wanted to create a new town center concept within a mixed use residential commercial development project; Greenwood, MO – Economic Development working with a volunteer committee to devise a downtown retail master plan and reuse strategy for a financially distressed golf course residential project as part of an effort to resolve an ongoing legal battle with a neighboring quarry and mining enterprise; Grandview, MO – Downtown Development evaluating the potential for new development strategies along Main Street in Grandview as well as the conceptual development of a sports village project; Cobalt Talon – working with IT personnel using the Tableau software platform to geographically represent ESRI licensed data providing analytics of consumer preferences to forecast future business development.
Organizations and Committees include: Past-President of the Missouri Downtown Development Association; Missouri Main Street Advisory Council; Missouri Rural Opportunity Council; Kansas City Chamber and Kansas City Police Department Community Action Network Center Selection Committee; Initiative for a Competitive Inner City investigative steering committee convened by The Kauffman Foundation to evaluate the work of Dr. Michael Porter dealing with competitive advantages based on local assets, which eventually led to the formation of Brush Creek Partners community economic development coalition.
B.A. and M.Ed. from University of Missouri