Contributed photo.
Sen. McCormick hails Power Northwest and pledges support
A group of business and civic leaders from a ten-county area of Pennsylvania today pledged to promote development in the energy and technology sectors, an eCort inspired and endorsed by Sen. Dave McCormick’s 2025 Energy and Innovation Summit.
“This region was once among the wealthiest in the nation. The Drake oil well changed the world. But over the past fifty years, aging demographics and limited growth have created real headwinds. And still, the assets here are extraordinary.” McCormick told over 300 business and civic leaders at the organization’s launch Tuesday.
“Here is the economic truth: capital and talent are like water — they flow where the path is easiest. If Northwest Pennsylvania is going to lead again, we must make it easier to invest here,” McCormick added. The organization, its leaders said, is designed to allow the region – with a combined population of close to one million, to speak with a unified voice.
“Right now, we have so many voices speaking that we risk drowning out our own message. That message is that this region built America, and we can do it again. That’s why we’re here today: to speak up with a single voice,” said Bob Wilson, newly installed president of Power Northwest.
Power Northwest comprises the counties of Erie, Butler, Beaver, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango, Warren, Clarion, Forest and Crawford. Its founders noted that they will provide a unified voice to existing economic development agencies and political leaders, acting solely in a supporting role to those groups.
The organization is the brainchild of two successful business leaders, Frank Mindicino and Frank Evans, who were inspired to organize on behalf of ten counties that have yet to be included in the $92 billion in energy and technology investment announced at McCormick’s summit in July.
“We know that when it comes to the economy, you cannot wait for your turn. You take it. That’s why we’re here today,” Evans told the audience at the Avalon Country Club in Mercer County.
Speaker-after-speaker cited the region’s history of industrial strength during the preceding centuries and stressed the available resources that would encourage outside investment.
“The ten counties that make up this region have a wealth of resources, not the least of them their people,” Wilson noted. “We have natural gas beneath our feet. We have power lines overhead. We have ample water. We have academic institutions that understand how to put ideas into action. And we have a bounty of economic development agencies guided by men and women whose sole purpose in life is to see this region prosper.”
The leader of one of those academic institutions. Dr. Kathy Richardson, president of Westminster College in Lawrence County, endorsed the newly formed coalition and predicted it would benefit residents in all walks of life. Regional growth, she said, “works best when the economic forces surrounding those places of learning allow those students to begin careers in any of a number of endeavors.”
Other speakers at the event included Jay Bruce, President and CEO of Bruce and Merrilees and Barry Zekelman, Executive Chairman and CEO of Zekelman Industries.