Geared for Growth: OneROC Builds Momentum to Build a Brighter Future in Greater Rochester
OneROC connects regional economic development organizations to build capacity and bring new resources to our community. President & CEO Joe Stefko was featured on Geared for Growth on Wednesday, July 31 as part of Greater Rochester Chamber’s ongoing partnership with 13WHAM/FOX Rochester. Stefko shared more about what OneROC does, how it helps partner organizations, and the impact it's having on our region.
OneROC is a non-profit serving as our regional economic alliance. Established in 2019 as ROC2025, OneROC works with organizations including Greater Rochester Chamber, Greater Rochester Enterprise,
Rochester Downtown Development Corporation, and more. “We essentially serve as a coordinating and capacity-building vehicle within our regional economic growth space,” Stefko shared, “Most importantly, helping to bring net new resources to the table to fuel talent attraction and retention, business attraction, and help activate, revitalize, and innovate downtown.” In addition, OneROC underwrites the Greater ROC regional branding campaign, which works to reclaim and retell the narrative about the Greater Rochester region both here and throughout the country.
OneROC played an integral role in securing Greater Rochester’s status and $40M federal investment as a Federal Tech Hub along with Buffalo and Syracuse as the NY SMART I-Corridor. “It’s an opportunity for this corridor to capitalize on the investments that Micron is making north of Syracuse, and that Intel is making in Ohio,” Joe explained, “We are uniquely positioned in geographic sense to have our manufacturers tap into and feed that supply chain in a way that presents really significant economic opportunities for the upstate corridor.”
In addition to its work on the tech hub project, over the past five years OneROC has secured nearly $30M in investments in alliance partner organizations. “We started in 2019 with a $20M five-year capacity building target, and I am deeply grateful to the business community and the philanthropic community who have stepped up to almost $30M committed to this effort,” Stefko shared. Through these investments, OneROC has been able to increase engage with businesses who want to come into the region through Greater Rochester Enterprise, and funded talent attraction and retention programs at Greater Rochester Chamber including CampusROC, Veterans Connect, Greater ROC Careers, and more.
Stefko shared that over the first five years, they have already seen a big impact on the Greater Rochester region as a result of their capacity-building efforts. Compared to 50 peer metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) our ranking has improved over the past five years in metrics including job growth, income growth, labor force growth. regional GDP growth, and other important economic performance metrics. Over the next five years, OneROC hopes to build on this momentum and continue to invest in our community.
To learn more about OneROC, visit OneROC.com.
Be sure to tune into Geared for Growth every Wednesday on FOX Rochester at 8:45 AM to hear more exciting success stories throughout Greater Rochester.