Welcoming the world to Pittsburgh for the G-20 Summit is a huge undertaking, but Dennis Yablonsky sees it more as a awesome opportunity.
"This is a major event and the fact that Pittsburgh was chosen is a real honor," says the CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. "This is a wonderful opportunity to increase the size of our pipeline for companies thinking of expansions. We think we'll end up with jobs and capital investments we might not have had otherwise."
The Allegheny Conference is one of four organizing partners of the G-20, The Pittsburgh G-20 Partnership, which includes Allegheny County, the city of Pittsburgh and VisitPittsburgh. The partnership's Web site is a central clearinghouse for information and online links, offering the latest news and an eNewsletter with volunteer opportunities for the G-20.
What does Yablonsky hope the region will take away from the G-20? With 2,000 journalists in the region, Pittsburgh has an unparalleled chance to tell the world that southwestern Pennsylvania has jobs, more than 25,000 through www.imaginemynewjob.com alone. We need to fill jobs locally and attract new talent.
"We need to get the word out," Yablonsky says. "We think there's a disconnect between the awareness and the reality here."
Will Pittsburgh be ready? Absolutely, says Yablonsky. "There's a tremendous number of smart people working on this."
What's the one thing he wishes that he could change before the G-20?
"The one thing Pittsburgh could use is more time to get everything done," he laughs. "We're working within a very compressed time frame. But there's nothing like a deadline to galvanize people."
Writer: Debra Diamond Smit
Source: Dennis Yablonsky, Allegheny Conference