1Berkshire Launches The Berkshire Blueprint 2.0

BERKSHIRE COUNTY, MA – After two years of research, more than one hundred interviews, and thousands of hours of work, 1Berkshire is excited to launch the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0. This initiative is a culmination of research and planning, with a forward-thinking approach to implementing a new strategic imperative across The Berkshires.

Facilitated by 1Berkshire, the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0 offers everyone and anyone in Berkshire County the opportunity and charge to engage in the region’s present and future economic development. In addition to examining the regional economy through a business cluster model and identifying actions targeted to confront cross-cutting challenges facing The Berkshires, the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0 provides the framework through which organizations and individuals can become stakeholders. With the initial five industry clusters of Advanced Manufacturing, Creative Economy, Food and Agriculture, Healthcare, and Hospitality and Tourism, the Blueprint aims to capitalize on the current momentum of core economic sectors in the region, while also recognizing opportunities for growth. This built-in agility allows the Blueprint 2.0’s ongoing work to incorporate future emergent industry clusters, engaging and activating them through the work of the Blueprint partnerships. Tyler Fairbank, chair of the Blueprint 2.0 Committee notes “Unlike many other reports, the Blueprint 2.0 is a road map being taken into full implementation and not something that will sit on a shelf collecting dust. This is just the beginning.”

The process of researching and developing The Berkshire Blueprint 2.0 has revealed that the economic narrative of Berkshire County is no longer restricted to the challenges of our regional past. The new Berkshire narrative is about growth and opportunity, evidenced by significant recent investments. These investments are both private and public, as well as local and from outside the region, and equate to over $1 billion of regional investment since the beginning of 2016. Speaking to the realization of this new narrative, President and CEO of 1Berkshire, Jonathan Butler said “This isn’t the same Berkshires that I grew up in the 1990s. Much has gone into our region reimagining and reinventing itself across multiple sectors and the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0 process demonstrated that we have a much stronger foundation to build on today than we did 20 years ago…”

In addition to the exciting new narrative and analysis of the initial industry clusters, the Blueprint 2.0 addresses the need to continue working on several cross-cutting challenges that impact the entirety of the Berkshire economic ecosystem. These include transportation access, workforce development, population loss, energy costs, broadband availability, and wage and financial sustainability. These threads run throughout and across The Berkshires and will require persistent stakeholder engagement from every corner of the region to accomplish meaningful change. Butler notes “In many ways, our biggest current challenges are symptoms of progress – workforce needs of employers, a more modern transportation system, improved broadband access – all of these things point to our infrastructure needing to catch up to the demand that our potential growth is creating. These challenges though are complex and require collaboration from across the region.”

The Berkshire Blueprint 2.0 offers The Berkshires a new, agile, and long-term strategic imperative that engages stakeholders and partners from across the County. With a renewed narrative of investment and growth, the potential for economic prosperity and sustained opportunity is on the horizon. 1Berkshire looks forward to facilitating the actions, updates, and tracking of this critical work for years to come, and is excited for you to join us in that collective endeavor into the future.

About 1Berkshire
1Berkshire is a county-wide organization focused on economic development and promotion of the region as a preferred place to visit, to live, and to grow a business. It provides programs that connect businesses with each other and with potential customers and works to develop future leaders and support entrepreneurs. For more information, visit 1Berkshire.com.