Cupelo

The Rhode Island Commodores, a privately funded coalition of business and civic leaders, has pledged $30,000 for a campaign led by Governor Carcieri to recruit out-of-state firms and their jobs.

The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation kicked off the campaign, called Opportunity: Rhode Island, with a dinner in Boston on Sept. 23 with senior representatives from seven Massachusetts-based informational technology and digital-media companies. The dinner is the first in a series of events scheduled for the fall to identify expansion and relocation opportunities in the financial services, information technology and digital media, and health and life-sciences sectors.

The events are designed to open communication between Rhode Island’s economic development team and senior private-sector leadership at top regional companies. Participants at the first dinner included senior executives from Microsoft, Aspect Software, Endeca, Avaya, Nuance Communications, CambridgeSoft and BBN Technologies.

Donna Cupelo, regional president of Verizon New England who heads the Commodores, said, “This first event set a positive and productive tone for our conversations with regional leaders in the info-tech industry. I think everyone who participated learned a lot about the challenges growing IT companies face and what Rhode Island can do to become even more competitive in attracting new business to the state.”

Other participants included Carcieri; EDC executive director Saul Kaplan; EDC director of business development Katharine Flynn; Tim Hebert, CEO, Atrion Networking Corp.; Stuart Freiman, EDC business development manager for info-tech and digital media; and Michael Colapietro, CEO of Inquest Technologies. Inquest is moving their growing IT business from Massachusetts to Rhode Island this month.

Kaplan said, “Our economic growth plan centers on job growth in target industry sectors that pay higher wages and provide workers with good opportunities to move from lower-paying entry-level positions to higher-wage positions … Rhode Island has significant strength and momentum in the financial services, information technology and digital media, and health and life-sciences sectors. Building on this foundation through a regional attraction effort enables us to strategically invest limited resources in areas where opportunities for success are highest.”

The dinners follow a two-month direct-mail and call campaign that identified target companies that may have a strategic interest in relocating to Rhode Island. More than 1,500 companies were contacted in this effort.

Six dinners are planned for this phase of the campaign. The next dinner will take place in Cambridge, Mass., with a gathering of executives from health and life-sciences companies.