The Piedmont Triad Regional Development Corporation (PTRDC) is tasked with developing and implementing the region's comprehensive economic development strategy (CEDS). Below you will find the digital current and previous versions of this document as well as an online data portal with information for the region and each of the 12 counties individually. 

Current Strategy (Adopted January 31, 2023):

We've transitioned to a new interactive digital CEDS platform!
Click to explore the 2023-2028 CEDS. 

For the text-only version of the 2023-2028 CEDS, click here.

What is a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy?

• The Piedmont Triad Regional Council is a designated Economic Development District (EDD) through the US Economic Development Administration (EDA) to identify regional priorities for impactful economic development and developing CEDS that supports our region’s stakeholders. 
• CEDS compasses strategic efforts to develop a transparent and refreshed vision for the future of our 12-county region. Every citizen within the Piedmont Triad plays a role within our CEDS, as they are the indicators for incoming economic development and regional plans to show where communities design to grow, how they remain competitive, and holding institutions to share responsibility.

• CEDS goals and objectives embed regional cohesion and realistic approaches to equitably leverage all assets each county has to offer. The CEDS must be updated every five years.

Goals 

The regional goals are created to define the strategic direction and action plan outcomes built from the findings highlighted within our region’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis. Our goals are consistent with community aspirations for economic prosperity across the Piedmont Triad and serve as benchmarks for performance measures on the regional resources that best align to all four goals. Prioritizing projects and grant writing to adhere to the CEDS goals is crucial for building on the region’s strengths and capabilities, while contracting weaknesses and limitations.

The 2023-2028 CEDS Goals are outlined below:

1.  Boost the Region’s Competitive Advantages and Leverage the Marketplace - To achieve true prosperity, the Piedmont Triad will successfully coordinate efforts to build, grow, and maintain robust, competitive areas of proficiency and innovation across the region.

2. Establish and Modernize a Robust Regional Infrastructure - To remain competitive in a growing global economy, the Piedmont Triad should make the revitalization and improvement of state and local infrastructure a priority for funding. 

3. Create and Connect Vibrant, Healthy, and Resilient Communities - The Piedmont Triad must take a more intentional approach to providing healthy lifestyle options as a way to attract the best and brightest while also helping to minimize the costs of health insurance and medical care for companies and citizens.

4. Develop and Retain Talented and Innovative Human Capital- The Piedmont Triad region will need to employ a wide range of multi-faceted strategies to successfully train, recruit, and retain flexible, entrepreneurial, globally-oriented skilled workers with cross-cutting competencies sought by employers. 

CEDS Information Collection Process

The CEDS embeds regional cohesion and realistic approaches to equitably leverage all assets each county has to offer by collectively exploring all quantitative and qualitive methods of data collection. PTRC hosted numerous public listening sessions organized by focus groups and distributed a region-wide public survey to given community stakeholders the opportunity to create awareness, express concern, and address the qualitative economic needs this CEDS update encompasses. Quantitative data collection from federal and state database sources are also referenced and used through the CEDS to compare regional information and accurately depict the Piedmont Triad. 

 Previous Strategies:

2018-2022 CEDS - Updated December 11, 2020 
2018-2022 CEDS - Adopted December 6, 2017
2014-2018 CEDS - Adopted February 19, 2014