East Metro on the Move

Back-filling is Saint Paul Port Authority’s specialty: The Port Authority, with its brownfield cleanup, workforce development and expansion financing programs, is strategically positioned to benefit smaller, expansion-minded businesses fill in the manufacturing gaps left by larger industries. These stalwart job shops — like the 3M Co. — either have pulled up stakes for other areas or to go out of business. And the businesses that go into these redeveloped industrial sites are smaller but no less sustaining to our families and our neighborhoods.

We can compete in the ever-expanding marketplace only by turning out highly skilled workers to fill jobs in the skilled areas that feed this breed of new niche manufacturer.

We continue to nurture businesses, which may not individually make up for the larger job losses that make headlines but collectively, albeit under the radar, these businesses are fueling Saint Paul’s job creation engine.

You can count on us to continue this gratifying work in the future. For more information, please contact Brenda Kyle at 651-204-6241.

“This business center and the new Phalen Boulevard have given the City of Saint Paul, as well as local business owners, hope for continued prosperity. Where there once was nothing going on around here, there now is a lot of activity. Just like I remembered as a kid.”

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Saint Paul Port Authority can only achieve its redevelopment goals by working closely with a variety of community partners. The results of those partnerships pay huge dividends in a variety of ways, not always strictly business:

“It will be difficult to adequately express my appreciation for the benefit received by almost every Saint Paul firefighter over the past month during their training at the “Minnehaha Bowl.” Three hundred eighty four firefighters received an opportunity to complete a large area search using a search rope introduced during these sessions. After the search practice, those same firefighters completed a simulated rescue of a trapped firefighter in a live smoke environment. Another 180 firefighters went through a scenario of a fire in the basement where a crew became trapped and required rescue. We used non-toxic smoke without real fire but the vast darkness of the basement ensured enough reality to drive home the dangers this type of structure produces.

Firefighters from Phoenix and Seattle both lost their lives in similar large buildings and seven firefighters died in Worcester, MA, searching an empty cold storage warehouse in 1999. The practice within the Fire Service has been to practice the more dangerous events as frequently as you can to be prepared when it really happens. I am confident that lives will be spared at some point in the careers of the firefighters that participated in the training during April of ‘09. The lives saved may be their own, their comrades, or a citizen of Saint Paul.

I am extremely grateful for your efforts and the willingness of the Port Authority to allow Saint Paul Fire to partner with you to accomplish the achievements of this past month. Thank you.”

Keith G. Morehead

Deputy Chief of Training

St. Paul Department of Fire & Safety Services