Q&A with Pete Paradossi, Evansville Regional Business Committee president
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In 2016, Pete Paradossi became president of the Evansville Regional Business Committee after a 25-year career in the pharmaceutical and health care industry. The leadership organization comprised of southwest Indiana CEOs and business presidents focuses on advancing regional economic growth and building a vibrant community.
Paradossi also serves on several boards and organizations, including Evansville Regional Economic Partnership, United Way of Southwest Indiana and Evansville Sports Commission. He spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the ERBC and his distinction as a 2024 Indiana 250 honoree.
Tell me about the Evansville Regional Business Committee.
The Evansville Regional Business Committee has been around for just over 20 years. And the mission of the organization has not changed a whole lot. How do we continue to be the visionary force behind building a robust and vibrant region? Our membership, which is about 20 to 22, represents the largest and/or most engaged businesses in southwest Indiana.
What is your role as ERBC president?
Each of our member companies have their own agendas behind what’s important for their business and for the success of their business. What I do is I bring these 20 leaders together and say, “What do we agree upon collectively that we need to focus on to continue to grow and advance the region?”
How did your pharmaceutical and health care industry career prepare you to lead ERBC?
The last 15 years of my career in pharma were spent working with senior staffs of businesses. There’s a bit of art and science in working with CEOs and senior business leaders. One of the things that it gave me an understanding of is how to effectively bring these 20 people around the table who are high-powered business individuals and get them to align, agree and move forward on the key issues. My time in pharma helped me understand how to get that done.
What challenges have you faced as ERBC president?
One of the biggest challenges is everybody wants to act with urgency. But when you’re dealing with government entities and other political challenges, it takes time. That’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to get used to in my role in leading the ERBC for the past eight years is that individuals who run their businesses make the decision, and they implement it.
What are the successes ERBC has experienced?
We’ve got five strategic platforms. One is education and workforce development. Second platform would be quality of place. Third is infrastructure and transportation. Fourth would be the growth and effectiveness of [Evansville Regional Economic Partnership]. And then the last one is transformational. What are those projects that could transform the region in southwest Indiana going forward? Those are the large visionary projects that potentially take a lot of time.
There are focus areas under each one of those that we help try to advance the agenda to make those things happen. So one of those, under growth and effectiveness of E-REP, they have the responsibility for the execution of Talent EVV right now. The continued success that we’ve had with Talent EVV has been game changing for us as a region. Talent EVV and the platforms under that are the cornerstones.
If you look back to READI 1.0 and READI 2.0, you’ll see Talent EVV talked about as the strategic driver behind the READI initiatives coming out of southwest Indiana for us. That was born out of ERBC about five years ago. That would be a great example of an initiative that we got started and got behind as support. We found the right execution partner, and we handed it off to the partner to continue to advance the work under Talent EVV.
Another important one for us in southwest Indiana has been improved air service out of Evansville’s airport, specifically post-COVID, with the return of direct service from here to Chicago. A lot of work behind the scenes in making that happen. A lot of support from [the Indiana Economic Development Corp.] to help make that happen.
That’s a critical piece of air service that’s going to help the region continue to grow. We were hearing from our businesses, not just my board, but our businesses, that the lack of direct service to Chicago was problematic for them. And getting that returned as soon as possible was a critical business need for the community.
Securing the Orr Fellowship expansion into southwest Indiana was another important success that we’ve had. We put that under education and workforce development strategic platform for us there as well.
And the last one I’ll highlight is the continued work that we’re doing to try to advance the I-69 Ohio River bridge project. I-69 is completed up into Indianapolis and beyond right now. The last piece of this is getting a new bridge that connects I-69 between Kentucky and Indiana.
You mentioned the Chicago flights returning to Evansville. What about Detroit?
That’s still being worked on. It’s always a challenge, but that’s another flight that’s being worked on as well.
How are ERBC and E-REP connected?
We had three organizations doing phases of economic development in our region. We had the Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Coalition and another group called GAGE, Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville. All three of those organizations were doing some form of economic development.
As we sat back and looked at it, while each of the organizations were doing good work, there was a lot of overlap between what was happening. And the feeling was that we needed one organization to orchestrate economic development for the region. We sat down with the leaders and boards of each of those organizations and discussed what we felt was the need to consolidate into one organization.
We went through a process. We brought in a consultant to work through the issues with us. And E-REP was formed out of our interest in saying that we think there’s a better way to do economic development, and it’s under the leadership of one organization. We have a vested interest in the success of E-REP because we were the ones who were driving to create one economic development organization for the region.
What are you most proud of in your career?
This might sound like a pretty sappy answer here, but here it goes. As a leader for most of my career, you’ve got a lot of business demands and a lot of long hours in front of you. But yet, having a family, raising two boys, wanting to pay attention to my wife, being able to be a attentive dad, raise a good family and still be good at my job is something that I feel most proud about in my career.
How does it feel to be named a 2024 Indiana 250 honoree?
Clearly an honor to be in that group. There are a lot of great names that are listed.
Anything else you’d like to add?
We moved to Evansville almost 35 years ago. My wife and I thought, “This is going to be a one year assignment.” I was recruited, being paid East Coast wages to live in Evansville, Indiana. And I convinced my wife, “We can do anything for a year.” We had a six-month old at that time.
Flash forward 35 years later, that one year turned into a great experience. I’m not sure if I would have done it any other way. Things sometimes have a way of just working out for you. It was a great experience, and I had a great career.