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Task 2: Assessment of Conditions (SWOT) With staff recommendations, RSG will engage a series of small stakeholder groups to participate in short, but lively discussion on relevant strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) to the business community in Santa Ana. We would suggest stakeholder groups include the following at a minimum: the Economic Development Task Force, representative staff from planning, economic development, public works, and the police department; local or recent developers; community action and non- profit groups; banks; sampling of local business members; the Chamber of Commerce, and any other local leaders such as neighborhood association representatives. While some of these discussions may need to take place via phone conversations, we recommend setting aside one to two days for short "speed dating" discussions with various cohorts in order to make the most of the participants' time while gathering extensive amounts of information and perspectives, We would further suggest that only one to two City representatives join RSG as discussion leaders to encourage the most open communication possible. 2. RSG will submit written summaries of feedback received, and begin to formulate the SWOT analysis, which will evolve during the EDSP process. Task 3: Evaluation of Existing Programs 1. RSG will facilitate a meeting with City staff, and potentially former city staff with permission, to learn about the business development programs and incentives currently offered, how successfully they have been used, if and how they have been adapted over time, perceived interest levels from the business community, and current outreach efforts to potential end users. 2. During this process, RSG will solicit ideas and thoughts from staff on how modifications to existing programs and implementation efforts, or completely new offerings, would make their departments more successful, as no amount of analysis from RSG will replace the day to day interactions staff has with the business community. 3. Based on staff feedback, business community outreach, and our own research and knowledge base, RSG will recommend programs to keep, modify, delete, or add and work with staff to define a critical path and ease of implementation matrix. 4. After analysis of future job growth and business clustering, RSG will also collaborate with the Santa Ana Workforce Investment Board and potentially local community colleges to determine where alignment may be achieved between anticipated local demand and programmatic services for job training and development. 5. RSG will provide feedback on existing and other future potential workforce investment strategies that may be used to plan strategically for new job needs as the City's workforce evolves. These may include both local efforts as well as recommendations for supporting policy changes at the State level 6. Finally, after gathering a deeper understanding of industry clusters and anticipated business growth, RSG will help assess options for additional foreign investment and trade opportunities. The US Department of Commerce has recently begun to investigate potential opportunities with cities, and a number of Santa Ana stakeholders likely have insight to provide as well, which can be uncovered during the outreach process. 25A -39