NERETA Announces Industry Cluster Development Pioneer, Eric Hansen of ETG Will Lead NERETA Summit Training to Spur Manufacturing Growth in the US

Clinton, NJ, April 07, 2016 --(PR.com)-- The North East Regional Employment and Training Association (NERETA) is proud to announce that Dr. Eric R. Hansen, President and founder of the Economic Transformations Group, Inc. (ETG), will be the lead trainer for the upcoming NERETA Summit and post-conference course on developing manufacturing clusters throughout the United States (http://summit.nereta.org).

The NERETA Summit (Clinton, NJ April 27-29) and eight month post conference course are designed to teach economic development, workforce development and higher education professionals how to collaborate more effectively in providing services to manufacturing employers in their regions to help grow the manufacturing industry. The strategies focus on the power of inter-related industries (called clusters) that drive regional wealth creation.

“Having Dr. Hansen join our efforts validates NERETA’s work of the last four years helping economic development and workforce development collaborate regionally so they can develop and sustain their economies through the establishment and nurturing of industry cluster partnerships,” said Colleen LaRose, President and CEO of NERETA.

Dr. Eric Hansen is one of the pioneers of cluster-based economic development, and he continues to innovate ways to stimulate private-sector development and public-private collaboration in different economic and cultural contexts around the world. His specialty is advising and motivating regional leaders in the design and execution of large-scale economic change efforts that focus on action and implementation.

Dr. Hansen has taught for such prestigious universities as ESSEC Business School (Paris), NYU, Columbia University, UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He spent the majority of his career as a practitioner, directing major economic strategy projects all over the world. He has worked in South Africa, Iran, Brazil, Chile, Panama, Slovakia, Slovenia, Guatemala, Nepal, Morocco, as well as several states in the US and Mexico.

He was one of the four founding members of The Competitiveness Institute,(http://www.tci-network.org) the world association dedicated to cluster development, based in Barcelona, Spain and is also director of The Cluster Consortium, a joint US, New Zealand, South African company, established to carry out clustering projects in Africa.

Previously Dr. Hansen worked for the World Bank, DRI/McGraw-Hill and SRI International’s Center for Economic Competitiveness where he led and worked on economic strategy projects in various U.S. states, Australia, India, Hong Kong, and Eastern Europe.

Editor’s note:
ETG (http://www.etgnow.com) works with governments, organizations, and communities around the world mobilizing local leadership to facilitate breakthroughs and transformations towards sustainable economies. In addition to traditional economic development services such as economic analysis and benchmarking, ETG excels in bringing stakeholders together in creative and constructive ways to turn the momentum of ideas into focused action. ETG organizes, designs, and implements long term economic development projects, regional and national cluster programs, incubator projects and technology parks, value chain analysis, capacity building programs, and events such as workshops, summits and conferences.

The North East Regional Employment and Training Association (http://www.nereta.org) connects workforce investment boards and their stakeholders in the northeastern US to improve communication and collaboration of employment and training initiatives and improve local economies. NERETA also provides professional development opportunities for workforce development and economic development professionals nationally through webinars, seminars, and conferences.