While 2009 definitely had its challenges in metro Orlando, there were several economic successes, topped, of course, by the much-publicized “medical city” becoming a reality right before our eyes. Yet, there were other successes, many without headlines, such as the continued announcements of companies expanding or relocating to the region.

Consider, for example, that the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission worked to deliver 3,031 new and retained jobs in the region, along with $124 million in capital investment. Among the highlights:

• Kaplan University, a leading provider of online higher education, opened a new online student support center in a two-story, 124,000-square-foot space that is expected to bring 750-plus jobs to Orange County.

• DataSite Orlando invested $26 million to renovate an existing 130,000-square-foot facility into a 21st-century data center that prioritizes energy efficiency, generating 39 new jobs.

• Channel Intelligence, a software company that provides e-commerce solutions to online retailers, expanded its headquarters operations, adding 420 new jobs and a capital investment of $33 million.

• Dream Balloon Productions, a digital media production studio devoted to producing high-quality family entertainment through the use of computer-generated animation, relocated its headquarters from New Jersey to Orlando. The company now occupies 10,500 square feet in the DrewTina Commerce Center in Orange County and expects to add up to 60 new employees over the next three years.

• Digimation, a provider of 3-D content and related services to the entertainment and defense industries, relocated its headquarters from Louisiana to metro Orlando. The company's headquarters location will result in 30 new jobs, generate $750,000 in capital investment and lease more than 4,000 square feet of space on International Parkway in Heathrow/Lake Mary.

• Seminole County–headquartered Nomad Aviation Inc., one of the world's best-known avionics specialists for commercial, military and civilian aircraft, announced a doubling of its workforce here, with 124 new positions to be added over the next two years.

• FedEx Ground opened a new 112,734-square-foot operations facility on Monroe Road in Sanford, creating 75 new jobs.

• Access MediQuip LLC, a $200 million healthcare firm based in Houston, provides medical implant outsourcing to support surgery centers. The company expanded into 13,000 square feet, bringing its 18 Central Florida employees under one roof. The company plans to grow into a 26,000-square-foot facility and add 145 new jobs within three years. That translates into more than $2.5 million in new capital investment.

• The Father's Table, a dessert manufacturer based in Sanford, expanded into an 118,000-square-foot facility near Orlando Sanford International Airport, creating 30 new full-time and 20 seasonal jobs. It is expected to generate more than $2.5 million in capital investment.

• Avocet and sister company Aircraft Parts Sales Inc. relocated their headquarters from Miami to OSIA. The company is building a 44,000-square-foot hanger, and anticipated capital investment is more than $5 million.

• Digital Risk LLC, a leading risk-mitigation solutions provider for the mortgage industry, increased its staff to 400 and announced it will expand further in Maitland, adding 240 new high-wage, knowledge-based jobs and generating $1.2 million in capital investment.

• Orlando-based Gen2Media Corp., a fully integrated digital media, technology and marketing company, expanded into nearly 6,000 square feet of office space near the intersection of Kirkman and Sand Lake roads in Orlando. The company’s capital investment is estimated at $150,000, and it plans to add 40 new jobs within the next 36 months.

• In Seminole County, Pinnacle AMS was approved to receive $52,324 in Quick Response Training funds. The company, which currently employs 160, will use the government grant dollars to train 50 new full-time employees over the next two years.

• Lake Mary–based Laser Photonics' expansion into 100,000 square feet coincided with 72 new jobs, bringing the company’s total employment to 102. Capital investment for new equipment and tenant improvements is estimated at $7 million.

• Darden Restaurants, a Fortune 500 company, celebrated the opening of its new 469,000-square-foot headquarters building in South Orange County.

• IDEAS opened its new headquarters in downtown Orlando. The creative production and digital media studio, one of Central Florida's largest, became a new "anchor tenant" of the Creative Village evolving in downtown Orlando.

• Full Sail University in Winter Park broke ground on its new Full Sail Studios Gateway project. The 32,000-square-foot, 2.2-acre project will be equipped with a live performance venue, a two-story complex for game production and recording studios, and an expansion of the on-campus professional film studio back lot. The Hollywood-style complex will complete the existing back lot and will offer 19 outdoor filming locations.

More often than not, economy building takes a circuitous route rather than a direct path. Industry sectors build over time, and sometimes even unnoticed, until they begin to reach a measure of critical mass.

Indeed, it’s not often that communities begin to transform their economies with the speed and laser focus witnessed in metro Orlando’s emergence as a center for health services and life science research.Today, the region is one of only two communities worldwide actively building a “medical city”; the other is Dubai. With almost $2 billion in construction currently under way at Lake Nona’s new Science and Technology Park, the eyes of the life science community worldwide are now on Orlando.

Clearly, what is occurring at Lake Nona is extraordinary. The Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research are already open and operating. The new University of Central Florida College of Medicine, whose first class is now hard at work in temporary classrooms at the Central Florida Research Park, will soon be completed, quickly followed by the openings of  MD Anderson Orlando’s Cancer Research Institute, a new VA Medical Center, Nemours Children’s Hospital, the University of Florida Research Center and more.

Such success in such a short time is unprecedented.

What should not be overlooked, however, is that much of this success is attributable to the strong, already established foundation upon which the region is building. While the state of Florida University System’s Board of Governors’ approval for the UCF College of Medicine served as the final impetus in Burnham’s decision to locate its East Coast operations to Orlando, what attracted the organization to explore the region in the first place was a variety of important and related assets:

• Metro Orlando is home to two of the nation’s largest hospital systems — Florida Hospital and Orlando Health.
• Metro Orlando is home to Florida’s Blood Centers, the largest independent blood center in the state and the fourth-largest in the nation.
• Metro Orlando is an established hub for large pharmaceutical distribution companies, such as CuraScript and Axium Healthcare Pharmacy.
• Metro Orlando has attracted entrepreneurs and has helped nurture and support the pioneering advances of companies like VaxDesign Corp., CORD:USE and Triad Isotopes.
• Metro Orlando’s hometown university, UCF, the fifth-largest university in the nation, is recognized for its research collaborations and mutually beneficial partnerships with industry.

Recognizing the significance of these assets is the goal of a new program established by bioOrlando, a council managed by the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission. Called Medical Markers, the program is designed to both honor and visually identify the medical, research and biotech companies that are the cornerstone of metro Orlando's burgeoning life science industry.

bioOrlando’s inaugural class of Medical Marker recipients was introduced last month at the EDC’s annual William C. Schwartz Industry Innovation Awards.

Medical Marker Recipients

The inaugural class of Medical Marker recipients was announced on Sept. 17 at the Metro Orlando EDC’s annual William C. Schwartz Industry Innovation Awards.

The honorees:

• CORD:USE
• CuraScript
• .decimal
• Emergency Medical Learning Resource Center
• Florida Hospital/Adventist Health
• Florida’s Blood Centers
• Health Central
• National Training Center
• Orlando Health
• Tavistock Group
• Triad Isotopes
• VaxDesign Corp.
• Virtual Reality Medical Center

Thirteen companies, representing each county in a four-county region, received the “inaugural class” designation. The honorees were identified as founding members of the region’s life science community and leaders in scientific research and medical technology, as well as companies that have contributed substantially to the evolution of the industry in Central Florida.

What these companies represent is significant and worth repeating: While the rest of the world is just beginning to recognize the region’s strengths as a life science destination, a well-established foundation exists upon which this industry can and will grow. The inaugural class of Medical Markers celebrates the organizations that brought metro Orlando to the dance.

There will be many more Medical Marker designations to come. The initial presentation at the EDC’s Innovation Awards event was just the first in an ongoing recognition program of bioOrlando. In the months and years ahead, Medical Markers will be presented at groundbreakings, ribbon cuttings and bioOrlando gatherings, serving as a very visual sign of the growing impact that the life science industry has on the region’s economy.

The growing bio and life science industry is an important economic driver for the community, and in fact, it has positioned metro Orlando to better weather the current economic decline. Despite tough times, this region’s determination to build and support this industry has not wavered.

More than anything, that is what the EDC’s Medical Markers program is all about: generating awareness and pride in what this industry means to the community.

Editor’s note: This article was produced in partnership with the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission.

The social media phenomenon has spread its way to economic development in a big (business) way.

Twitter. Facebook. YouTube. Flickr. You’ve heard the names. You might even have joined one or several of those social media networks. Yet, did you know that these tools are being used to promote Orlando worldwide as a business destination?

As online tech news magazine FierceBiotech.com recently reported, the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission has led its industry in the use of social media to promote its fourcounty region as a dynamic location to start and build a business. The EDC’s efforts in this realm date back to 2007, when fledgling groups, created to engage the region’s film and digital media industry, were active on Facebook and MySpace. As more and more professionals ventured into the exploding world of social media, the EDC’s presence there expanded into multiple Facebook fan groups, as well as growing presence on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

Most recently, the EDC created an “Orlando Works” movement on Twitter to coincide with the Orlando Magic’s NBA championship run. While the eyes of the nation were on Central Florida, local citizens were encouraged to tweet about how and why Orlando works for them as a great place to live, work and play. YouTube video comments explaining why Orlando works were also requested, and many responded, starting with the Magic’s No. 1 fan, Dennis Salvagio, aka “The Fat Guy.”

The good news is that these outreach efforts are already beginning to reap dividends for the region. One tweet at a recent trade show drew several dozen interested prospects to the EDC’s booth. Information posted on MySpace led to an inquiry that ultimately led to a digital media company’s establishing an office in Orlando. Additional EDC projects, now in the works, trace their origins to a post first seen on Facebook. And YouTube is being used to create a series of testimonials to target specific industries and economic development prospects.

It is the broad-based participation and easy redistribution aspects of these viral marketing tools that make the new communication formats so powerful. The more retweeting, facebook posting and flickr uploading the better, as entire arsenals of information about local community assets are built and forwarded by contributors to their own networks of friends and colleagues. Thus, this offers very direct and tangible ways that local businesspeople can contribute to the reach and success of our economic development efforts.

For example, here’s how you can help:

Twitter: Tell why “Orlando Works” for you in your own 140 characters. Is it the quality of life, sense of community, diverse business climate or all the above? Start by following the EDC at @OrlandoWorks. Then join the dialogue and help spread the word, making sure you use #orlandoworks to tag your tweets.

Here are some recent tweets:

• “Why Orlando works for me? Because it’s great to live in a city whose best days are still ahead of it.” #orlandoworks (via @workforce101)
• “Because artists & arts groups of all sizes thrive in a community of support.” #orlandoworks #orlando (via @UnitedArts)
• “#Orlando works because it is big enough to accomplish anything, small enough to see your own impact.” #orlandoworks. (via @david_alecock)
• “It provides me with year-round sunshine and a great place to raise my family.” #orlandoworks #orlando (via @chrisgent)

YouTube: Capture why “Orlando Works” for you in video format. To upload your video to YouTube, visit the EDC’s channel at www.youtube.com/orlandoworks, click “send message” and send the EDC a link to your video. The EDC might add the video to its favorites. Or, take a look at www.youtube.com/orlandobusiness to learn more about innovative companies that call metro Orlando home.

Flickr: Do you have great photos that reflect the dynamic nature of the region? Shots that show the rest of the world all that metro Orlando offers? Share them via the Orlando Works group on Flickr. If you’re not sure what to upload, here are some ideas:

• Scenery throughout metro Orlando — downtown Orlando, Orange County, Seminole County, Lake County and Osceola County
• Arts and cultural photos
• Interesting people and unexpected places
• Nightlife and on the town
• Recreation — trails, waterways and more

While the use of social media in business and in economic development is new, its use is merely another avenue that allows the region to position itself as a business destination, engage audiences and encourage “brand ambassadors” to share that information with others. At a time when budgets are tight and unemployment has reached record highs, these new media outlets offer a cost-effective means of reaching targeted groups and an immediate way to spread the good news from and about metro Orlando.

Editor’s note: This article was produced in partnership with the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission.

Twitter — provides the latest news and updates

• @MetroOrlandoEDC
• @FilmOrlando
• @bioOrlando
• @OrlandoWorks

Facebook — engages “brand ambassadors”

• Metro Orlando EDC
• Film Orlando
• bioOrlando

Flickr — a picture speaks 10,000 words

• Orlando Works

YouTube — testimonials from people and executives about why Orlando works

• /Orlandobusiness
• /Filmorlando
• /Orlandotalks

Want an “edgy” region? The EDC has developed a new Web landing page designed to show the dynamic nature of the community through a robust downtown night life, a rich arts underground, off-the-beaten-path enclaves, year-round outdoor activities and diverse people.

Many Central Florida residents have contributed to the EDC’s undertaking, which has been deemed “Orlando Rocks.” The promotional portal links to specially designed Twitter, Flickr and YouTube accounts, as well as providing an array of other information that gives a close-up look at what sets the region apart. From Mount Dora to St. Cloud and all points between, the focus is on showing a region that is “putting imagination to work.”

To take a look, visit www.OrlandoEDC.com/OrlandoRocks (and feel free to add your own comments and images).