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COX Communications Vice President Lisa Lovallo talks about technical workforce resources, training and availability, as well as the diverse local business community |
What is the history of Cox Communications in Southern Arizona?
Cox has been doing business in Southern Arizona for a long time. Our business goes all the way to the Mexican border. We not only handle Tucson proper, the footprint of the city of Tucson, but we do business in Benson, Bisbee, Patagonia, and all over the rural and remote markets as well. We have 500 employees and hundreds of thousands of customers. We’re about 25 percent of the Arizona systems business and our business continues to grow every year.
How does Cox support economic development in Tucson?
We see our partnership with TREO as critical to our ability for our business to grow. Not only do we do a lot of residential business, but we have a very important business plan with commercial and enterprise interest. So when TREO works to recruit businesses to come to Tucson and also help businesses expand in Tucson that helps our business. So, it’s a very strategic partnership with TREO.
I serve on the board of TREO, and I think they provide a critical service not just to larger companies like Cox, but to small businesses all throughout southern Arizona. It’s definitely a regional organization that is looking at the assets that Tucson has - how to leverage our universities, how to leverage infrastructure, solar energy, all the different business segments that will help the community prosper in the future. So, we’re very pleased to be working with TREO.
What are the strengths of the workforce in Southern Arizona?
We have a state of the art university and we have a very, very good community college system in southern Arizona that also produces good technical people for companies like Cox who are in technical fields. We don’t have difficulty recruiting employees at Cox - we have waiting lists for jobs. We have people that are skilled, and we prefer to hire people from southern Arizona because they know the community.
What are Tucson’s strengths as a business community?
Tucson as a business community is very diverse. We have a lot of small businesses but we also have some very powerhouse brands, like Cox, like Honeywell, like Raytheon. We have some large governmental infrastructure in a public university that has a billion five hundred million dollar budget.
So, we have really a diverse kind of economic composition in terms of our business community. We have very strong chambers of commerce that are working in different segments, whether it’s the Latino market or mainstream businesses, we have groups that are active and advocating for public policy, and for development and business development on behalf of their constituents.
I would say that the business community in Tucson is very diverse. It’s dynamic and there are lots of opportunities for growth here. The thing that I think is really great about Tucson is that the vast majority of our employers, their ability to grow their businesses is tied to the community development, and that means that their willingness to invest in making Tucson a better place is directly tied to their bottom line growth.
Responses provided by Lisa Lovallo, Vice President and Systems Manager, Cox Communications Southern Arizona
Learn more about Cox Communications online at www.Cox.com/Arizona. |