VALDOSTA — Chris Miller of Creative Cities Consulting was the guest speaker Thursday at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce’s June board meeting.

Miller is an original member of the widely acclaimed Atlanta-based Internet service provider MindSpring Enterprises. He formerly headed up the Network Operations Center as vice president for the combined MindSpring/Earthlink Corporation.

Miller formed Creative Cities Consulting in 2008 to “help communities develop innovative solutions and adaptive sustainable economic, social and environmental strategies,” according to its Web site. He presented to the Chamber board an analysis of the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area, measuring past and present employment and average weekly wages. The analysis mapped the strides made from 1990 to 2007 in job and wage growth.

The Chamber contracted with Creative Cities Consulting to help generate ideas that can be used to leverage existing resources and assets and use them to grow existing businesses, attract targeted industries and retain a higher percentage of the local college student population, said Tara Nichols, vice president of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce.

Miller’s plan was broken into five stages: survey the current economic situation, review current economic assets, examine the current knowledge-based economic and cultural "ecology" that attracts and grows higher-wage jobs, generate ideas to improve Valdosta's desirability to business entrepreneurs, and explore ways to improve the image and raise awareness of the Valdosta MSA as a desirable location for creative and technical businesses.

A lot of states and cities are awash in numbers they don’t know how to handle or what to do with, Miller said.

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” he said.

He presented a breakdown of statistical data showing how Valdosta compares with other Georgia cities in terms of jobs and wages. The presentation showed, among other things, that Valdosta has more rapid job growth in the lowest wage sectors relative to higher wage sectors. On a positive note, the data showed that Valdosta has not lost as high a percentage of manufacturing jobs as many cities in Georgia.

Miller’s analysis benchmarks the increase of average weekly wages and new jobs created in targeted business sectors resulting from IMPACT 2012, a five-year business action plan initiated by the Chamber that focuses on targeted business expansion of higher-wage sector growth. The overall goal of IMPACT 2012 is to raise the standard of living in the community by attracting and supporting businesses that offer opportunities to skilled, talented, and better educated workers, according to its annual report.

Miller praised Myrna Ballard, president of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce, and the Chamber’s board and staff for the groundwork they have already laid to pave the way for bringing more high-wage, knowledge-based jobs to the Valdosta MSA. He told the Chamber board members they would see a lot of action and results over the next year from all the preparatory thinking and planning they’ve done so far.

One graph in Miller’s PowerPoint presentation showed Valdosta wage growth well below the state and national average and significantly below other nearby Georgia cities. It resembled a flat line stretching from 2001 through 2008.

“Valdosta is treading water. This is not a trend we want to continue,” Miller said. “We want to turn this thing around.”

Miller said it’s important to have a good mix of jobs, from entry level on up, “so people have a ladder to climb.” The goal of the Chamber and the reason it hired Miller is to bring in more higher-paying jobs requiring more education, to add a top rung to the existing ladder.

“Most of us weren’t surprised at the data Chris brought out today,” said Bill DeCoudres, chairman of the IMPACT 2012 Oversight Committee, “but it needed to be shown. We expect the lines to start moving up when the data from 2008 and 2009 start coming in.”

Miller has received recognition from the International Economic Development Council for The Creative Coast Alliance, a nonprofit economic development collaboration that assisted the creation and attraction of 25 new creative and technical businesses between 2004 and 2006, generating 200 new high-wage jobs and adding $11.4 million in new wages into the Savannah region. He has also been the recipient of the Georgia Link Award, the Savannah Small Business Chamber Champion of the Year and nominated by the Turknett Leadership Group for its Leadership Character Award.

In December 2007, Miller stepped down as director of The Creative Coast Initiative to launch his own ventures, “Creative Cities Consulting” and “Illuminomics.” He continues to be heavily involved with Savannah and the regional community, is a lead consultant to The Creative Coast Alliance, and is currently working on projects in Valdosta, Sweden, the Baltic states and other projects around the southeast U.S.

To learn more about Chris Miller visit www.creativecitiesconsulting.com.