One of the tenants of sustainability is economic development. We realize that in order for our enterprise to be successful, the state's business community must remain robust. That is why our company places such stock in economic development. APS works with partners throughout the state to help bring quality manufacturing and financial services jobs to Arizona.

	APS received the 2006 Economic Engines of Arizona award from the Arizona Business Magazine for its economic development efforts across the state.

Our role is to foster healthy economic development in our communities to create vibrant, sustainable communities in our service territory, with a special emphasis on our rural areas. To help Arizona communities retain successful hometown companies and encourage them to create more jobs, APS sponsoring the Building Bridges to Business program, or B3. This Internet-based program provides communities and their economic development organizations with sophisticated survey instruments and customized computer software that help define, analyze and report community-specific company information.

APS’ Focused Future economic development programs have helped Arizona communities boost their local economies for the past decade, and in 2002 earned APS a national innovation award from the National Association of Development Organizations. The program has helped dozens of Arizona communities capitalize on the economic development strengths that are unique to each of them. APS benefits directly when these communities thrive and grow.

In 2006, APS’ Business Development team worked with our economic development partners to locate eight new companies in our service territory, creating an estimated 2,067 new jobs, new electrical load of 31.2 megawatts (MW), capital Investments of $170 million and 1,360,000 square feet of building space.

APS’ partners include the Arizona Department of Commerce (ADOC), the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC), as well as all of the rural Economic Development Departments in our Arizona communities (such as Casa Grande, Yuma, Prescott, Prescott Valley, Payson, Flagstaff, Globe and Parker.

These are some of the things APS does to help foster economic development:

• APS offers its economic development Web site, Explore Arizona, which provides Arizona demographic information and information on available buildings in rural communities and has now created an updated tool called Arizona Prospector www.arizonaprospector.com to help find land, buildings, and demographics with a GIS integrated system
• APS provides electric rate analysis and infrastructure evaluations for prospective companies
• APS assists its partners with site visits from site selectors and facility managers, and - on occasion for the larger companies - a helicopter tour to help them get a better perspective of transportation routes and other factors
• APS helps GPEC, ADOC and our rural partners with sales missions with site selectors throughout the United States
• The APS Community Initiatives team works with Arizona communities to create business plans that emphasize quality growth with quality of life as well as leadership and other programs, all to help them become vibrant, growing communities
• The "Building Bridges to Business" (B3) program for the communities APS serves, using synchronistic technology to work with existing manufacturers/businesses to understand their businesses and ensure their quality growth