Ron Gaudet, chief executive officer of the Windsor Essex Economic Development Corporation, told a national audience that relocating its offices to the Centre for Engineering Innovation is much more than a physical move.

“It is a message to the internal [local] and external community that we are serious about partnerships and serious about taking this region to another level,” he said in an interview with a business reporter from the Globe and Mail.

By moving his agency on campus, Gaudet envisions wider opportunities for collaboration among the region’s new and emerging industries, academic researchers and students from the university and local community college.

“There is nothing quite like the synergy of being able to walk next door and have MBA students come to our facility,” says Gaudet. “It will elevate the whole relationship.”

Read the entire article, which also includes comments from Odette School of Business professor Jim Marsh, Ravaged region gets B-school boost.