Stoppage Time Special: Growth Beyond the Giants

Welcome to this week’s Stoppage Time edition of the Pitch to Pro podcast, where we feature a powerful five-minute excerpt from one of our previous full-length conversations. In this episode, we take you deep into the economic transformation of Northwest Arkansas — a region whose growth story is often reduced to headlines about big-name companies. But there’s more to the evolution than just corporate giants, and this clip brings out the layered dynamics behind how real, sustainable regional development takes shape.

Our guest, Mervin Jebaraj, breaks down the phases of growth, starting in the 1990s when expansion was driven directly by the region's “big three” corporations and the university. That first wave was about attracting talent to those anchor institutions. The early 2000s saw a second wave: businesses that existed primarily to serve or collaborate with those core companies began thriving. Then came a third generation — companies that supported the support companies — creating a complex, interdependent economic engine that fueled unprecedented job growth.

But the conversation takes a turn when we explore the present and emerging future. Growth in Northwest Arkansas today is increasingly defined by lifestyle and infrastructure: healthcare, education, hospitality, and other services required to support the ballooning population. The pandemic highlighted this shift even more. Remote workers flocked to the area, bringing jobs from outside and proving that quality of life can be just as magnetic as corporate opportunity. Still, the region isn’t quite at the point where people move without a plan — like they might to New York, Austin, or LA — but it’s inching closer.

This episode also addresses what it means to be a “self-sustaining” region — one that can attract people and businesses simply because of what it is, not just who’s hiring. Mervin paints a picture of what it would take for Northwest Arkansas to become one of those places where people show up, figure it out, and still thrive even if Plan A doesn’t work. That kind of organic, resilient growth is aspirational — and, according to this conversation, within reach.

To close, we look at how the region measures itself. Initially benchmarked against metros of similar size, Northwest Arkansas consistently led in key indicators. So, the comparison group shifted to larger aspirational peers like Kansas City and Omaha — and the region still holds its own. This clip offers a compelling window into how smart, long-term growth is being mapped, managed, and measured. If you’ve ever wondered how a mid-sized community becomes a nationally respected economic player, this Stoppage Time episode is a masterclass in just that.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Stoppage Time edition of the
Pitch to Pro podcast.
This is a highlight reel ofsome of the best moments from
the show so far, and every otherweek we will be bringing you a
special five to seven minutesegment featuring the best
stories, tales and moments ofthe podcast.
Everybody knows that it'shappening now, especially with
the national and internationalattention that we've gotten, but

(00:28):
kind of bring people into yourworld a little bit.
What are some of those thingsthat have been the key drivers
and how we look at that fromyour lens?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, if you think of the original growth boom here
in the 90s, that was largelybecause the three major
companies here and theuniversity were growing,
particularly the three companies, and so a lot of that growth
was those companies doing sowell and attracting people to
work for them.
And then the early 2000s decade, if you will, right up until

(00:57):
that recession, was growth thatpeople who wanted to work with
those companies were generating.
So it wasn't directly, it wassomewhat in those companies, but
more so in the companies thatwanted to work with the three
big companies here.
And then, in this most recentdecade that just passed, is the

(01:18):
companies that work with thecompanies that work with the big
companies.
So you support yes, all thesupport companies here, and so,
by and large, north of sharpens,those growth has, um, been
driven by job growth.
So it was either job growththrough big companies or the
companies that worked for them,other companies that worked for
the companies that worked forthem.

(01:38):
Yeah, um, but I think we're,you know, not quite there
completely yet, but we'restarting to get to the
self-sustaining growth thatisn't dependent on one of these
companies adding jobs.
At this point it's the kind ofbusiness growth that you're
seeing and the job growth thatyou're seeing leisure and
hospitality industry, healthcareand education that's mostly

(02:00):
just to sustain the growth inthe population here, so it's not
directly related to thosecompanies in that sense.
Except, there's all thesepeople here, and all these
people need their hair cut, needplaces to go eat, need places
to get their teeth cleaned, needhospitals, all of that,
everything of that nature.

(02:20):
So that's the kind of growththat you're seeing.
So it's still sort of inrelationship with the with jobs,
uh, but you know, during thepandemic we saw some evidence of
this with the remote workers.
So now it's not, uh, we're notquite there yet.
We're not one of those citieswhere people just move without a
job, yeah, and then findsomething when they get there.

(02:41):
So we're not.
You got new york, right, austin, or something like that.
People just like I'm just gonnamove here, yeah, like one of,
and then find something whenthey get there.
So we're not Think of New York,right, austin, or something
like that.
People are just like, I'm justgoing to move to New York, yeah,
like one of those things.
Right, I'll figure it out,figure it out.
Yeah, and I think there arepeople that do that here.
It's not a very big thing, notat all.
Well, certainly, over thepandemic with remote working

(03:10):
people, pandemic with remoteworking people were just like
I'm just going to move there andfigure it out.
And you saw a lot of populationduring the pandemic here, yeah,
north of shork, and saw nowmost of these people had jobs
somewhere else, so they aren'tquite doing the.
You know I'm going to movethere, just find a job.
But that that will be the sortof next phase of our growth is
just become self-sustaining.
Where you become that regionyou go.
Well, I'm going to go try myluck and know what to show up
and sell.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, that's it.
That's that next step change.
But yeah, I'm going to move toLA and become an actor, but
really a waiter or whatever.
Or whatever the dream is Peoplego to New York to be XYZ.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
In Austin, be XYZ.
I think those are largeself-sustaining yeah relation
centers down that they just movethere because they know that's
where there's a lot ofopportunity.
Yeah, they fail at the firstthree things they tried.
They'll still have a fourththing to try.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, exactly.
So if we're not in New York,we're not in LA, we're not in
Austin, what are some compmarkets that we compare
ourselves to or that you guys Iknow you guys, the NWA Council,
I know you guys work together onsome different projects and
things like that what are somecomp markets that kind of we
look at and and why do we lookat other comp markets and across

(04:21):
what metrics?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
yeah, so I mean that's, as always, the why we
look at uh comp markets isbecause you know if you want to
be able to benchmark yourselfagainst some standard right I
think originally, when westarted looking at comp markets,
uh, we were thinking of placesthat were like us in terms of
size.
So we're a region of 560, 575,575, 000 people, which isn't

(04:46):
terribly large, um, although I'msure if you grew up here this
sounds like it's gotten so muchlarger.
But you know there are places amillion people or more, a lot
of those places around thecountry.
So sure, uh, we're not that um.
So we used to compare ourselvesto places that more or less
with the same size as us and wefound that over the years you

(05:09):
know, we two to three years on avariety of different metrics
like job growth, the businessgroup, educational attainment
and things of that nature wewere routinely, you know,
ranking ourselves number onecompared to places that were
just like us.
So then we try to be a littlemore aspirational and pick some
larger metro areas that are inour region so you think of

(05:31):
Kansas City or Omaha and placeslike that and then we would
consistently be beating thosemetro areas too.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Thank you for joining us for this Stoppage Time
special of the Pitch to Propodcast at Metro areas too.