Northeast Indiana, we have a problem.

Making that problem widely known and coming up with strategies to address it are the goals of a group of business, education and government leaders from a 10-county region that began meeting Wednesday.

In 1994, the average worker in northeast Indiana made 95 percent of what the average worker in the United States made.

Local workers now make 78 percent of what their nationwide counterparts make, and the figure is declining, according to data from the Community Research Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

“This is the most disturbing statistic to me,” said Mike Packnett, president and CEO of Parkview Health. Packnett and Steel Dynamics Inc. President and CEO Keith Busse are co-chairmen of the Regional Visioning Coordinating Group announced Wednesday.

To stop the paycheck slide locally, the group will use $150,000 contributed by foundations to develop a plan in six months that will spell out an economic vision and what needs to be done to realize it.

The Northeast Indiana Foundation already sponsors initiatives in which the area’s defense, food-service and medical-device industries identify needs and develop growth strategies. Now the foundation is sponsoring this latest effort at strategic planning.

But Mark Becker, executive director of the foundation, said the initiatives aren’t redundant.

“There are a lot of things going on in these (industry) organizations, but we aren’t aligned in the effort,” Becker said.

Similarly, the 10 counties that comprise northeast Indiana all have their own economic development organizations.

But until recently, many considered themselves to be in competition with one another, said John Sampson, president and CEO of the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, an organization that aims to attract businesses to the region.

“Four years ago, it was almost frightful,” Sampson said. “But we know there isn’t a community here that can succeed without the others.”

So the coordinating group that was announced Wednesday is intended to raise awareness of the region’s economic stagnation.

It will conduct surveys throughout the region and have public meetings in Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley counties.

The firms ACP Visioning+Planning and Team Kolzow Inc. are facilitating the work of the coordinating group.

The process will culminate in a meeting of hundreds at Grand Wayne Center, Packnett said. Participants will use interactive technology to help a facilitator come up with an economic vision for the region and a list of priorities.

Details for all the sessions will be announced.

The process will yield a plan to make changes to the region’s educational systems, infrastructure and communities in an attempt to achieve the economic vision.

The plan will come up with ways of measuring its success and deadlines for meeting its goals, Packnett said.

mschladen@jg.net