By Albert Lea Tribune

It&8217;s getting harder to find good help.

That&8217;s the principal finding in the annual report of Grow Minnesota, a program spearheaded by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with 40 local chambers, including the Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce.

The report says companies of all sizes and types are finding it increasingly difficult to find qualified workers.

The full report will be released at a Minnesota Chamber event, &8220;What&8217;s the State of Minnesota Business?&8221; on Tuesday at the Hilton Airport in Bloomington. A panel of senior executives and business owners will recap 2006 and offer their economic outlooks for 2007.

&8220;As good as current training programs are, they need to do a better job of keeping pace with the needs of today&8217;s economy,&8221; said Bill Blazar, senior vice president of public affairs and business development at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

The Minnesota Chamber, in concert with 40 local chamber partners, completed nearly 800 visits this past year with owners or managers of Minnesota businesses. More than 2,000 of these conversations have been conducted since Grow Minnesota was launched in 2004.

&8220;Albert Lea-Freeborn County is conveniently located at the crossroads of Interstate 35 and 90.

It lends itself to developing a significant transportation-related center for trucking, warehousing and related industries as well as expansion of its regional retail businesses,&8221; said Susie Petersen, executive director of the Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce.

&8220;Grow Minnesota provides a systematic process of contacting our current businesses to determine their needs for the future and becoming part of a larger pool of information that will assist our area in growth.&8221;

At its foundation, Grow Minnesota has two purposes: to thank businesses for investing in Minnesota, and to identify their challenges to grow in Minnesota. The information collected also feeds the Minnesota Chamber&8217;s public policy agenda.

The sample of businesses is nonscientific. Each chamber selects companies based on its own criteria, and the companies represent a mix of chamber and nonchamber members.

It&8217;s still noteworthy, Blazar said, that the issues identified reflect the same priorities of Minnesota Chamber members. Workforce shortages, transportation infrastructure, quality and affordable health care, and reliable and competitively priced energy were the top concerns.

Three years of visits have produced some important results:

Issues such as workforce and energy have become more prominent in the Minnesota Chamber&8217;s agenda, prompting development of position papers to present to policy-makers.

Volunteers began reconnecting with businesses visited in the first year. These revisits accounted for 10 percent of the 2005-&8217;06 visits and were an opportunity to observe changes and help, where appropriate.

Companies, other than those visited, are contacting chambers to seek a resource that is both confidential and able to assist with a business-related problem &8212; including those rooted in state or local public policies. The average for Grow Minnesota partners was 13 requests for assistance.

One in seven visits results in requests for assistance where volunteers either solve the problem or put the company in touch with the appropriate local or state government officials.

About one-half of the businesses visited in southern Minnesota said they plan to expand operations, and about 65 percent of those intend to do so in their existing communities. Overall, the businesses, relative to other regions of the state, were pleased with availability of housing but gave mixed ratings for land and building availability. About 40 percent gave favorable ratings to highway infrastructure; public transit was cited among the challenges