As the economic slump makes states across the Southeast hungry for new business, South Florida has to renew the fight to hold on to the companies it has and woo new ones, said Peggy Nordeen, the newly minted chairwoman of the Broward Alliance.

Tennessee, Georgia and particularly North Carolina have launched aggressive marketing campaigns here and are targeting some of Florida's flagship industries, she said.

``The Carolinas want our marine industry desperately,'' she said.

With an annual budget of $2 million, the Broward Alliance works with local and state agencies to marshal incentives to retain and attract companies -- but often they find themselves out-gunned by other states, she said.

Nordeen made the comments at the annual meeting of the Broward Alliance Wednesday, where she assumed the leadership role from outgoing chair Ray Ferrero, the president of Nova Southeastern University.

Nordeen, chief executive of Fort Lauderdale-based marketing and communications firm Starmark International, said she would use the position to try to encourage the private sector to play a larger role in keeping the region vibrant.

Over the past 12 months, the Alliance said it has helped six companies either move to or expand in Broward. They include Florida Heat Pump, Midnight Express Boats, Solar Transportation Solutions, Point Blank Solutions, S&B Industry Foxconn Technology Group and Blackberry-maker Research in Motion. The Alliance claims its work generated 1,000 new jobs and helped retain an additional 450. As a result, more than $136 million was invested in the region in the past year, the Alliance said.

But with the recession punishing businesses and driving state unemployment into the double digits, organizations such as the Broward Alliance and its Miami counterpart, the Beacon Council, are stepping up their efforts.

Holly Svekis is the vice chair of the Broward Alliance study mission that traveled to Charlotte, N.C., in September to analyze that state's incentive programs.

Among Charlotte's conquests: In 2004, Johnson & Wales University opened a campus there and, soon after, shut down operations in South Carolina and Virginia.

Aside from providing lucrative tax breaks and sweetheart land deals, Charlotte boosters have a long-term, regional approach that makes the area attractive to new business, Svekis said.

For example, ``they've built a light-rail that seems to go nowhere,'' she said. But it's strategically located to attract industry clusters to a certain sector of town, she said.

In addition, the private and public sector work much more closely in their recruiting.

``They have some high-level visionaries there,'' she said.

Broward business leaders will have a chance to cherry-pick the best of those ideas when the Alliance produces its report about the trip in November.

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