Ron Keeping traveled to Austin, Texas for a conference about energy. While there, Keeping heard a presentation about how the city went from a college town to a technological powerhouse, and an idea was born.

 "We could replicate some of that and turn our local economy into something that benefits from alternative energy opportunities, " said Keeping, who works with the Growth Indiana Southwest Workforce.

Keeping consulted with Greyhill Advisors, the group behind Austin's transformation. This led to the birth of a strategy, called "Growing a Regional Energy Employment Network," also known as Project GREEN.

The idea behind the project is to make Southwest Indiana more energy efficient, thereby attracting more energy-related jobs to the region.

"Similar to Silicon Valley being known for software and technologies, southwest indiana can be known for being a place where energy growth is strong and the energy industry is strong," said Ben Loftsgaarden with Greyhill Advisors.

Greyhill came up with a four-step plan to do just that. These steps include developing a program to convince manufacturers to explore expanding in the region, marketing the area for its energy efficiencies, making exisiting buildings more energy efficient, and developing Southwest Indiana into a leader in advanced coal technology.

"We take their plan and break it apart, step-by-step and do all the hard work to make it come true," said Keeping.

Over fifteen years, Greyhill believes the project will bring close to 15,000 full-time jobs, 11,000 spin-off jobs, and 97,000 construction jobs to Southwest Indiana. The consultants say they had similar estimates for Austin, and those were more than exceeded.

Vanderburgh County Commissioner, Troy Tornatta says he's impressed with the potential.

"With people working together for a common goal, in multiple counties, that's gonna be the difference in making our prosper," said Tornatta.

Consultants say the jobs that would be created by such a project would be less likely to leave the country because energy costs are important to business. Keeping agrees and says it's all about helping the people during a time of economic uncertainty.

Now that this information has been released by Greyhill, Keeping plans to move forward by following the consultant's strategies.

Keeping also hopes to receive feedback from those in government, education, and business, as well as workforce leaders.