William Daly notes there are places in New York state where the only industry left is tourism.
We do not want that to be us.
As Daly, Chautauqua County's industrial development director, said in last week's edition of The Sunday Post-Journal, tourism is not a high-pay industry for the individuals employed.
Yes, it is a respectable piece of the local economy when arts, entertainment and recreation are taken together with the accommodation and food services industry.
Only the manufacturing, retail trade, health care and government sectors each employ more people than does tourism. And all of those industries, by the way, pay higher wages than tourism.
As we have said recently, we are thankful to have the local businesses that tourism supports. But, still, it is, as they say, mind boggling that we do not seem to spend much time or energy talking about ways to increase the sector that is the real driver of the local economy - manufacturing.
Manufacturing is not only the dominant engine that pumps money into the local economy, it has much higher average wages as well.
We are not lamenting the lack of effort to attract new industry. Rather, we should be shouting to the rooftops every day until a problem hindering existing manufacturers is solved: the lack of an employable workforce.
Manufacturers simply have a hard time finding workers to fill existing jobs.
The lack of an employable workforce hampers the ability of local manufacturers to operate efficiently and, even, to consider expanding here - to say nothing of our ability to entice new employers to the area.
Millions of dollars have been spent locally over the years on job-training programs and we continue to have innovative programs to entice young people to consider a career in manufacturing.
But, as Todd Tranum, president of the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier, said, there simply are too many people here who do not have the skills necessary to fill existing jobs.
And he means simple skills like a knowledge of basic math, basic reading and basic technology.
Tranum and Daly both lament another significant problem with our pool of potential workers. Even if they pass basic tests to qualify for a manufacturing job, they then have to pass a drug test. Too many of them can't.
As a community we have known about these problems for years.
Why aren't we shouting from the rooftops about the dire need to solve them before we have nothing left of our local economy but a huge, well-paid government sector and a huge, low-paid tourism workforce?