A Mayor Offers Bourbon, Jobs

Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson has a message for Tampa Bay's young professionals: Pack your bags for Kentucky.

Sure, he says, the Bay area has great beaches and warm winters, but Louisville has a growing economy with lots of companies that are hiring. And the city has a vast supply of good Kentucky bourbon to boot.

That's the message Abramson hopes to spread in Tampa on Thursday night when he hosts a party dubbed The Louisville Reunion. More than 1,000 people with a connection to Louisville or Kentucky have received invitations.

Abramson said he will be armed with plenty of Maker's Mark bourbon candy and top-shelf samples of the liquor. Most important, he said, he's bringing contacts from major companies willing to collect resumes and talk with job candidates.

"The reality is, if you're 23 to 35 and you've gotten married, you might be starting a family and you're tired of commuting from the suburbs," Abramson said. "You might be scratching your head and remembering what was good back home."

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio scoffed at the idea of Louisville stealing young professionals.

"It seems kind of strange to me that a mayor from another city would do that," she said. "If he wants to get a Cuban sandwich with me, I'll give him a tour, and then he might want to move here himself."

Adding insult to any injury Abramson may have caused local leaders, Forbes this month ranked Tampa dead last for the second consecutive year among 40 major cities it deemed best for young professionals. The magazine cited a lack of alumni from major schools and low expectations for salary growth.

Chris Poynter, spokesman for the Louisville mayor's office, said Tampa was targeted, in part, because it has 1,400 University of Louisville alumni and the largest alumni chapter outside Louisville.

This is Louisville's sixth such "reunion" party. Louisville officials have chosen an ambitious list of cities: Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta. They went to Chicago twice.

"Several years ago we were losing people to large cities," Poynter said. "We had a brain-drain, and now we have reversed that brain-drain."

Louisville's metro area has a population of about 1.2 million. It is the headquarters of numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Humana, Kindred Health Care and Yum Brands, owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

Louisville was named Most Livable City in June by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Outdoor Magazine named the city among its Best Towns of 2008 in its August edition.

Another plus: The median home price in Louisville, Poynter said, is $141,600. In the Tampa area, the median is $176,100, down from $227,400 at the peak of the market in July 2006.

Thursday's reunion event is scheduled for 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Renaissance Tampa Hotel International Plaza, 4200 Jim Walter Blvd. Admission is free, but a reservation is required. For information, go to www.myspace.com/louisville reunion.

And if bourbon isn't enough to turn young, talented heads, Abramson plans to bring out the big-gun door prizes: tickets to the 2009 Kentucky Derby and the 2008 Ryder Cup.