International Trade Gateway Organization Names Turner Executive Director

BUFFALO, NY (February 27) – Buffalo Niagara International Trade Gateway Organization (ITGO) board president James Manno announced today that the organization has hired one of its founding board members, Craig Turner of Momentum Public Affairs in Tonawanda, to serve as executive director. Turner will take on the responsibility of continuing to implement ITGO’s strategic plan, which developed its roots in the 2011 WNY Regional Economic Development Council’s award-winning plan, “A Plan for Prosperity in WNY.”


“A tremendous amount of volunteer work has gone into building a foundation for ITGO’s vision of a logistics center in our bi-national region,” said Manno. “One of the key components of implementing that vision has been getting someone in place who has the responsibility of waking up every morning thinking about how to move the initiative forward. Given Craig’s history with ITGO, knowledge of the regional logistics industry and previous experience in organizing community-wide initiatives, ITGO is now well-positioned to tell the story of the advantages of moving freight through and to the Buffalo Niagara region.”


As executive director, Turner will be responsible for overseeing and managing day-to-day operations of the regional initiative to create a globally-recognized logistics center in the bi-national Buffalo Niagara region. In that role, he’ll be coordinating ITGO’s private, public and academic sector stakeholders to implement the organization’s priority action items relative to regional infrastructure, logistics resources, workforce development and CanAm relations, and serving as liaison to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) as part of the ITGO/PANYNJ collaborative “Strategic International Gateway” initiative.


Turner is president of Momentum Public Affairs in Tonawanda, NY, and is a resident of Wheatfield, NY. Formerly, he served as vice president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. His position with ITGO is on a part-time, contractual basis.


The International Trade Gateway Organization (ITGO) is a collaborative initiative of the public, private and academic sectors to create a globally-known logistics center in the bi-national Buffalo Niagara region. The mission of the Buffalo Niagara International Trade Gateway is to build upon the capacity of existing organizations and leverage the advantages of the region – extensive transportation system, experienced logistics and trade networks, positioning as part of the third largest and fastest growing metropolitan region in North America, and our history and reputation since the nineteenth century – as a center for trade and commerce.

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