The Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) is a federal program launchedd in 2021 as part of our nation's response to the COVID pandemic. Twenty-one coalitions split nearly $1 billion through federal awards ranging from $25 million to nearly $100 million to support groups of projects strategically designed to augment, expand and exploit their local innovation assets to the advantage of private industries, businesses and workers in their regions.
"The BBBRC empowered communities to address a whole sector, often for the first time, whether by supporting talent development or critical infrastructure, entrepreneurial support, technology adoption, or supply chain issues," said Susie Byrd, program director of Build Back Better at SSTI. "This gave them a chance to broaden their approach and their impact. The awards enabled the community innovation leaders to focus on coalition-based, transformative projects with cross-sector economic development partners."
The momentum building in the 21 “Building Better Regions” (BBR) projects is growing, and RTI, the leader of the BBBRC Community of Practice, and SSTI are seeing positive impacts and approaches to collaborative regional innovation that could benefit other practitioners and TBED stakeholders if made aware of the success. To share the evidence of impact and lessons learned through the BBBRC process, RTI and SSTI are developing a three-component informational resource for the broader TBED community.
The first will be a written narrative based on interviews and site visits with coalition members, beneficiaries, businesses, people who have gone through workforce training, other community members, and other parts of the coalition. The second component will be a documentary available for viewing on demand, and the third will be a data analysis of macro trends and attributable impacts for the private industries targeted to be assisted through the BBBRC projects.
Byrd, who is leading this project for SSTI, has considerable insider insight that will enable her to tell the BBBRC story. She served as the regional economic competitiveness officer (RECO) for the West Texas Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing Coalition until it was spun out from the University of Texas at El Paso in October 2025. She now works for SSTI, where her focus is on creating this resource for TBED practitioners across the country.
"This work is intended to inform policymakers and community members about the program’s results so far," said Byrd. "Sharing program impacts and the momentum each BBR community is experiencing, hopefully, will encourage continued federal, state, and local governments’ investment in the communities using a strategy that's different from traditional economic development strategies."
The narrative report is expected to be complete at the end of 2026. Meanwhile, there are many stories to tell about the impacts of the BBBRC program. SSTI will highlight some of these stories, focusing on specific businesses and workforces, in upcoming TBED Works stories to be published in our Digest and posted on our website.