Looking for a way to build synergy and membership, two of Southern Arizona's largest cluster organizations are merging to create what they promote as the region's first "supercluster."

Southern Arizona Industry and Aerospace Alliance (SAIAA) and the Information Technology Association of Southern Arizona (ITASA) are preparing to announce a plan to become the Aerospace, Manufacturing and Information Technology Super Cluster (AMITS), a 100-150-member organization representing most of Southern Arizona's research and manufacturing companies.

The merger, which will be formally announced March 22, is designed to build on the varied companies common need for greater collaboration on health care, personnel and environmental issues, said John Rix, chairman of the SAIAA and the new AMITS.

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"We all have the same concerns about health insurance, benefit packages, recruitment and regulations," he said. "A lot of our meetings end up being about these subjects because these are the core issues we all have as business owners."

Rix said the desire to be large enough to have a full-time staff, as well as greater member services, led the SAIAA to begin looking for a partner. "The obvious choice was ITASA, because we already have several overlapping members and issues."

Ian Ellison, executive director of the industry and aerospace alliance, who will be assuming the position of full-time chief operating officer, said, "We needed a critical mass of members to put on better programs to better serve the membership."

He said clusters were originally conceived as groups that would encourage interaction between companies in the same business. However, Ellison said, that goal has changed.

"The focus started on education, but now it's on commerce. What we really want to do is create commercial opportunities for member companies in Southern Arizona. We also want to have an influence on public policy and recruitment, in order to bring the right type of companies to this area."

Ellison said the combined organizations are now recruiting members for subcommittees and developing a joint plan of action. "We're also working with the Tucson Department of Commerce to coordinate our actions."

He said, "We think this move is exciting because it opens up great opportunities to address all these possibilities. We'll be able to provide better professional help for new companies in environmental, marketing and occupational health and safety issues, and we'll be able to improve our ability to market the member companies and the region."

Ellison said, "Anything that we need to do to make member companies more competitive, we'll be ready to offer them."

Philip S. Moore may be contacted at pmoore@azbiz.com or at (520) 295-4238.