Jayson Knott

Jayson Knott
Maryland Department of Commerce
Multiple County
https://https://commerce.maryland.gov/

Jayson Knott is the Senior Director of Business Development for the Maryland Department of Commerce. With over 25 years of experience in economic development, he leads Maryland’s business attraction efforts across various industries, including manufacturing.

Jayson works with corporate end users and their representatives, supporting projects to bring new companies to Maryland. Named one of North America’s Top 50 Economic Developers for 2021 by Consultant Connect, he characterizes a lot of his work as problem solving.

“For every business attraction opportunity, we put together project teams from Commerce Business Attraction, Regional, Industry Sectors, and Financing Programs as  well as participation from county partners and other external partners. We work together to identify and address business attraction customers’ real estate, workforce, business and research partner, discretionary incentive, tax credit, and other resource needs.

“In addition to taking a team approach, a strong Maryland selling point for business attraction projects is our existing supplier and customer base. This has made the State particularly attractive for companies in aerospace and food industries.” Jayson also cites Maryland’s research and development capabilities as attractive to companies that want to move through the various levels of the industry, from proof of concept to full scale manufacturing.

The Port and other infrastructure assets and logistics capabilities continue to support Maryland’s manufacturing industry successes. Business attraction wins over the past 10 to 20 years span a wide range of manufacturing industry sectors, from food processing and life sciences to precision aluminum, electronics, and aerospace.