Global thinking, flexibility and worker training were the emergent themes when eight business leaders addressed the Airport Area Chamber of Commerce on Friday.

"You hear all the time how there are a billion people in China building things," said Bram Johnson, executive vice president of FedEx Ground. "But, at some point, they're going to start buying things. Why can't we be the ones to sell to them?"

Roger Cranville, senior vice president of global marketing for the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, said 267 foreign companies have branches in the Pittsburgh region, many of them in the airport corridor, but that he still gets an "oh, no, not Pittsburgh" reaction when he travels.

"We've got to turn that around," he said. "This is a great area, but it's a little undiscovered."

One of those 267 foreign companies is the chemical firm Lanxess, a German-based Bayer spinoff headquartered in Findlay. Terri Fitzpatrick, vice president of communications, said the company could have built headquarters in any of several areas -- it has 10 manufacturing sites in the United States and Canada -- but chose Pittsburgh because it was home to so many Lanxess employees.

Ms. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Cranville said access to direct international flights would be a huge help in drawing foreign businesses, something lost when US Airways pulled its trans-Atlantic service from Pittsburgh International Airport.

Of three airline representatives on hand, only Dale Morris, managing director of government affairs and community relations for American Airlines subsidiary American Eagle Airlines, could say anything about international flights, and the best American can offer now is connections out of Chicago.

But there are glimmers of good news in the gloom of the airline industry. Warren Wilkinson, vice president of government affairs and corporate communications for Republic Airways, said 200 people had been hired for an overnight maintenance facility its subsidiary, Republic Airlines, launched three months ago at Pittsburgh International, and that Republic would add 21 planes to the 155 now in its fleet.

Republic, like American Eagle, flies commuter jets, handling that end of the business for four major airlines. Mr. Wilkinson said the company was close to adding a fifth such contract.

"We are very bullish on where the industry is going," he said. "The network carriers are getting much more nimble, cutting costs."

Leading that effort, of course, is Southwest Airlines, which celebrated its first anniversary in Pittsburgh this month. Gary Leonard, marketing manager of the Pittsburgh region for Southwest, said the low-cost carried had doubled its Pittsburgh flights to 20 and was trying to figure out how best to use 33 airplanes it acquired.

Transportation helps in business only if you have something to offer, though, and the panel speakers emphasized the importance of training and adaptability to ensure that.

"We are a learning-based society," Mr. Johnson said. "We have very skilled people, but we need more very skilled people."

He said, for example, that while the Pittsburgh area turns out plenty of skilled engineers, "we don't produce any marketing people," and that he had talked with a number of businesspeople searching for those skills.

"We need a really agile work force," Mr. Cranville said. "Companies look at coming here, and they ask, 'Do you have the people, and can we retrain them?' "

Stewart Sutin, president of the Community College of Allegheny County, agreed, saying there was a sense of being settled down in this region that has its positives, but also its negatives.

"People here are so friendly," he said, "but our comfort zone is too narrow. ...

"We need to develop a mind-set that says 'We need change.' "

Dr. Sutin said the community college was looking to contribute through the center it's developing in a former Chrysler training center in North Fayette, which will, when refurbished, replace the college's training centers in Robinson and Neville Island.

"It's going to be our showcase for workforce training," he said, noting that new federal and state grant money would help the college get top-end computer equipment.

"We will be, in a few years, among the nation's best in training a workforce for technical businesses," Dr. Sutin said.

Also on the panel was Greg Erhard, of Ohio Valley General Hospital, who described the new maternity wing and surgical services suite the Kennedy hospital is building.

"With an aging population, our challenge is to grow capacity," he said.