TRANSCRIPTION RE: EYES ON THE FUTURE EVENT

Prepared For: Eyes on the Future, GRE and SBC 

Transcribed by:

ExecuScribe, Inc.
1320 University Avenue
Rochester, N. Y.  14607

((585)) 256-6220

Speaker Key:

A:        Announcer
TC:      Tony Cotroneo
BD:     Bob Duffy
MB:     Maggie Brooks
DB:     Donald Bain
TI:        Tom Ioele
BT:      Brian Taffe
LP:      Larry Pelton
GD:     Gene DePrez
KS:      Ken Schoetz
DM:     Dennis Mullen
RW:    Ron Weisinger
DW:    Dave Wallace
DD:     Dennis Donavon           

Sue Cotroneo - [SINGING NATIONAL ANTHEM]

            A:        If perception is reality, then the way you look at the world determines the world you live in.  If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, you will only see one color, pink.  If you stare at the black cross at the center, the moving dot turns green.  Now concentrate on the black cross at the center of the picture.  After a short period of time, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see a green dot rotating.  It is amazing how our brain works.  There really is no green dot.  And the pink ones really don’t disappear.  What you focus on determines what you see.  What you believe to be true. 

            [MUSIC PLAYING]

            TC:      It’s hard to follow that.  Hello welcome to the Eyes of the Future Economic Summit presented by the greater Rochester Enterprise and the Small Business Council, and Affiliate of the Rochester Business Alliance.  I am Tony Cotroneo, the President of the Small Business Council and Susan Cotroneo’s husband.  I would like to thank our sponsors, AXA Advisors, the  Bonadio Group, Citizens bank, Employee Relations Associates, Empire State Development Corporation, Eric Mower & Associates, Excellus, Johnson Controls, Kodak, OS-Cubed, Inc., Paradigm Environmental Services, Phillips Lytle, Relph Benefit Advisors, The Rochester Business Journal, and St. John Fisher College.  Also thank you to our panelists and our moderator who will be formerly introduced later.  Thank each of you for coming today and being champions of our efforts to improve the local economy.  Thanks to our elected officials who have taken time to come here today and join us.  And last but not least, a special thanks to Dennis Mullen, Mark Peterson, Stacey Henning, and the entire staff at the greater Rochester Enterprise, and to Tom Ioele, and Don Johnson of the Small Business Council, who as you can imagine have spent an extraordinary amount of time to put this event on.  The purpose of this event is to continue to encourage frank discussion about economic growth in the upstate area.  Today you will hear the factors that companies consider when selecting geographic areas to locate to, or to relocate to.  You will also hear what others have done in geographic areas that they are located in to attract and retain businesses.  This information will assist us in developing and redeveloping our strategies.  We are optimistic that the assets that we have available in the Upstate New York area will enable us to compete, to attract businesses, and retain our business and allow them to grow.  And we must take steps to track our progress so we can continue to change and improve our strategies.  At this time it is my pleasure to introduce to you our county executive, and our mayor, Maggie Brooks, our County Executive, and Bob Duffy our Mayor, who have taken time out of busy schedules to come up and join us.  I will ask him to come up and say a few words.

            MB:     Well thank you and good morning.  Wow, if this is not energizing, I don’t know what is.  This is an impressive gathering.  And really the fact that all of you are here this morning is energizing to me because it shows me that you are believers that the best days are ahead for our community, that we are on the cusp, that we are ready to move forward, and that the glass is half full.  I certainly would like to thank GRE, the Small Business Council.  I would like to welcome all of our panelists who are here.  In my brief conversations with a couple of them, they said to me, and offered this, that they believe that our assets far outweigh our challenges. So that is the starting point for the conversations today, that the glass is half-full.  I also want to thank President Bain and St. John Fisher for hosting this impressive gathering this morning.  We have nineteen colleges and universities in this region.  They have a four billion dollar impact on this part of New York State.  And that gives us a competitive advantage.  And I thank St. John Fisher for being at the forefront of a lot of our economic activities.  You know there is no question that economic development and economic vitality is everyone’s responsibility.  And that is why it is critical that we have a true collaboration.  We have a role to play in promoting our region, in promoting our local economy, and talking about the assets that we have, the highly skilled work force, the spirit of philanthropy that we have here,  and our quality of life, which I believe is second to none.  Economic development impacts each and every one of us.  For every company that invests here.  Every job that is created, we all benefit from that.  So I am thrilled to be part of today’s event.  You know government can’t do it alone.  We actually don’t create jobs.  The private sector creates jobs.  But it is our responsibility to foster the environment that facilitates that business growth, and that job creation.  It is our responsibility to be at the table, to be a joint voice with all of you to assist businesses in improving and expanding their operations locally.  We do have so much to be proud of.  If you consider the fact that in two thousand and seven, we have more jobs in Monroe County and this region than we did in nineteen eighty.  If you look at the fact that ninety-seven percent of our job growth is now in the mid-sized arena, and fifty-one percent of our companies have one to four people.  Those are the strengths.  That is our opportunity going forward.  And I do believe that we have more opportunity than challenge.  So I consider all of you partners in what we have to do as we move forward.  I thank my partner from the city for being here, because the city and the county do work together very collaboratively on economic development.  And we’re all moving ahead, and we all have the same goal.  And I want to thank you for being a part of this important discussion today.

            BD:     Good morning everybody.  I want to echo Maggie’s comments.  And first of all, thank you all for coming.  I think this speaks volumes about the future of Upstate New York, the mere fact that we have I believe over nine hundred and fifty people coming this morning.  And we talk about Eyes to the Future, I think – this to me exemplifies where we are going to go.  I want to thank GRE.  I want to thank the Small Business Council for sponsoring this.  I'd also like to thank President Don Bain and Fisher who always do a terrific job in hosting such great events as this.  I think their support is huge.  I want to welcome one of my colleagues; Mayor Dave Wallace from Sugarland, Texas is here.  He is probably come the farthest of anybody in the room.  He is the mayor of the fastest growing city in the country.  He is somebody who I have met coming into office, have great respect for, and really believe he is going to add a whole lot to this discussion.  I think what Maggie said, I want to echo.  You know we are really fighting for our future.  Nothing is going to be handed to us.  You know we can’t rely on outside help.  We have to make it happen ourselves.  And looking around at who is in this room   the strength that we have right here defines where we are going to go.  You in your hands – I mean everyone here, you have the future of Rochester and Monroe County right here.  If we are going to address poverty, we’re going to address the issue of economics, and economic development.  If we’re going to make us a magnet for business, it is going to happen right here.  But the one thing I just want to reinforce before we close, keep in mind a few things.  We were just voted the sixth most livable community in the country.  Something we should be very, very proud of.  Next month we are featured in the U.S. Airways, the magazine, where over a million passengers will read over a seventy-page layout of the greater Rochester area.  We should be very proud of that. We have eighteen thousand engineers.  We’re the highest per capita number of patents in the country, one of the highest per capita PhDs.  I think we have the ability to be the Silicon Valley of the East.  We have so much here.  There is so much vibrancy, so much opportunity.  We just have to make it happen.  And as been said, government should never be an impediment.  Government should be a partner, and it will be.  Out in the audience is Carlos Carballada, our Economic Development Commissioner, somebody who has a long history of business here.  I think this is a great start for the future.  And I am just pleased to be here to listen to this expertise on the panel.  But I just believe with this, it is not so much that we are here this morning.  It is what we do when we leave here that is going to define the future.  And this is like a marathon.  It is going to be long hard.  It’s going to be a battle.  We’re going to get tired.  We’re going to throw our hands up.  But we have to keep on going because there is nothing like crossing that finish line.  And Upstate New York and specifically Rochester is on the rebound.  So thanks so much for coming.  I appreciate your support of this.  And again, thanks to this great panel.

            TC:      At this time it is my pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Donald Bain.  Dr. Bain has been a member of the faculty at St. John Fisher College since nineteen seventy-five.  And over that period of time, he has had many positions that include History Department Chair, Dean of Faculty, Provost and Dean of the College, Vice President of Administration, and in two thousand and five, Dr. Bain was appointed President of the college.  Dr. Bain and St. John Fisher are true champions of economic development in the upstate area.  Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Donald Bain.

DB:     As Henry the VIII said to each of his wives in turn, I won’t keep you long.  As you can imagine, we heartily applaud the efforts that this summit represents.  And welcome all of you to St. John Fisher College.  We couldn’t be more proud to be part of this and proud to host this truly visionary enterprise.  This is a tremendous gathering of talent.  I have had a chance to say hello to several old friends.  And always making new ones.  And I am just so pleased that the community has responded to the great leadership we have seen in the public sector, the private sector.  I think George Marshal, who has you know, was the architect of the Marshal Plan after World War II really summed it up.  He said it is not enough to fight.  It’s the spirit that we bring to a fight that decides the issue.  Morale wins the victory.  Morale is a state of mind.  And I think what we have heard this morning, what we are going to hear for the rest of the day helps us to be even more committed, to believe in our purpose.  To have a vision of what our destiny as a community is.  And the confidence of our determination that I think is going to fulfill a vision for the future economic development of this community. 

The summit to me, and I am sure to all of you, is a symbol.  A symbol of the partnership that we just heard from Mayor Duffy, and County Executive Maggie Brooks.  What a wonderful example of how we can work together, politically, socially, culturally.  I think they represent really the epitome of what cooperation and friendship and civility bring to the summit, and bring to our great community.  Be assured, my college and I, and all that we represent are not behind you, nor are we in front of you.  But we are along side of you, arm-in-arm working with the energy, the action that it is going to take to fulfill our economic development in this great community.  Enjoy the morning.  I will leave you with a simple message that I gave to the nearly thousand undergraduate and graduate students who at the War Memorial we commenced just last month.  I gave them three little pieces of advice.  Be kind, be honorable, be bold.  Thank you very much.  May God bless you all.

TI:        Thank you very much Dr. Bain.  What a great facility.  We’re excited to be here today.  My name is Tom Ioele.  Before we introduce our moderator, I wanted to just take a moment to recognize three very strong community citizens.  These are three people who have demonstrated exemplary leadership through their community involvement.  Eric Depalma, Bobby Demuth, and Matthew Wilsy. Three new eagle scouts from Monroe County.  Thank you.  I think we can all agree, we all need more eagle scouts.  When the summit idea came about, about nine months ago, we were talking about the type of discussion we were going to have, we came up with a moderated panel.  And I have gotten a chance to know the panel over the last several months.  And it is going to be very exciting today.  One name came to mind as we talked about how we were going to moderate the panel.  And that was Brian Taffe.  Brian Taffe is an Albany native.  He is a Boston College graduate.  I enjoy watching Brian, as I am sure many of you do on Capital News Tonight.   It took about one second for him to say yes.  I called him.  I begged him.  And he actually said, absolutely.  I’ll be there.  Just tell me when it is.  Brian, we are appreciative for you to be here today.  We are looking forward to a great lively discussion.  Thank you very much for coming today.

BT:      Good morning everybody.  And thank you for welcoming me.  Thanks Tom.  Tom has worked tirelessly to put all of this together for as he said, so many months now.  And I think what we’re going to have today is a great conversation.  I certainly hope so. 

We’re not inventing an issue here.  This is something all of us have lived in our communities, in Rochester, in Syracuse, in Albany, and the Southern Tier.  It is collectively called Upstate New York.  And so long – for so long we have all talked about this concept of Upstate versus Downstate.  I grew up in Albany and I always felt – I always hated that.  Because I felt like you know New York City, it is part of who we are.  But the bottom line is, and the reality is, we face very different issues.  New York City right now is booming.  If anybody saw those Wall Street bonuses, we all thought maybe we would like to move there, get a piece of that. But it doesn’t exist here.  What does exist here is tremendous opportunity.  That is why I am so encouraged when I look out in this room this morning and see nine hundred fifty, nearly a thousand people.  It tells me that this is a community.  This is Upstate New York looking to find its place. Looking to move into the future, and to dominate once again, as we all so proudly called ourselves the Empire State in the past.  That is here.  It never went away.  We just need to find it and get there again.  That said, today is sort of like, I am going to look at it as developing a play book.  And we can say that right down the hall here from the Bills practice facility.  And we’re going to do it sort of by cheating.  We’re going to look into somebody else’s play book.  And it is this group here.  This distinguished group of panelists.  Let me introduce them to you, and then we will begin the conversation.  And it is going to be just that, a conversation.  Not an interview.  We want to hear from them, not from me.  But meet our panel, starting from your left.  Please join me in welcoming Larry Pelton, the President of the Economic Development Council of St. Lucy County, Florida.  Larry’s goals there in St. Lucy County are a development of a science and technology cluster within a multicounty region there.  And working with business and public leadership to strategize a shift to a knowledge based economy.  It’s exactly what we’re doing here.  And he is working with companies all across the nation.  All around the world to get them to come to his part of the country.  Also with us is Gene DePrez of IBM Global.  With over thirty years experience, Mr. DePrez draws upon the global resources of IBM Global Services to provide strategic and management advisory services.  To his clients, that involves choosing business locations based on incentives, based on growth opportunities, based on global competitiveness.  He is the guy that helps companies decide where to move.  Among those companies, Citigroup, Phillip Morris, Toyota, Proctor & Gamble, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Xerox just to name a few.  He is a good guy to know.  Also with us today is Ken Schoetz, the Chief Operating Officer of the Upstate Development Corporation.  Ken is a guy many of you will know if not by name and by face.  Ken has served in numerous senior positions in public service, and is an attorney in the private sector.  He is a lifelong resident of western New York, has government experience at both the state and local level, including the last four years as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Buffalo Regional Office.  Next with us today is Dennis Mullen, who no doubt many of you know.  President of Great Rochester Enterprise.  Dennis of course brings a strong background of general management expertise to his current position as President and CEO of GRE.  Under Dennis’s leadership GRE has focused on marketing Rochester’s core assets in an effort to attract new business to this area.  One of the organizer’s of today’s event, and of course one guy who wants to hear what his counterparts on the panel have to say today.  Next is Ron Weisinger, Executive Director of the Northern Nevada Development Authority in Carson City, Nevada.  He has got a pretty cool story.  Ron serves as the executive director of the Northern Nevada Development Authority for five years now.  It is based out of the state capital.  It will close the current fiscal year with – get this – an economic impact to the region of more than two hundred million dollars.  That is good work.  Also with us today, a guy Mayor Duffy introduced earlier today, he is a friend of his, a guy I met just a few minutes ago.  A guy who first you should know, drove all night from New York City to get here his flight having been canceled, Dave Wallace is the Mayor of Sugarland Texas.  Mayor Wallace is serving his third term as mayor of that city.  Under his leadership, the city has undergone incredible phenomenal growth.  The quality of the economy in Fort Bend County which includes Sugarland is rising at a rate greater than the ten strongest metropolitan economies anywhere in the country.  The size of the economy there, earnings, and employment all have growth at a rate much faster than ninety-nine percent of all the economies anywhere in the nation.  His is a story we will want to hear today.  And finally with us on the panel is Dennis Donavan, Principle of Wadley, Donavan, & Gutshall Consulting.  Dennis is responsible for world-wide site selection services for WDGC.  He is one of the firm’s three principles.  He has advised many companies across the industry spectrum of design and execution of global location strategy.  Another site selector, a guy who decides where companies should go.  That said, I am going to leave the stage for them.  If this works, come down to the floor.  Okay.  Let’s start the conversation this way.  I think one of the important things to think about here, or as they conduct this conversation, don’t wait for me to ask a question.  Just feel free to have a conversation among yourselves.  One of the things that has struck me most since starting my television program, Capital Tonight, is the ability to step outside of one’s self and to see your part of the state, see your role in the state economy through someone else’s perspective.  I grew up in Albany.  It is where my show is currently based out of right now.  Until I started that television program, I had never set foot in Rochester.  And now I feel like it is a second home, because I spend so much time here, and because I cover it on a daily basis.  That said some of you on the panel today are not from this area.  And I would like to know, before we ask those who are from the area to step outside of themselves, to tell us your perceptions coming from Florida sir.  What is it you know of Upstate New York?  What is it you think of when you hear that phrase?

LP:      Well I wish you had asked me that before so I could think about it.

BT:      I caught you off guard.

LP:      I frankly don’t give Upstate New York any thought because we are not in the same comparative arena.  Or I didn’t think we were in the same comparative arena until last night when I heard that we are going after very similar types of economic development opportunities.  But I have been – I am from Florida.  So I have been in Florida when the out migration of manufacturing from the northern states went to the Sun Belt states.  I have been there with globalization.  When again, there has been transition of favoritism towards the south and the southeastern states.  And so my bias with northern – or with the northern part of the state is that I assumed that you just got a constant out migration.  And I didn’t – I don’t – I have never thought until I came here that you had the resource base to retain that industry and to redirect your efforts.  So I probably thought of you as a very vulnerable area in the economic development recruitment business. 

DT:      See, I think that is an incredible thing.  And that is reality.  So many people across the country have exactly that same perception of upstate New York, that it is losing people, and it is losing jobs, and they just don’t give it much thought.  Mr. Mayor from Texas, all the way almost on the other side of the country.

DW:    Right.

BT:      Your good friend is Bob Duffy.  Pretend he is not here for a minute, and tell us what you honestly think of Upstate New York.

DW:    Well first of all, I just need to give a qualifier.  I have lived in Upstate New York.  I lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, Buffalo, Cleveland, Schenectady, Albany.  I have lived in a lot of different places in this area.  And I have to say the quality of life in this area, the assets, the attributes that are here, are phenomenal.  And when it comes to economic development, I do always think about Upstate New York, just like I think about a number of other markets that are very competitive.  A number of markets that are very aggressive when it comes to economic development activities.  And there are a lot of strengths.  There are less than strengths that a lot of communities have.  And so on behalf of the state of Texas, and I serve on the Economic Development Board, on behalf of my own city.  When I am meeting with site selectors, when I am meeting with the CEO or the chairman of companies, trying to entice them to come down to our community, I think I have got a pretty good idea of what those strengths are, and what some of those weaknesses are.  But we are constantly battling head-to-head with a number of markets in New York, many of which being Upstate New York.  And so there are a lot of wonderful attributes that this community has.

BT:      Excellent.  Ron, coming in from Nevada, a guy with experience in Las Vegas, developing, now focusing on Reno and Tahoe, an area that is just growing by leaps and bounds.  Honestly, when you hear the words Upstate New York, when you hear the words Rochester, western New York, what goes through your mind first?  Don’t censor it.

RW:    I wouldn’t want to.  I am a Watertown New York guy.  All right for the people from Watertown, yes.  I love Upstate New York.  And I have to tell you right now, we are not in competition.  And the other thing would be, and I would probably think that most of the people that are here on the dais would agree, we are really not in competition with each other.  Because when a company is looking to relocate, their looking to see what the assets of the community are.  And it is not a question of well, they are going to go here rather than there.  I think we all applaud each other when a company does make a decision.  Hopefully it is not a decision to totally leave a community, but to expand their business.  And hopefully if they expand their business, they will come to your community or my community.  We’re all in this thing together.  We do the same things.  And it is just a matter of what are the assets that a company is looking for?  So I think that Upstate New York, and especially the nine counties here have a tremendous opportunity to really grow.  And everybody should be congratulating themselves right now on what they have already done.

BT:      And for certainly for showing up here today in such large numbers.  I asked that question first for a reason, because I think that everybody brings to the table two things, perception and reality.  There is a perception, no question, of Upstate New York, of Rochester, Western New York.  There is a perception of pretty much anywhere in the country.  And then there is the reality of what really is there, the assets, the infrastructure, the promise, and the future.  So I asked you guys that question with the hopes of you could present to us the perception.  We’ll bring the reality to the table.  I know when I asked each of you what you bring to the table.  Maybe we will start over here.  Dennis, tell us a bit about your story.  You are here for a reason today.  Why?

DM:     Well, the past thirty years I have been engaged in advising companies on where to locate corporate facilities, office R&D, manufacturing and so forth.  And I have worked throughout the country.  And was originally raised in Buffalo New York.  So having been raised in Buffalo, having lived in Hoboken, New Jersey since nineteen eighty and then been exposed to communities around the country, I am pretty familiar with success stories and failures, but more importantly success stories of areas that really did reach economic doldrums and have soared to new horizons.  And so I am here today to be able to relate some of those experiences, and hopefully provide an inspiration for a region that to me is on a presidios of some major exciting growth and redevelopment.

BT:      Mr. Mayor, aside from sleep deprivation, what do you bring to the table today?

BD:     Sleep deprivation.  Well first of all just with a show of hands, I just want to understand the audience here.  Who here knows where Sugarland, Texas is?  Wow.  Not that many.  Okay.  If you know where Houston is, Houston is a small tiny suburb of the city of Sugarland.  And  one hundred and sixty years ago, long before the state of Texas was even a state in the nation, Imperial Sugar started their business in Sugarland.  They started growing sugar, processing sugar, refining sugar.  And because of that, with a hundred and sixty years of sugar, everywhere you go in our community, you have subdivisions named sugar.  Sugar Lakes, Sugar Creek, Sugar Mill, we have a lake called Ragus Lakes.  And if you stop and think, Ragus is sugar spelled backwards.  But with all of that emphasis on sugar, do you know what our motto is in Sugarland?  Sugarland where there is no equal?  All right, I realize it is corny.  I know that.  So what did I bring today?  I brought the comic relief.  No.  I think, let me go back a little bit and just talk about my background.  And I think you will understand when you connect the dots.  From a business perspective, for the last twenty-five years, I have been involved in investment banking.  I basically buy troubled companies.  Bankrupt companies.  Companies that are insolvent go in and recapitalize the company.  Work with management, breathe new life into those companies.  And literally over the last twenty-five years I have bought over a hundred such companies.  From a political perspective, I have been around a number of pretty great political leaders.  I partnered with the Thatcher family during the eighties.  I became Lady Thatcher’s Chief of Staff in nineteen ninety when she stepped down from being Prime Minister.  And I say that from the stand point that I saw a lady that when she first took office as prime minister, the highest marginal tax rate in the United Kingdom was ninety percent.  You can think about going to work, and ninety percent goes to the central government.  And as a result of a number of public private partnerships, privatization, I literally saw twenty seven billion dollars of privatization take place.  And as a result of that, when she left, the highest marginal tax rate was forty percent.  You had a government that all of the debt was effectively gone as a result of the privatization.  And I say all of that from the standpoint of the experiences that we have in the city of Sugarland.  We are probably in the top one percent of the nation.  When we reach out, we have a Yellow Page theory that if there is a private sector company that can do a job quicker, faster, cheaper, better than we can, we are going to outsource it.  We’re going to use the private sector.  And we are in the top one percent of the services that we outsource.  We also have the second lowest tax rate in the state of Texas.  And that is not a coincidence.  Those two things are uniquely tied together.  And when you can continue to reduce the taxes that can continue to stimulate the economy.  We also as we reach out, our water, our waste water, our tax collection, our solid waste disposal, all of that we outsource.  So the assets we don’t have to keep on our balance sheet if you will as a municipality.  And so consequently we continue to keep our debt levels down.  And those are some things that when you can continue to do that, when you can continue to grow the company, grow the city – I am very much a supply side oriented person – is as you reduce the taxes that can stimulate the economy, those are a number of the attributes that when we go out, and we’re continuing to focus on growing the economy, attracting businesses, you know a lot of people talk about incentives as a way to basically get somebody over the finish line.  And that is the case.  We do use incentives.  And I realize what you are saying as it relates to we’re not competing for the same business.  But in many respects, when we go out and talk to the CEO, they have got a blank canvas.  And they can go really to any particular city.  And it is somewhat of a competitive environment.  And so there is a number of things that as we continue to move forward today, I look forward to having a discussion as some real life best case examples that I see throughout the United States that I think could be replicated right here in Upstate New York.

BT:      Ron, how about yourself?

RW:    I bring reality to the table.  Because again, perception is reality.  Let me answer your question with a question of the audience.  How many people in this audience are not from Monroe County?  Would you raise your hands please?  You need to be congratulated.  Because this is a regional organization.  Nine counties.  That is one heck of a job to pull together.  And to make sure that all of the counties and all of the cities truly are represented.  So it is not just an excuse me Mr. Mayor, and excuse me County Exec, but it is everyone.  Everyone has got to be in the game.  Because if everyone isn’t in the game, it is not going to work.  That is why perception is reality.  And if you are able to put forth a picture of unity, cohesion, coming together, your opportunity to be able to attract and retain business and industry is unbelievable.  I said I bring reality.  Let me tell you something.  You have assets in this community.  Meaning all nine counties that most cities and most counties in the United States of America will envy.  You have got great higher educational institutions, which produce an educated workforce.  You have philanthropy in these nine counties that far surpass what most other communities do.  Super important because it is a partnership.  You were all talking earlier.  Your video talked about economic vitality.  Everyone plays.  Excel, shared vision.  Those are only words unless they put into action, it would appear that you all should be giving yourselves a pat on the back.  Because those challenges that you have can be overcome.  It ain’t easy folks, but it can be overcome.  What I am trying to say to you is, at the same time that perception is that you have problems, you don’t.  You do have challenges.  Perception is well, we have got a long way to go.  Okay, who doesn’t?  The most successful communities in the United States are constantly striving to do better.  So are you.  The thing is, if you are all working on the same boat, rowing in the same direction, you have an opportunity to make it.  Again, you have an educated workforce.  You have affordable housing.  You have something that a lot of communities don’t have.  I will tell you right now, where I come from, we are hurting for workers.  Educated workers, experienced workers.  And the reason is, we’re booming too fast.  So those are problems.  Those aren’t challenges, those are problems.  Yet we look at them as challenges.  And like you, we are all working to overcome it.  So what do I bring to the table, Brian?  Pure reality.  Look at yourselves.  Work with each other.  Seems like you are doing it.  And keep on doing it.  Dennis is your leader.  Follow him.

BT:      How is that for an introduction?  Dennis, you are in many ways an economic leader in this region.  You are also a salesman for it.  You are the guy who has to go to businesses and say, here is why you should come here.  Some of the people on the panel today are effectively the buyers representing those companies who make the decisions.  What are you selling?  What are you selling to this part of the state?

DD:     A couple of things.  First of all, I would like to tell you why I am here as well.

BT:      Yes.

DD:     Three reasons.  Passion, a will to win and an understanding, a complete understanding that you cannot do it by yourself.  That we need a collaborative effort between our political leadership, certainly our university leadership, and our business leadership.  And that is why we’re here this morning.  What we are trying to sell in this competitive environment that we are in, are the core competencies that we believe that the Rochester region has versus the competitive landscape across the country.  We believe that some of our core competencies lie in the area of the world of optics.  Given our legacy in those businesses, and the research and development that is going on in our colleges and universities in that area.  We believe that we can go out and convince businesses to look at the Rochester area to understand what we have in that to be able to perpetuate their business plan.  In the world of bio, we believe that we have those same core assets in the area of medical devices.  Food and beverage.  We have over a hundred companies within this region that excel in the food and beverage area.  When we look at Nevada, one of our weaknesses may be energy, but one of their weaknesses is water.  So – and I only point that out as you know would you like some water?  You cannot take that through security at the airport.  But what we don’t completely understand all the time, and when I have private conversations with people in the community as Maggie said earlier, there is this belief that our glass is half empty and not half full.  And then the final core competency we believe we have is smart energy.  And we have tremendous assets in the area of bio fuels, in ethanol, and in that area.  So those are the – those are the core competencies that we’re out promoting.  And when I say out promoting, that is the other thing that is happening.  GRE will represent this community at thirty shows, industry shows across the country over the twelve month period of time.  So you may not see ads in the newspapers. You may not hear radio advertising.  You may have heard Michigan advertising, come to Michigan last evening, or a couple of times.  What we want to do is to get face-to-face with business leaders, promoting the assets that we have in this community to be able to have them be aware of them, to perpetuate a business plan.  In my former life of running fairly substantial business, I was courted on numerous occasions to move that particular business outside this region.  Nobody ever gave me a reason or how moving the business was going to be better for the shareholders, and stakeholders of that business.  So with that comprehension and understanding, that is how we are trying to direct this initiative of the Greater Rochester Enterprise representing each and every one of you in this community to be able to bring economic development to this region in the entire nine counties. 

BT:      Thanks.  Ken, I think you are the big picture guy.  You are Upstate Development.  You are not solely focused on Rochester, or solely focused on the capital region or any place else in one spot.  You look at the big picture.  Tell us what your job entails, and how we fit into it.

KS:      I think you know I wanted to just start out a little bit.  And clearly that is the role, which is the, you know kind of north of Westchester.  And throughout all of Upstate.  Upstate Development Corporation is not responsible as the state’s economic development arm.  And I think it is instructive about how it is that I am here.  Because there was an Upstate Development Corporation ESDC created.  And it was created because the governor, when he was Attorney General, toured the state for eight years as Attorney General.  And saw a state of affairs that he thought needed more focus.  And as part of his discussions about how to do what we are all up here to discuss, which is create new and growing economic vitality throughout upstate New York and Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton, and you know the rest that what this region needed from state government was a special focus.  And it is not to say that the folks that were in charge of Empire State Development prior to our arrival in February were not interested in Upstate.  But when you are down in Manhattan, and you have projects there that require attention and money and staff resources, there is a tendency to you know, put things that might need better focus and resources that don’t lie within your geography on the bottom of the pile.  And we have discovered it.  And it doesn’t make the people that were down in Empire State Development prior to our arrival bad or evil people.  It just means they are human beings.  And they were focusing on the things that they knew and that affected their lives.  And if I was down there, I would probably do the same thing.  My job now is to be the focus and make sure that on the top of the pile are the Upstate issues, that they see you know proper focus.  That they receive the recourses the resources staff wise, technology wise, money wise as we move forward.  And as we work with local communities to create a fabric for economic development that will in fact over the long haul turn around the upstate economy.  So I am here because the governor realized, and I think correctly so, that Upstate needed a focus.  And that is what I do.  And we are pleased on a regular basis to work with local officials here.  The mayor and the county executive.  We have had a wonderful relationship already in terms of understanding and the Rochester area.  And also when we needed help to bring in a – and land the Care String project, which is an extraordinary opportunity over the next little bit in Rochester, to have Dennis and Greater Rochester Enterprise working with us as well.  So I think we have already begun the task.  We have a lot – a long way to go.  There is an extraordinary need to reshape Empire State Development and its programs.  We’re just at the very infancy of that.  But a lot of the ideas we are going to hear today will help us as we move ahead.  So I am here for focus, in a word.

BT:      Thanks Ken.  Gene DePrez whom I introduced before with a laundry list of rather impressive laundry list of companies that you have helped find places to call home.  Tell us about your job.  Tell us about what you see when you see us.  And tell us about what you bring to the table today.

GD:     Well, maybe I bring a kind of unique perspective as a native Rochesterian, and born and raised here, Aquinas,  RIT, worked at Kodak.  Spent many years at RIT.  Was involved as many of you know in economic development work here back in the eighties.  A lot of change has taken place.  A lot of that change clearly has been very disruptive for all of you.  But I think it is just an excellent opportunity to move forward.  As I work around the world, our operation is really global.  Not for IBM, but for all of the clients that IBM works with around the world.  Hundreds of clients each year making decisions.  Everything from research labs and headquarters to manufacturing operations.  Where do we put these kinds of things?  How many should we have?  What should be the strategy of our location?  We come across and have the pleasure of seeing many communities, many regions around the world.  I think there are few – very few – that have the collection of assets that the greater Rochester region has to offer.  Starting with the universities.  Starting with the innovation core that is here that goes back to the likes of George Eastman, and Edward Bausch and Henry Lomb and Chester Carlson, who were their innovators of their time.  Everything we hear in today’s location strategy world is about innovation.  IBM had a study done a year ago of 735 CEOs around the world.  Small businesses as well as large businesses across some thirty-five different industries, the two or three words that came out of their mouths in terms of opinions of what was important as they go forward was innovation, collaboration, both words in your materials, really focused on the things that you are doing.  Ability to adapt and change and transition and transform, which is a process that you are going through.  The ability to really understand world business and what is going on, which may be one of the most important things to understand as to as they say in hockey, skate as to where puck is going to be as opposed to where the puck is now.  Really understand where each of those industry segments, those targets that Dennis talked about.  Where are those businesses going?  Not necessarily today, but four years down the road, ten years down the road, and to begin to adapt workforce, develop workforce that will meet those needs as they come forth.  I think really Rochester in my perspective of seeing it over all of these years, and all of the changes moving from a manufacturing economy into a much more of an entrepreneurial economy, I think there is just great opportunity here.  The glass is more than half full.  I think it is – it is substantially full.  The question is, as we have all said here, how do you organize yourself?  How do you bring yourselves together?  And many of you that know me over the years know that has been my passion, and how to bring people to work as a region to unleash those assets, to leverage what you have in the corporate sector, what you have in the university sector, what you have in the neighborhoods to really make yourself a first class community that can really compete in the world, which is all focused in today’s terms on innovation, collaboration, and invention.  So good luck to you all and we’re there to support you.

BL:      Thanks Gene.  I like that analogy, skate to where the puck is going to be as opposed to where it is.  That is exactly what we’re trying to do.  Larry, you mentioned something there about the idea of shifting to a knowledge based economy.  It’s exactly what you were doing at Port St. Lucy?  I talked to Ron last night about his experiences in Reno.  And I said Ron, what was it like fifteen years ago versus today?  And he looked at me, and one quick answer.  Night and day.  It is an amazing thing to think that in a span of ten or fifteen years you can go from night to day.  And you can sort of see the – where Reno was versus where it is today, it’s an extraordinary growth.  You are trying to do this in Port St. Lucy, Florida.  I imagine having some great success.  Can you tell us a bit about your story there?

LP:      Sure.  And I am trying to – I have been sitting here trying to think how I can relate your situation to the situation we have.  And frankly, it isn’t any different.  The challenges you face, and the challenges we face, the challenges Nevada faces, and Texas faces, and everyone else faces in this business, are just about identical from place-to-place.  In our case, we had the resources.  What we didn’t have was a focus.  We didn’t as a community understand how to marshal those resources into next generation economic development.  And we really took our lead from Governor Bush who you may be familiar with the Bush’s.  And we – you know I – I have been friends with Jeb Bush for many, many years.  And he relished the competition with the state of Texas by the way.  And – but the – but what Governor Bush did was bring a vision to us in the state of Florida.  He said it is time for us to get away from – or depart from the dependence on seasonal industry, on the construction industry, on wholesale and retail trade, call centers.  And start capturing the most valuable resource we have, and that was the intellect  of the population.  I have coined the phrase, or actually I borrowed it from somewhere else.  But I still take it, I use it frequently, and that is brain gain.  You know, we have had brain drain in the past.  But we are focusing on brain gain, on making certain that future generations have a purpose in remaining in our county and moving to our county.  That is also – there is another valuable lesson there too.  I am not doing what I am doing for me.  I am doing it for the next several generations.  And if I – I want to feel confident in handing off the future of our county, and the future of our region to the immediate next generation.  And unless we prepare them for that challenge, the vision today will never be realized.  I have to leave you with this on this particular topic.  We were able to recruit Scripps, Florida, which is a division of the Scripps Institute in La Jolla.  We followed that with recruiting Torrey Pines, which is a – Torrey Pines is an institute for molecular studies.  They are world-class research institutes.  The education partner of Scripps is Oxford University, and that is not from Mississippi, that is – I have to explain that frequently in southeast.  But the point is, these are world-class scientists who are going to find cures to the most common maladies of the human race.  They are going to find cures to AIDS, to diabetes, to Alzheimer’s.  And I usually forget that one.  But it is – or Parkinson’s or cancers.  I mean the solution to the health of all of us is going to come out of the bio science industry.  We have to have a community that recognizes we are world-class too.  Because we were able to attract the brightest and the best to our community.  We have to quit short changing ourselves.  And we have to start thinking of ourselves as valuable enough a community that the Smithsonian Institute, USDA, University of Florida, Scripps, Torrey Pines, and now I am leaving here to go meet with six more institutes and companies, not here.  Out in California.  We never – our community never thought of itself as  being – having the ability to synthesize a whole cluster built around science and technology, until we proved to them that we could do it.  And last night I had the opportunity to talk with members from GRE, and listen to them talk about what you have got going for you here in Rochester.  And my first question was, why do you – why did you invite us here?  Because it is apparent to me you have all the resources.  You just need a focus.  And you need to marshal the resources, and marshal the assets you have,  realizing maximum – or optimization of the opportunities that you have.  The worst thing you can do is come – is if you can wait this long, if you could come back twenty years from today and look at the energy in this room, a thousand of you attending this session.  And ask yourselves, did we optimize the opportunity that we realized we had twenty years ago.  And the worst thing is to say no, we didn’t.  You know I do that.  I don’t do it frequently.  But I look back on the opportunities I have had in my lifetime that I didn’t maximize.  And I think wow.  I could have bought that property in Florida for a thousand dollars an acre.  You know  don’t do that as a community.  Don’t sit here – don’t leave here and go back to your offices and say well that was a great event.  I am really glad I went, and forget about the future.  Forget about the next step.  Don’t do that.  You have to give of your time, your talent and your tithe as business people if you are going to – and you have to have the vision.  And you have got such great opportunity, don’t – don’t feel sorry – or don’t feel sorry – don’t regret twenty years from now that you didn’t optimize it.

BT:      Well you said a lot of things here that I think – you know first of all, why are you here?  You are here primarily because if I can speak for those who invited you, because sometimes a group needs a kick to see themselves through a different set of eyes, in a different lens so they can realize the position they are in and where they are going.  You have just helped us inordinately in that short conversation there.  But you know one of the things that I have heard all – I just heard all of you say, many of you – was this concept of the glass; half full, half empty.  You know an optimist would say they the glass is half full, a pessimist would say the glass is half empty, a realist would say there is water in the glass.   Okay, bottom line is, there is water in the glass.  Everybody in this room, by virtue of the fact that they are here is an optimist.  Okay, we’re going to use that water to the best of our ability.  The question becomes, is it going to be good enough?  Are we going to use it in the right way to attract the future we want for ourselves.  And that question can only be answered by the people who have to make that analysis on a daily basis. Then it is guys like yourself.  Guys like yourself, who are making that decision each and every day.  Let me ask you okay.  Look at the water in our glass and tell us how to use it.  You know I know it is a hugely broad question with so many angles.  But look at the water in our glass.  Let’s start over here, and tell us how do you suggest that we use it?  What is the two or three biggest things that you can recommend to us?

DM:  Well, without any question, it is definitely a challenge.  And – but I believe eminently doable.  You know when you look at the greater Rochester region, the stars are in alignment for this reason.  Yes there are disadvantages, we all know what they are.  You know we are in New York State.  Something has clearly got to be done about state business climates, it is absolutely essential.  No question about it.  There is static population growth.  So that means that there are many kids coming out of center city, particularly Rochester public education without basic skills to learn the technologies of business.  It’s going to deflate your labor market in the future.  Something has got to be done about that.  And something has got to be done about energy costs.  No question.  Those though are all correctable deficiencies.  So what I see here, when you look at for the vast majority of businesses, again, you have to look at it when a business is locating nationally, it has to place into perspective all of the variables.  Not just taxes.  But where do taxes fit into the overall scheme of things to predict the success of the new operation?  And for the vast majority of businesses, it really comes down to human resources.  It is what I call labor cubed.  It is supply, quality, and cost of labor.  And when we look at this nine-county region, it is truly a documentable distinct advantage.  You know high quality deep breath and depth of labor market, high quality, moderate cost, and then we get into some of the other factors that are important as well, infrastructure and so forth.  So to me, the real challenge here is that you know greater Rochester has done virtually no marketing over its history you know until very recently.  State of New York is a problem, it hasn’t done a lot of marketing.  So what needs to be done here on a business recruitment standpoint, is to be highly focused in a number of industries.  They cannot all be high technology because everybody can’t be a knowledge worker.  There needs to be an array of industries that will be attracted that meets the various needs of the nine-county region.  So there has to be smart recruiting.  And it has to be an effort that is going to be basically twice as good as competitors because we’re going up against places like Richmond, and Hampton Roads that are spending well over two million dollars a year in marketing.  They have state cover.  And so it takes a really smart sophisticated program of marketing where everybody here is also reaching out to contacts around the country in same.  And to recruit high technology businesses, the perceived quality of life has got to be turned around.  That means there needs to be tangible marketing to not only promote greater Rochester as a place to do business, but as a cool place to live, which it is.  I am sure many of you that run businesses here, you have a lot of resistance when you are trying to recruit nationally.  Once you get people into the region, and they see what it has to offer, then the tune changes.  And many times, once people are here, they don’t want to leave.  So that is on a recruiting basis.  You have got to document the unique assets.  Even the labor market is important.  What makes – what makes this unique?  We are within several hour drive of New York City.  A global business platform, major market.  We have this university connection and human resource base.  And we have this at a cost that is twenty percent below New York City.  To me, that is a value proposition.  And that has to be sold.  But never can never, ever overlook the other two legs of the economic development triangle, which is business startup, very very important.  You know for most high-tech businesses, I mean you can go out and maybe offer huge incentives like A&D for Albany.  But the – the way you grow high tech businesses because they want critical mass, you have got to build up that critical mass so it is attractive to others.  To San Diego, almost twenty years to get on a national radar screen for biotechnology.  They built the critical mass.  And they built it through startup, and then also expansion of existing businesses.  So industry retention is not just about staying, it’s about inducing their company to bring high order business to the table the next time they go to expand.  So if you focus on those three-legged triangles, exhort Governor Spitzer to make some major changes that are due here, and do something about center city education, all doable, I believe that there will be some short term success, but you will have to look at this as a long-term ten-year game plan to be able to stand back here.  And if we are here ten years from now, I believe it will be a remarkable success story.  And don’t forget about the twenty-four/seven downtown and greater Rochester.  You know when Baltimore did their turnaround, it was – that publicity out there was generated by that downtown twenty-four/seven and then it became more livable, sellable, and so forth.  So all of these are integrated together.  That is why supporting GRE is absolutely critical, because it takes an integrated regional approach.

GD:  Brian, let me compliment what Dennis has said, and maybe underscore even more focused on the university resources that you have here, which are phenomenal.  I don’t know of any community in the country or in the world that has the concentration of potential intellectual capital resources as we have with the university collection and the community colleges that are in this region.  Along with the tradition of corporate research, both in the large companies and in the smaller companies.  Much of that is still here.  It resides here.  It may not reside in the large companies anymore.  It may well reside in the people that were with those large companies that have gone out to start their own entrepreneurial activity.  And I think that entrepreneurial activity, the spinoff activity coupled with the venture capital that you are able to – that you are bringing together now, really bodes well of where you want to go.  What else is needed?  It’s the kinds of things that we have been talking about this morning.  Leadership more than anything else.  The ability to bring the region together to develop that leadership, to leverage the kind of academic and intellectual capital resources that you have in this region, which are probably parallel to no other place in the country.  And then to brand that.  To market that effectively, to communicate that to get it out into the world.  There is a tremendous opportunity here in that same CE study that I referred to before.  Two thirds of those CEOs said that they are going through dramatic change over the next four, or five years.  Not just in products innovation, but in business model innovation.  The very way they work.  We talked this morning about how companies outsource, and use shared services.  The whole trend is going to be to take each component of each business, and look at that component, whether it is manufacturing, or some aspect of manufacturing, whether it is headquarters, whether it is support services, whether it is research.  Take each of those components as finally defined as possible, and optimize where that can best be done locationally anywhere in the world.  That means if you can understand the niche that you bring to this, the intellectual capital niche, the research and develop, and the four or five target areas that Dennis has talked about.  And really go after that market place.  Those companies are going to be going through all kinds of change.  Large and small companies looking for relationships, looking for networks, looking at how they can collaborate and work together.  That is a tremendous opportunity of open innovation.  Of things going on.  Of an opportunity for you to go out and bring that activity into the greater Rochester area as well as retaining what you have here and building on.  The opportunity is there.  Leadership is needed.  Branding is needed.  But it is all based on the intellectual capital.  And this place has a tremendous amount of intellectual capital to leverage. 

LP:  I also want to reiterate the issue of indigenous economic development.  The point is that you have got a base of successful business in this area.  Get out there and research that.  Find out why.  Find out who they are.  Find out what makes them work.  What makes them tick?  What can you do to stimulate their growth?  Business recruitment in my opinion is, is an existent industry tool.  I recruit businesses who fit with the vender supplier network that we have already established in our area.  Or I recruit companies where there are missing links to augment the vender supplier network that we have.  So – and if you look at – and I have researched the cluster development concepts in Raleigh Durham and Silicon Valley and then in La Jolla, California.  If you look at the names of the companies in those areas, there are five hundred companies located in the La Jolla area.  You recognize the names of maybe twelve of them.  The other four hundred eighty-eight you have never heard of.  They are spin-off – successful spin-off companies from the research institutions, including the University of California at San Diego.  Same thing in Raleigh Durham area.  The universities have had an enormous impact on the success of the research triangle.  Same thing happened in Silicon Valley.  Same thing happened in Route one twenty-eight.  The point is, that you – there has to be an environment that idolizes the entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial spirit.  And you need at your strategy in my opinion as an economic development – in an economic development effort is to be entrepreneurial yourselves.  Speak the language, feel the passion of entrepreneurs.  The other thing I wanted to mention, because I forgot this before when you asked me about the intellectual property, every one of you I hope – well I shouldn’t assume this, but probably most of you have children.  Most of you have – or you have grandchildren.  The thing that we have to inspire in every community is the involvement of parents and involvement of family in the education.  By the time a student gets to the university, or they don’t go to the university, is because their patterns of study were established before they even started the first grade.  It – and until the age of I don’t know, thirteen, or whenever the hormones start kicking in, the parent is the most critical advisor to the students in our educational system.  And you – and I can tell you that your children want to hear from you that they are smart. They want to hear from you that they have opportunities.  They want to hear from you what their opportunities are.  Now, there is a challenge for all of us that every – sixty percent of the jobs that the first graders in your educational community will have when they graduate don’t exist right now.  So it is difficult.  What you have to do as a concerned parent is instill curiosity, instill confidence in all of your children.  And then when you hand them off to the educational system, the educational system is not the surrogate parent anymore.  Don’t, don’t, don’t forget that you are the most important guide to your children.  And if they are going to be – have excellence in education, it is because you instill excellence in the educational system.

BT:      And then what we have to do is make sure there are jobs here so that when they do graduate college, they can come back and state you called brain game, we want that too.  We’re going after it.  I know you both had something to say, the Mayor, go ahead first.

DB:     You talked about critical advisors too.  With your children – I wish you could talk to my daughters, because they still think I am as dumb as a box of rocks.  And so I wish you could do that.  You talked about the glass half empty, half full.

BT:      Sure.  Yes.

DB:     For twenty-five years I have been the turnaround guy.  So I look at it as what happens when the glass shatters?  And what do we do?  What is wrong?  How do we fix it?  How do we clean it up?  And I want to commend everyone here – and you are probably tired of being commended, because you have been commended a lot.  Job growth is anemic.  Incomes are nearly stagnant.  People are leaving.  Taxes and spending remain high.  Electricity costs are high.  Workers Comp is high.  Lobbying groups are standing in the way.  That is not me, that is just on the first page of Unshackle Upstate.  Recognizing what the issues are and then putting together a plan, and then moving forward to execute it, is recognizing the issues is the most important thing.  I don’t know who all was involved in the creation of this document.  But for those of you that have not read it, I would encourage you to do it.  There are some great solutions, some great recommendations that are in here.  My advice to you right now is to as Nike says, just do it.  And move forward with these things.  And I just wanted to comment.  I touched on this a moment ago.  And when I go to California, to meet with a company, when I go to Chicago, when I come to New York, when I go to Oklahoma.  When I go to other states to meet with the chairman, the CEO, I am representing the city of Sugarland.  I am representing the state of Texas, depending on which hat I am wearing, trying to get them to come to our community.  And I have to tell you, when we do a side-by-side comparison between the state of California, and the state of Texas, there are a couple of things that we are constantly harping on.  It is very easy for us to pull out empirical data and say, look at the taxes you are paying in California.  Look at the taxes you would be paying in the state of Texas.  You are a net winner by coming to the state of Texas.  And you know by the way, we have got a fund of about four hundred million dollars that we will assist in those moving costs, and from an economic development perspective.  State of New York has a similar type of fund, which I commend you for that.  But one of the things I continue to look at, and as I talk to folks, the taxes and we have got two fiscal conservatives over here in the mayor and the county exec.  And so my comments aren’t directed there.  My comments are directed on a state-wide level.  And when I am meeting with the CEO or the chairman of a company in New York, I continue to focus on taxes, and what the bottom line issue is.  And that is something that needs to be done.  There is over a thousand people that are here today.  There are a thousand voices that you just applauded when I talked about just do it as it relates to unshackled Upstate.  But I think as it relates to talking with – many companies talk with their feet.  And when we can show them, look how much money you will save comparing apples-to-apples, we can get them to come to the state of Texas.  This is very, very competitive.  And that is one of the things that when we are meeting with folks in New York, we will continue to talk about that.  And there are things that can be done.  But you have got a mighty voice there.  And I am not just saying as voting citizens, but I am saying as individuals in the community that are concerned about the community.  You may complain about the tax bill that you are paying yourself.  But you have to think of it first and foremost as economic development.  We are going to lose businesses if we don’t get our state legislators to do something about it.  So I would encourage you, as I say, just do it.  Speak loud, and speak often about reducing the taxes in the state of New York.  That in my opinion will be one of the single best things that you can do from an economic development to keep business here.  The state of Georgia recently engaged Arthur Laffer.  I know I mentioned before about Lady Thatcher.  Lady Thatcher introduced me to President Reagan.  President Reagan’s chief economist was Arthur Laffer.  Some of you have heard of the Laffer Curve.  Arthur is a dear friend of mine.  And Arthur has been going around talking about this thing called flat tax.  Talking about supply side economics.  The state of Georgia is moving forward.  Their governor, their lieutenant governor is going through the state legislature right now about a flat tax.  And what I – one of the things I did when I came up here is, I put together a PowerPoint about if I were King for a day, up in Upstate New York, what would I do?  And I have left that with Tom.  But one of the things that we talk about is – are some ideas, some recommendations that hopefully you can articulate to you state legislators as well.  But that is one thing that I would strongly recommend.  Again, you are a loud voice that is right here not just as voters, but as concerned citizens, and speak even louder when it comes to reducing the taxes here on a statewide basis. 

BT:      I thought you were pointing at me when you said fiscal conservative.  I should be far more fiscally conservative than I am.  Ron, you had a point you wanted to raise.

KS:      Yes.  I come from a state where – sorry.  I come from a state where we don’t have any taxes.  Wait.  Does it really make that much of a difference?  So he and I are going to argue here for a second.  What I will tell you is taxes can be overcome.  Do you need to reduce them here in New York State?  Damn right you do.  But, that is not your only challenge.  So I am going to try not to ramble.  And if you want to share some things, and if you take them all together, they do make sense.  Do you have a business friendly environment here in Upstate New York and in New York State?  Think about it.  That is one of the things that companies look at.  We’re right next door to California.  A lot of companies – by the way, California, fifth largest economy in the world.  A lot of companies want to be in California.  But they don’t want to step foot in it.  So we have an advantage.  We’re right next door.  Number two, market share.  Most companies are not going to come to Nevada just because we don’t have any taxes.  They are going to come because market share tells them they want to be because of their service or the product that they manufacture close to California.  Let’s take it over here.  Market share.  Companies that are here in Rochester currently are here because of market share.  In the old days in economic development, we would spend about seventy percent of our time on recruiting new business and industry to come into an area.  That is reversed today.  Today we spent about seventy percent of our time on retention and expansion.  And maybe about twenty to twenty-five percent of our time on recruitment.  Why?  Because if a company is already here – you have already experienced it with Kodak and with others – if a company that is already here leaves, downsizes, it is economically devastating to the economy, to the community.  Not just jobs, but all of the other stuff that goes around it from real estate, sales tax, your educational institutions, K through sixteen et cetera.  Therefore, and what Dennis is doing too is, spending a lot of time working with your existing companies to be able to find out what are the challenges, what are the needs, what do we need to do to be able to keep them here?  Not only to grow, but if they are going to expand, Dennis doesn’t want them to expand to Nevada.  He wants them to expand here for those good high paying jobs, a good work environment, and your quality of life.  Incentives.  Texas is fantastic when it comes to financial incentives.  New York is great when it comes to incentives.  But remember one thing, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  And therefore, don’t just look at incentives.  It’s just one of the tools in your tool kit.  And again, looking at everything all together.  This community, all nine counties, you have been used to being the area where there has been big huge tremendous corporations.  That is now where it is at anymore.  And it has already been spoken to by the two national site selectors that are here at the table.  Today’s economy in the United States is really going more toward the small and medium size companies.   Because of the fact that you have great educational institutions here, you have a lot of people that are coming out with innovative ideas, entrepreneurship, et cetera.  What are you doing with your incubators?  Are you commercializing them?  Are you helping those entrepreneurs that are coming out – those small businesses that are coming out of those business incubators to be able to stay here and to grow here.  Think about it.  And again, putting it all in the same big picture.  You have a quality of life that was brought up before.  And a lot of you say oh but winter is so long and there is so much snow.  There are a heck of a lot of people that like to ski.  There are a lot of people who like winter sports.  That is an advantage.  That is an attribute.  It is not a negative.  Play with it.  Use it.  Down in Texas in Nevada, we’d love to have some of your snow.  Dennis was kidding before about water.  It is no lie.  That is really a great asset that you have.  Where I come from, water is like gold.  No forget that.  It is like platinum.  We would give our eye teeth for some of this.  Tom and I were kidding the other day when he was saying you know we’ve come up with a plan. We’re going to sell you some of our water.  Jokingly, but at the same time, that is one of our negatives.  That is one your assets.  And in the years to come, it will even become more so.  We talked about how great the higher educational institutions are here, and that is so, and I told you before, everybody would give their eye teeth for them.  But also, there are a lot of people who are not meant to go to college.  And therefore, vocational technical training is also very important.  And the East Coast of the United States is famous for vocational technical education.  Again, there are a lot of manufacturers, there are a lot companies that are looking for that.  And folks, I have got to tell you.  Today there are some people that are in industry and manufacturing that make more money than some with a PhD.  Use it to your advantage.  And probably the last thing is, follow through.  After today, and after all these great things that everybody up here is sharing with you, that is really nice.  But it is going to be your follow-through that means something.  I said it earlier, I will say it again.  Follow your leader.  The follow through is what is going to really be your most and biggest advantage.  Thank you.

BT:      Ken let me, in fact Ken, just put Ken – on one of the things you said there, you asked a question, and nobody answered.  You said, is New York – is this business friendly, is this a business friendly environment?  Can I speak for everybody when I say no?  Okay.  That is not an indictment.  That is just the reality of the way the situation is.  It is where we are, why we want to get out of where we are.  You talked about the …

KS:      Excuse me.

BT:      Go ahead.

KS:      Excuse me.  But all of you have something that nobody else does.  And that is that you have a vote.  So if you don’t have a business friendly environment, do not accept it.  Move your leaders.  Those people who are running for office, make sure that they change what you don’t like. 

BT:      This is exactly where I am going with this.  And then here is why I bring it up.  I had the chance to talk to Maggie last night, Maggie Brooks, County Executive.  And you shared a number with me.  I think you said the number of – in terms of your budget, the number of unfunded state mandates make up what, seventy – seventy-nine percent of your budget.  Okay, leaving her with twenty-one percent of the county’s budget that she actually has the power to control.  That’s a huge number.  We talked about the fact that you guys don’t have taxes there.  It sounds so good.  Ken, let me ask you this question.   There was an article in the Democrat and Chronicle today.  It talked about the fact that we have two weeks left in the legislative session.  The fact that so much of what is left on the agenda is Upstate oriented.  And we know the way things work in New York, in Albany, particularly in Albany.  They are slow.  We have got a new governor, yes.  And the focus is Upstate, yes.  But he still has to work with the legislature, which has named so famously, the most dysfunctional in America.  The question becomes this.  Whose responsibility is that?  It is all well and good to say yes, vote.  But that is four years from now.  We want an answer today.  And the question becomes, whose responsibility is it?  Did we wait for the state to act?  Do we act now?  Do we act in tandem?  What is the relationship there?

KS:      Well you know I – the problems that exist with the tax structure in New York State go back forty years to the – you know the when the great society started.  So this is not a new problem.  It has expanded and snowballed.  And it is part of what the governor called it when he was campaigning last year, the perfect storm of unaffordability.  And it is true.  And the numbers and the – the numbers, the figures, the graphs, show an unsustainable government structure that from which the governor has crafted a variety of legislative efforts, principally his program to renew New York, which is a – I won’t get into their three principle legs.  But one of the legs of that is to deal with this perfect storm of unaffordability.  Now, has enough progress been made in the first four months after forty years of snowballing?  No.  But let’s not get completely sidetracked by what needs to be done, and not understand what has been accomplished.  There were historic Workers Compensation cost reductions that were a win/win for businesses and for workers.  There were corporate tax rate and corporate minimum – or the corporate alternate minimum tax was lowered for one hundred forty million dollars of savings.  And most significantly for Upstate because of the way that the tax cuts were structured.  And property taxes towards middle class tax payers.  The one point three billion dollars in property tax relief that the government pushed, and the legislature accepted and approved were critical positives that have occurred in the last four months.  Much more needs to be done.  We are in fact, I saw the article that you indicated, it was in the paper this morning.  And there are.  There are many reforms that the governor is pushing, and trying to push through the legislature.  And not all of those reforms are being received as well as he or I – because you know on the front end, Dan Gunderson who is head of Upstate ESDC and I, we are trying to be out there selling to gentlemen like this that we have at least in a significant way reversed the trend of the perfect storm of unaffordability.  I am interested in hearing from some of the economic development folks about just how significant that is.  And you know let’s not forget though that taxes are not everything.  We have other resources.  Quite frankly, I have to work in that environment, because the legislature is going to decide what the tax structure is, not Empire State Development.  So we have to go out and sell our assets and our positives, many of which have been talked about here.  We have a lot that we can talk about.  But you know it just strikes me as someone who by the way at one point, worked for Jack Kemp for a summer or two during his Laffer days.    That you know on the one hand you can cut taxes like the Reagan administration did.  And what happened were historic budget deficits.  And then you can raise taxes like Bill Clinton did, and have historic economic growth.  The one-to-one link without the rest of the net, and without other things being tied in can become a distraction.  We have a situation in New York State, and it particularly effects Upstate New York where our government structures cost too much.  And we are moving ahead to try and take care of that.  I understand you know from having been the county attorney in Erie County for twelve years, and having every year had at a senior level deal with county cost structures, I understand what the county executive is saying about having all that budget sucked away into programs that you have no control over that are mandated  by the state.  I spent twelve years as a county attorney working with my county executive to try and beat those costs back.  That needs to be done.  The governor has spoken a great deal about beating back unfunded mandates.  In the meantime, as we try and tactically over the next several months, next few years, while we push the reform agenda that is required to have a better field on which to play, you know we need to focus in on all these positive things that one, we have accomplished already in Albany, because of unshackle, because of various statements and support from groups and elected officials that are pushing that agenda.  That is critical.  The governor needs your support.  I heard your support for the governor’s program as well because it is going to be critical to making my job a heck of a lot easier.  But as we do that, let’s not lose sight of the fact that we’re making progress.  And we are going to – we need to go out and sell the other assets, which are very positive, very forceful, and with the can do attitude that quite frankly in my native Buffalo is not always there.  And I have been inspired greatly as I have traveled across the state by the people I have met in Syracuse and Rochester.  That somehow you have retained much more hope about the future than my neighbors and friends in the Buffalo area.  We need to work much harder on them.  I think we’re going to have to bring Dennis in for a few public discussions and cheerleading sessions.  But there is so much that can be gained from just saying, we’re going to get through these problems.  And we’re going to do it.  That is why we’re here.  That is why the Upstate ESDC was created.  And as we work to change the field, we are going to play a better game on it.

BT:      Gene wanted to say something.

GB:     Brian, I just want to interject a word of caution.  I think Dennis is about to do the same thing.  The caution is, to really keep this in a sense of reality.  I have been doing this for thirty years.  And although taxes, business environment, incentives are important, they need to be worked on.  All of the things we have said today, I do not deny that.  But believe me, in all the work that I have done with thousands of clients over the years in terms of making decisions on where they are going to locate, where they are going to expand, where they are going to retain jobs, the first and foremost issue is going to be workforce, it is going to be intellectual capital.  That is more important than anything else in today’s world.  They will deal with the taxes.  They will deal with the business environment.  But it is going to be access to markets, it’s going to be access to intellectual talent.  It is going to be infrastructure, all of those things which in many cases are paid for or helped with by taxes that are going to be important.  Keep your eye on the future.  Focus on the assets you have.  Market those aggressively.  Do all of the things we have talked about while you are working on correcting some of the issues, some of the problems you have.  But don’t please, because I have seen this happen so many times.  Don’t get so caught up in the negatives that you never realize what you have got that are so positive here that you can build on.  Just a word of caution.

DM:     Gene took the words out of my mouth.  One of you know – I come from a business background.  Every day we had to deal with challenges within our business, whether there was not enough supply in the warehouse, too much inventory in the warehouse, Wal-Mart called today.  They wanted a price reduction.  And each and every one of you deal with that every single day as well.  The – I am not going to put my head in the sand to say that we don’t have challenges as a state, because we do.  Now I want to commend Sandy and the RBA and all of her associates and board as to the direction that they are trying to lead in the advocacy of having some of those changed.  In the meantime however, as Ken mentioned, they have been out there for an extended period of time.  And we just can’t wait for those changes.  Similar to what Gene just recommended to us.  So we are running a business of economic development.  We’re not running a not-for-profit.  We’re running a business.  And the way that we need to operate and think within our immediate offices, and one of the reasons that we have you here today, and we close this meeting if you will, is to use your talent to help us in the recruitment and the retention of businesses.  Your eyes and ears that are out there every single day, in spite of the tax challenges.  And there are many other business challenges that we have as a state. So as you are challenged with business initiatives, we are in the business of economic development.  We have those challenges as well.  But we are not going to close up shop.  You’re not going to close up shop as a result of the challenges that you have.  So that Gene, you did – you did take some of the steam out of that.  But I don’t hear the same applause for me that I heard for you.

BT:      Go ahead.

LP:  From a – you asked something earlier about from the economic development perspective, what does it all mean; about the problems you have here.  I want to reiterate, or I want to give a complete endorsement of Gene’s comment.  The thing I find today, and I am going after institutes.  I am going after companies that value intellectual property.  And the ability – if we don’t have that resource available now, we have to be able to convince them that they can recruit it to our area.  When we’re switching to a knowledge based economy, the most critical element is going to be work force.  And then the most critical element for the work force is education.  You are going to underwrite your success or failure by the initiatives you take with education in this new economic development game.  And I – and I don’t believe that we are economic developers anymore.  I think we are developers of an economy.  And if we don’t take that perspective, I don’t – I don’t prize candidates to work for me who are great salespeople and promoters.  I prize the staff people that can understand business and can relate face-to-face with a business person.  And that can understand that there are certain elements that you have to have in place in order for business to succeed in your area.  And if you don’t have those elements, you are not going to succeed.  The other thing I was thinking about is that don’t be like a lobster.  I mean a lobster, when you put a lobster under water, it is happy.  It just – it is just sitting there just having a great time.  Not realizing the heat is going up in the water.  Don’t wait until it is boiling here in your economy to react to it.  Get out there and find out that – and the same thing with – you don’t wake up with viral pneumonia.  You wake up with a cold.  And if you don’t address it now, you could die from it.  If you have had industry leaving, and you don’t know why, you are a lobster in water.  So you do have to be realistic about addressing what the issues are.  Now they may be world-wide issues that you can’t impact.  But if it is with smaller companies, if you are lowing smaller companies, there is something you can do about it and correct it.  And do it now, because when it becomes viral pneumonia, you are going to have a lot harder time trying to remedy it.

BT:      We just have a couple of minutes remaining.  And one of the things that I think is crucially important for everybody who came here today to leave with is a to-do list.  Is a mission statement, something that they can do.  Ron, you gave us one before, a bit of a to-do list.  Dennis, you helped us out with a mission statement.  Mr. Mayor, if I can ask you, from all of your experience and all the tremendous success that you are seeing unfold every day in Sugarland Texas, give us – give us thirty seconds or a minute, and tell us how we can begin to achieve what you have obviously set in motion there individually.

BD:     Well I think as I mentioned, when you are dealing with a turnaround, you need to grow revenue, and you need to reduce expenses, and focus on the right side of the balance sheet.  It is very simple.  And I think I mentioned before about public private partnerships.  I think reaching out to the private sector probably more than what has been done in the past at all levels, and not just on a municipal level, not just county, but on a state wide as well.  And there are so many different organizations, the NCPPP and others.  Just go to their web site and there is a whole host of best case studies of things that can be done to reduce the expenses, which again, comes back to reducing taxes.  And notwithstanding the fact that there are some wonderful things that are being done here.  Again, I did not come to talk about the positive things.  I thought I was asked to come and talk about what are some things that can be done to help the economy here.  And so I think that is one of the things that I mentioned, the taxes.  On other thing that I think is extremely important, and I am not quite sure what the environment is here.  There is a guy by the name of Richard Florida, a professor I think it is at Carnegie Mellon wrote a book on “The Rise of the Creative Class”.  Basically said that there are companies now instead of going out and recruiting individuals to come work for them, they are looking for where they can just pick up their company and go to.  Three Ts, one is they will go to an area that has a technological advantage.  This area definitely has a technological advantage in a lot of different areas.  Second T is talent.  Having educational attainment which is fantastic here.  Educated workforce, that is ready, willing, and able to come to work.  And the last T is tolerance.  We live in a global economy right now.  Now the city of Sugarland is the ninth most diverse community in the United States per the Wall Street Journal.  Eighty-four languages spoken in our public school district right now.  A full third is Asian, Asian American, Pakistani American, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indo American.  And what we have done is create a number of functions that we reach out and really celebrate the diversity that we have, and welcome all the different communities, and the different faith communities, ethnic communities.  And when we recruited Sonoco to come to our community, when I was sitting down with the chairman, that was one of the determining factors, was when I told her about a leadership council that we created to make sure that we had this peace and harmony in our community.  Because they want to retain as many of their employees as they can when they moved from Tulsa to Sugarland.  And when we can say that these are the things that we are doing, your Asian American, your Vietnamese, your Chinese American, your Hispanic, when they come to our community, they are not going to feel like they are stiff armed.  They are going to feel that they are welcomed.  And those are some programs that are very, very easy to implement and to move forward from a strategy standpoint.

BT:      Well I wish we had more time.  Unfortunately the morning went as quickly as it did.  But here is the bottom line.  We have on this panel a group of people who represent all the different walks of life and walks of business.  A man whose job it is to find places to bring business.  A man at the helm of a city founded really officially incorporated the 1959, not long ago.  And look where it is today.  A man who just self described  Reno and Tahoe as night fifteen years ago, and day today.  A guy who is doing it here.  Ken, who is helping to do it in Albany and speaking for us to the governor each and every day.  You guys, who are doing this elsewhere in the country.  A native Rochesterian is looking to find the city that he grew up in again.  And a guy who is doing that same thing in Port St. Lucy, Florida.  Thank you guys so much for sharing your insights with us today.  We all appreciate it.  Thank you.

DM:     Thank you very much, Brian.  If you’ll bear with us for seven more minutes, six or seven more minutes, it is ten twenty-four.  We have a clock right in front of here, and we are going to get you out of here at ten thirty, that was our goal.  I can’t be any more excited about this morning.  I can’t be any more excited about your attendance here.  From my perspective, Eyes on the Future was an opportunity to reinforce for all of us that the glass is actually half full.  That we can and we will be successful.  The communities that you heard from were in a similar situation that we are in today.  And they actually did make it happen.  We didn’t get in this situation overnight.  We’re not going to get out of this situation overnight.  I am asking you, each of you to join us in helping grow our region’s economy.  When I first became the president of GRE, I felt that we needed to do more to create a must-see destination.  Some of that was mentioned earlier here this morning as well.  Leaders throughout our entire community are leveraging their connections in political capital to make this happen.  An example of this is next year, here in the greater Rochester area the Senior PGA will hold one of its premier tournaments at Oak Hill.  I want you to take a look at this video and as I come back, I will tie this video to the rest of my closing comments. 

[PLAYING VIDEO] 

Maggie made a point during that video that that will bring a huge influx of economic impact to our community, some twenty-five to thirty million dollars.  But the other reason that I wanted to share that video with you is that if we can attract the quality of the PGA here on numerous occasions, not just next year, but two years after that, and several years prior to that, several times prior to that, we certainly can attract businesses to our community as well.  What is it that I would like each of you – why did you give up two or three hours of your time this morning?  What is it that I would like you to take away from this morning’s meeting?  There are three things.  The first is to be an ambassador for our community.  We have some challenges.  We clearly understand those.  In my old life I used to call them BFO’s, those are “blinding flashes of the Obvious”.  What we need to understand right now is, how do we move forward past some of the challenges that have been identified?  I am not an ostrich.  I am not putting my head in the sand and not saying that we don’t have them.  We do.  But how are you going to be an ambassador going forward to help this community come together in a meaningful way?  The second thing that I would like you to take away is to be a matchmaker.  As you are traveling outside this community, as you have clients outside this community, if in fact you have customers, other relationships outside this community, and you know business acquaintances within this community, if there is a way you can match them up.  We have had several success around that.  So that could be a contributory part that each of you can have in economic development.  The third is to be a rainmaker.  If in fact – and I have had several phone calls from businesses within our community that are doing business outside the community that have given me a heads up,  hey, these guys are growing.  You should go talk to them.  You should talk to these, whomever.  I mean one was a trip to Boston.  One was a trip to California.  A third was a trip to Utah.  Those types of initiatives are the types of things that you can help contribute to the growth of our community.  I have a vision for us.  And I had a vision in my – I think we need to see something out there.  And somebody once taught me, if you reach for the moon and miss, you’ll grab a star.  If you reach a star and miss, you will fall to the ground.  The vision that I have is that we are the most collaborative community in the around creating economic success.  And that collaboration needs to exist with our political leadership.  It needs to exist with our university leadership.  And finally, with the business community.  If we can reach that, we can maximize the utilization of the assets that we have talked about all morning.  We can compete with the gentleman at this table.  I don’t necessarily agree with Ron.  I do think it is competition.  And he is right from the perspective that we all have different assets to sell.  However, some of the assets are similar, so I do believe in competition.  My closing remarks, I want to thank again Brian.  I think you did a terrific job.  Thank you for spending time with us.  Our goal all along was to understand from people who had already been there.  This is a learning experience for me.  I can tell you I have pages and notes from the conversations that I have from these gentlemen.  I had advise from a mentor early on in my career.  And he said to me, Dennis, you just don’t know what you don’t know.  And I became a president of a fifty million dollar business at age thirty-four.  And I was highly insulted by that remark until I got to the age of thirty-five.  You know but the reality is, we need to learn from people.  And I have during this time that I have had the opportunity to spend with our panelists, Ken, Larry, David, Ron, Gene, and Dennis.  I think they did a terrific job.  Thank you for making the effort.  You know you understand what competition is when David Wallace drove here last night, got here last night, got here an hour before this started because of airline travel complications.  So I clearly understand the competitive set that we are dealing with out there.  Tony earlier thanked all of our sponsors.  And as a result of that sponsorship, we were not – we didn’t have to charge anything for this.  So I want to thank all of our sponsors.  Last but not least, I wanted to thank all of the GRE associates that contributed to this and did the work.  But you know it takes a visionary to pull this together.  And when I tell you that this gentleman is a visionary, he really is.  He saw a thousand people sitting here.  He saw bringing in economic development leadership and people who could really teach us.  Tom Ioele please stand up.  GRE is here to assist you and your company in any way possible.  We want to be the most collaborative community in the world creating economic success.  We bring great passion.  We bring great will to win to this initiative.  And again, thank you all for coming.  Please be our ambassadors, our matchmakers, and our rainmakers.  Thank you so much.

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