Gov. Terry McAuliffe addresses hundreds of business leaders and government officials Friday at the Virginia Economic Summit. The event was held at the Williamsburg Lodge. (Gregory Connolly/WYDaily)
Gov. Terry McAuliffe outlined his economic plan for the coming year Friday at the Williamsburg Lodge in front of business and government leaders from throughout Virginia, sharing details on his bid to boost state expenditures for attracting businesses to relocate to the commonwealth and tourism.
McAuliffe’s appearance was part of the fifth annual Virginia Economic Summit, a Virginia Chamber of Commerce event that drew 748 attendees from across the state to a series of panel discussions and speakers to discuss the state’s economy.
During his remarks, McAuliffe said he wants to expand the Governor’s Opportunity Fund, which is a pot of money available for the governor to award grants to municipalities to assist in funding a range of projects like utility expansion and road work as part of an effort to lure a business to locate in that municipality. The current state budget sends about $11.8 million per year to that fund.
He also advocated offering more funding for tourism activities to bring out-of-state dollars into Virginia. The state primarily relies on the Virginia Tourism Corporation to boost the state’s reputation as a place to visit. VTC currently operates on a budget of about $24.5 million.
Throughout the summit speakers including the governor consistently bemoaned sequestration as a huge detriment to the state’s economy while offering reforms to education and more interaction with markets across the globe as solutions for Virginia.
McAuliffe touted his trips to the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China as evidence he is angling Virginia as a participant in the global economy. He said that during his first year in office, he has met with ambassadors from dozens of countries across the world to share with them how Virginia is a worthwhile business partner.
He drew cheers and applause from the business luminaries as he listed his accomplishments in luring businesses to the state, saying the work of his administration has brought more than $5 billion of direct investment to the state since he took office in January.
The summit attracted 748 attendees. (Gregory Connolly/WYDaily)
“That is twice as much as any governor has done in the first 11 months in office,” McAuliffe said. “We’ve announced jobs in every part of the commonwealth. These jobs are great examples of the new Virginia economy.”
His plan outlined five points to a new Virginia economy: Fostering a pro-business climate, building infrastructure, focusing on high-growth sectors of the economy, promoting the state’s workforce as the “best and brightest” and educating that workforce to handle the jobs of the future.
During the speech, he advocated for more nuclear energy, expanding broadband Internet access to rural parts of the state, constructing the proposed Atlantic Coast pipeline from West Virginia into North Carolina and expanding the state’s burgeoning craft beverage industry, all of which drew applause and cheers from the crowd.
The crowd was silent, however, when he advocated his longtime policy position of expanding Medicaid in Virginia as prescribed in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. The governor maintains such a move would bring healthcare to 400,000 Virginians, but he has been stymied by Republican opposition in the General Assembly to the expansion over concerns of its expense.
He said the jobs of the future are concentrated in high-growth sectors including biotechnology, cyber security, data analytics, advanced manufacturing and energy, a point echoed by several of the panel speakers who spoke at the summit.
“These industries provide good paying jobs that don’t fall to the wind of sequestration or defense cuts,” McAuliffe said.
The growth in those industries — and other industries, too — is likely to come from small firms rather than large companies, said Barry DuVal, the president and CEO of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. He said about 90 percent of the state’s economic growth in the coming years will come from expanding existing small businesses.
Friday’s Virginia Economic Summit took place at the Williamsburg Lodge. (Gregory Connolly/WYDaily)
He said the need for a new economic engine in Virginia is already here, as sequestration is hurting Virginia more than other states. While Virginia has traditionally been a leader among Southeast states in creating jobs, it has slipped behind the rest of the states in that region largely due to federal budget cuts and sequestration.
The chamber has championed Blueprint Virginia as a way for the state’s economy to jumpstart. The blueprint was introduced at last year’s summit — also at the Williamsburg Lodge — and focuses heavily on workforce development and education as the keys to boosting the state’s economy.
During the summit, Jim Dyke, the former Virginia Secretary of Education and chairman of the Blueprint Virginia K-12 subcommittee, shared several items the business community should consider in the coming years.
Dyke told the gathered business leaders they are the consumers of graduates from Virginia schools and colleges and that they should become more involved in education. He advocated for teacher pay raises that recognize performance, more technology in the classroom, early childhood education, more power for the state to step in and make changes at failing schools, more charter schools and businesses becoming involved in local school board elections.
“You need to have a say in who is sitting on local school boards,” he told the summit attendees, offering candidate forums during the election process as one way to make that happen.
The summit attendees also heard from panelists discussing the tech sector in Virginia and companies that serve clients overseas.
Jay Gendron, director of programs for Portsmouth-based tech firm SimIS, shared how his business has repurposed itself in the wake of declining federal spending. While the company previously made robotic target training systems for the military, the company has taken to selling the systems to law enforcement and hunting clubs.
The McAuliffe administration and the Chamber announced some other projects for 2015 during the summit.
The Chamber will partner with the Virginia Employment Commission, the Council on Virginia’s Future and other statewide associations for a study to determine the fastest growing sectors of the state’s economy and how to meet the demands of employers in those sectors.
Also planned by the Chamber is an annual report published in partnership with Old Dominion University that will present an overview of the state’s economy and the challenges it faces, a dashboard to be updated monthly that shows key business statistics about the state and a series of statewide conferences with business leaders to discuss implementation of Blueprint Virginia.
McAuliffe announced a business plan competition for 2015 that focuses on the high-growth sectors he discussed during the summit. The competition will feature $1 million in prizes for winners. After finalists are selected, they will work with mentors to help them hone in on a specific plan to submit to a panel of judges.
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