Hartford Business Journal Special Editions

C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 2 6 1 WILLIAMS suburbs. Melding what has been called the "two Connecticuts" into one community may be the state's most daunting challenge. Jay Williams has taken it on, with some new approaches and ideas. Williams is the president and CEO of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, a post he has held since 2017. He has focused the 97-year-old foundation on breaking down structural racism as well as promoting equity in social and economic mobility. Under his tutelage the foundation has made grants for everything from improved police training and youth mental health services to food security, from entrepreneurs and artists of color to reentry programs for people returning from incarceration and neighborhood financial literacy. He isn't reinventing the wheel — the foundation has had strong leadership and programs for many years — but somewhat changing the direction of the cart. While keeping longstanding commitments in other areas, he's steering as many resources as possible to programs and activities that promote equitable opportunity. "We are the community foundation for 29 towns, and we want to serve all of the towns. But when data shows that part of the community is being underserved, in job opportunities, housing, health care, then attention must be paid," he said in a recent interview in his Hartford office. "He's the man to do it, the right person at the right time," says Jay Williams President & CEO Hartford Foundation for Public Giving Education: Bachelor's degree in finance, Youngstown State University Age: 50 JoAnn Price, former chair of the foundation's board of directors and a member of the search committee that selected Williams. He certainly has the background. Smaller, nimbler Williams, 50, a tall, sturdy, engaging man with a ready smile who enjoys the give and take of policy discussion, grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, and graduated from Youngstown State University with a degree in finance. He became a banker, then a bank examiner. In 2006 he ran for mayor of his hometown as an independent, winning 55% of the vote in a six-person field, a remarkable feat for a political newcomer. He was the first African- American elected to the post, and at 34, the youngest. Youngstown is one of the cities that gave birth to the term Rust Belt. Once a steel-making powerhouse with a peak population of 180,000, it now has about a third that number, just over 60,000 (Hartford also peaked at about 180,000 but has "only" dropped to about 120,000). As in Hartford, some suburban leaders blamed Youngstown for its own demise. Part of the new mayor's challenge was to align the mindset with the new reality. ough some pined for it, "we were not going to reinvent the Youngstown of the past," he says. "We needed to be smaller and nimbler, rooted in pragmatism and do-ability." His administration acquired and remediated former industrial properties as part of an effort to diversify the local economy. Williams began a conversation with the region about economic development, arguing that a healthy core city would benefit the suburban communities as well. (Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin has made a similar case to the burbs, with modest results). Williams helped create a Joint Economic Development District with suburban Girard. e district's biggest success was attracting a mill that produces steel pipe used in oil and gas drilling and employs 350 workers. The 'Car Czar' President Barack Obama brought some bright young mayors to Washington to join his administration, including Jerry Abramson of Louisville and Anthony Foxx of Charlotte. Jay Williams, then in his second term and now a Democrat, got the call in 2011. One of his jobs was "Car Czar," the head of a program that directed federal resources to communities such as Detroit and Flint, Michigan, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, which were staggered by the decline in the auto industry. One recollection: Auto plants are very hard to repurpose as something else. "ere's not much you can do with them besides make cars," Williams says. When that program wound down Williams was appointed assistant secretary of commerce for economic development, where he was charged with leading the federal economic development agenda. is position brought him to Hartford a couple of times, once to promote a program for community colleges to teach manufacturing skills. He liked the community and its people and was impressed with its resources. "People bemoaned the corporations that have le," he says. "I'd have killed for the corporate presence that was still here." When Democrats lost the White House in 2016, Obama appointees began looking for other jobs. Williams Continued on next page PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER

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