Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 29, 2023 13 GENERAL CONTRACTING • CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT • DESIGN BUILD PARTNER 21 DEMING ROAD, BERLIN, CT 06037 • (860) 610-1093 • WWW.OLSENCS.COM NEW CONSTRUCTION • TENANT FIT OUT • CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE • HEALTHCARE testing, (Germany) just lines up very well with Connecticut's areas of expertise, which is around high-value research and development, design, engineering and the precision-side of manufacturing," said CCAT's Angelo. Recruiting companies Denious, of AdvanceCT, said Connecticut's approach to recruiting foreign businesses starts with identi- fying industries that the state already has an ecosystem around, such as advanced manufacturing, and figuring out what types of companies could complement these sectors and existing firms within them. Promoting the state's "highly educated workforce" and higher education institutions is also key, Denious said. "We've got 38 colleges and univer- sities, and we're not shy about making them part of the pitch," Denious said. Angelo agreed. "I think the first thing that drives German companies is workforce," Angelo said. "They've got very modern- ized models in their education system for how they bring skilled workers through the pipeline, and I think our workforce is a very big attraction." Despite a nationwide workforce shortage that has hampered Connecticut's growth coming out of the pandemic — in-state employers reported 104,000 unfilled jobs at the end of March — the state remains highly educated with a strong mix of four-year universities, community colleges and trade schools. White, the Robinson+Cole lawyer, said Germany's apprenticeship and workforce development programs are important, so when German compa- nies are looking to open new U.S. locations, finding those initiatives abroad is valuable. The state's workforce contributed to BioMed establishing its U.S. base of operations in Connecticut, according to the research institute's America CEO Mark Johnston. When the Heidelberg, Germany institute's founder Christian Tidona wanted to open a U.S. beachhead, adjacency to a top medical school was the most important factor, Johnston said. BioMed works to solve challenges in biomedical research in collabora- tion with pharmaceutical companies. For example, it has an Alzheimer's disease research partnership with U.S. drug company AbbVie, and its focus in New Haven will be on studying the immune system and tissue engineering. "Yale's got amazing core facilities with super high-tech equipment that we can't afford, so access to those things to help facilitate solutions to these experiments was critical," Johnston said. After building a list of 80 different medical schools, affordability factored in. The institute ruled out high-cost locales like Boston, New York and San Francisco, Johnston said; New Haven's housing, child-care and other costs were more in line with its hometown. Another factor was the presence of a bioscience ecosystem, which New Haven has been estab- lishing for years. "New Haven is becoming a hub — it's already a medium hub for bioscience, but it's becoming bigger," Johnston said. "It's growing so quickly here, so being part of that was critical." Emphasizing easy access to the governor's office and top economic development officials is also part of Connecticut's business recruitment strategy, Denious said. Johnston said Yale University and AdvanceCT have welcomed BioMed with "open arms," which gave Connecticut the upper hand over other finalist destinations, including Baltimore, Maryland (home to Johns Hopkins University), and Philadelphia (home to the University of Pennsylvania). "The open-armed attention, the red carpet rollout that came from Yale Ventures and AdvanceCT, and I can't tell you how valuable that was because it really helped facilitate moving quickly on what we needed to do to get established here in Connecticut," Johnston said. CT GOODS EXPORTS TO THE WORLD YEAR 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 TOTAL EXPORTS $16.4B $15.9B $15.2 B $14.4B $14.8B $17.4B $16.2B $13.8B $14.5B $15.3B Source: U.S. Dept of Commerce International Trade Administration $20B $15B $10B $5B 0

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