Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/477238
www.HartfordBusiness.com November 26, 2012 • Hartford Business Journal 89 Celebrating 20 Years of Business News FUTURE The Newark. And I'm not comparing Hartford to New- ark. They're widely different places. But yet, they had some of the same challenges. When you saw the focus that went in, from the private sector, from places like Prudential that put money, education, and effort in pulling from the local ecosystem. Look what it's done to create an environment that 20 years ago you didn't go to Newark after night, right? But it's now a regional concept that has gained some political traction by making it non-political. That's a big challenge for this region. I'm not originally from Connecticut. This is unique. But we're very quick to pounce on the negative side rather than all the positive things that have happened. The MetroHart- ford Alliance is a very, very unique incubator for the businesses. The State of Connecticut has done a wonderful job recognizing small businesses when banks have not had the incentive to do so, right? The education system on both sides. It's a really good story that unfortunately gets pushed into a negative position rather than seeing the vision. SMITH: It's one of the reasons I'm so excited that the CRDA board has such strong leadership from the private sector, because I think for many years we saw the private sector kind of back off of what Hartford should be like. When I started my career at Aetna, there were so many CEOs that were so engaged and talked to each other all the time about how to make this community a better place. I feel like we're com- ing back around where people are engaging again in that dialogue and caring about it. They do it for some self-interest, right? You want to be able to recruit the best talent here. You want to be able to have your company still headquartered in this fabulous place, but you can't do that unless you are confident that the education system and transportation, every- thing, is good. So, I'm excited because I think the MetroHartford Alliance is engaging in all of this as well. We're creating a new cluster in healthcare, the insurance and financial services cluster is getting more traction. The private sector coming back to the table is going to be very, very important to our future. That's part of the 10-year vision here. KISHIMOTO: Actually, your point is so important even in K-12 edu- cation, which is so traditional. The reform work that has happened at the state level happened in large part because there was a group of business leaders who came together and formed the council on edu- cation reform. Those weren't traditional education leaders, although they did go around and meet with all of us. But that was so important for them to set that vision and say this is where we need to head, now how do we get there and then network with us as educators and say you're going to help us with the expertise you have, but this is the vision we have for what we need in terms of our future workforce and what we need here in the State of Connecticut. It was that council that really helped to propel us forward in terms of really setting a reform agenda in educa- tion in the state. LUISE: Sure. There's such great work, and not to leave any of those bodies out. To the point that I was trying to make is it's such an important body of work that is not understood. It's a great story not told. Getting it out of that political environment allows people to identify themselves with this progress because we need to really jump on the progress that's happening rather than the negative side, which is the political part. It's not about a tagline or a marketing cam- paign, but it's about a unified vision of where we're going and telling that story. That has to be pulled out of the political spectrum a bit so those business lead- ers who are so important to the division that's being built have that footprint to say okay, here's where we're trying to go. BELL: Final thoughts? GRIEBEL: You asked the question about whether there's a model for regionalism. I don't know about that, but I can tell you that an economic, sustainable economic growth, the model in cities or regions that do it well, is always the same. It's a partnership that exists over decades, regardless of who's in political office, between elected officials –– particularly at the state level, the governor; the private sector, particularly the major employers; and education. And academia, particularly the state university. The governor has had a willingness to sit down on a regular basis with the CEOs of some of our largest employers, with Catherine and with [UConn President] Susan Herbst to begin to build the relationships that are critical. We go back to this place 30 years ago, to Catherine's point, you had the bishops. I'm not sug- gesting that bishops were good, bad, or indifferent or they should come back. But there were relation- ships that existed. And because of the pressure on many of our private sector companies over the last 20 years, everybody's pretty much into silos. I don't care whether you're ING and the issues the Cath- erine had to deal with there or you're at Aetna or The Hartford that almost imploded three years ago where the changes happened. And what we need to do is rebuild that sense that yes, I am a CEO, I'm a senior executive, and I've got responsibility to my bottom line, I've got to answer to my shareholders, my customers, my employees. But in order to be suc- cessful in this region, I have to know these other CEOs. I've often joked that I could put up a photo- graph of CEOs around here, and I'll bet there's not one that could identify every other one across the board. And that's that relationship, to the point that everybody's made, technology allows you to be loca- tion indifferent up to a point. We have to have that, and I give the governor credit. So we've had some meetings. Not that we're curing cancer, but we're headed in the right direction in terms of trying to build that interaction. SMITH: The way I view it is we need one sheet of music in front of all those organizations, and everyone play- ing the instrument that they bring to the tables and play so beautifully. What's happened in prior years, and partly because of the bad economy and other reasons as well, is that we've had a cacophony of different noises coming out of this wonderful orchestra. Where we're trying to go under the gov- ernor's leadership and now with increasing sup- port from the private sector is that everyone says 'okay this is the sheet of music, this is the vision of where we want ourselves to go'. Oz, you play this instrument because you're so good at doing this Chris Luise laments naysayers are too quick to accentuate Hartford's and Connecticut's negative when there is so many positives on which to focus. "The reform work that has happened at the state level happened in large part because there was a group of business leaders who came together and formed the council on education reform." -- Christina Kishimoto