Interview with Catherine Reilly
Catherine Reilly, State Economist, Maine State Planning
Office: "One of the fundamental keys to a vibrant Maine economy
is simply recognizing that we have the tools to create that
economy in our grasp. First, we need to focus on what we do
best. In this global economy, we are never going to win by
trying to become something we are not. There's always going to
be other countries that will offer cheaper labor or lower taxes
or more lax environmental standards. We need to focus on what we
do best and what we have a strategic advantage in.
In some ways we are already doing this, whether it's in boat
building or renewable energy or composite technology or outdoor
recreation. Maine has a lot on which we can build but we need to
figure out what do we do best. The second thing we need to focus
on is work force development, education and entrepreneurship.
Because opportunities are going to come and go, mill owners are
going to come and go, but Maine people stay and we need to help
them have the tools to create their own opportunities and align
their skills with whatever opportunities those assets that Maine
has.
We also know that today's high-growth industries are those
high-tech companies that rely on highly skilled workers and
they're attracted to places with an attractive quality of place,
like Maine, but there has to be the skilled workforce present.
And so, part of the key to our vibrant economy is insuring that
we get some of that growth, that those high growth industries
are going to create, and for that we need a skilled work force.
And finally, I think a key to a vibrant Maine economy is being
willing to focus our assets. We are a small state with small
resources for economic development in the public, private and
non-profit sectors, and we really need to have the discipline to
focus those in promising areas in the work force and not spread
them so thinly that we lose their impact.
Some of the ways the university can inform economic development
is by focusing on its core. It's a land grant institution that
was first established to help working-class Maine people get
practical knowledge that would help them leverage the resources
around them for economic opportunity. And in some ways that is
still what we need but the resources are a little different.
It's no longer agriculture and technical education that we need;
it's more an information or research and development. But in
some ways the principle is the same that we need practical
information even if the opportunities have changed. Today it's
now renewable energy and composites and recreation and
hospitality--still many, many opportunities. Maine people still
need practical information to help them leverage those
opportunities and the university can provide that. Also, very
practically, the state policymakers need information about how
best to do their job. Whether it's at what level we should be
delivering certain services to be most efficient and help the
economy or what we should be looking at for growth industries
long term, but certainly that practical information is
essential. And I think the university needs to continue making
the effort to make that information accessible to a wide range
of people. If the information just stays on campus that really
doesn't help us, but it's excellent to take that opportunity to
really make it accessible to the people who are making decisions
every day on the front lines.
Currently the State Planning Office is focusing in two areas.
One is simply getting a message out about asset-based
development. Asset-based development means focusing on your
strengths, your developing economic development strategy, rather
than on your weaknesses. And as we just talked about, we know
that we can never compete by trying to compensate for
weaknesses. Long-term growth requires us to focus on our
strengths. And that a lot of Maine's economic development
policies have been focusing on needs, critical needs, but
asset-based development policies are just as critical and need
to be at the table. And within that framework we've been
focusing on Maine's quality of place as an overlooked economic
asset. We know that Maine's distinct character, its natural
landscape, its communities, its historic downtowns are an
economic asset of real value. We know that from businesses who
chose to stay here or who have relocated here base on
quality-of-life decisions. We know that from the millions of
visitors who visit each summer and support our very large
tourism industry, and we know that from the number of
individuals who relocate here. So, we know it's a unique
economic asset, it's scarce--and scarce assets have real value.
We also know that Maine's quality of place is threatened in many
areas and some places of Maine are starting to look like the
rest of the U.S., which means we could be losing that very
valuable economic asset of our quality of place. And so, for too
long we've thought of kind of quality of place and cultural
assets as being not mainstream to economic development. We've
had the folks do the art and the historic preservation in one
corner, people doing business parks in another corner, people
doing education in another corner. With our limited resources,
we're really saying that we need to be thinking of the entire
package that we can offer and trying to align as many as our
investments as possible to help Maine's economy in the long
run."
