Industry sign banking michigan word fast
Skillman foundation Tonya Allen [Music] president and chief executive officer for the right place Birgit close president and chief executive officer for consumers energy and CMS energy patty poppy chairwoman and chief executive officer Siebert scenarios shankin Company LLC Suzanne shan't add - muttering - discussion political reporter for wo OD TV Rick Albin receive well welcome and I want to tell you how excited I am to do this panel because this is talking about the whole essence of this conference are we prepared we know that we've seen times in Michigan where we were surprised by things that went south economically and they had long and devastating impacts on the state now here we are most people would suggest in one of the better economic situations that we have seen for a couple of decades and that's about the period of time that I've been in the state and I frankly am not enamored by what I have seen as the roller coaster type economy that we've seen so in my mind part of being prepared is being prepared for those unknowns for those things out there so if you have a good foundation you can sustain some of that economic turmoil so we're going to start with a story that Birgit told backstage and I think this is fascinating when you talk about economic development what's the bedrock well the bedrock is a really three things workforce talent I mean talent infrastructure and quality of life okay those are the bedrocks now recently the CEOs of the country are being polled and the three top site location factors are talent infrastructure and incentives taxes are number seven so everybody always gets excited about the taxes and they too high or they're too low visitors really factors that in from the very beginning talent infrastructure and incentives of the top three simple let's start in that order let's talk about talent and patio know you and I talked yesterday about a particular talent program that you have been involved in that involves for lack of better words mentoring and trying to even share talent right yeah we discovered at consumers we had a program for guests we had a hundred openings for gas distribution workers a hundred openings we we received four thousand applicants for those 100 positions we were thrilled we thought ok 50 less than 50 were actually qualified we knew we had a problem and so we actually sought out a program that we partnered with the you Chamber of Commerce to develop utilizing supply chain techniques for talent and so we adopted the program we're the first state in the nation to have this program talent pipeline Academy and so we have trained about 30 people in fact we trained them up in Grand Rapids and those community leaders now are going back to their individual communities and about 200 companies have participated in identifying what are their workforce needs so that the educational institutions can actually design what their response and what their talent pipeline will be to fill those needs so it's basic supply demand but before organizations were guessing and now they can actually have clear statistics about precisely what the workload demand our workforce demands will be in individual communities in individual fields that are the majority of the businesses who are in that area Tanya I want to talk to you about a very basic part of that education but I want Suzanne to weigh in next because talent is key to whatever we do next I mean we have jobs unfilled today that people could be making good living but for this petty points out they don't have the skills that's problem yeah it's a huge problem and you know my main focus is infrastructure this date has been woefully underfunded in the area of infrastructure we cannot attract people or businesses that we need to come to Michigan we have a consistent out migration in fact that is a negative credit factor and so we really need to focus on investment an aggressive investment to attract the right people in the right jacket right jobs and we have to have people ready for those jobs and as we've seen that becomes part of the problem Tanya you were talking in the green room about our rankings and you were talking about where we were where we are so some of this being prepared starts at the very earliest levels I mean you only get one chance to be in third grade right correct and that's we have to make sure we're performing there right so a few years ago as a we talked about racing to the top in terms of k-12 education unfortunately in Michigan we've been racing to the bottom so when you look at the statistics over the last 20 years we went from the top quartile and now we're at the bottom quartile we're at the last and it's because we really do not have a educational system that puts students first or even if it's a workforce development system we don't put workforce development there's adults first in the middle of the sent these systems and make the system's accountable to delivering results for these kids or for the adults who we need to be in these jobs and I think that one of the biggest challenges we're seeing is that we do not have coherent policy all of our policy is piecemeal and so as a result of that we have this really fragmented system that tries to grab at the best practices of multiple models and we're falling short we're focusing on preparing our kids for tests rather than them having the crucial skills we know that they need to be successful in work you want people who can collaborate you want people who could be critical thinkers you want young people who are creative innovators people who have confidence and who also know content content in this case is not King when it comes to having the kind of ingenuity that we're used to as a state and also the ingenuity we are as Americans when you think about preparedness if it's for an infrastructure job if it's for any number of jobs cuz you run the gambit from folks are doing very high-tech stuff to people who are working on the lines and keeping that power flowing when you talk about that kind of training Birgit what do we need to do from your perspective to get people up to speed that maybe isn't a four-year degree but maybe it's a two-year training program or an 18-month certificate program I mean how important is that to you as someone who tries to attract business to have that ability to oh it's very important it's the first conversation we have and it's not just about attracting companies it's about the ones we have we announced 107 jobs in Ionia yesterday we got to find those jobs somewhere but I totally agree with Tonya our system is disparate it's not systemic there we did an analysis in seven counties in West Michigan four years ago we had over 300 workforce development and talent development programs and organizations over 300 in just seven counties so it needs to be way more focused way more coordinated and it needs to start early with you know the younger youngest children because if you're not prepared to go to school you'll never succeed you will never succeed so the pipeline that has to come either in our colleges or there into the skilled trades starts at 1:00 at h1 not at age 15 and we are not coordinating this over the last 10 years I think the legislature has changed its approach to our education system what three or four times Tanya and every time we don't like the outcomes we do 180 and go the other direction and start over so we've never done the institutions or the teachers or the students right we don't give it a chance so when I took this job 30 years ago Michigan was number five in educational attainment Mississippi Alabama Louisiana were 48 49 and 50 and we always giggled and now we are turning into Mississippi yes is that is that acceptable to us it should not be acceptable to anybody in this state to be at that low of an attainment level and Rex and I just say the other thing that would just like to say about this is that we have a low unemployment rate in this country in the state but we have 850,000 open jobs for today there is only one place we can go to fill those jobs well there are two places we can bring people in or we can actually prepare the people that are here and we are not spending enough time on making the kind of investments that we'll need in order to get young people who might live in urban centers young people who are living in rural centers we're not spending the kind of effort we need on people that we have actually put in the justice system who are coming out of prison who may be interested in working and who have the skills but we haven't invested in them and this is the time to invest otherwise we will be Mississippi well we actually are Mississippi but you know the running joke will be we don't want to be Michigan well that's a sterling prospect I have a bright spot would you like to chairman Bloody Mary it would probably go better if we had one of those we you know we had the opportunity to host the first robotics World Championship in Detroit and there it is a bright spot that parallels our education system it's a supplement to our education system in Michigan leads in this area we are number one in the nation for high school robotics teams part of the first program and there's an 87% more higher likelihood that a student that's on one of those teams will pursue some sort of stem career whether it's skilled trades or engineering or IT or math and so that is an area where we can but we have 500 high school teams 500 high school teams in Michigan that's a place where we can build and it that actually has a K through 12 curriculum that starts and can go all the way through and so for example in Jackson County as a result of the world championship being indeed we brought several jackson county leaders to the world championship they had never seen it before which is so amazing that we're number one in the nation they're still people who don't know about it and we made a commitment that every middle school in jackson county will have a first robotics team this fall and it's things like that that business is partnering with our education system can truly make a difference and we don't have to accept our ranking in our position we have to just lead through it and i think another great point yeah is with all of that talent that you're seeing how do we keep those young people here right we're constantly losing them to other places but you know do they want I was at a session yesterday do they want to pay high auto insurance fees you know as entry-level jobs in the city or in anywhere in the state they're high higher than most places we don't have a regional transit system that young people really look for in you know top cities and that is the most disappointing piece of our infrastructure in my opinion is that infrastructure is really a bipartisan issue I mean it's unfortunate things have been stalled at the federal level and they're gonna be stalled for a while so it's really incumbent upon state and local officials to come together there's one viable plan right now on the table and there's already dissension I mean what is going on we ranked 24th out of 25th in terms of the average citizen using public public transit among the 25 metropolitan areas that's really sad and Detroit is dead last so we can't continue to rely just upon you know the philanthropic community and private companies came together to fund queue line let's take that momentum and expand it let's get something really going so people can have mobility around you know Michigan and around the city Seattle is an example that spends more on transit per capita than any other place and people flooded to live in Seattle and we see that in lots of other places well we do have the governor had ceded to commissions one on infrastructure so we have the blueprint Tom Haas from GVSU chaired the Commission on an education we have the blueprint so now what do we do with it okay we have the Pugh print for both right we rallied around it a lot of people spend a lot of their time last year and remember they brought it out right here on this stage so what do we do with it is it going to sit on a shelf again and for the next governor we started another one of these commissions are we actually going to take these plans and start implementing them rally around them and they systemically do what needs to be done and infrastructure is water sewer roads broadband I've had four broadband studies in West Michigan alone and I still can't get high-speed Internet in Fremont so what are we doing here I mean are we really committed to this or are we just you know keep doing a really good study Berger I think you hit on the right thing and I think patty did as well this is a time not for us to continue to diagnose our problems exactly we haven't said one thing up here that most of us haven't heard like we can make it sound sexier we'd like to do that if you can make infrastructures right now what I think our state requires is a muscular civility in leadership rightly so right now if we really want to be prepared our preparation comes from the leaders in our state deciding that we're not going to just rely on politicians or our term-limited legislators to lead on issues that have a long-term span and implications for our citizens and for our economy so this is the time for us to just lean in and they you know we have such brilliant leaders across our state some that are leading in neighborhoods and others who are leading corporations and it is time for us to pull people together to really drive in the agenda that's going to get us to result an impact and that we can measure that's not just about like small metrics our people working or not I care if people are working but it it's not as more as meaningful to me if we have a low unemployment rate and our wages are decreasing I want a prosperous Michigan and a prosperous Michigan means that we all get to have wage increases our household incomes are going up our profits and revenues are going up we need that and that includes investment in infrastructure as everyone assessed so there appears please go ahead There is obviously a unanimous idea that you need to make sure that those studies that go for education and infrastructure need to be pursued you bring up a very interesting point with term-limited legislators and for that matter in the executive branch as well it turns to other people who are perhaps more long-term invested in doing this which I suspect is why I have you on this panel so let's talk for just a minute about some of the things we do I want to come back to education we've been talking about preparedness for the workforce and that's going to be something we'll continue with but I want to talk specifically about infrastructure for a minute because as variably that that is a multi-faceted idea people say infrastructure oh my roads well yes but there's a lot more that goes through that you work with that all the time and two questions I want to ask you first of all anecdotally pulling off of this conversation we just had in those areas where people are doing big projects infrastructure projects are they able to find the kind of talent they need to pursue those projects but more importantly what should we be focusing on because there's a whole lot of stuff that's below my roads that is deteriorating too and if that doesn't get fixed it's going to be more serious than a pothole yeah well you know we have what the American Society of Civil Engineers says is a two trillion dollar funding gap in infrastructure over the next eight years and they rank the u.s. at d+ they rank Michigan at d-minus and a D category great is poor in at-risk right so we're really at risk now in our state and the worst areas in Michigan are roads drinking water storm in schools energy was a c-minus I think but what I think is should be the focus I think Tonya's point is completely accurate that you know the term limits and so much that needs to happen in our metropolitan area and urban centers are managed and really under the control of out state legislators is what other states do is they have more locally funded resources and options that are supported we have so much it's done at the state level that some of our basic policies and laws probably need to change we need a deep dive there's a
transportation rule at 51 that you know we really require voter approval and constitutional amendment to change our core funding mechanisms on an underlying basis and you know I just feel that we haven't grasped we just haven't been as innovative there are a few signs of hope Gordie Howe Bridge was a p3 and the Detroit Freeway lighting project but there are some fundamental things that we can do in from a public policy perspective that will drive more private interest than investing in infrastructure in our state and that's what's happening in you know New York California Florida and in not a robust way because nowhere in America is private investment infrastructure now robust we're hoping for some policy changes but I think it's coming it's gonna have to come because our local governments are constrained with pension crisis healthcare etc so we have to be a little more open and we're not giving away the shop we're talking about more design-build projects to be more you know economically viable so I think leadership is the key policy changes and a deep dive as to where legislatively we should be as a state well and energy can be a blueprint for that though merci we're not satisfied with mediocre but energy actually does have a framework for natural gas and electricity and I will I will say that right now we have the opportunity literally of a generation to transform our electric delivery system in our electric supply system with the natural retirement the aging of our existing coal fueled power plants we're retiring those consumers energy has retired more than any other investor owned utility and we have the opportunity right now to replace that infrastructure with a modern cleaner and leaner energy delivery system we're replacing it with actually more energy efficiency demand response use less products so we don't have to build more so we have a blueprint that can show you can make the transformation funded through ongoing cost savings in a longer term point of view and I think sometimes when we try and make an annual budget work without a long-term point of view then you sub optimize those investments and so when we think about our electric supply system in fact on June 15th we'll be publishing our 20 year energy supply plan I think people are gonna love it it's clean it's lean no fossil fuels it's gonna be a transformation of our energy supply and it can save customers money the people of Michigan will have a lean or energy supply system because we're able to transform it right now but only because we're thinking long-term I would argue but I would before we move on I want to point out the difference in the two I appreciate that you are regulated as a utility I understand that but you still have the ability to make independent decisions about what you're going to do within the framework of the the energy bill that was passed here in the state so you can look at that say okay well here's the bill we are a company this is what we're going to do and you point out that the constraints of PA 51 which is a act that talks about how money can be spent that comes through the Transportation Fund that was passed in interestingly enough 1951 any bill that's older than I am should be more data just just a rule of thumb so so it's really a different paradigm because you have the latitude to make decisions based on your to let prices just be no I do have constraints so I guess the point I'm making is because we're thinking long term and because we're looking holistically at the system we actually can reduce the cost of the system to spend to invest can actually reduce the total cost in the long run there's a net present value that's positive and isn't that a great model that we wish we could incorporate but she can still be long-term right right this this transcends three legislative you know six-year terms for a House member right so we're talking twenty years they're looking out twenty years we don't do that in Lansing anymore it's six year cycles and by the time the last two years happen you're already into the next cycle so how do we as a state then think long term and Institute things that survive elections right because the worst thing that's going to happen next year my fear is we're going to do 180 and go in the opposite direction and everything we've build on in the last eight years and and let's be positive because we are in a different place than we were ten years ago in a much better place what we have to do is build on it but I'm afraid that we're going to go oh we all decided we're going to New York nope we're gonna go to LA she doesn't have to do that because patty is the CEO and she can think out twenty years we need to do this as a state and not keep changing and oh we like blue today no we like red tomorrow and we keep changing and so we don't we are not consistent and if business hates one thing its inconsistency and undependable ax T in terms of because they have to make decisions of where they're gonna go in is that state going to be with me over the long haul or are they going to go in two years and change their minds and that's something that Michigan has unfortunately been known for yep they're going to do 180 the minute the elections happen and we're here and we don't know how we will make this decision companies want consistency and dependability and predictability they need to take risk out of their decision-making if we keep changing this whether it's on education on our infrastructure it's going to be harder that's that's just how it's been and we have kind of a reputation in the site consultant community that well let's just wait till the next election happens in Michigan see what happens and how they change their minds on economic development that's not good the problem that exists to some degree is the current legislature can't bind a future legislature on many of these spending items and so the the way to get a longer term program would have to be done by some type of initiative perhaps and so as we talked about being prepared would any of you look at those reports and say maybe we the citizens need to look at trying to put those forward so there is a longer term more consistent more predictable future in education for example is there is there a blueprint out there that says if we do this and if we stick with this then we can achieve that preparedness we can achieve the need for skilled workers and we can achieve some of the the benefits that come from that because not only would you have the ability to know what was going to happen you would have a better ability to know what it would cost right well I would say I agree with Berg it's point about Commission's that the governor put together I think the education plan is a very solid plan with very specific measurable things that we need to do the direction that we need to go in and I believe that the work that the Business Leaders of Michigan and others are doing around education is right where we need to be and not because I believe that they have a solution there is no one who has the silver bullet on this issue but what they are pushing for which i think is right on is that we are I'm gonna move forward unless there is deep buy-in across our entire state there has to be deep buy-in from the business community there has to be defining from parents there needs to be deep buy-in from our educators where they feel like their voices are heard if we get that deep level of buy-in then I think we can figure out what we need to do I often use this simple equation of 70/20/10 meaning that if you're working on issue even if you disagree seventy percent of what you are gonna work on you can find agreement now there's a 20% that you won't but you may be able to negotiate and then there's a 10% that you will never agree on and I think the challenge we have in our state is that we start with 10% and we never move forward I say let's start with the 70 assuming we can make our way to preparedness is about perception and I'm not going to repeat the name of the state that some of you have used up here because that makes me nervous I like Michigan better but being prepared and having a good reputation includes all of the things you've just discussed but it also includes some other things about being inclusive we were talking about social justice criminal justice and some of those things that we start at 10% that's where we start that conversation how important is it being prepared going forward that we are seen not as a perception as a reality of being an inclusive state where people can come and be welcomed and be a part of what we hopes are thriving economy I'm gonna start with you well I think infrastructure is all about being inclusive is providing access to all citizens how they move around whether they can drink safe water I mean it's all about inclusivity and I think that you know our failures in you know there's areas primarily to me now regional transit in our area reeks of lack of desire to be inclusive [Applause] yeah there is no doubt our company as the leader of my company I have the privilege of being all over the state of Michigan dice you know we serve all the Lower Peninsula counties and and so as I travel the state and I then travel the world attracting investment for the the infrastructure that we've been describing there is no doubt that communities and environments that come together are stronger and are better and so as we look at this transition I think Birgit you've made a really important point that as we go into the election election season this fall making sure that we together stand and know that together we are better and that means a diversity equity and inclusion we're across the board voices are valued heard and I love the focus on the seventy I think that the people who are here at this conference are here for a reason because you're standing for making Michigan an extraordinary place and I think that we need to and it's feeling a little bit like a to-do item I don't know but it just feels like one's emerging Rea from this community but there's a commitment to build from where we are build on the momentum and not reset just because we've had elections there's too much progress that's been made and we've got some great candidates there's gonna be a great debate this afternoon but the reality is we the citizens the leaders in Michigan can stand for momentum and not a reset you know I don't have any part of that today but maybe some of those fine folks will be moderating would ask if those candidates would commit to building on the things that they see that have been done positively they're not gonna agree with all of them but it would be interested to know where they stand on particularly these two studies on education structure you don't have to reassess the problem we have to talk about now what are we going to do to solve the problem and I think that would be very interesting to hear this afternoon just as a suggestion we're talking about the inclusive party how do people see Michigan when you're looking at people coming in or are we welcoming and biting are we open and not as much as we should be you know and I'm going to just speak about West Michigan and and you know I've in this job for thirty years I'm very proud of what we have accomplished there are a lot of my partners in the room from higher education and the business community and we've done a lot we are no kinder purposes on every tap list but there is one list that we are way way low on and that is on inclusion and the ability of people of color to succeed and that's just plain unfunny that it's not not acceptable to me this is a huge economic development issue why would we not value everybody's brain who wants to work in our state it's all about gray matter color doesn't matter I like to say the only color that matters is the matter of your brain which is gray everything else is irrelevant and so we need to do way more in becoming a much more welcoming state now everybody talks about diversity but in Grand Rapids Public Schools over 50 languages are spoken that's pretty diverse but are we including those children are we including their parents that's more than diversity that's more than diversity that to me it's like this wonderful we have the strands of yarn red blue pink gray whatever between ever weaver rock until we have that rug there is we need to do way more than that now the mayor of Grand Rapids and I don't have bill Pincus in the room there Co chairing a commission in Grand Rapids on this very subject I'm a part of it it has to be everybody engaged in this issue if we cannot attract the kind of talent of various hues whether they're immigrants or whether they want to come from another part of the United States we will not have the reputation we need it's it's personal and it's an economic development issue I would say you know I like this definition that diversity is when you count the people inclusion is when the people count and so we have to make sure that we are actually looking at whether or not people are value whether or not people are described by their aspirations versus whether people are described by their deficits and I would just say a couple of things one is that we know that talent is distributed equally and when I say that I mean it really is like in every neighborhood and every zip code and even in prisons there is talent there now what we don't have is opportunity distributed equally and I think our agenda as a state has to be about how we distribute it a opera meet an opportunity agenda for all people and looking at them personalizing the work that needs to happen I would also just say when I think about diversity and inclusion I'm also thinking about equity how do we give people who are starting far behind the starting line a head start how do we get them up a little bit so that they can actually have a fair shot now I I've talked a little bit about criminal justice and or prison reform and I but I haven't really said it I just want to give you context on this in our state in 1980 we spent 2% on criminal justice today 20% of our budget goes towards it we require every person that gets a sentence to actually spend eighty four five percent they have to serve 85% of that time when they get out of jail we say to them you can't have a benefit so we're going to make sure that we spend fifty thousand dollars of the year to cage you but when you get out of jail we won't give you twelve hundred dollars in food stamps to prevent you from going back to jail so we can stop spending fifty thousand dollars [Applause] save just one other thing about it I have a good friend who works on this issue and he gave a little task for a challenge to a group of MIT students and he said look I'm gonna give you these foreign little products and I want you to make you know a stove out of them and I want you to make a a communication tool out of it and they're like we can't do this they worked on it all day and they were like who could do this and you're like well the guys in prison they ain't got nothing to do and they have figured out how to take like a ink pen like a MacGyver strategy to turn it and so the point I'm making is like we have engineers that are sitting there we have all of these brilliant people that are there who didn't have opportunities and I know they made a bad decision but just like all of us I well I'm not going to tell you my worst decision and I don't want you to judge me by it and I don't want us to judge them by it we have to figure out how to make an inclusive society where when they come back home that they actually can contribute and not just be judged by that and and that goes for our young people it goes for people and who are in rural areas as well all right in five minutes I'm going to ask each of you to come up with a very uplifting takeaway because you guys are making me a little sad I want to start with you and speak of anything that I haven't brought up or that we haven't discussed that you think we need as a state now does it take away but a subject of preparedness that we might not have talked about if there is one you know I want to piggyback on something that was said about the 21st century infrastructure Commission report because one area that the state has
led in is putting together an asset identification program so that we can begin it's a first step but I think the state is the first to do so in the country it's something that we've been pushing for on this bipartisan Council for infrastructure but to actually if you don't know what you have as a municipality how can you really effectively manage it and so we are a little bit on the forefront of starting a process of this pilot program to identify our assets now the question is what is the next step there's no incentive for you know Pontiac or or even Grand Rapids or any municipality to initiate their own programs and to get any extra funding or extra benefit so there's a lot that could be done with that so I think with the glimmers of hope that we have you know we really need to you know jump on the bandwagon and try to take it to the next level and that would be my hope because I do think that with a tremendous funding gap that we have somebody's got to pay for it we don't want and and there are going to be additional cost to individuals I think we need to focus a lot more on voter education with you know unfortunately the tragedies that we've had and Flint and sinkholes and the like boulders are very interested in this issue and have ranked very high so we're gonna all have to pay more but I think you know my hope is that we can do it in a consistent and orderly fashion so there are economies of scale and doing so many years is something we haven't talked about that we should be talking about you know I think this idea of coming together just could be reiterated there's a little study about a group of kindergarteners a group of CEOs a group of lawyers and a group of MBAs who are all given the same task to build the highest tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows now I'd like to offer to the group which group do you think won the kid I'm happy to report the CEOs came in second which I'm very proud but the kindergarten because they were not trying to one-up each other they stood shoulder-to-shoulder and let the best idea hit the table they had fun while they were making something happen together and I do think that for Michigan to continue to win and continue to have the momentum if we stand shoulder-to-shoulder and work together there's nothing that the ingenuity and the people of this great state can't do and so I just think we have to believe in each other believe in the possibility of extraordinary things continuing to happen here and just push through the momentum of it's what's going to be I think a busy and potentially contentious election season because that's what happens I think the the attendees of this conference have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to make sure that we don't lose momentum during this time what do we need to bring to the forefront before we come back in just a minute we're gonna come up with some really positive takeaways not to do list but the takeaways from where we go is there anything we missed that we should have been well we talked a lot about skilled trades and and the program that patty it was mentioned that consumers is doing is great but but here's something that whenever we get into this pinch with talent and we've been there before actually I wrote an article in 1998 on the availability of skilled trades jobs it's 20 years ago but what what we have to do and this isn't easy it's a cultural shift in our mind and this is not about going to college or being in the skilled trades it's not an either/or proposition is this and up proposition but what we people talk about the skilled trades now in apprenticeships and how the Germany do it etc etc etc what we all have to accept and shift in our minds is give the electrician who comes in wires your home the same respect you do somebody with a college education because it takes that electrician just as long to become a certified electrician as it takes somebody to get a philosophy degree okay so when your son or daughter comes home and says I don't want to go to college because I want to learn with my hands be as proud of that as if they were to say I'm going to X University mm-hmm and that today is missing it's missing in our teachers who don't encourage children to look at other kinds of opportunities it's missing in parents who don't want to say oh my daughter is apprentices at whatever company and you know to become a tool and die maker to me that is a cultural shift in our mind that one is valued as much as the other alright that already sounds like a takeaway Tanya let's talk about what we want to be prepared for what do we take away from this panel well I would say two things I the first thing I believe that we should be a take away is that we have we are more than enough as a state as leaders we can deal with these issues we don't need to go back and redefine the problems what we need to be doing is spending our time mobilizing around solutions and that our solutions ought to be measured on whether or not they have impact on our citizenry whether or not our citizens our workers are doing well whether or not their families are doing well whether or not we're preparing young people to get in the work and and to get into work last thing I would just say about it is I am in love with this Indian proverb which says essentially that our responsibility because we're borrowing the time from our children is to be good stewards and that's what we need to do the takeaway is this is our time for stewardship this is our time for investment I have three I'll be quick let's think about infrastructure not just fixing and repairing let's think about it in terms of our competitiveness we're on the forefront of autonomous vehicles but we don't have roads that we can put those vehicles on or the broadband across the state to support them - let's continue to focus on our urban centers the Brookings Institute did a study that over 75% of GDP patent activity R&D jobs venture capital funding occurs in our urban centers if we support Detroit we support our state and 3-volt infrastructure vote for those that you think will support a robust infrastructure plan you know one thing I would just love to leave the audience with is the consumers energy team has a very strong commitment to what we refer to as our triple bottom line and I think it applies to the state as well we we believe that a company has to stand for more than just profits we think that and we stand for serving people the planet and prosperity and that our company is all-in for Michigan we only succeed as a company when Michigan is winning and so I would just want everyone in the audience to know on behalf of my co-workers we are working every single day to make sure that Michigan is prepared with vital infrastructure of natural gas and electricity we don't want you to worry about it because we do the worrying for you but we're on the job and we really would stand by our triple bottom line we're good well I've been in this job now for 30 years I want to point out I was 18 when I started but so to leave on a positive note there has a lot of positive changes come to this day we cannot just look at the glass as half-empty I prefer to look at it as half-full we have come Longway I was standing in this country in terms of what we represent today is different than it was when I started in this job and way different than it was ten years ago but let's take that momentum and continue forward with infrastructure investment with the kind of things that Patty's talking about with taking the talent that that we have and really continue moving forward so when someone comes to you and says I want you know I'm going to do this this and this next year when they're being when they're being running for office ask them about these issues how well are they informed about these issues and where do they stand on these issues and if they don't stand with us in this room then do they deserve your vote that's your question so that brings this panel to an end and while I don't think on the program had said I got a takeaway here is mine as long as we have leaders like this who are willing to talk candidly in a forum like this about the important issues going forward and as long as they hold the feet to the fire of the elected officials who need to also respond to those needs and those reports then I think we've got a pretty bright future here in Michigan I'm delighted to be with all of you ladies thank you very much [Applause]
