Stefan Pryor is Rhode Island’s first secretary of commerce. He was appointed by Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and unanimously confirmed by the state Senate four years ago. He oversees and coordinates state agencies and offices responsible for economic development, business regulation, housing and workforce development.
Before coming to Rhode Island, Pryor served as deputy mayor and director of economic and housing development in Newark, N.J. from 2006 to 2011. Before his work in Newark, Pryor was president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., and from 2011 to 2015 he served as Connecticut’s commissioner of education.
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PBN: What was it like being president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. in the aftermath of 9/11?
PRYOR: This was one of the hardest and one of the most rewarding efforts that I’ve been a part of. Recovering successfully from the attacks on 9/11 was enormously important for Lower Manhattan and for the nation. Thanks to the hard work of a lot of stakeholders and partners, there has been tremendous progress in downtown Manhattan.
Whereas in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, moving trucks were lined up on the streets to enable the exodus of residents and businesses; since then, tens of thousands of residents have moved in, more than doubling the population downtown – and with One World Trade Center standing 1,776 feet tall, as well as other World Trade Center office towers rising into the sky.
The memorial has been built; most importantly, it’s a solemn and beautiful place of reflection where victims’ family members can remember their loved ones. It has also become a destination for visitors from far and wide. In fact, the 9/11 memorial-museum complex has received more than 37 million visitors to date, and it was named the top U.S. museum in Trip Advisor’s 2018 Traveler’s Choice Awards.
PBN: What kind of issues did you focus on as commissioner of education for the state of Connecticut?
PRYOR: Our team at the Education Department aimed to prepare students for both college and career. We undertook this work through a number of initiatives. One initiative that exemplifies the pursuit of our college and career-related objectives is the P-Tech school-business-community college partnership that we introduced, with support from IBM, which founded and framed the initiative, in Connecticut.
Students enrolled in P-Tech take college-level courses while in high school, earning associate degrees, benefit from internships and mentoring, and are first in line for jobs with partner companies. We have now successfully implemented this program in Rhode Island as well – with startup funding from the RI Commerce Corp. and in collaboration with the Community College of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Department of Education. Currently, there are more than 400 students enrolled in P-Tech at six locations here in the Ocean State.
PBN: When you took the job as Rhode Island’s secretary of commerce, what challenges did you see?
PRYOR: It seemed that our strategy and our day-to-day work needed to be aimed at remedying the disconnect between our strong assets and our lackluster economic performance. Under Gov. Raimondo, we have indeed implemented a multicomponent strategy – involving tax stability and reduction of key taxes, cutting red tape, investment in catalytic projects and business-driven job training and education.
And that strategy is working. From 2014 through 2017, the percentage-point decrease in Rhode Island’s average annual unemployment rate was the largest in the nation. And Rhode Island has become home to the highest number of jobs in the state’s history. We’re proud of the work that our team – across economic, business regulation, housing and workforce-development agencies, collaborating with our partners inside and outside of government – has done to improve Rhode Island’s economy.
We look forward to working together even more closely and intensively in the months and years ahead – because we can’t relax our efforts and rest on our laurels.
PBN: How is the state working with the U.S. government to advance the federal Opportunity Zones program within Rhode Island?
PRYOR: As background, the Opportunity Zones initiative is a new federal program that provides a potentially potent economic-development tool – one that enables designated communities to attract needed investment. Specifically, the program provides a federal tax incentive for investors to direct private capital gains into equity investments in qualified projects that are located in designated Opportunity Zones.
Gov. Raimondo nominated 25 census tracts from across Rhode Island as Opportunity Zones and these designations were accepted by the U.S. Treasury Department. In September, Rhode Island’s commerce office was a leading coordinator of a 12-state joint letter to Treasury that expressed the importance of appropriately enabling Opportunity Zone investment not only in real estate projects but also in business ventures. As 2018 comes to a close, Rhode Island is helping to coordinate yet additional multistate feedback to Treasury on the program’s proposed regulations.
PBN: Which entities has the state gotten to participate in its Innovation Campus initiative to help convert academic research to commercial success?
PRYOR: The competition for our Innovation Campus funding has been significant, given the high-quality applicant pool. The three partnerships [designated so far] involve the following: Arizona State University and the University of Rhode Island. The two state university systems are pairing up, along with Cisco Systems, to build joint innovation facilities here.
IBM, Brown [University], MassChallenge and URI will create a startup incubator called iHUb; and the Rhode Island Mushroom Co., American Ag Energy Inc. and “agtech” ventures, including Verinomics and VoloAgri, will join forces in a center that promotes agricultural entrepreneurship and education.
Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Blake@PBN.com.
