It’s bad enough Rhode Island companies have to contend with a sluggish economy, high unemployment and overall poor morale. Paul McGreevy says he wants to make the life of local businesspeople a breeze, at least when they have to deal with the R.I. Department of Business Regulation.
McGreevy has been at the helm of the DBR since January. He recently spoke with Providence Business News about Rhode Island’s business climate and his efforts to improve it from his agency’s standpoint.
PBN: is the business climate as bad as people think it is?
MCGREEVY: You will hear people saying it’s impossible to do business and that they’re leaving the state. But you’ll find other businesses that for whatever reason have figured out the process and are doing just fine – and these people won’t call you because they have no reason to. They would say they don’t think it’s necessarily an overbearing regulatory environment. I think we have to figure out how we get to that balance and address the areas of concern, as opposed to trying to solve everything as if the problem is the same for everybody. …We want business activity to be relatively easy in this state as opposed to the states next to us. We have to strike a balance and we have to get better at doing that.
PBN: What kind of feedback do you get from the business community?
MCGREEVY: Two big areas: the time it takes to do something, for the state to grant a permit or a license or decisions – whatever the regulatory issue is – and the transparency of how it is done. Say I want to open a new business. I go to the city where I’m located and they can give me a checklist and then I’ve got to go to the state and maybe that will lead me to the fact that I need to go to other agencies. It’s not a new complaint, and I think that’s driving a lot of activity such as the secretary of state’s First Stop initiative, where someone who wants to start a new business goes to this first stop and it’s a checklist of things you need to do.
PBN: Are the agencies working together on improving their interaction with business?
MCGREEVY: We’ve formed a coordination group between the regulatory agencies to start thinking through where the issues are and what we can do to support that. In the 2010 General Assembly session, [lawmakers] created an Office of Regulatory Reform as part of the [R.I. Economic Development Corporation]. The mission of that is to look at the regulatory process among agencies statewide to work as closely as possible with the municipalities to build upon the First Stop effort.
One of the things we realized in the transition … is that the new Office of Regulatory Reform cannot operate in a vacuum. So that coordination group will at least start addressing how we can help that ORR be successful. We’ve just kicked this off.
We’re starting to look at how we will operate and how we can best support regulatory reform in the state. We don’t have the answers yet.
PBN: Have you discovered any pain points with the businesses that are dealing with government, and in particular with the DBR?
MCGREEVY: Specific to DBR, we’ve gained regulatory responsibility over the years that grew us beyond what I believe to be the original intent of DBR decades ago, which was banking and insurance regulation. … Now there’s commercial licensing of things like real estate and upholstery and the white-collar, commercial-type license activities. I think the biggest thing is being user friendly for those folks.
PBN: Since you stepped in as director, have you implemented anything that could improve the DBR’s speed and transparency?
MCGREEVY: I’ll give my predecessor great credit, and the state. We’re implementing an e-licensing IT solution, and we’re building upon that. The preliminary work was done on the e-licensing system prior to my getting here.
PBN: What is the e-licensing solution?
MCGREEVY: It will be an online licensing system for whatever we license commercially. [Now] you fill out a paper form and send it in with your test scores or certifications, have it land in our mailbox and have it processed. And then you get in the mail a license. For e-licensing, you’ll go online, fill out an application and you’ll become an account with us. And you’ll get your license via email and you’ll be able to pay online as well. There will be a quality-assurance process in which the system will check the paperwork. You’ll get your license much quicker.
We’re looking at early fall – like September – to roll out phase one of e-licensing, and there will be a couple of other rollouts over the course of the fall.
PBN: What other improvements have you made in your first six months?
MCGREEVY: We’re also improving the website. It’s an initiative we have taken on since I’ve gotten here so it is more friendly. It will lead to the e-licensing system when it is available this fall and will lead you to where you need to go.
We’ve rolled out what I’m calling Web 2.0 a couple of months ago. We’re constantly improving. •
INTERVIEW
Paul E. McGreevy
POSITION: Director of the R.I. Department of Business Regulation
BACKGROUND: McGreevy took over at the DBR in January after serving as project manager of independent Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee’s campaign. McGreevy served in the Navy from 1982 to 1995, reaching the rank of lieutenant commander. He had various roles, including working on a NATO staff coordinating logistics planning for peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia. After the Navy, McGreevy spent more than 14 years as a senior manager and IT consultant with KPMG LLP, BearingPoint Inc. and Deloitte Consulting LLP.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degrees in foreign affairs and economics, 1982, University of Virginia; master’s degree in international relations, 1988, Boston University; master’s degree in national security affairs, 1993, Naval War College
FIRST JOB: Grocery store stock clerk at age 16 in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
AGE: 51
