PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s efforts to rebuild its economy with renewable energy, high-value manufacturing and innovative technology got national recognition this week as part of a special report by Reuters on the future of the American economy.
“The world’s largest economy is at a crossroads,” wrote Nick Carey, one of five reporters who traveled the country last month for the wire service’s Route to Recovery report.
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“With a smaller manufacturing sector and a consumer base less able to keep leveraging future earnings, where will sustainable, long-term prosperity come from?” he continued. “And more immediately, where will jobs come from?”
The 7,000-word piece went on to explore a number of familiar topics: focusing more on small businesses; improving education; shifting to advanced manufacturing; investing in the green economy; and, painfully, accepting that some Americans’ living standards have been permanently lowered.
In Rhode Island, Carey interviewed a number of prominent members of the local business community, including Leslie Taito of Rhode Island Manufacturing Extension Services, a nonprofit that supports local industrial businesses. She noted that the number of manufacturers in the state has fallen from 2,800 to 1,945 over the last 16 years.
“Manufacturers have to specialize and find a niche where they develop high-end goods that are not sold just based on cost,” Taito told Carey. “Sure, China can make it cheaper than we can. But what they don’t have is the design or engineering capabilities that we do.”
Taito and Carey visited Blow Molded Specialties, a Pawtucket-based company that makes high-end plastic products such as a tool to keep the lungs pumping while being moved for a transplant.
“The money’s in the engineering,” explained Tom Boyd, president and majority owner of Blow Molded. “We bill our customers for the development work we do.”
Carey also talked to Paul Rich, chief development officer at Deepwater Wind LLC, which wants to build the nation’s first offshore wind farms off Rhode Island’s coast. Rich said the Eastern Seaboard could be the “Saudi Arabia of wind,” but warned that taking advantage of that opportunity required a qualified work force.
Carey also heard about local efforts to boost the state’s “knowledge economy” from Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce; Jack Templin, the local tech entrepreneur who founded Providence Geeks; and J. Michael Saul, former interim executive director of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation.
Soren Ryherd, president and cofounder of Web research firm Working Planet Marketing Group Inc., told Carey that the Providence Chamber has shifted its focus toward smaller companies over the last few years.
Carey also visited Youngstown, Ohio; Pensecola, Fla.; Lansing, Mich.; Evansville, Ind.; Wilmington, Ohio; Birmingham, Ala.; Austin, Texas; Bentonville, Ark.; and Charlotte, N.C. for his story. He noted that Rhode Island’s attempt at enhancing cooperation between government, business and education is similar to efforts in Youngstown, Birmingham and Austin.
The full story is available at Reuters.com.
