A recent Town Meeting sponsored by the Smaller Business Association of New England sparked a dialogue regarding Rhode Island’s manufacturing sector. Merrill Sherman, president and CEO of Bank Rhode Island, was blunt in her assessment.
“I think we’ve permanently lost part of our manufacturing arm in this state, and we keep trying to recreate the past,” she said.
Tom Schumpert, the executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, asserted that “the ones that are using technology are coming back…If they’re not value-added, they can’t compete.”
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And Tim O’Reilly, president of the Newport Harbor Corporation, suggested that Rhode Island should be reaching higher than low-paying manufacturing jobs.
On all three counts, the speakers are right.
But in encouraging our old-line manufacturers to add value to their operations and to tap into technological advances, we must not lose sight of the value they continue to contribute. Rhode Island remains home to several old manufacturers who employ thousands of skilled workers.
For some of them, the leap into a New Economy will take time. The state must continue to support those manufacturers and help them grow jobs and re-train workers, even while it guides others toward new product lines and technologies.
The Rhode Island economy has room for both.
An untapped resource
Next Tuesday (May 7), Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty will host a forum at Amica Insurance in Lincoln entitled “Women Mean Business.”
It is an important event, one that is designed to empower a segment of our population that could and should be playing a more significant role in generating economic activity.
According to the national Center for Women’s Business Research, the number of businesses owned by women nationally grew by 14.3 percent between 1997 and 2002, while the number of female-owned companies in Rhode Island increased just 10.8 percent.
We hope that this upcoming forum will serve to jump-start a movement of sorts to not only produce more women entrepreneurs, but also to find out what particular hurdles they might be facing – and to begin dismantling them.
Fogarty suggests that there are approximately 20,000 combined existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs in Rhode Island.
That represents a very real opportunity to bolster our economy, and at the same time, deliver a message to young women that this is a place where they can seize opportunity.
Bigger than Plunder
Dome
With the dark clouds of Plunder Dome hanging over the capital city, there does seem to be a growing sense that Providence has come too far now, and grown too much to be overshadowed, or significantly harmed by such an event.
We were encouraged by the results of our Providence Business News/Johnson & Wales University Executive Poll this week (see page 3). It shows that of the executives from throughout the state who responded to the poll, 58 percent said that they did not think the extensive media coverage of the Plunder Dome trial would have a negative impact on the city’s ongoing development efforts.
When asked if the specter of political corruption would cause them to think twice about doing business with the City of Providence, again 58 percent of the respondents said that it would not.
Yes, the national media has arrived. It’s a juicy story. And maybe a decade ago this kind of trial would have been bigger than the city itself. But not now. Not after the river has been moved, the mall has been built, Waterplace Park has emerged, and South Water Street has been remodeled.
We hope and expect that the trial of Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci, Jr. will result in a fair resolution. That the truth will emerge and that justice will prevail. In the meantime, we can go about our business with our heads held high – taking pride in the city that Providence has become.
