Featured Remarks at the Western Mass Business Expo

Thank you, Mayor Sarno, for that generous introduction. The partnership we have shared has been both personally and professionally important to me, and I thank you for that, too.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for having me this morning. It's good to be back in Springfield.

I want to acknowledge the presence and exceptionally effective leadership of the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki. He and his whole team do an outstanding job promoting and implementing our agenda for growth and opportunity here in Springfield and across the entire Commonwealth.

Some of you may recall that this is my first and only job in elective office, having spent most of my professional life in the private sector, most of that time in or around private companies. One of the things I noticed was the incredible emphasis on managing for the next quarter, sometimes sacrificing the long-term interests of the enterprise for short-term results. I ran for office in the first place because I see that bad habit at work in government, where we govern more and more for the next election cycle, or the next news cycle, and not the next generation. The consequences of that short-term focus in private industry are problematic but perhaps matter less than the consequences in government.

By 2006, when the voters went to the polls in my first election, the consequences of a decade and a half of governing for the short-term here in Massachusetts were pretty significant.

Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states for job growth, almost dead last and well behind other high-wage, high-skill economies like New York, California and North Carolina.

We had suffered the largest labor force decline in the Nation, second only to Louisiana, which had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina the year before.

We were losing manufacturing jobs at double the rate of the Nation as a whole.

Population was declining.

Still, when I came to work in 2007, I expected to face these and other economic challenges, but not a global economic collapse. I expected to find a sub-par transportation system, but not a bankrupt and dysfunctional one. I expected to face public safety challenges, but not the failure of a key water supply, a tornado or a terrorist attack.

And I expected to face a skeptical electorate, especially after years of governors more interested in having the job than doing it; but I did not expect a dispirited electorate, especially in Western Mass.

But I believed that if we were willing to govern for the long-term interests of the state, to invest in our people and our future, to serve the whole state, not just the interests of the well-connected back on Beacon Hill, we could together turn our Commonwealth around.

We needed a strategy and we chose one based on some inherent and historical strengths. Specifically, we chose to invest time, ideas and money in education, innovation and infrastructure.

We invest in education because, in today's knowledge-based economy, that's the single best way to prepare our people for work and for life.

We invest in innovation because focusing on industries that depend on our kind of concentration of brainpower is the best way to play to our strengths.

And we invest in infrastructure because these are the things the public builds as a platform for private investment and personal ambition. By the way, that includes efforts to reduce business costs and regulation.

With the support of the Legislature and the collaboration of municipal leaders, the universities, the business community, labor unions and many others, this Administration has executed that strategy consistently and with discipline.

And it has made a difference.

Massachusetts recovered from the Great Recession stronger and faster than the rest of the country and today is ranked the most economically competitive state in America.

We are at a 25-year high in employment, exceeding the national rate of job growth since 2007.

Our biotech sector is one of the fastest growing in the world, our clean tech sector has grown 47 percent over the past 4 years and employs nearly 90,000 people today, and we have trained over 100,000 people for jobs in these and other burgeoning innovation sectors.

More of the Nation's Fortune 500 and Fortune 1,000 companies call Massachusetts home than ever.

Advanced manufacturing in Massachusetts is growing more than 50 percent faster than in the Nation as a whole, and seven times the rate it did during the previous Administration.

Multi-family housing starts have tripled and commercial property development is on the rebound.

We rank first in the Nation in student achievement, health care coverage, energy efficiency, veterans' services, entrepreneurial activity, venture funding and much, much more.

Young people and families are moving into Massachusetts again, and at a faster rate than anywhere else in the region.

We added 9 new international direct flights into Logan, and have seen record numbers of tourists in the last two years.

Our budgets are balanced, we have reformed more of state government than any administration in 30 years, our rainy day fund is one of the strongest in the country, and we have the highest bond rating in Commonwealth history.

It's easier to do business here, too.

We cut the state's business tax rate three times.

We brought double-digit annual health care premium increases (the number one cost concern for Massachusetts businesses) in line with overall inflation.

We introduced competition to auto insurance, bringing new entrants into our market and increasing choice and value for consumers.

We created a permitting ombudsman to assist businesses locating or expanding here, raised the bar for assessing the small business impacts of new regulations, and amended or eliminated hundreds of outdated ones. As of today, nearly one hundred city and town governments guarantee local permitting within six months or less.

Eight years later, fully mindful of the work that lies ahead, I can confidently report that Massachusetts is back in the leadership business. I'm proud of that, and you should be, too.

And Springfield, indeed the whole Pioneer Valley, has shared in that progress.

What does that mean?

It means an historic level of funding for the Springfield public schools, more kids of the waitlist and into high-quality early ed programs, and an unprecedented level of flexibility and new models in the classrooms to reach the kids who are hard to reach.

It means support for Franklin County Technical School and Westfield Vocational School and Springfield Technical Community College to prepare more young people for high-demand middle skills jobs.

It means new laboratories, refurbished classrooms and other world-class facilities at UMass Amherst, Holyoke Community College and STCC, more robust operating funds to help them and other public universities keep tuitions down, and a new UMass Center in downtown Springfield that has already exceeded its enrollment goals.

It means the Tech Center behind the new federal courthouse and all the streetscape work along State Street and Main Street downtown.

It means the Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, an extraordinary collaboration of research institutions, industry and state government to create the most powerful computing center east of the Mississippi, and new incubators like the Valley Venture Mentors Accelerator, Tech Foundry, the Baystate Health Innovation Center, and the upcoming Springfield Innovation Center.

It means rebuilding tons of roads and bridges, including the I-91 viaduct in Springfield, the expansion of high speed broadband, new Signature Parks, the revitalization of the riverfront in Springfield, the return of Amtrak service along the Connecticut River later this year and all the new stations along the route, including the revival of Union Station.

It means a new gaming facility (if you wisely reject Question 3 next Tuesday).

And it means a new $60 million manufacturing facility on Page Boulevard in East(?) Springfield to build hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new red and orange line cars for the MBTA -- just for starters.

This is what it means to govern for the next generation, instead of the next news cycle. This is what it means to govern the whole state instead of just pandering to the interests connected to Beacon Hill.

Lord knows, not everything's fixed. But I would argue that we have brought the same long-term focus to fixing what's broken as we have to growing the economy and jobs.

Nearly 99 percent of our residents have health insurance today. No other state can touch that. Then, when the Affordable Care Act took effect last fall, the website failed and it was frustrating for many and embarrassing for me. But we still signed up several hundred thousand more individuals and families, no one lost their coverage, and next month we will have not just a fully functioning website, but a fully integrated one a year ahead of schedule.

DCF was strained to the breaking point. A child in central Mass was lost. But the firing of failing staff and the ritual resignation of the commissioner did not fix what was broken. The slow, tedious slog of staffing up, updating the technology, and modernizing the policies is rebuilding that agency and that system.

From collapsing five separate transportation agencies into one to ending the scams and abuses in the public pension system to cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in state and municipal health costs to replacing police details with civilian flaggers at state construction sites, lasting and meaningful reform rarely lends itself to the dramatic gesture. It doesn't always play well on the next news cycle; but it makes a difference for the next generation.

Soon you will choose another governor, and I shouldn't speak to that at a nonpolitical event such as this. But I hope you will think hard before you choose another course. History in our own Commonwealth shows that a strategy of investing in our people and our strengths has served you and your children better than one limited to simply cutting taxes, crushing unions, shrinking government and hoping for the best. The evidence is on the side of investment and I hope, for the sake of my own children, you will stay that course.

And I hope you will bear in mind the special power of collaboration. Every one of the accomplishments I named, and many others I could name, we have achieved together -- state, local and federal governments, business, teachers and the whole academy, working people, nonprofits, advocates of every type and kind, regular citizens who got up and got involved. These are their accomplishments, and yours, and my thanks are sincere.

Thanks to the business leaders, for keeping us focused on meeting the workforce needs of a competitive economy.

Thanks to the educators and the students who have worked to prepare our citizens for the 21st century.

Thanks to the entrepreneurs and innovators who have commercialized ideas and grown jobs here.

And thanks to the legislators, mayors and all the local officials who have worked with us to invest in our communities for the benefit of the next generation.

Working together, the collaboration itself, has delivered the highest impact. As I take my leave of this podium, and of this job, I ask you going forward to be especially mindful of that.

One more thing.

When I was here last week for the CNR announcement, we got to town a little early and decided to grab an early lunch. We swung by a newish restaurant down by the Basketball Hall of Fame and ordered take out, and while we were waiting a guy in chef's togs came out and introduced himself. He asked me if I remembered signing the CORI reform legislation several years ago, and I certainly did. It was one of my proudest accomplishments. He asked me if I remembered speaking into someone's cell phone after the ceremony, and I did recall that in a hot, crowded and ebullient crowd, right after signing the bill, one of the attendees handed me his cell phone and asked me to say hello to his friend who was in jail. The young man in the restaurant told me he was the man on the other end of that cell phone 4 years ago and that when he got out he got the job at that restaurant because of CORI reform. He's the executive chef of that restaurant today.

Here's the point. When you are debating the wisdom of this or that investment, or the merits of this or that policy choice, try to keep in mind that there is a human being behind that decision. And in most cases all they want is a little help to help themselves. I hope you will expect that from your next chief magistrate -- and from yourselves.

Thank you for the great honor to serve as your governor. God bless you all and God bless the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

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