It is truly great to be back here in Alleghany County. I’ve got to say, the people of Mountain Maryland are more welcoming each time I come. Last time I was in Mountain Maryland two and a half weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful Deep Creek Lake area and today I’m privileged to have the chance to take in the beautiful mountain landscape of Rocky Gap. Thank you for the opportunity to share this evening with you and to discuss the importance of economic development and of balanced growth.
Maryland has great opportunities on the horizon and is in a unique position to build on the strengths of an educated workforce and a growing knowledge-based economy.
We also have opportunities coming through BRAC -- 60,000 new direct, indirect and induced jobs are coming to Maryland -- the largest job influx in the state since World War II.
But with these great opportunities, with this incredible chance to continue to grow this economy, there are challenges that we must come together—as One Maryland—to address.
I hoped to use this opportunity to share some of my thoughts about how we can continue to build on our strengths to create even greater opportunity in this new global economy and how we can further develop our own economy.
I think that starts by underscoring that small business and minority-owned business are truly Maryland’s big business.
And that science and technology and knowledge-based professions have become the drivers of our changing and emerging economy.
We have, in Maryland, one of the most skilled workforces in the Nation and some the leading institutions of higher learning that continue to break new ground everyday.
We also have the highest percentage of women-owned businesses in the country: 31 percent. The highest percentage of firms that are majority-owned by African Americans: 16 percent.
And more biotech firms -- nearly all of which are small businesses -- than all but two states.
These local companies -- small businesses and minority-owned businesses -- are making impacts across the state. Nearly half of Maryland’s workers are employed by the State’s 450,000 small businesses.
They’re also making impacts that reach beyond the Mason Dixon border and Potomac crossing. Our small and minority-owned businesses are entering the global economy.
In fact, I heard of one minority-owned IT firm in Prince George’s County that is currently bidding for contracts to rebuild and enhance the IT infrastructure in Iraq.
But as a state we’ve got to be doing more to maximize the contributions of small businesses to help us manage the State’s growth and continue to enhance our knowledge-based, global economic stature. We need to commit to new methods that encourage more small and minority-owned business and greater economic opportunities for all Marylanders.
Although Maryland has a long record of commitment to small and minority-owned business, minority firms are still under-utilized in State contracts and subcontracts. Between 2000 and 2004, minority firms comprised nearly 30 percent of all available firms in the local marketplace -- yet received less than 15 percent of the contract dollars awarded by the State. And those companies are facing a range of other obstacles: Higher rates of loan denial; Higher credit rates; Lower business owner earnings. Just to name a few.
We have programs in place to help small and minority-owned businesses compete, but we need to do a better job meeting the goals of such programs: The Small Business Reserve Program is a great program that enables small and minority-owned businesses to compete with larger companies for government procurement contracts. The program requires that 22 designated state agencies award a minimum of 10 percent of the agency’s total procurement dollars to small or minority-owned business.
We’ve got to do more to encourage the success of this program. In the most recent review, only 8 of 22 designated agencies met the 10 percent goal -- 8 out of 22 -- that’s just embarrassing.
Of the 14 agencies that failed to meet the goal, 7 agencies failed to even meet the goal halfway. We’re working with Secretary Luwanda Jenkins (who I’m happy to see made the trip out here this evening as well) and the Governor’s Office of Minority Affairs to address and formulate new strategies to make this program work more effectively and more efficiently.
We’re already making good use of our many small and minority-owned businesses, but we can do more; We can build on our strengths and create greater opportunity.
We have a tremendous economic advantage here in Maryland -- not simply in location or infrastructure -- but in talented and highly-educated people.
People like you, leaders like you, who have been working for many years to bring about the kind of growth, new technologies and new opportunities that unlock the promise of our State.
In your many efforts, and the foundation you have laid, we have the opportunity to come together to create a strategic vision -- an action plan -- to advance our shared goals. Which are: To not only sustain, but spur even greater economic growth; To cultivate new markets and stronger partnerships with small and minority-owned business, public institutions and local, regional and state business alliances like MEDA; To diversify our industry and our opportunity.
Having answered what we want to achieve, we now have to ask how? We created the Life Sciences Advisory Board to help us develop that action plan to reach our shared goals -- to bring science and technology communities together with academic communities and Federal agencies with state government. By working together, we can bring greater cooperation and direction to economic development as a whole. We’re already working to support that vision. By working in a spirit of collaboration and compromise, we secured $6 million for a biotech tax credit that will ease the burden and attract investment. To advance our scientific healing and discovery, we were able to find common ground for an historic investment $23 million investment in stem-cell research. And, as many of you know, we have been preparing for the influx of tens of thousands of highly-skilled and technical jobs coming from BRAC.
When BRAC comes in 2011, Maryland will experience the largest job influx since World War II. We’ll see 8,000 new direct jobs coming to Aberdeen Proving Ground. 5,400 to Fort Meade. And roughly 200 to Fort Detrick a little east of here in Frederick County.
In all, we expect 60,000 new direct, indirect and induced jobs to be created in Maryland because of BRAC.
We’re also attracting established businesses to help us develop and further modernizing our economy. DISA, the Defense Installation Services Agency, an organization that describes itself as the “AT&T, AOL, Google and OnStar for DoD global operations -- is coming to Fort Meade.
It will combine with NSA to form the global epicenter of information and intelligence technology. And it will be coming to Maryland.
To accommodate this influx and welcome the 24,000 families that will be moving to Maryland, we must: Develop adequate infrastructure; Provide suitable and responsive workforce training; And identify the business opportunities to sustain that population influx.
And we’re looking to Maryland’s small and minority-owned business and coalitions such as the Ft. Meade Alliance, the Chesapeake Science & Security Corridor and MEDA, to help.
To accomplish our goals and transition smoothly when BRAC is implemented, Gov. O’Malley—working with the legislature—showed great leadership by establishing the BRAC Subcabinet, which I have the honor and privilege to chair -- and which held its first meeting last week.
The Subcabinet’s focus is to horizontally coordinate our efforts on the State level and to vertically integrate and synchronize coordination at the federal, regional and local levels. When BRAC comes, we’re going to build on our strengths. BRAC is and must be a catalyst that inspires innovation and demands that we create more human capital that is beating the heart of the global economy. We’re going to build on the strengths of the Nation’s second-highest concentration of doctoral scientists and engineers. On the strengths of the Nation’s third largest bio-tech industry. The Nation’s most concentrated professional and technical workforce.
But we have other challenges ahead of us. We’re going to meet those challenges head on and we’re going to embrace the opportunities that come with them.
We inherited a projected $1.4 billion deficit for fiscal year 2009 when we took office in January. It’s a deficit that resulted from two ambitious and well-intended decisions made by previous administrations: a middle-class tax cut and a groundbreaking investment in public education.
It’s a deficit that is partly the product of investments that we felt could not be deferred to some other time and partly the result of poor long-term planning in recent years.
We have to close that deficit…and close it in a way that is: Fiscally responsible: That provides a long-term solution to the problem: That is fair to middle-class and working families who we feel have taken it on the chin in recent years: And in a way that will continue our united commitment to improving educational achievement and opportunity.
We’re working hard to do just that: We passed a budget this year that increased spending by only 2.1 percent. That’s lower than the rate of inflation and less than 9 of the last 10 State budgets. And two weeks ago, Gov. O’Malley directed the State’s Cabinet Secretaries to identify $200 million in departmental savings.
Our mission of making progress, of making Maryland a better place to work and live, is not something that’s ever done in one legislative session or one four-year term. It’s an ongoing process and our success is contingent upon our working together…making small, daily differences that eventually lead to bigger, more noticeable, lasting changes.
Let me close with a story: A few weeks back, I traveled a little further west into Garrett County and met a group of school children at Crellin Elementary School. The students had come to Annapolis earlier in the year to tell lawmakers about a creek reclamation they organized behind their school. They brought nearly 700 volunteers together and worked with public-and private-sector leaders to raise money for the project. When it was all said and done, the project received national recognition and earned the Presidential Environmental Youth Award -- but they didn’t do it for the recognition. They saw an opportunity to improve their community in their county on the Western border of their state. Before they started their work, the creek was a mess and deteriorating from acid mine damage -- tires piled on top of garbage and any water-life that ever swam there had long since been killed away. Three weeks ago, the students of Crellin Elementary and I wadded into the creek and released a few thousand trout. Today, fathers and daughters enjoy fishing and mothers and brothers spend afternoons hiking through the woods that flank the creek.
Their story reminds me more and more that our seemingly small actions can make incredible differences in our communities, our state and our nation. Thank you all for doing the little things well. For expanding opportunity to help us strengthen and grow our middle class. For remaining focused and understanding that we are only as strong as our weakest link and knowing that by working together as One Maryland we will continue to thrive and succeed in this emerging global economy. For turning challenge into opportunity and opening the doors to success for more and more Marylanders. Thank you for doing the little things so well. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you.