Staff Picks

"I'm not all that focused on driving innovation within government, which is what some other chief innovation officers would be focused on around the country. Instead, you can think of my role as Michigan's chief architect for innovation, if you will. So, how do you knit together risk capital founders, businesses, universities, and state government, all of the key stakeholders that need to be at the table together to build a more effective innovation ecosystem? I talk a lot about building connective tissues that can achieve one plus one equals three outcomes." [...] My charter is relatively simple. It's to help make sure that Michigan wins in a now hyper-competitive global economy. And to do that, I end up being super focused on orienting us towards a growth and innovation-driven economy. That can mean a lot of different things, but I ultimately came to the MEDC and the role within the state with a builder's mindset. My background is not in traditional economic development, it's in not government at all. I spent the last 10 years building hard tech startups, one in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and another one in the Northern Virginia area. Before that, I spent a number of years at, think of it like, an innovation factory at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in the Mojave Desert, working on national security projects. I'm sort of wired for that, builder's thinking, rapid prototyping, iterating, scaling, and driving that muscle into the state government ecosystem. I think it's important that the government also figure out how to pull out all the stops and be able to move at the speed that founders expect. A bias towards action, if you will. And so this is ultimately what my mission is. There are a lot of real interesting things that the state of Michigan can bring to bear to building our innovation ecosystem. And I think, tackling it with this sort of a mindset, I am absolutely optimistic for the future that we've got ahead of us.

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"Agency officials provided GAO examples of how these initiatives have supported rural STEM education in various ways. For example, some initiatives have supported recruiting and training STEM educators. Other initiatives have focused on enhancing STEM learning and career exploration for students in rural schools, such as through educational field trips and hands-on activities."

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