Massachusetts Secretary of Economic Development Yvonne Hao was in Berkshire County this morning. She attended the launch of the Massachusetts Founders Network, a new platform to support startups in the commonwealth. It’s a project by Lever, a North Adams-based economic development nonprofit, with funding from the Mass Tech Collaborative, as well as The Mass Clean Energy Center and The Mass Life Sciences Center. Hao, a Williams College graduate with a home in Williamstown, was appointed by Democratic Governor Maura Healey early this year. She’s the first woman and first person of color to head the economic development office. Hao spoke with WAMC before her remarks at Studio9 in North Adams at the Massachusetts Founders Network kickoff.
HAO: Right now, with the Biden administration, there is this unique moment where the federal government is taking a very proactive stance to offering a lot of federal funding for states to compete on in big strategic areas. So, just to give you two examples, one of those is, President Biden announced a $250 billion amount of money for [Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors] and Science to bring semiconductor [research and development], which is critical for everything we do. For communications, for defense, for all of our aeronautics- I mean, really, everything we do, CHIPS are now critical. But that industry had moved to Asia over the last many decades. And so now there's a concerted effort, $250 billion to bring some of that leading thinking and manufacturing back to the US. And so, we decided earlier this year, when I took office, that we wanted to compete for that. We have so much to offer in Massachusetts with our [research and development] facilities, our research universities, our large companies, our startups, our venture firms, all of our nonprofits. And so, we went after a specific grant called the Microelectronics Commons, which is from the Department of Defense. It's a couple billion dollars over several years, and we were one of 83 bids. And we decided in Massachusetts that our best shot of winning is if we competed together. So, we pulled together a broad coalition. And it was announced two weeks ago, we were one of eight selected out of 83. That is huge. So, we are now going to be a hub for this Microelectronics Commons for CHIPS, and that's going to bring lots of funding and opportunities for our state and for everyone in our state. So, that's one example. Another example is, the federal government also said, other countries are investing more and more in life sciences and in curing disease. We've always been a leader in America, how do we maintain that leadership? And so, they put together this kind of startup within the federal government called ARPA-H, really aimed at the next wave of innovations. And so again, several billion dollars. We heard in March that the federal government was going to pick two places to be hubs for ARPA-H, and the governor and I chatted, and we decided, you know what, that should be Massachusetts. We are the world's leader in life sciences, we need to compete for that. And so, we put forward again a Team Massachusetts coalition, put our, all of our leading ecosystem players together, and we bid on it. And it was announced last week that we are one of the two places selected. So that's, again, going to bring all the talent from around the world, lots of funding from the federal government through our state. So, these are some of the things that we're working on that will help us continue to lengthen our lead.
WAMC: Now we're speaking out here in North Adams, of course- When it comes to economic development in Western Massachusetts, in Berkshire County, in some of the smaller, less populous parts of the state, what's going on there in the state house, on Beacon Hill?
Yeah. So, we are right now in the process of doing our once every four years economic development plan. And as we do this plan, we have been very intentional to say, for our state to be successful for many years to come, we, of course, we need to have Boston and Cambridge continue to thrive. But we cannot only have Boston and Cambridge continue to thrive. And so, I went to school out here in Western Mass, I have a place out here, I spent a lot of time here, I've been in Pioneer Valley, I've been in Central Mass, North Shore, South Shore, the Cape, the Vineyard- We have so many awesome places across our state, and so even these big federal opportunities, although some of them are going to be based more in Eastern Mass, all of the grants, the workforce programs, all the collaborations are going to be throughout the state. And I'm here today, actually, because this program from Mass Tech, one of our [quasi-governmental agencies] that is under my office, this program is specifically around this Mass Founders Network to bring all of the resources for startups and founders across every region, including Western Mass. We have so much talent everywhere, we've got to take advantage and have every region rise as part of our economic growth.
Now, let's talk about tax relief. It's been a hotly debated issue this year. From your perspective, the ultimate final tax relief package is over a billion dollars- What is your take on it? Do you support it? Do you have problems with it? And what impact might it have on the economic development here in the state?
We are so excited and grateful for all of the partnership with our legislators and with all of our different leaders in the community. I'm actually heading back later today to be there for the signing with Governor Healey. And I think the tax package is an important step in in helping us with our Healey-Driscoll priorities around affordability, equity, and competitiveness. And if you look at all the different elements of the package, you'll see that things like the child care tax credit, which is the majority, that really goes at affordability and equity and getting folks back in the workforce. There's pieces there for senior citizens, there's pieces there for renters, there's pieces for home development, which is a big issue for our state. There's pieces in there for businesses, and so this package holistically, it's an important step. Of course, where the work is never done. There's always more we can do. But we really believe in this, kind of three priorities around affordability, equity, and competitiveness. And this tax package is a key part of that.
Well, the one criticism would be that progressive groups and activists say that it might be returning too much money back to the wealthiest in the state after the Fair Share Amendment was meant to regain that billion dollars. Any thoughts on that criticism?
So, probably others are better off to comment, but I will say, one of the things that's exciting is, from the additional monies from the Fair Share, we are really focused on reinvesting that in the state in exactly the way the voters wanted. And so exactly- You know, voters wanted it to go to education and transportation. Those are two areas we need to really invest in for our future and for the economy, and so that's- We're very focused on making sure we spend the Fair Share where it should be spent. And so, I'm very confident that that will help us continue to strengthen the foundation for all of our future economic development.
