One way to make our taxes less of a burden is to bring new business to the state. Our next guest has the task of doing just that.
NBC Connecticut's Mike Hydeck spoke with Anthony Anthony, chief marketing officer for the Department of Community and Economic Development.
Mike Hydeck: So, chief marketing officer feels like a new position. Is that a new position? And what do you do, for people who don't know.
Anthony Anthony: I think so. I don't know, I haven't really done my due diligence historically and gone back. But I think so. I started in this role about 11 months ago. And really, it's just marketing Connecticut is a fantastic place to live, work and play. Not that it hasn't been done before. But I think we've got an amazing story to tell, and want to make sure we're not just doing it well here in the state, going well beyond our borders, telling folks across the nation in the world, who we are and why we love it.
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Mike Hydeck: So now there's a marketing campaign, it's called Make It Here. What does that mean?
Anthony Anthony: Make it here. Make your family here. Make your business here. Make your career here. It's a fantastic place to to have all those things. And so you have your opportunities. And that's why we wanted to have Make It Here, which is very flexible, and make people feel like they're a part of our collective Connecticut story.
Mike Hydeck: So when you bring new business to Connecticut, or try to encourage new business to come to Connecticut, we've had a reputation in years past, and that seems to be changing, that we're not a good place to do business, that there's too much in the way of regulation. There's too much in the way of maybe transportation challenges, other things that we were knocked for as a state. How do you sell it when a tech company says 'look, I want to set up my data center, I want to set up my cybersecurity firm here.' How do you go, 'This a good place to do it?'
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Anthony Anthony: Well, we give them the selling points that people want to live here. So you have one of the best workforces in the world. They're highly trained, well-educated. And those folks are already here. Also, then we make the sales pitch that we've had in migration in the state for the last two years running. In fact, this past year, 60,000 folks net migrated into Connecticut from New York City and Massachusetts. I think the cost of living in those places is significantly higher. And folks are realizing they can have a great quality of life and make a great living right here in Connecticut. So we have that workforce. And that's a huge selling point for businesses, especially when they're looking at maybe some non-traditional ways of working. You can work remotely. If the workforce is here, businesses can have not just a headquarters, but maybe even an office and operate out of here. So that's one of the reasons why they want to consider Connecticut.
Mike Hydeck: So you could have somebody who maybe works for a firm in Detroit, but living here because they do remote that much of the time. Does that seem to be a trend here since the pandemic and post pandemic? In which case we have people moving in, but if they're working outside of the state, we still have so many jobs left to fill here in the state. Is that a challenge to try to market? Look, we make helicopters here, we make submarines here. But we need people to weld those submarines. We don't have those jobs yet. So how do you address that?
Anthony Anthony: So I think it's part of it. I think some folks are doing that. I don't think it's everybody. We do have people moving in from out of state because there is a wealth of jobs and like you're talking about these amazing, solid middle class jobs, well paying skilled labor jobs for a place like an EB or a Sikorsky or a Pratt and Whitney. And we're telling people that not only can you come here and have the quality of life, but maybe you don't have those skills, we'll train you. The governor and the administration, we've invested more than $100 million in workforce development here. So our programs like Career Connect, will get people into the programs, quickly certifying them on how to do these skilled labors, and almost immediately replacing them with jobs. So we have that opportunity here. And that's part of Make It Here.
Mike Hydeck: As part of Make It Here, we're known and we've been called the insurance capital of the world, in my whole lifetime, pretty much. Is that difficult to try to adjust that vision from somebody who's looking from outside of the state and possibly moving here?
Anthony Anthony: I think that's really the heart and soul of the campaign. It's not just these real world objectives of trying to attract businesses and trying to attract residents, but also changing perceptions. I've spoken to folks in Texas and New Mexico and Colorado, and when I say to them, you know, 'I'm the Chief Marketing Officer for the State of Connecticut,' they say, 'Well, what does that mean' and like, 'What do you guys have besides country clubs and yachts and the Gold Coast?' And I say look, 'You're not wrong, that is part of Connecticut. But the reality is, it's only a part.' We make the nation's best pizza. You can't fly without Connecticut. 25% of all airplanes or airplane parts that are in the air come from the state. We have one of the most vibrant arts and culture scenes with our theaters and artists and museums. So long story short, with all of that, we need folks to realize that's part of the identity here. And that's the core of this rebrand. It's not necessarily about a place and the natural features. You think of Colorado, it's mountains. California, it's ocean. Sure we have some of those things. We wanted to market Connecticut, because of the people and how the people are. And they make up the core identity of who you are. So Connecticut, where historically, today and where we're going, we're a state of creators, makers, innovators and entrepreneurs. We're a powerful force for good in this country.
Mike Hydeck: So speaking of entrepreneurs, one of the things that was part of, your new boss who may be confirmed as the Commissioner soon, he was part of sort of like an incubator to try to get private equity money in and maybe partner with the state to try to bring new technology innovations here. He's like chief innovation officer. That may end up getting folded into your department now, right? How is that going to work if that happens?
Anthony Anthony: So my understanding, first of all, this is a conversation that we have with the legislature. They have to approve this. If they don't approve it, it can still function on its own. But what this allows us to do is previously, it was a public private partnership, and that seed funding was there with the state's investment and was trying to bring in private folks. Now that we have this competency a little bit more, and you have somebody like a Dan, who's working across state government, with all its agencies, as well as private partners, to maybe go a little bit more on the offensive, protect some of those legacy industries that you were talking about, the insurance and the finance. And go after actively on the offensive for more of these 21st century tech and data driven organizations to grow our economy outward. So with a program like this, it folds them under us. It's a little bit easier for them to get funding, and it's part of our greater economic development strategy. So again, it's part of the conversation we'll be having with the legislature moving forward and we most certainly hope that they're open to the conversation.
