BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL

When Pennsylvania wanted to keep college graduates from leaving, its governor asked 30 college students to brainstorm ideas as part of the state’s Stay Invent the Future program, which offers, in addition to one of the best web sites around, lists of the best businesses to work for, most interesting places to live and internships available to recent grads. Frustrated over producing a leading number of engineering graduates and then losing them to other states, Indiana created a TV program profiling jobs available for graduates who stayed in state. Iowa’s commitment to growth would startle Mainers: $300 million spread out over 20 years in gaming revenues to support economic development in a program called Vision Iowa.

What all of these and many other examples have in common is a huge investment of time and money in what businesses refer to as human capital, the people who can make a difference in a business, a city or a state. Maine leaders are fast approaching the conclusion that they need to take a similar, comprehensive approach to improving the fit between Maine’s work environment and its workers. They will look at the issue in-depth at the 2002 Governor’s Economic Development Conference scheduled for Monday, June 3, in Augusta. As the recent series of Census numbers have exposed, the withdrawals on Maine’s human capital is alarming.

The conference begins with a talk by U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Sampson on why all the work to integrate education into economic development is worthwhile. If the conference is successful, those who attend will come away with a stronger understanding of how universities can be more effective engines for growth. They will learn how state government needs to change to better reflect a more global, more technologically oriented business climate. They will help figure out how local government and local businesses can work together to solve common problems.

Anthony P. Carnevale, vice president for education and careers at Education Testing Service and, more importantly, a Colby College graduate who grew up in Aroostook County, provides the keynote topic on the role of K-12 education in the New Economy.

If these subjects seem like well-trodden ground, that may be because Maine has been talking in a general sense about these issues for years. But except for a few specific instances, it has not translated the talking into doing. That’s what this conference is for – to emerge with specific steps that can be applied here and raise the returns from the state’s human capital. For more information, phone the Margaret Chase Smith Center at the University of Maine at 581-1648 or look online at www.umaine.edu/MCSC/GEDC.htm.