As 2022 winds to a close, Indiana’s 51st Governor, Eric Holcomb, has been looking toward what he hopes to accomplish for the state in 2023. His enthusiasm was practically contagious during a one-on-one zoom interview last week providing more answers than questions.
Q: What are you planning for 2023?
A: Well, we’re excited. The state of Indiana has had our share of challenges but certainly we’ve been growing. We were the only state in America (according to the momentum index) to be above average in terms of population growth, employment growth and capital investment growth. And we had a record booming year of $22+ billion in capital investment, and that’s important because it means better jobs and higher wages for Hoosiers. It also speaks to the opportunity for upward mobility. And then it allows us obviously to fund all those other priorities that we as a state feel are important. We’ve got some big plans for public education, both early childhood K through eight and then nine through 12. Post secondary adult education, workforce development programs and making sure we can fill those jobs that are coming to our state. Then we’ve got some lofty goals about how to improve on our public health indicators and working with local communities — all 92 health departments and how the state can compliment local efforts. That will require, structurally, to have buy in and alignment but hopefully with that would come some funding to help (at the street level) local communities improve on their health indicators because that affects our health. Health is wealth by the way, but that also improves our workforce.
Q: How is Indiana’s education model changing for K-12 education so that students can begin skilling up for the jobs of the future? What are the models the state is considering?
A: Models exist and this is encouraging — how we share models with each other that are working. And so as we go out and we chase all these jobs of the future — the economy of our future — be it defense oriented or energies focused on battery or chip semiconductors, how do we then become part of the supply chain and our workforce become part of the supply chain for their workforce? That starts, quite frankly, in K-12 education, meaning these companies are inside our school corporations working hand and glove with one another so schools know what jobs are available. Businesses can have internships, work and earn and learn experiences are available so you can literally be educated for the workforce if you don’t seek to go to college or enlist in the military, this is a pathway to your profession. We need to improve on our literacy and we will be doubling down, tripling down on literacy efforts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). We know this is a digital economy driven by data. And we have to have a workforce that is prepared for that. That starts very early, in elementary school, meaning curriculum is important. But then experience is just as important in terms of your junior and senior year as you transition to whatever is next, especially for those jobs of the future you referenced.
Q: What is the status of the coal to gasification project? Without a water source it appears to be a dead issue.
A: While energy is essential — it is central and key to our state’s future, we never want the state to be on the hook for a failed investment. But, I can tell you how exciting it is around the whole state of Indiana in terms of energy, not just that specific project. Even with what we learned yesterday and the day before (December 12 and 13) that came out of the national government in terms of nuclear fusion, not fission but fusion, that’s a game changer. You will start to see a lot more investment. Indiana and Purdue University and Duke, which is a power utility company, they’re working on nuclear small modular reactors as a potential source of energy. We’ve got a hydrogen hub that we’re looking at up north. We’ve got the single largest solar farm in America being constructed right now in northern Indiana, but there are solar farms going up around the state, including wind in terms of renewable, so I mean this energy field, so to speak, is constantly being cultivated and things change from year to year. But I don’t want the taxpayers to think that to your point they’re on the hook for something that didn’t materialize in any part of the state for that matter. We have to have the energy to supply our businesses and our homes with reliable, affordable baseload energy and that’s something we can’t sacrifice, lest we find ourselves being flown over and not being invested in again, and we don’t want to go back to those days.
Q: Are we seeing a lot of tech companies looking at Indiana? It seems like we’re so positioned.
A: Yes, tech companies are in that whole ecosystem, that entrepreneurial ecosystem. We had our single largest company come from India, 3,000 employees. We’re one of the strongest, quite frankly, in the country. But what’s really exciting is because our defense, how we’re leaning into semiconductors, how we’re leaning into battery technology, and capacity, storage, recycling — a lot of tech companies that are the suppliers and the end support companies are looking to come to Indiana as well. So if you’re just talking semiconductors we’ve already got a semiconductor designer and manufacturer ready to go. We’re talking about packaging, we’re talking about testing, we’re talking about recycling in terms of batteries. We’ve always been this proud powerhouse auto making state. And now we’re going to be making hybrids. In Princeton, Toyota is looking at that, and then we’ve got Honda, and then we’ve got Sony, and then we have General Motors, and then we have Subaru, and the tier one, tier two and tier three — that whole ecosystem and supply chain that’s bringing in that high tech AI super computing.
This is where schools like IU and Purdue and Notre Dame and Rose Hulman and USI and Ivy Tech come in. It really is a GED to PhD opportunity in these high tech companies that are coming here. The exciting thing is, when you look at the $22 billion in high tech companies the Indiana Economic Development Corporation were involved with bringing in, exactly $11 billion went to urban areas and $11 billion went into mixed rural areas. It’s not competing on the family farm but in mixed rural areas is about as close as you can get and we want to keep a lot of our pristine areas. We’re still 80% farmer/forest terrain in the state. And we want to be sure we can feed the world and fuel the world (which comes from our ag biotech industry). But every industry is becoming increasingly tech and to have these colleges in our state — 30 private plus our public universities, all of sudden they are in everyone’s backyard. They are very important to not just the manufacturing industry at large, but think about autos and the future of mobility. In terms of rail, trail, airport, water ports, bridges, everything, and this is where Indiana has a competitive advantage over everyone else in America. We have a university or a college in everyone’s community backyard, be it Ivy Tech or VUJ or the college and university network we have.
Governor Holcomb concluded the interview by noting there will be many surprises in store for 2023, so stay tuned.
By Kathy Tretter
