March 8, 2010

Gov. Nixon's remarks at Missouri Regional Life Sciences Summit

Good morning.

Thank you, Chancellor Deaton and Chancellor Morton, for convening this innovation summit. And thank you to my friends at the Kansas City Area Development Council. It seems like we've been seeing a lot of each other, lately. And that's a good thing.

The outstanding group of leaders gathered here today from the scientific, investment and business communities is proof positive of the growing dominance of the life sciences in Missouri.

And I only expect its upward trajectory to accelerate. As Governor, I am committed to doing everything I can to drive growth and investment in the life sciences.

That includes outpacing our rivals to recruit new life science and high-tech businesses to our borders.

That includes leveraging every tool and tactic to help loyal Missouri businesses thrive.

And that includes training a workforce today that is prepared to meet the demand for the high-tech, life science jobs of tomorrow.

It's critical to the future of Missouri that industry, academia and government maintain a strong, working partnership that is focused on innovation.

Innovation builds on new knowledge and new technology -whether it is the development of new veterinary vaccines, the production of healthier food for livestock, or cutting-edge therapies for Alzheimer's disease or juvenile diabetes. Developing those goods and services, in turn, makes us more competitive in the global marketplace, and improves our quality of life at home.

And that brings us to the core challenge facing Missouri today: creating a secure and vibrant future for our state.

We must capitalize on Missouri's strengths and assets - from its central location, to its hard-working people, to its quality of life.

And we must seize immediate opportunities for growth that will move Missouri forward on the path to prosperity. Quite simply, there is no sector of our economy riper for opportunity than the life sciences.

Over the past few months, I've visited with scientists, educators and business-owners in every corner of Missouri about the best ways to create jobs, prepare our workforce and get people back to work.

Time and again, business-owners have told me - "Governor, give us the tools. Help us train the workers. And we'll take care of the rest."

That optimism, which I share, reflects the "can-do" spirit of Missouri - even in the face of our current economic challenges. Our economy will not rebound overnight, but it will be rebuilt, through hard work, smart planning and strategic investment.

We will continue to manage our limited resources wisely ... invest in tools to help Missouri businesses create jobs ... and make education and job training a top priority.

These efforts already are paying off. National economic experts continue to point to Missouri as one of the top states leading the country's economic recovery. And we are the only state in the Midwest still holding a spotless Triple-A credit rating.

Last year, we ramped up financial incentives for businesses that offered good jobs and health insurance. And we focused state resources on targeted, fast-track training programs to prepare a workforce ready to step into those jobs.

Let me give you a couple of examples of our success.

• Here in Kansas City, Smith Electric Vehicles makesall-electric, zero-emission trucks. It's building a new plant up by the airport using our Quality Jobs incentives. That plant will create 200 jobs, and pump millions of dollars into the local economy.

• Express Scripts in St. Louis, used Missouri BUILD incentives to expand here, rather than Pennsylvania. Now it's building a huge, automated facility for filling medical prescriptions. And it will create nearly three hundred jobs paying an average wage of more than $40,000 a year.

And we did not overlook the needs of small businesses that have been a mainstay of Missouri's economy.

We created a pool of low-interest loans for small businesses in every corner of the state, to help them add employees and grow. There is still money available in that pool.

We eliminated the franchise tax for more than 16,000 small businesses, allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned cash where it belongs -- in their pockets.

We focused on workforce development. Last year we began implementing our Caring for Missourians initiative to train more Missourians for careers in high-demand health care fields - including nursing and dentistry, optometry and medical technology.

Over the next two years, we'll be enrolling at least 1,300 additional students in these programs at our two- and four-year colleges, including UMKC, of course ... and preparing these students to meet our state's critical health care needs.

We also kept college within the reach of hard-working Missouri families by freezing tuition at all our two- and four-year public colleges and universities.

Now let's look at the broader landscape in the life sciences.

Every two years, the National Science Board releases its Science and Engineering Indicators report. The report examines a lot of data on U.S. trends in education, on investment in research and development, and on workforce development; crunches it; and puts it all in a global context.

The 2010 issue of the Science and Engineering report, which was released last month, found that although the state of science and engineering in the U.S. is strong, our global lead is slipping.

Here are a few of its key findings.

The amount of money a country spends on research and development is an indication of the priority science and technology has relative to other national goals.

America still holds a preeminent position in science and engineering because we have historically made significant public and private investment in education, research and design.

But our dominance is being challenged by the erosion of American students' competence - and interest - in math and science, relative to students from other nations. We're also at risk of being lapped by the steady growth in the number of foreign students with advanced degrees - who are in high demand world-wide.

Our dominance in science is being challenged by nations that are pouring a growing share of their gross domestic product into research and development. They see the enormous benefits that accrue to a knowledge-based economy like ours, and are determined to compete for their share.

While the U.S. still spends more than any other country in the world on science and engineering R & D, the growth of R & D expenditures in the U.S. has averaged five to six percent a year between 1996 and 2007.

Meanwhile, during the same period, the growth of R & D expenditures skyrocketed in Asia. In the Asia-8 economies, growth rates often averaged higher than 10 percent a year, and in China's case, a whopping 20 percent.

Why does this matter to us in Missouri? Because investment in scientific research and development is a major driver of innovation, leveraging new discoveries that will lead to commercially successful goods, services and processes.

In Missouri, we have an opportunity to increase investment in our thriving life sciences sector, and add muscle to existing strength.

That is the thrust of one of my top legislative priorities this year: the Missouri Science and Innovation Reinvestment Act, or MOSIRA.

Missouri is already home to 4,000 agribusiness and life science companies. That's an enormous asset we can leverage.

Many of these businesses are clustered in the booming animal health and life sciences corridor that spans our state - with tremendous hubs here in Kansas City and up in St. Joseph.

MOSIRA will reinvest a small part of the taxes paid by existing bio-tech firms in Missouri, to recruit new ones.

It will create a stable pool of funds to increase access to capital. And it will grease the skids of technology transfer, turning scientific break-throughs in the lab into successes in the marketplace.

We want our life sciences and bio-tech companies to grow because they create more jobs that pay good wages. While the average wage of all Missouri occupations is about $39,000, the average wages of professional occupations in science and technology are much higher: more than $72,000 for technology-intensive jobs; and nearly $105,000 for science-intensive jobs.

But just as important as job creation are the corollaries of that growth.

These include the opportunities for synergy...the creation of a culture of excellence and collaboration... a forum where brilliant minds find kindred spirits... a hotbed of ideas that spark innovation...and a nexus of risk and reward, where start-ups thrive.

MOSIRA will help us recruit more dynamic, science and technology companies like Synbiotics, Cerner and Boehringer-Ingleheim.

We also must invest in businesses that are already in Missouri. And that is the focus of another of my top priorities: Missouri First. It's a loyalty program for businesses that are already located here.

They'll go to the head of the line for financial incentives to help them expand their plants or payrolls. And we'll give an extra bump to businesses that have been in Missouri longer than five years.

These are the companies who have given generations of Missourians steady paychecks. They're also the folks who paid the taxes that built our roads, our schools and our parks.

Given the need to create jobs quickly, helping loyal businesses accelerate their growth is a smart investment with the potential for fast returns.

Job-creation initiatives only succeed if there are trained workers ready to step into those jobs.

Another national trend we've watched play out in Missouri, is the steady growth in the number of jobs requiring training in science and engineering. But at the same time, the number of trained workers ready to step into those jobs is barely keeping pace with the demand.

Talk about a cloud with a silver lining. That's a real opportunity to transform Missouri's workforce into a powerhouse. We have the chance to create a new generation of highly skilled, highly trained workers to meet the needs of life science companies that are the springboard to innovation.

And after sitting down with business and education leaders across the state, including Chancellor Jaci Snyder and her team at Metropolitan Community College, it was clear to me that Missouri needed to ramp up training efforts at our two- and four-year state colleges and universities.

Training for Tomorrow is my innovative grant program designed to close that gap between available jobs and trained workers. It will help community colleges across Missouri create and expand training programs to serve additional students.

Last week, I announced our first Training for Tomorrow grant, right here in Kansas City: $2.2 million dollars to Metropolitan Community College.

MCC's animal health program is one of the few of its kind in the Midwest.This two-year degree program in veterinary technology prepares students to assist veterinarians with animal nursing care, lab diagnostics, anesthesia, surgery, dentistry, radiology and more.

With funds from Training for Tomorrow, MCC will be able to expand its animal health curriculum to include new degrees and certificates in pet care and animal research. And it will be able to develop an online track for the veterinary technology degree program.

In addition, the grant will help develop a variety of new degree, certificate and coursework options in several industry sectors ripe for growth, including animal health, health care and supply chain integration.

Planning and development for the new programs will start this spring. Students in non-degree programs could be enrolling in courses as early as this summer; enrollment in degree programs is expected to begin in January 2011.

These programs will include a variety of options for students pursuing two-year degrees, certificates, credentials and individual courses. The college will work closely with specific high-tech companies to tailor the programs to their specific needs.

By training more Missourians to work in research laboratories; veterinary offices; hospitals and clinics, we will ensure that our booming animal health corridor continues to thrive.

Here in Kansas City, I know Training for Tomorrow will have a powerful impact. But the reach of this initiative will spread far beyond this area.

Training for Tomorrow is investing funds in every community college across Missouri - from KC to Poplar Bluff; Neosho to St. Charles -- and everywhere in between. I appreciate the incredible work our community colleges have done over the past two months to reach out to local businesses; develop new program ideas; and complete their applications.

This wasn't an easy process. But my administration - and each of the colleges - understood the importance of moving these dollars into classrooms as quickly and efficiently as possible. Missourians need training today - so they can compete for the careers of tomorrow.

We're finalizing the statewide grants now, and I'll be visiting a number of campuses in the coming days to discuss these exciting programs.

Training for Tomorrow will make a huge difference for these colleges.

Once it is fully implemented at MCC, we're talking about as many as 470 seats in new degree programs, certificates and individual courses.

As we look to the future, it's important to remember a fundamental lesson of American history.

Great American innovations - from the light bulb to the Internet to the sequencing of the human genome - were not the work of men and women who embraced the status quo.

The United States didn't build a trans-continental railroad or land a man on the moon by thinking in increments. Our nation leapt to meet the high expectations of visionary leaders, and by God we hit the mark. What looks like destiny today, was mere aspiration yesterday.

True innovation is not a happy accident.

One of America's most gifted innovators, Benjamin Franklin, said, "I'm a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have."

To revive and harness that restless American spirit of innovation takes real vision, careful planning, close collaboration and serious investment.

This thriving animal health corridor is no happy accident. It took real vision, careful planning, and close collaboration.

It took serious investment...not just in buildings and laboratories and start-ups, but in intellectual capital. It would not have happened without a sustained commitment to advanced degree programs in life sciences at our state universities, or the recruitment of the top-flight scientific talent you will be hearing from today.

Look around you. There can be no doubt that Missouri is poised to lead the nation in innovation, and create a vibrant future for the people of our state.

If you take just one thing away from this conference today, let it be this: we can do it.

Thank you.