Retooling time

 

 

The Kennedys, polls, leaks, upstate vs. downstate, illegal immigrants and gun control aside, there was actually some substantial news you can use that came out of the Hudson Valley Economic Development Summit held last week at the former home of the president who knew how to turn around a near-dead economy.

 

It embraced in part the “time for a change” mantra of the new administration in Washington.

It”™s too bad the forum at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum came after Precision Valve could not weather any more high taxes and decided to close its doors in Yonkers, the city that had been its home for 60 years.

 

Being in a state Empire Zone was not enough to compete with the low taxes and incentives South Carolina had to offer the company that was founded by Robert Abplanalp after he invented the aerosol valve. The company intends to close its doors at the end of May and consolidate its operations in business-friendly Greenville, S.C.

 

The region also took another shot to the chin when Armonk-based IBM jettisoned some 1,000 workers from its plants in Dutchess County. The company line was it “continuously evaluates its mix of skills and resources throughout the year and makes changes as needed.”

 

IBM too is in an Empire Zone and in 2006 claimed EZ credits of $31.7 million. A week before the layoffs, IBM reported $12.3 billion in profit for 2008.

 

Up Route 9 in Hyde Park, Kirstin Gillibrand, who was to be sworn in as a U.S. senator 24 hours later in Washington, D.C., had a smaller but important sector in mind when she addressed some 500 people at the forum she hosted.

 

“The challenges we are facing in this region and a nation as a whole are clear,” Gillibrand said. “The Hudson Valley is blessed with an extraordinary work force. And our farmers are facing some of the greatest economic conditions they”™ve ever had. When I talk with our dairy farmers in particular, they tell me the price of milk has continued to decline and there is a glut of milk on the market and as a consequence they”™re having a very tough time paying their bills and making ends meet.”

 

She cited a need to focus on agribusiness so local farms will not go out of business. The repercussions of just one farm closing is more than most people think. When it becomes cumulative, it can be catastrophic. Witness Caterpillar”™s job cuts that recently hit 20,000.

“When one farm goes out of business it”™s not just the farm and those jobs that are lost it”™s the feed dealer, it”™s the farm supplier, it”™s the tractor company, it”™s the local shop on the corner, it”™s the local market in town. All of those businesses suffer when you have a farm go under,” she said.

The trick is to make sure a secondary revenue stream is developed for those in agribusiness. Gillibrand suggested the alternative energy market.

 

She said a similar summit last year in Saratoga County that focused on the energy market was extremely valuable because she found a lot of young entrepreneurs and small businesses that are already successful in this industry. She related how one person

figured out how to make insulation out of the original “green” material.

 

“He literally figured out how to make a plant be an insulator for buildings that was far more energy efficient, much more cost efficient and more effective than the petroleum-based insulators that we currently use.”

 

And just like the closing of one farm can have a ripple effect, innovation of this sort can have an extraordinary positive effect on a region since every new technology, Gillibrand said, can be developed into new products that need to be manufactured.

 

“So as this region begins to look at these opportunities where we can create jobs through both the agricultural sector and then the manufacturing sector to have a synergy that will address the downturn in the economy.”

 

As far as creating alternative energy products, how can we go wrong?

 

The potential for job growth has no boundaries. And it can drive innovation in a number of industries.

 

Gillibrand said analysts have predicted that if the federal government makes energy independence a priority, then “an estimated 3 million to 5 million more green jobs will be created in 10 years.”

A report by the Washington, D.C.-based Renewable Energy Policy Project found that

Westchester, Dutchess and Orange counties are among the top 20 counties in the state for job growth potential relating to renewable energy.

 

The report states: “A major portion of the potential benefits flowing from the development of renewable energy will go to the manufacturers who supply the component parts. In order to capture as much of that potential as possible for domestic industry, the first step is to understand where the potential manufacturers are located and then devise the incentives that allow them to move efficiently into the industry. In addition, the demand can support the creation of thousands more new jobs related to the expanded manufacturing activity.”

 

Members of the state Legislature, listen up.

 

Creating more jobs by paying attention to the changes going on in our world.

 

What a concept.