BRIDGEPORT – The Paul Lavoie manufacturing road show made a stop at The Knowlton Wednesday, Oct. 23 as he spoke with more than 100 clients and potential clients of M&T Bank.
Who is Paul Lavoie, you may say? He is the chief manufacturing officer and voice of the manufacturer in governor’s office. Suffice it to say, he is responsible for the growth of the manufacturing sector in Connecticut.
“We are in a time in a history where we have never been before and we need capitalize on that,” Lavoie told the audience at the M&T Bank “Manufacturing in a New Day” Summit. “We are playing the short game and the long game to meet the challenges that we have here in the state of Connecticut, especially in the manufacturing sector.”
Lavoie, who was appointed CMO by Gov. Ned Lamont, has gotten the word out about what his office has available for state manufacturers. His road show included 20 stops in five days leading up to the summit. His trip included visit to such places as TRIUMPH, New England Airfoil Products Inc., Mott Corp., PEZ Candy, University of Bridgeport and Bigelow Tea.
His message for success?
“It’s a three-step process. First is engagement. Go and find out where these resources are. Go to the Connecticut website,” he said. “The second step is to become educated and learn more about what the technology is. Education doesn’t always have to come from the ecosystem; it can come from the manufacturers together. The third part of that process is enablement. And that’s where the governor can help with funding programs and funding resources that are available.”
Some of what Lavoie was referring to is available at the state Office of Manufacturing. Among the many resources are CONNEX Connecticut, an online platform that connects all U.S. manufacturers and suppliers with a single, accurate, and searchable supply-chain solution. Then there is the $95 million Manufacturing Innovation Fund, which has programs that focus on emerging needs of the state’s small- to medium-sized manufacturers, targeting barriers to business health and growth: workforce training, purchasing capital equipment, adopting cybersecurity standards, and strengthening the state’s supply chain.
Lavoie paints a picture of progress in the state manufacturing sector starting with the “lost decade” (2008-2018) where the Great Recession had a lasting impact on the state, especially manufacturing.
“If you lived in the state for at least the last 15 or 16 years, you remember the days when the state was 49th in the country and we were talking about budget deficits,” he said. “We lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing went from being 16% of the state’s economy to being 10%.”
Cut to today, and Lavoie describes a much more positive situation. There have been six years of budget surpluses, which means the state is now able to do things it wasn’t able to do before. “We are able to invest and pay down our pension debt to the tune of $9 billion, which saves about $600 million annually in debt service on our annual budget,” he said.
Lavoie rattled off what he called some impressive figures about the state’s economy and the manufacturing sector:
- 17th fastest growing and 22nd largest economy in the United States
- No. 1 in airplane parts manufacturing
- No. 2 in shipbuilding (submarines)
- No. 2 in defense spending per capita
- No. 3 most productive workforce
- No. 4 in medical device production
M&T Bank summit
The M&T Bank summit came together when Lavoie and David Femi, the bank’s senior vice president of business banking and regional manager for Fairfield County and southern Connecticut, struck up a conversation about 16 months ago.
“Myself and Paul Lavoie were talking about the manufacturing sector in the state,” Femi said. “We were talking about the opportunity and challenges. He told me about how at the state level they have all these programs. And that manufacturing businesses aren’t aware of these programs.
“I said, OK, how about we convene a group of manufacturing businesses and you can talk about the programs and then we (M&T) can talk about what we do for manufacturers all across our network.”
The bank, whose history dates back to 1856, has always been vested in the state’s manufacturing sector. In fact, “M” in M&T stands for manufacturers. The original name for the bank was Manufacturers & Traders Bank.
Advice for small businesses
“I encourage manufacturers to have two plans sitting on their desk,” Lavoie told Eric Feldstein, M&T Bank senior vice president and head of its business banking division. “They are a retention and recruitment plan. I say it in that order because can we please have a plan in place to see what makes the workers who are here happy. The second is an industrial automation plan. How do you upskill and reskill your people?”
“We have to make sure we give our people the education they need to drive us into the future.”
