Here is the text of Gov. Peter Shumlin’s second inaugural address given on Jan. 10, 2013.
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the General Assembly, members of our National Guard, fellow Vermonters:
Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your governor for another term. It is an honor to serve, and every day I am grateful for this extraordinary privilege.
I am also humbled to be joined today by the best Congressional delegation in America. Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, and Congressman Welch, we welcome you to the State House and thank you for your service to our great state.
I am so proud to be governor of Vermont. There is so much to celebrate about our state. Since our founding, Vermont has always been a national leader. First state to abolish slavery. First state to mandate public funding for universal education. First state to pass civil unions, and the first to pass marriage equality without a court mandate. We enjoy the nation’s lowest unemployment rate this side of the Mississippi, and this year we were once again ranked the healthiest state in the nation.
All of us here today, in this gem of a state house, on this glorious Vermont day, know this: Vermont is the best state in the country for quality of life. The best place to live, work, and raise a family.
The state of our state is healthy, resilient, and strong.
We are blessed to live here, and we care deeply about our shared future.
Today I will diverge from tradition and focus this speech on one theme: an education system that grows Vermont’s prosperity. My goal – and the single objective of my administration – remains to grow jobs and incomes for working Vermonters. Our education system, from pre-kindergarten to higher education, is the state’s greatest economic development tool. Our kids routinely test above the national average, and excel in a wide range of disciplines. We have a great system that we must make even greater.
To stay on top, Vermont must follow the steps of our predecessors, who refused to be led by history, but instead had the courage and imagination to shape it. If we stand by, if we fail to innovate, and if we refuse to change, we will slip behind.
We stand on the shoulders of leaders who, at defining times, chose to be bold. As we continue our slow recovery from a devastating recession and a devastating storm, I believe Vermont is again poised to lead.
We are on the right path. We are focused on getting Vermont off our addiction to oil and building renewables, and we now have more high tech green jobs per capita than any other state. We are delivering on our promise to grow prosperity by connecting every last mile of Vermont to high-speed Internet access by the end of this year. We are implementing the first common sense single payer health care system in America, where health care is a right and not a privilege and where we contain unsustainable rising health care costs.
We are adding jobs. Employers across the state, who just two years ago might have been contemplating another layoff, are looking for well-trained and skilled workers. Our incomes are slowly rising. In 2011, Vermont was the only state in the union where incomes actually rose after a decade of stagnation.
But it’s not enough. The seventh lowest unemployment rate, when you are struggling to find a job, is not low enough. Four percent income growth is better than the rest of America, but for too many Vermonters who are working a job or multiple jobs and still struggling to pay their bills, it’s not enough. Enjoying one of the fastest economic growth rates in the northeast is better than where we used to be, but for so many moms and dads like me who want their kids to live and prosper here at home, it’s not enough.
Now here’s the irony. The true challenge that I hear day in and day out, as I log mile after mile as your governor traveling Vermont, is this: at the same time that so many Vermonters need to make more money to make life work and at the same time that so many families seek to bring their kids and loved ones back to Vermont, our employers, from border to border, are eager to find workers with the right educational skills, and they have good money to pay.
Go with me for a moment to our deep south, where in Brattleboro, second generation business owner Norm Schneeberger at GS Precision is manufacturing world-class machine parts for the aerospace industry, and laments that if he could find enough engineers and trained machinists, he could grow his workforce by 25 percent this year alone.
Drive over the mountain to Bennington, which has become ground zero for the composite revolution, where Plasan Carbon Composites is building auto body parts that are lighter, stronger, and more energy efficient than their steel predecessors, and they need trained technicians to meet a growing worldwide demand.
GE Rutland, manufacturing aeronautics parts that power nearly every plane flying in the world, struggles to bring in engineers and computer technicians.
Green Mountain Power is turning Rutland into the solar capital of New England, opening their Energy Innovation Center in the heart of downtown and building solar farms to power the region. This will create more green jobs needing skilled workers.
Travel east over the mountain to Windsor County, where in Woodstock NatureShare is making apps for iPhones and looking for trained computer technicians.
Head to Chittenden County, where the cry for qualified workers turns more to a roar. IBM has more than a dozen openings for high-paying, entry-level technicians with a two-year degree and basic math skills. They can’t fill them.
MyWebGrocer and Dynapower are growing and hiring. Dealer.com, which is now employing over 600 Vermonters with big plans to continue expanding its workforce, needs skilled workers to fill their high-paid jobs.
Add to that list Mylan Technology in Franklin County, Concept 2 rowing in Lamoille County, UTC Aerospace Systems in Addison County, Global-Z in Bennington, Mack Molding in Arlington, North Hartland Tool Corporation, Superior Technical Ceramics in Franklin County, New England Precision and Wall Goldfinger in Orange County. The need for skilled workers goes on and on.
Perhaps that need is best embodied in the Northeast Kingdom, the area of our state that for generations has struggled with chronically high unemployment rates and low incomes, where Bill Stenger and Ari Quiros continue to shine a beacon of hope, opportunity and future prosperity.
For Bill and Ari, investing $250 million, and creating 5,000 new jobs over the past 5 years while they built a world-class resort at Jay Peak, is not enough. They are moving on to Phase II, a project of unprecedented ambition, which partners with Senator Leahy’s EB-5 program and my administration to grow prosperity in other regions of the Kingdom with $600 million in new investment, creating 10,000 new jobs.
Some of those jobs will be at AnC Bio, a South Korean company that conducts cutting edge stem cell and artificial organ research and will be looking for scientists and other well-paid technicians. Menck Windows is a German manufacturer of the highest efficiency windows in the world; they will be adding 500 jobs. A world-class resort that will be built in downtown Newport on beautiful Lake Memphremagog, will need hundreds of workers, as will the revitalization at Burke Mountain.
I will be traveling with Bill and Ari to South America, Asia and other ports to help secure capital for this project, and in the months ahead, additional announcements of job opportunities are likely to be forthcoming as they are secured.
Time does not allow me to recite the hundreds of other creative, entrepreneurial ventures, large and small, in value added agriculture, food systems, health care, technology, manufacturing, travel and tourism, energy, education, services, retail and the trades that bless our little state right now. I remain unfailingly optimistic about Vermont’s economic future. But to ensure our success, we must embrace change in the way we both view and deliver education. The rapid change that is required of us is not optional; it will define our success or deliver our failure.
Let’s face facts for a minute: these opportunities for prosperity, from our southern border to Canada, result from the way technology has transformed Vermont’s economy and our lives.
Think about how technology has changed our daily lives: paying our bills, shopping, communicating online, texting and tweeting our way through the day, managing our finances, keeping tabs on our kids.
Technology allows computers to create products that a decade ago, even five years ago, didn’t exist. It has created a connection to a larger world that allows many more people to do business from Vermont that would not have been possible in the pre-tech world.
