Business development is all in the family for Patricia Moulton, the state’s new secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development.
Moulton’s resume is studded with key leadership positions in both regional and statewide economic development efforts:
- executive director and director of workforce development at the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp.,
- deputy secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development,
- vice-president of government affairs for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce,
- state labor commissioner, and, before that,
- chair of the state’s Natural Resources Board, which administers the land use law Act 250.
Moulton also helped her ex-husband run his jewelry business for more than two decades. And she and her father, Elbert “Al” Moulton, ran a consulting business for six years.
It wasn’t just any father-daughter team. Elbert “Al” Moulton who died in 2011 is remembered as “Mr. Vermont.” He is credited with keeping billboards off the roadways and creating the state’s groundbreaking captive insurance industry. The elder Moulton also served as economic development director under four governors — two Republicans and two Democrats.
Pat Moulton, who was chosen by Gov. Peter Shumlin to replace outgoing commerce secretary Lawrence Miller, sounds some familiar themes from her father’s legacy.
In an interview with VTDigger last week, Moulton, less than a month into her new job, talks about Vermont’s economic situation and what strategies she will employ to boost job growth in Vermont.
So, can we talk about IBM?
What’s going to be happening at IBM is something that is very prominent in our thinking here at the agency and certainly the governor’s. … I was recently up at IBM just to better understand more about capability and capacity there. It’s a concern, and we’re watching that pretty closely.
What’s your sense of how it can be repurposed — if the plant were to close for any reason?
It’s similar to the experience I had in Brattleboro prepping for the close of Vermont Yankee. What do we have for talent here? What are the other assets that exist on the campus?
I mean, Vermont Yankee (is) very specialized. There’s not a whole lot else you’re going to do other than make electricity in a nuclear power plant. At IBM, there’s a lot of capacity and capability there.
Frank Cioffi (president of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation) talks about this: It’s a heck of an asset. And in the context of Vermont Yankee, you’re not really left with much of an asset … because of the dry cask storage and security issues, as well as contamination. But I look to the IBM campus as being a great asset — either to a potential buyer or companies that we can go out and try to attract onto the campus.
Vermont wants to attract and grow high-tech jobs, but isn’t that what every state is going for right now?
Well, yes. I mean, everybody wants good high-paying technology jobs. So your next question is how does Vermont position itself differently.
I think one of the areas where Vermont has always been very successful has been growing our own businesses. Entrepreneurism. And so when we talk about technology, we talk a lot about homegrown technology, innovation within existing businesses, you know, the clever people who come together and put together companies like BioTek (in Winooski) or Global-Z in Bennington. These companies are playing in a technology field, but they grew from the fact that people like to live here, or that somebody graduated from a college or university. So we’ve really been good at growing our own.
And we also are a great place to live. More and more people, particularly in the age group that are attracted to and interested in entrepreneurism and technology, they want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to have a great place to live and a great place to start a business or find a job. And they want recreation and they want culture and they want good food and they want music and they want … beautiful outdoors. And you know, we wrote the book on all of that here in Vermont. So, I think that’s where we’re able to differentiate ourselves. A) we’re a great place where people want to live and visit, B) you can grow and start a business successfully here in Vermont.
Part of our strategies are going to be, how can we enhance that process? How can we help our business environment foster more entrepreneurial growth? How can we get more innovation into existing businesses so that we can constantly be looking at reinventing products and businesses so that they’re on the cutting the edge?
One of the challenges we have in Vermont is succession planning for businesses. … It’s not just family-owned businesses that run into that. But as we age out, how can we assure that there’s the population of entrepreneurs that are going to pick up the baton?
One of the strategies is employee ownership. The Vermont Employee Ownership Center figures large in that conversation. We tend to be … one of the states with the highest per capita percentage of employee-owned businesses in the country. I think it speaks to the commitment that folks have to Vermont.
What do you make of all the complaints about the business climate in Vermont?
Well you know (sigh), I think there’s probably some validity. We’re a small state. We don’t have necessarily the resources to throw big dollars around to help start businesses.
But I also think, I spent a fair amount of time historically in my career talking to folks who complain, for example, about the regulatory process, the land use process. And I’ve spent a lot of time saying, “The regulatory process, while it can be cumbersome and we can always look at that, is here to protect the environment that you have either come here to enjoy, or that you have chosen to stay here to enjoy.”
I’m not saying that the permit process should be ridiculously onerous, and I don’t think it is, when you know what you have to do. I think part of our problem is we have what I affectionately call the one-hit wonders. They’re only going to add an expansion onto their business, or build a new building, once. They’re not the developers who are doing this all the time … The developers who do it a lot know how to navigate the system. The one-hit wonders don’t. And so they just get daunted and are a little bit scared going into the system.
But don’t we need to make it easier for them?
So, part of it is how do we make it easier for them. How can we instruct them and walk them through that process, have a can-do attitude throughout the regulatory process. “Let me help you find the right answer. What you propose may not be the right answer, but let us work together and find the right answer.” And I find, more times than not, that’s exactly the approach that our regulatory system takes.
But again, it’s recognizing that part of why we’re Vermont is because we made a decision in the early 1970s to say we want to regulate development in a different way here. The issue isn’t how do we stop development. But how do we enable it in a way that’s in keeping with our environmental values and in keeping with what we want to see happen as our state grows?
There are examples, of course, where things don’t go well, and you have 10- and 15-year permit battles. But some of that, again, is a reflection of values. … And it’s up to our judges and the environmental court, who I think do fabulous work. It’s up to our district environmental commissions, it’s up to our Supreme Court and others to really weed out, what is an honest, real concern versus what’s noise. …
Having chaired the environmental board for four years, it used to infuriate me the number of times you’d go to a hearing and the parties had never met. They had never actually talked amongst themselves! And you wanted to just send them outside for a few hours and come back. And so mediation is spot-on.
My advice, historically, and my practice with the permit process to applicants is, start with your neighbors. If you have a plan where you want to expand your business, you want a new building, start talking to the neighbors. Tell them what you want to do, find out what their concerns are, accommodate to the best you can. Try to address those concerns beforehand. And that will expedite your process.
Sometimes you hear, too, the parties are just holding out for money or whatever the case might be. And it’s up to the process to weed that out. What’s a real environmental concern versus just, “I don’t want to see that in my backyard.”
I hear a lot from folks in the business community who say they feel like the Legislature as a whole does not understand business.
I hear that a lot, as well. And I hear a lot of concern about the Legislature trying to tell us how to do business. Or concern about, now they want to legislate what we do anyway. And that if there was a deeper, better understanding of what it is to do business, then they might take a different view.
There is a definite knowledge you gain when you’re on the other side of the table, let’s put it that way. I think many times there’s a perception that business can afford anything and do anything and we just have to tell them they have to do this.
And yet, I don’t think anything could be further from the truth. Particularly in Vermont where the majority of our businesses are small, and the majority of our businesses employ less than 25 people. These are folks who, in some cases, the CEO is the CFO is the sales guy is the HR guy — it’s all just the one business owner. And they’re not in a position to do more record keeping or spend more money or pay more taxes.
I sense a lot of frustration, particularly from smaller businesses, but even from bigger businesses about why are we getting dictated to? Why aren’t people asking — namely the Legislature — “What can we do to help you be more successful?” That’s what the business community in Vermont, and I would assume any state, would say. “What I want of policy and lawmakers is, ‘How can we help you? How do we get out of the way so you can grow good jobs and treat your people well and be good to our environment?’”
So, do you agree with that, when you hear it?
Yeah. I think there has to be much more of a How Can We Help You attitude. And I get concerned sometimes — and I’ve seen it in my career — when you see legislation come up because one person had a problem, from one constituent. And next thing you know, you’re spending hours debating a bill that you’re asking yourself, is this a solution in search of a problem?
Which one are you thinking of?
I’m not gonna say. (Laughs.)
But then there are other times when you absolutely need legislation. I mean, I think you need certain environmental regulations. You need workplace safety rules. You need those kinds of things. But I think, almost every — I would say every employer — wants to do the right thing.
There were a lot of labor bills this past session, (and) the minimum wage certainly became the most prominent. I’m curious what your take is on that aspiration that we heard a lot about this year toward a livable wage.
I think it’s a great aspiration. And it’s where we need to go. And I also believe that most, if not all employers — well, most, certainly — want to pay a livable wage. And they recognize that their employees are their best resource. But there are also circumstances where there are certain jobs that the skill set may not command that livable wage.
I mean, the bill is done, but I believed (the minimum wage) needed to go up. I don’t know what the right number is, and I know that people have the right to earn a living. But I also know that we need to do more to help folks get the skills they need to be able to earn a higher wage. And we need to help employers understand that it is their responsibility to offer a better wage. And I would venture to say that most employers get that.
But some might perceive that certain jobs are low-skilled, why should that person make $12 bucks an hour. Well, there’s probably any job out there that, if that person doesn’t do their job well, is a bad reflection on your business. If you’re a chambermaid who doesn’t get paid well and doesn’t do the job well, your hotel is not going to survive because people are not going to be having a positive experience. If you’re the parking lot attendant and if you can’t provide the right attitude and do your job well, your customers are not going to come back. Anybody who’s in touch with your customer. Anybody who’s making a product that’s going out to a customer. It’s the recognition that the value within every position that every business provides.
But there’s also a recognition of, what’s the market that you’re operating in, too. And how much can you afford to raise wages. The biggest concern I heard around minimum wage is, “I’d love to pay $12 an hour to my lowest paid person. But then, if I bump them from $8 to $12, now I have to bump my $12 to $16, and my $16 to $20, and my $20… So, because I have different skill levels, I have differentiating wages in my company and I need to keep that. And how am I going to afford that?” Or, for the seasonal employee?
So, frankly, I’d love to see something happen on the federal level that equals the playing field because there (is) certain susceptibility to businesses that say, “Well, I can be a mile away across the river in New Hampshire, or a mile away across the border in New York, where I don’t have to pay that minimum wage. So why should I be here? I can take my customers and my employees with me.” And so, we have to be cognizant of those kinds of issues.
But, the issue I heard a lot from businesses in the last session: It wasn’t one thing. It was everything together. It was the cumulative effect. The death by a thousand cuts, as I’ve heard it referred to. It’s minimum wage, it’s paid family sick leave, it’s GMO, it’s chemical bill, it’s uncertainty about health care. It’s everything at once, is what I was hearing from the business community. And the uncertainty that that provides. The instability that provides. And the messaging that sends, that we don’t think you’re doing the right thing, so we’re going to tell you to do the right thing.
And the majority of the employers are doing the right thing. And so they’re just concerned about where are we going here in Vermont? How do I know that the rules of the game that are in place today are going to be the same rules that are in place next year and the year after that? And when those rules change, how does my voice get heard in that rule-changing process? That is a concern that I have in the business community.
And I say all the time: You need to engage with your legislators. You need to help them understand what impacts your decision to invest in Vermont and continue to employ people. And the best time to do that is not when they’re up here (in Montpelier) between January and May. It’s between June and December.
When they’re home, bring them into your operation. Have them meet your employees. Show them your equipment. Have them walk through the floor of your store or the floor of your plant, and have them get to know you and the market that you’re dealing with and the kinds of sensitivities that you’re subjected to in that marketplace, so that they have that in their head when they’re going and considering legislation.
I also hear a lot of conflicting perspectives on the workforce.
We’ve seen productivity gains here in Vermont when we haven’t necessarily seen employment gains. And that’s true countrywide, but it’s especially true here.
But I think we do have a changing workplace. Skill requirements in the workplace change at a faster pace than our educational system can change. And so, we have I believe a mismatch, in some cases.
We have folks who are unemployed and underemployed looking for a chance to earn a better wage. But they may not have the skills or the educational background to get there. … This is a problem in this country when it comes to technical skills and math and engineering. We have a problem in this country — Vermont is not in a unique place in this way.
Where we are uniquely positioned is, we’re small enough to be able to grapple with this issue and I believe come up with solutions on how we tackle it. I believe the Vermont Strong Scholars program that’s in S.220 and the internship program, these are all ways we help folks get into these businesses.
It’s kind of similar to my conversation about educating the legislators when they’re home. How can we help students and teachers know better the careers that are in their own backyard? So we can do better guidance work. How can we help provide students with a better understanding of what they need to succeed in the workplace? How can we help adults who are already in the workplace retool to be able to take the jobs that are out there today and will be out there in the future? What are the jobs in the future that we’re going to need to be training for.
What I hear from employers all the time is, the good foundational skills, the good math, the good writing, the good reading, the good interpersonal communication. Build me the good foundation in this student, I’ll take it from there.
It takes some time. And it starts with some data. What are the jobs we’re going to need five years from now so that we can start pushing that information out to our schools, to say hey, this is, here’s where the growth occupations are.
It seems like the kind of thing that you would expect should have always been happening.
It’s been happening. But you’ve got to refresh. We’re not teaching the way we did 20 years ago, and we’re not going to teach in 20 years the way we do now. And we have a better understanding of career needs now than we did 20 years ago. And so on and so on.
I think the pace at which technology changes now is so much more accelerated than it was 20 years ago. And that has ramifications throughout our workforce and our education systems. And it’s hard to keep pace with that many times.
Anything else you’d like to add?
This is my third week on the job, so I don’t have all the answers yet!
But, we didn’t talk about some of the cool work we’re doing in this agency with growth centers and designated downtowns, and some of the … legislation that passed this year.
This agency has a lot going on that is not necessarily readily apparent to Vermonters. We’re more than just the business side, I guess is the message I want to give. Our economic development work is very visible because of IBM and Vermont Yankee and some of these Kingdom expansions.
But there’s a lot of other cool stuff going around in our historic preservation work and our community development work and the community development block grant program and our tourism and marketing, Vermont Life magazine. I just didn’t want to forget that.
