Leadership New Jersey Panel 3 (10,000 Foot View): National and International View

Panel 3: The Natitonal and International View (from 10,000 feet)
Leading Corporations discuss the challenges they face in remaining in the state.
Moderating is Kathy Kish of MarketEntry, a marketing communications firm.


Leadership NJ Panel 3: Panelists discuss national and international perspectives on the regional economy. From left: Nick Montalto, Diversity Dynamics; Tom Morr, Select Greater Philadelphia; Jay Biggins of Biggins Lacy Shapiro, a location economics firm; Tom Tauke, EVP of Public Affairs, Policy and Communications of Verizon; and moderator Kathy Kish of MarketEntry.

Tom Tauke, Executive VP, Public Affairs, Policy and Communications of Verizon, billed as moderator, actually gave an overview summary.

Notes that he visited Google last week to see new version of Google Earth. Driver said he was using Google Earth today to get to Trenton. Even with Google Earth you need the right address. There's a difference between Stockton Street and South Stockton Street. "Nothing here looks familiar." Sounds a lot like New Jersey in general, huh?

Not a NJ resident, but spends most of his time here because of his work for Verizon.

In NJ, Verizon can't charge a late bill fee to nonpayers. Says something about state's mindset. Also strange to people from outside the state that you can't pump your own gas in NJ. It says there are forces here that prevent pepole from doing "normal" things.

New Jersey has a great comms infrastructure. Fiber to the home $1 billion/year means state will be most wired in the country.

Reputation of state worse than biz climate. State's government viewed as corrupt. Businesses want to invest in places with stability and where the processes work right. Doesn't think NJ deserves the bad reputation. State gets a bit of a [bad] rap. Business climate is viewed badly, partly because of momentum in attracting high wage jobs. Decline in the # of high wage jobs in the state. Need to find ways to break out of that.

Leadership is a key issue.Good leadership will cause people to take a "second look."

Exchange among the panelists:

Jay Biggins, Biggins Lacy Shapiro

Kish asks Biggins, small state, small business is important but we are very respectful of the big companies like Verizon that have regional or corporate HQs here. Do we want those companies to stay?

Biggins notes involvement of his location economics firm in harbor development in New York.

On NJ, he says that one of our most important industrial assets is R&D, knowledgeware. Losing that, major pharma companies, some have said publicly won't invest further in NJ. Won't move, but migration "by attrition." We have a tax base and legislature, even as we cooperate as a region, have healthy competition. PA is very effective in pharma industry, peeling off large opportunities but also small entrepreneurial companies. NJ doing reasonably well with startups, but regionally losing more than we are gaining.

Tampa FL has a "Wall Street South" - lots of financial svcs jobs sailed right over NJ and PA, in labor surplus markets where the regulatory environment was hospitable and costs low.

NJ regulatory environment "unpredictable or worse." Captured by interest groups where we are not achieving balance, even with aggressive advocacy on all sides. NJ needs to do a lot in fact and in perception to "break out of the morass," both the facts and the perception that it is a difficult place to do business.


Leadership New Jersey: Program chair Michael Willmann and the studio audience listen to Panel 3 discuss the national and international view, at the Forum on the Future of New Jersey, 10/24/07, Trenton NJ.

Tom Morr, Select Greater Philadelphia

Mentions famous sign on Trenton-Morrisville bridge, "Trenton Makes, The World Takes." -Things do not stand still, every place is a work in progress. Philadelphia/NJ region has remade itself. Fewer manufacturing jobs in region than national avg. Service based, knowledge driven economy. Most of the world doesn't know that. Perception of declining rust belt area with low income populations and unemployment.

Need to help create the parade for the leaders to lead. We're the stewards, need to help the leaders make the decisions they need to be able to make. We need to be "very afraid" of where we are going to be 20-25 years from now.

Nick Montalto, Diversity Dynamics
Nicholas Montalto says: Global marketplace. The talent-attracting "nodes" will be most successful in the global economy.

Not all environmental regs are good, properly applied, or properly sized, says Biggins. Have a guerilla campaign going on that is "almost beyond civility" in some cases. Need to achieve balance between economic development and quality of life, but lookat the extent to which economic development will vote with its feet because it is being restrained.

Morr: You avoid those places that make business difficult. If regulations are tough on both local and nonlocal companies, that's OK, but it's the consistency thing. Need to have higher expectations of elected officials and create mechanisms that bring resolution and harmony. Electronic voting in Congress makes it impossible for members to duck issues that may be good for economy or harmful to their constituents.

Nick Montalto: If we are to attract best and brightest, pepole look for opportunities to enjoy leisure activities, so a strong environmental sensitivity is important. Also important strong arts and culture infrastructure, and vibrant ethnic communities. Ethnic diversity is one of our great strengths, are we tapping into it?

Leadership New Jersey, Panel 2: The Regional View (from 500 ft)

Panel 2: The Regional View (from 500 ft.)
Regional agencies offering their strategies for attracting business and the investments needed to ensure the state's competitiveness.
Moderated by Jack Lettiere of Nation's Port



Leadership NJ Panel 2: Regional View. From left: Susan Bass Levin of Port Authority of New York & New Jersey; Joe Montemarano of SMART; Carl Goldberg of NJ Sports & Exposition Authority; Tom Carver, Casino Reinvestment & Redevelopment Authority; Bob Gross, Delaware River Port Authority; Moderator Jack Letierre, Nation's Port

Panelists Comments

Tom Carver, NJ Casino Reinvestment and Redevelopment Authority;

Assets we have are "blatant." Problems we have challenges are to use them intelligently. We "bifurcate" our thinking into North and South Jersey. Example, "that little gritty port in Camden." great desire to get rid of it to build nice waterfront properties, but without planning to replace it.

Major growth will be in the southern part of the state. Trying to coordinate through CRDA all of the state agencies involved in land use and transportation infrastructure. Gov. office has bought in and everyone is on board.

Doing the research to put in new master control for traffic system in Atlantic City. Dynamic signage and traffic control. Also talking about extension of Patco High Speed Line.

Talking to DEP about land use.

Bombarded every day by politicians promising not to raise taxes. Thinks they don't understand the problems.

Tom singles out Steve Adubato who is running a North Ward center in Newark and is "saving kids" by getting them out of the Newark school system.




Bob Gross, Delaware River Port Authority

Need to compete not among ourselves, but with other states. Camden port - can accommodate retail, entertainment and port activity if we work smarter.


Carl Goldberg, New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority;

Now have $1.3 billion stadium "finest football facility in the US" built by JV of Jets and Giants. Will have mass transportation link, rail connection to sports complex, Feb 2009. Bring people from Bergen, Morris, Monmouth, Hudson Counties, and NYC to Meadowlands for sports events.

Jobs, tax revenue being created by construction, but also hope that sports complex will help that region of NJ become a tourism destination. Thinks tourism will help drive NJ economy, ranked second now bringing people to the shore, wants to bring them to Meadows.

Surprising that one of most important "eco tourist" destination is the 6,000 acres of the Hackensack River estuary area where people are coming to visit.

Housing costs are a problem, very expensive to live here. Have to look at overrregulation, how to incent the development community to build houses, office, and retail in areas of the state where that is desirable.

Susan Bass Levin (Wikipedia), Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Website is www.panynj.gov, but as of 11:26AM it was coming up as not reachable.

Former mayor of Cherry Hill, getting things done, because it's a bistate agency, take longer because of the strategic view, longer tail solutions for problems. NJ a very small crowded state with the perfect location. Road and transit, bridges, tunnels, all far beyond capacity. But election to election, local government will not solve those problems. That's why a bi-state agency is important.

Building ARC "Access to the Region's Core", new tunnel for trains to NY. Cost $7.6 billion, but will take cars off the road.

72 percent of new households in the region will be west of the Hudson, that's NJ. People from here want the jobs that will be created in NYC. Tunnel also creates construction jobs and economic development in the towns served. Not a short-term project.

Joe Montemarano, SMART (Strengthening the MidAtlantic Region for Tomorrow).

We are not prepared to compete against other parts of the country. Need to get better coordiantion. Need to work together to identify common areas and market that to other parts of the country and the world.

The game has changed. What we have begun to develop is entrepreneurial spirit in NJ that wasn't present even in the early 80s. The sectors, pharma, biotech, IT, military, there are ups and downs in the sectors. Fortunately not all "in the toilet" at the same time.

Silicon Valley successful because if things don't work out at one company, you go across the street to another, you don't have to move.

Question Period

Susan Bass Levin - Public transit (in response to audience question) needs to be reliable, fast and cheap. Basic question is these things aren't cheap, talking billions of $ and multiyear commitments. Question of where do you put trains. In Cherry Hill looking at expanding train service, had a "raucous" meeting where everyone objected to the noise and train traffic that expansion would bring.

PATH system is looking at increasing capacity. Right now at peak capacity. Need to be looking at long-term solutiopns. At PATH, top to bottom modernization program, will help Newark and Harrison increase economic development potential.

Bob Gross - PATCO looking at expanding west in Philadelphia and east into NJ. Multibillion-dollar projects, difficult, one thing they are doing is a transit-oriented development component, to fold smart technology into stations that make them more than just a railroad stop.

No TV allowed in Yum Brands Headquarters, or maybe Louisville doesn't get cable?

I watched with morbid fascination on Friday as a short piece of citizen video, backed up by local news cameras from WNBC-TV, Channel 4 in New York, spent the better part of Friday in front of a Greenwich Village Taco Bell restaurant where rodents were running wild on the restaurant floor. This story ran virtually nonstop all day long on CNBC, one of the most influential media outlets for investors making decisions about which companies they should be placing bets on in the markets. It quickly blasted around the world on other news services, like FoxNews and the Associated Press.

Where was Taco Bell's owner, Yum Brands?

Issuing a single sentence tersely worded statement from its headquarters a thousand miles from the crisis in Louisville, KY.

Making it worse, whoever cobbled together this customer-unfriendly statement decided to use their standard press release template, so right after they insist that the rodent infestation is disgusting and unacceptable, they go into a mindless, completely-disconnected-from-reality solliloquy about what a wonderful company Yum Brands is and what a great place it is for women and minorities to work.

Memo to Yum: Hey, guys, even the airlines know enough to stop advertising when a plane crashes. If you were going to issue a statement, even one as bad as the one you issued, at least have the good sense to leave off the chest-puffing boilerplate. It just looks stupid saying how wonderful your company is right after you apologize (grudgingly) for having rats in the kitchen.

I'm sure lots of women and people of color are just breaking down the doors to go to work for a company that doesn't even have someone trained to meet the media in a crisis PR situation like this. I'm sure they want to be on the front lines facing customers fearful of food contamination from bacteria and rodents. Sounds like a great challenge.

By not having someone on camera responding to the story, Yum has allowed its one franchise owner (or store manager if the store is company-owned, and that would be unconscionable) to severely damage the brand in the public's mind.

Taco Bell is already reeling from the e.coli issues earlier in the year, and the complete and utter lack of comprehension from corporate headquarters of how to deal with the public on this issue suggests that they don't really care. That may not be true, but it is the impression left when NO ONE from the company appears on TV to discuss and try to defend.

Have they even sent an operating executive to New York to find out what happened? That should be the least of it, never mind they should be sending a media specialist to help with the reputation crisis.

They will have lots of meetings in Louisville to pore over sales figures, scratching their heads about the decline, but they don't seem to make the connection between reputation and sales.

Where were the PR counselors when Yum decided on this closed-door strategy for communications?

But even in this story, there is an ironically funny epilogue. There's a screen-scraper website called bestsyndication.com that clipped this news story from the wires. The website uses Google AdSense to post ads on its pages relevant to the topic being discussed. Guess what ads are posted next to the picture of Willard (above)?

Yep, ads for restaurants and fine dining in New York.

I'm pretty sure that these restaurants, if they had any idea Google was serving them up next to a story on e.coli and rats, would certainly ask Google to give them a doggie bag instead.