The Green Commission reconvened on Thursday, April 24th after a hiatus during the transition of administrations in city government. The commission hosted Deputy Mayor Nick Weber who spoke on the role of green development in for the city. Deputy Mayor Weber was followed by Department of  Public Works (DPW) Director David Sherman who outlined the goals of the DPW, including water conservation, energy conservation though fleet management and a study of city groups to see how the city can be made greener.  Tim Method then outlined the primary green steps the city plans to take in 2008, including:

1. Energy efficiency and conservation and the implementation of an energy conservation policy city-wide;

2. Purchasing by the city of eco-friendly products and implementing purchasing policies;

3. Traffic light conversion to LED;

4. Green building practices;

5. Decreasing fuel consumption (fleet management practices);

6. Reviewing public transportation options and strategies;

7. Internal city-wide recycling programs; and

8. Natural resource area focus - stormwater design manual and CSO long-term control plan.

The commission also heard updates from community and green commission members including the new Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce Green Business Initiative (6 companies, including Ice Miller LLP have met the criteria as a green business), the Indiana Sustainability Alliance (look for a new event hosted by a major manufacturer on its green practices), Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (planning on moving into its new headquarters in June) and Eli Lilly (discussing the green aspects of its Day of Service).

The commission agreed that its next steps would be to have the work groups convene to determine the top 1 - 3 priorities in each area so that the commission can establish the key implementation steps and recommend those to the mayor's office for consideration. The commission plans to meet in June to discuss the priorities. Interested parties can contact Tim Method at DPW to join the list serve to receive updates on the commission.

Indiana's General Assembly has passed House Bill 1280, Energy Efficient Buildings, which requires the environmental quality services council (EQSC) to study whether public entities should be required or encouraged to seek to achieve energy and environmental design ratings in the construction and renovation of buildings and structure and related issues. The General Assembly adjourned sine die March 14.  The Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate have seven days after sine die to sign all bills, after which they are sent to the Governor's office.  Once a bill reaches the Governor's office, the Governor has seven days to take action (sign, veto, or let the legislation become law without his signature). March 28 is the Governor's final deadline for signing bills. A technical corrections day, if needed, is set for April 15.  Both houses would convene at 1:30  p.m . The bill originally required a building constructed or designed under certain public works contracts entered into after December 31, 2008  to be designed with the goal of achieving the United States Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, the Green Globes Two Globes level or equivalent standard under an accredited program.  It contained provisions regarding state energy purchases and Energy Star rated equipment. It allowed the Indiana  Economic Development Corporation to adopt rules regarding priority for economic development projects that met or surpassed LEED criteria. The EQSC will likely consider these types of issues in determining whether public entities should be required or encouraged to seek to achieve energy and environmental design ratings.

Jim Rebber is the General Manager of Quality at Seymour Tubing, Inc.

The two things that I would like to discuss center around workforce improvement and global manufacturing as it relates to Indiana's competitiveness.  As was mentioned during the roundtable, Indiana is very willing to grant funds for employee training.  This question or thought that I have is, "How do we motivate the workforce in Indiana to take advantage of this opportunity?"  Is it a question of an employee's belief that there is not a need for them to improve their knowledge and/or skill base in order to compete for jobs in the future?  Or, are there some other factors holding many people back from taking advantage of these programs?  Maybe the question should be, "What is the level of involvement of people taking advantage of state provided training opportunities?"  The next question should be, "How do we increase this involvement?"

Second thought: Global competitiveness.  I thought about this on the way home.  I enjoyed hearing the gentleman from Taiwan talk about the fact that manufacturing jobs were leaving Taiwan and going to South Asia.  They have some of the same fears that we have here in the U.S.  The loss of middle-class jobs and, therefore, the weakening of the middle-class in terms of numbers is a real concern for them.  It was reported that they were going to look to the U.S. for answers – namely creating the service type industry base.  Truly it is a small world.  If we believe that it is important to keep a sound industrial base here in Indiana, then we are going to simply have to work smarter than the rest of the world in finding ways to compete in this global economy.  Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss issues that face Indiana.

Vincent Liu is the Senior Vice President of Telamon Corporation.

It is well recognized, in general, that the U.S. economy is moving from manufacturing to service.  The type of manufacturing jobs that will remain in the U.S. for the future, will be those in association with high-tech and knowledge-based skill sets.  Therefore, the future workforce has to be well educated in order to be globally competitive.

However, we also believe that the globalization will lead Asian companies to move their operations to the U.S.  We have seen European and Japanese manufacturing companies establishing factories in the mid-western states in recent years.  The other Asian companies from Taiwan and China will follow in the next ten years.  In order for Indiana to be a preferred state to host those companies, the Indiana business community should do more to build a reputation in Asia through more communications and learn more Asian culture/language through local events (i.e. those hosted by Ice Miller).

Like other Asian companies in Indiana, Telamon will always be willing to share its experience with local companies that have an interest in building business relationships in Asia or in the U.S.

Dr. Homer L. Pearce's remarks during Ice Miller's recent life science distinguished speaker's series highlight the importance of sufficient research funding for success in the war on cancer.  Research and development costs associated with identifying pharmaceutical solutions are particularly daunting and, given the time to market and current patent protection periods, sometimes commercially unjustifiable.

As a result of the targeted efforts of many, including the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and BioCrossroads, among others, Indiana's unique contribution to the national life science sector is becoming increasingly recognized - not only in terms of its many research institutions, major pharma companies and contract service providers, but also with respect to availability of funding.  In 2006, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Indiana ranked 21^st in the nation for venture capital investments in the life science sector.

According to the S&P-2006, Purdue and Indiana University currently have $200 million in academic life science funding commitments and graduate 10,000 science and engineering students each year.  Both institutions are developing innovative diagnostic equipment and pharmaceutical protocols that, with appropriate funding, can bring life saving treatments to market.  The financial needs of Indiana's innovators have not gone unnoticed by public and private financial sources that are positioned to fund such developments. 

In 2008, we should expect to see further growth in Indiana's life science community as our state's leading research scientists build on the efforts of past scientific contributors to develop cutting-edge technologies and as funding sources become increasingly available both locally and nationally.  

The Indiana delegation's first full day in Mexico built the base of knowledge for all of us to establish strong contacts and relationships and identify potential business opportunities.  We began the morning with a comprehensive briefing by the U.S. embassy political, economic, commercial and agricultural counselors about key trends and challenges in Mexico. I think we all filled our notepads with valuable facts and insights. Some of these included:

• NAFTA clearly has benefited the Mexican economy - now the 10^th largest in the world.  Mexican GDP is approximately $840 billion or $8,000 per capita, but in the southern part of the country poverty is a severe problem.   The new president has recognized that continued economic, labor and education reform will be needed to sustain economic growth.  If implemented, he might succeed in reaching his administration's new goal of becoming the world's 5^th largest economy by 2040.
• Between 2002 and 2006, Indiana's trade with Mexico was up 25% to nearly $2.4 billion in 2006.  In the first three quarters of 2007 there was a 10% increase over the previous year.  It makes sense for us to do business in Mexico…why?  NAFTA, our geographic proximity, a shared Western culture, the solid manufacturing base, political and even macroeconomic stability.
• The United States had record exports of agricultural products to Mexico in 2006 and 2007.  This is expected to continue to increase especially since all the quotas and tariffs associated with NAFTA were lifted as of January 1, 2008.  And, despite a 300% increase in Mexican exports to our country since NAFTA, Mexico's traditional farmers remain disgruntled and are even protesting over perceived uneven success from the agreement and the country's loss of food sovereignty. 

Immediately following the briefing, we participated in a biotechnology roundtable discussion.  A representative from the National Biosafety Committee for Agriculture provided an overview of this issue in Mexico.  There is much debate over the adoption of biotech corn varieties between the government and the agriculture sector - not consumers surprisingly. Corn originated in Mexico and there is an almost religious fervor associated with that heritage and concern that cross-pollination could occur with biotech varieties being introduced. Biotech varieties of cotton and soybeans are commercially produced here but the agriculture sector is slow to adopt this new innovation just as they have been slow to adopt even the most basic of corn hybrids that were introduced over 50 years ago in the United States to increase yields. Don Villwock of Indiana Farm Bureau and Ted McKinney of Dow AgroSciences described a very different adoption story from Indiana and strongly encouraged Mexican government officials to approve more corn varieties because of economic benefits to farmers and investments in rural Mexico.

The delegation broke into groups for the remainder of the afternoon.  One group with grain and biotech interests visited with leadership of national farm associations and also toured a medium-sized feed mill that processed feed for the domestic hog industry.  Another group toured a small but modern pork processing plant which brought already slaughtered pork products from the United States to Mexico for final processing and distribution.  They also visited a traditional "wet" market and several retailers that sell and promote U.S. pork, including Costco. 

Lt. Governor Skillman, who had earlier met with U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, had a full afternoon witnessing the signing of an MOU for exchange and offer support between Ball State's School of Architecture and that of La Salle University in Mexico City.  She also had an opportunity to discuss key agricultural issues with a high ranking Under Secretary from the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture.  In fact, word had already made it to the Under Secretary of the strong view expressed by the Lt. Governor and Indiana delegation at the biotech roundtable that the Mexican government approve more biotech corn varieties.

The Lt. Governor and the delegation hosted a Friends of Indiana reception for all of our new Mexican contacts and friends.  This gave all of us the opportunity to learn more about the individuals and businesses we had met earlier in the day.

We learned a tremendous amount about the Mexican market yesterday and have identified significant opportunities for Indiana in the pork industry, in distribution and logistics, and in advancing biotechnology.  We will take this knowledge with us to the state of Hidalgo today in the hope of building on already strong relationships there.