By Brice Wallace
While still working to craft bills related to business-recruitment incentives, public-private partnerships and other matters, the Utah Unified Economic Opportunity Commission recently endorsed an initiative to modernize the state’s manufacturing sector and a plan to get more public input about public policies related to Utah’s growth.
The commission was created this year to, among other things, develop solutions and policies to address the state’s challenges and identify solutions for economic, infrastructure and transportation growth.
At a meeting earlier this month, the commission voted to support the Utah Manufacturing Modernization and Reshoring Initiative, which has a goal of future-proofing Utah’s economy by boosting the use of technology and automation in manufacturing for tomorrow’s industries, according to Lance Soffe, director of targeted industries at the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah).
“This is not a jobs-creation program,” Soffe told the commission. COVID-19 exposed deficiencies in the national supply chain, making it difficult for consumers to find computers, cars, appliances and other common items to purchase. China, for example, creates a building block for antibiotics and the U.S. does not.
“If they decided to no longer send us that building block, we no longer have antibiotics,” Soffe said. “It’s not something we can just jump on tomorrow and start making this.”
“This is not a jobs-creation program,” echoed Dan Hemmert, Go Utah’s executive director. “If anything, this is a ‘help solve the workforce shortage problem with Utah manufacturing.’”
Ben Hart, Go Utah deputy director, said that for years, jobs left the U.S. as companies sought lower operations and labor costs.
“We’re not looking to bring those back. … What we’re talking about now is an entire disruption of global supply chains caused by a pandemic, and we’re in a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild industries here that will be the engine for Utah’s economy for the next two generations,” Hart said.
“So what we’re faced with is a very unique opportunity. … How do we bring those industries to Utah?”
Soffe said Go Utah has partnered with the Utah Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Initiative (UAMMI) to try to determine what is impeding progress in modern manufacturing and added that the commission’s manufacturing initiative is focused on increasing capacity without adding employees — a “doing more with less” philosophy.
Hart said Utah has lost potential projects because it lacked the tools to be competitive in luring them to the state.
“This gives us one more tool,” he said. “It’s not about bringing low-cost, low-operation jobs back to the United States. This is about building the industries that are really going to build our futures in the state of Utah.”
Another approach backed by the commission during the November meeting is to have more public input on addressing the state’s population growth. The concept assigns the Utah Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget (GOPB) to conduct “a data-driven statewide conversation about public policies that will support growth in ways that will preserve Utah’s quality of life,” according to Sophia DiCaro, executive director of GOPB.
“As you know,” she told the commission, “the state and various partners have been working on these issues over many years and the feedback that we’ve received from key stakeholders is that it’s now time to renew our efforts to ensure that the public is part of this conversation.”
DiCaro said the effort would “like to reach the hearts and minds of Utahns, capture the values that they feel may be threatened by growth, and evaluate ways that the state can maintain and even promote quality of life.”
The outreach also would be an opportunity to make the public aware of the work already being done by various agencies and organizations. DiCaro said she envisions a process that includes statewide community engagement, a strategic communication plan and a technical analysis to support decision-making related to growth.
Carlos Braceras, executive director of the Utah Department of Transportation, said he hopes that the process seeks first to understand local communities. “I think the way we start this type of engagement is a values discussion and wanting to better understand what the communities and individuals value before we jump in and say, ‘Hey, look at all the good stuff we’re doing,’” he said.
Hemmert said he hopes the program helps people understand “that everybody is part of this problem and solution, that no community is isolated and no area is standing alone and can make decisions, frankly, in isolation. It doesn’t work. We’re all interconnected. We’re all one Utah.”
The idea of having an economic opportunity commission came from new Gov. Spencer Cox, who hailed its work at the recent meeting. “I have lost track of the numbers of boards and commissions and committees that I’ve been a part of over the years, and I don’t know that I’ve seen as much accomplished in a short amount of time as what has happened here,” he said.
Hemmert, the commission’s vice chair, noted that the commission had existed only four months and that “we have moved just very substantive things through this body” as the executive and legislative branches of state government have advanced concepts toward the legislative process. The result, he said, will be “a few very meaningful bills” that overhaul economic opportunity activities in the state.
