Benefits of Restoring Great Lakes Eyed By Bay Area Community Foundation
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John Austin, senior policy fellow of the Brookings Institution, will speak here Aug. 21.
The Earth Voyager, 60-foot trimaran, symbolizes the renewal of the Great Lakes and will highlight a Bay City "think tank" presentation on renewal of the regional economy at the Doubletree on Aug. 21.
Come and see the amazing sailboat and envision the future of the Great Lakes region!
The Bay Area Community Foundation will host a breakfast Thursday, Aug. 21 at the Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center.
Outside will be the Great Lakes' fastest and most photogenic sailing vessel, the Earth Voyager, a 60-foot trimaran with a 100 foot high mast.
The Earth Voyager is on a "Healthy Lakes, Healthy Lives" Tour. The crew will unfurl a Great Lakes restoration banner at the Bay City stop.
Speaker at the breakfast will be John Austin, executive director, The New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan.
Austin will present the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution, entitled "Healthy Waters, Strong Economy: The Benefits of Restoring the Great Lakes Ecosystem."
Co-ordinators of the program are the Bay City Convention and Visitors Bureau, The Bay City Times, Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative Network, Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy and the Saginaw Bay Sailing Association.
Sponsors are The Dow Chemical Co., Consumers Energy and the Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative.
A breakfast buffet starts at 7:30 a.m., with program slated from 8-9 a.m.
Reservations for the breakfast may be made at the Bay Area Community Foundation, bacfnd@bayfoundation.org, or by calling 893-4438.
Mr. Austin, a senior fellow at Brookings, is the architect of a multi-state initiative to reshape an economic vision for the Great Lakes region.
His report states: "The Great Lakes economic region, comprised of the U.S. states bordering the Great Lakes, the upper Mississippi and Ohio watersheds, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, has a storied economic history."
Mr. Austin cites "The Broad Benefits of Restoring the Great Lakes," commenting:
"The waterways of the five Great Lakes -- along with the Ohio, Mississippi, and St. Lawrence river systems' first connected the rich natural bounty of North America's interior with the ocean and the rest of the world.
"Later, the conversion of abundant resources to processed agricultural and finished manufactured goods made the Great Lakes region an industrial colossus, and placed it at the center of U.S. and Canadian economic development.
"The area has served as the launching pad for new industries and innovations, birthing the oil, steel, auto, and aviation industries; leading the global "green" agricultural revolution; and boosting such recent technological "game-changers" as the Internet.
"Unique to this relationship has been a largely invisible boundary, historically the longest unguarded border between two nations. Understanding their economic interdependence, the region was a first mover to open markets -- from early reciprocity agreements to the U.S.-Canadian Auto Pact (1965), the U.S. Canadian Free Trade Agreement (1989), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (1994).
"The resulting interaction and free flows of people, capital, ideas, and goods across the border enabled the growth of great industries, gave rise to a strong blue-collar middle class, and created the largest bi-national economy on earth."
Mr. Austin, 43, is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution, as well as Vice-President of the Michigan State Board of Education. Mr. Austin is also Senior Fellow with the University of Michigan's National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good.
Mr. Austin has over 25 years experience in public policy leadership. He is a nationally recognized leader in economic development, education and community revitalization.
Mr. Austin currently is leading a Great Lakes Economic Initiative for the Brookings Institution, designed to improve the economic vitality of the Great Lakes states.
Recently, Mr. Austin served as Policy Director for Michigan's Governor-appointed Commission on Higher Education and Economic Growth and was principal author of the Commission's report.
He co-authored the influential report "Revitalizing Michigan Cities," with Michigan Future, Inc., and has spearheaded efforts of Michigan's new Department of Labor and Economic Development to reshape Michigan's economic, workforce and urban development agenda.
Austin advises city and state governments, federal agencies and officials, as well as national foundations, corporations and labor organizations on a wide variety of issues. Early in his career Mr. Austin served as President of the Flint Roundtable, a multi-sector CEO leadership organization in Genesee County focused on regional education reform, where he developed nationally recognized education programs.
In addition he was a member and ultimately chairman of the Genesee County Road Commission. Mr. Austin has served as a special assistant to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, and a senior adviser to the Massachusetts Secretary of Economic Affairs.
Austin is a published author on education, workforce development, urban and community revitalization, and public policy reform. He received his Masters in Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a Bachelors from Swarthmore College in Economics & Political Science, Phi Beta Kappa. Austin has also been acknowledged as an Education Policy Fellow by the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL).
Mr. Austin has been married 18 years to his wife Terese. They and their three school-age children reside in Ann Arbor.
Defining a Great Lakes Economic Agenda is a project of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.
The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, in partnership with a network of academic, public policy, business and civic organizations, has initiated a multi-year research and policy development initiative to improve the economic vitality of the Great Lakes region.
The region led the transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy, which afforded several generations of prosperity.
Today the Midwest faces significant challenges in remaking itself to thrive in a global, knowledge economy. Brookings will assess the economic and social challenges faced by the region, and working with a wide range of leaders in the political, corporate, civic, and academic sectors, develop a vision and action plan for how the region can leverage its assets to successfully pursue a high-road economic strategy.
The analysis will be widely disseminated to inform the region's business, political and opinion leadership, and public policies among the states within the region. In addition this analysis and recommendations will inform the debate leading up to the 2008 Presidential campaign, which will hinge on the swing states within the region, as well as the thinking and agendas of our current and future federal officials. ###
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