- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Lincoln Tech.

Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Working to create a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right.

New Jersey Children’s Foundation.

Giving all Newark students the opportunity to achieve.

PSE&G.

Powering progress.

Valley Bank.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

And by The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

Promotional support provided by NJBIA.

We put business at the center.

And by New Jersey Globe.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a new mini series, it is called Manufacturing Matters.

And a gentleman you see on camera knows that better than most.

He's Pete Connolly, CEO of New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program.

Pete, good to see you.

- Great to be seen again and great to be with you, Steve.

- You got it.

The website is up of the organization.

Remind folks what it is.

- So New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program.

We are a training and consulting firm for New Jersey smaller media manufacturers, and our objective is one, make 'em more profitable, and two more, most importantly, to stay in New Jersey.

And the Manufacturing Extension Program is a nationwide program, and there's one of me in every state to help small, medium manufacturers.

- Talk to us right now, Pete, about where we are in the manufacturing sector in New Jersey.

Where are we?

Where do we need to be, please?

- So we're holding our own with manufacturers, and again, there's probably 10,000 small medium manufacturers in New Jersey and we deal with a lot of 'em over the course of years.

Companies wanna stay here.

There's a lot of benefits for working in New Jersey and owning a company in New Jersey.

We have a skilled workforce, we have great schools, transportation is great, especially up in North Jersey, but there are issues.

We are not the best manufacturing-friendly, business-friendly state.

Our corporate business tax is higher than our states that are around us.

Our corporate transit fee affects a lot of different companies.

So there are issues, but on the whole, most companies wanna stay here and are trying to grow here.

- So you're talking about state policies, Pete, but on the federal level, tariffs.

- Tariffs- - Talk about tariffs and we're taping this program in the middle of July.

We don't know what's gonna happen a week, two weeks from now as it relates to tariffs.

But what does that mean?

The uncertainty vis-a-vis tariffs for the manufacturing sector and those in it, please, Pete.

- Right, you just hit the one word which is uncertainty and companies, they can't judge, and it changes day to day.

And so hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we'll have a resolution on tariffs.

And let's be honest, tariffs are a tax, and it does filter down to the consumer when we're doing this.

When we talked to companies now, a number of years ago, it was always just in time for supply chain.

Now it's just in case.

So people are buying as much equipment and products that they can and bring it in before the tariffs take effect.

- Along these lines, the other, I don't know if it's uncertainty, but it is disruption and it has impact.

Artificial intelligence in the manufacturing sector.

Go ahead, Pete.

- So I think we may have had a conversation before.

AI scares me in certain aspects, but in the manufacturer role, it's actually playing a very, very important role.

And it's grown over the last six, seven months.

We started using it for machine learning, working with companies to feed data out over their machines of when to have preventive maintenance.

What we're doing now is also using AI.

We go into a company and we actually take pictures of their manufacturing floor, their manufacturing processes, and feed that into AI.

And it comes back with a fairly detailed report of you have great OSHA requirements, you need more lighting, you need more ambient light, you need more power.

And AI does that, where we never saw it before.

We would spend hours with companies.

Now we go in, take a couple pictures, fill it into AI and it comes back.

I think you're starting to see that that may put me outta business 'cause companies can do that themselves instead of using, they can take pictures by themselves and feed it into AI, but it is growing leaps and bounds every month, of what AI means in manufacturing.

Speech writing, writing proposals.

It's just growing exponentially.

- But Pete, along those lines, again, there are all these different things going on, developments, trends, but we're doing a lot of programming around energy costs.

Talk about the connection between the increase in energy costs and the manufacturing sector needing to produce what they produce, get it to the market, and sell it at a price that is affordable.

- It's not affordable at the moment, and companies are having problems with that.

It's gone up 25% electric bills, and that then filters down to the consumer also.

What we're also finding is that cities can't get power to new manufacturing facilities.

So as companies try to grow their manufacturing, or build another warehouse or another manufacturing facility, some of the cities, they're grid and they do not have enough energy.

We've dealt with a couple of companies that can only work on the first floor 'cause they don't have enough energy to get to the second floor.

This is a big issue, and we're years away from solving it.

We did, whether we like it or not, we did shut down some of our coal-producing plants.

We're trying to bring nuclear back up.

Who bought Three Mile Island?

I think it was either Google or Amazon for their data centers.

- Right.

- New Jersey used to be a net producer of energy, now we're a net negative producer.

We're actually importing more- - We're buying it.

- We're buying it, and we never used to buy, we used to sell.

So some of those policies.

Wind is not the answer.

All of the energy needs to work together, whether it's wind, solar, coal, nuclear, we need a bit of everything to work.

- And put the website up again, team, there's a manufacturing day on October 3rd that Pete and his team are putting together, and the candidates, there are two major party candidates for governor and as I've said before, we're gonna do in-depth interviews with both Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate, Congresswoman Sherrill, Former State Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli.

Both of them will be there on that date.

Is that fair?

Now, it's not a debate, Pete, but it is a discussion about the candidates, their policies and manufacturing, correct?

- It's really on business and manufacturing in New Jersey.

And so they'll each get a chance to speak separately.

One is in the morning, one's in the afternoon, and then Dr.

Ben Dworkin of Rowan, RIPPAC will be the moderator for that.

We're gonna have our website have attendees be able to ask questions in advance.

They will not take questions.

We're just gonna have Ben do the questions.

- But there is an opportunity for whomever becomes governor in January of 2026 to make a real statement about not just what they say about the manufacturing sector, but their policies to support the manufacturing sector.

Is that a fair assessment, Pete?

- That is a fair assessment, and I've met with both of them individually a number of times.

They are both saying the right things right now about manufacturing business having a seat at the table in both their administrations and all that.

It's the manufacturing and business is the generator of how New Jersey will go.

- Pete Connolly is the CEO of New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program.

Part of our series Manufacturing Matters, we'll be talking to business owners in the manufacturing sector, people who are living it every day that Pete knows very well to tell more of this story.

Thank you, Pete.

- Thank you, and we look forward to the partnership between us.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, that's Pete Connolly.

We'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We have him back to talk about heart health, he is Dr.

Ramin Hastings, Interventional Cardiologist at Englewood Health.

Good to see you, Dr.

Hastings.

- Yeah, good to be back, thanks, Steve.

- You got it.

Hey, listen, hopefully, there's some good news about heart health, if you will.

The CDC just found that heart attack deaths have dropped significantly in the last several years, and coming from a family with heart issues, talk to us about that.

First of all, how much have they dropped?

Second of all, why?

- Yeah, so we've definitely seen a reduction in the sudden death in people die of heart attacks, and I think a lot of that has to do with prevention and our real focus on preventative care for our cardiac patients.

Number one, the advent of medications to help control cholesterol and blood pressure have significantly reduced the burden of coronary disease, which is blockages of the arteries of the heart, and has made the reduction in death from heart attacks possible, let's say.

And I think the second thing is, is the innovation in the field of cardiology in terms of how we treat our patients that come in with heart attacks has grown tremendously over the last 20 to 30 years.

So how patients are now taken care of when they have a heart attack has evolved from, you know, just putting them in a hospital and watching them, and, you know, a little bit of medical therapy, to now, we have a whole host of different treatments that are available for our patients when they have events, and that has also reduced the mortality from these heart attack events.

- Let me ask you this, it's anecdotal, but it's very real.

My grandfather, whom I never knew, my dad's father, passed at 44, my father's younger brother, Mike, passed at a very young age as well, sudden heart attacks.

Both of them smoked, okay?

And, you know, it's anecdotal, but it's not irrelevant, what is the correlation, the connection, scientifically and from your experience, Dr.

Hastings, between smoking and heart disease?

- Well, there's a direct correlation.

I mean, you know, I like to tell my patients that, especially if they have other risk factors.

So it sounds like you have some family history of heart disease, if you put smoking into that equation, it's like a little smoldering fire that you're pouring kerosene on.

And that's kind of analogy I like to use when we talk about smoking.

So there's certainly a direct correlation between the two.

I think it just augments your other risk factors.

Now, if you have a genetic profile where you'll never develop plaque and you smoke, you may not suffer heart attack, you know, throughout your lifetime.

But if you have other risk factors that preclude you to potentially developing plaque, smoking just puts that on like hyperdrive.

And so, you know, I think it's really important for everyone not to smoke, obviously, 'cause we think it's better, but specifically those that have other risk factors.

- Yeah.

Dr.

Hastings joined us several years ago.

If you wanna see the previous interview, check it out, our website, SteveAdubato.org, is up right now.

And let me also disclose, Englewood Health is an underwriter of our healthcare programming.

Dr.

Hastings, let me ask you this.

When we had you on last time, it was too soon to talk about long COVID, because COVID wasn't long at that point, it was early on.

What do we see, and what do we understand, about the correlation, the connection between long COVID and heart disease?

- Yeah, I think we're still learning, to be honest.

I don't think we've seen as much cardiac long-term effects from COVID.

I think most of the long-term effects from COVID are more on the lungs.

You know, I think a lot of the issue with COVID initially with heart problems was acute heart attacks and acute heart failure with patients that had COVID.

You know, we're not seeing a lot of the long-term, but I think one of the problems with that is that when you look at something like this, it's really population based.

And so I think that data is still being accrued to see if there is some increase.

But there's part of me that worries that like so many people died from the disease that, you know, we may not see much in terms of the long-term effects of COVID.

So, to be honest with you, in the hospital, in our outpatient practice, we don't think we're seeing a lot of kind of long-term effects of the COVID.

I think most of the long-term effects from COVID seem to be more in the lungs.

- Okay, let's talk about impact of decisions that are made from a public policy point of view.

Right now, the federal government, recently, this is the middle of July, will be seen later, very significant legislation was passed with fiscal implications in a whole range of areas including Medicaid, cuts to Medicaid.

Explain from your perspective as a clinician, not a politician voting in Washington or Trenton, (coughs) what is the connection in your view, Dr.

Hastings, between these Medicaid cuts, and the people that you attempt to help as it relates to their heart health?

- Yeah.

- What's the connection?

- Yeah, I mean, so anything that causes patients to lose their medical insurance, as a practicing physician, is really concerning, because when people do not have health insurance, they don't get their routine care, they're not doing preventative medicine.

And so, what ends up happening is that they get sick and show up at a hospital much further along on their disease process where, you know, treatments are not as good and are frankly a lot more expensive than what they would be if we had treated this in a more preventative, you know, stage.

So, as a clinician, any kind of effect that government does that reduces the number of people that have access to health insurance is obviously extremely concerning to us.

- Doctor, final question, are more and more Americans living with, quote, "chronic health," chronic heart issues, heart disease?

- Absolutely.

I think with a lot of these advances that we've made in the prevention of, you know, heart disease, it's kinda shifted kind of the patients that we're seeing now.

You know, people are living a lot longer, and so, instead of seeing the 50-year-old that has a massive heart attack and just dies, those patients are surviving, and now we have to manage those patients long-term.

So we have to deal with a lot more chronic heart disease as we move forward.

And a lot of the innovation that's going on in the field of cardiology is really dealing with that exact problem, is how do we manage long-term cardiac patients that their disease becomes a little bit more complex.

And so, I think that's where the future really is of cardiology.

- Hmm.

Dr.

Ramin Hastings, Interventional Cardiologist at Englewood Health.

Doctor, thank you for joining us, and we're smarter about heart health because of it.

Thank you, Doctor.

- Thank you, sir, appreciate it.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're joined once again by Brandon McKoy, who's president of The Fund for New Jersey.

Brandon, good to see you again.

- Thanks for having me, Steve, good to be with you.

- You got it.

The website for The Fund is up right now.

Tell folks exactly what The Fund is and what you're dedicated to supporting in the state.

- Thank you, yeah, The Fund for New Jersey is a philanthropic foundation that's really focused on improving the quality of policy decision making that happens, both in the state and in the region.

And really, trying to do our best to support organizations and individuals that are trying to accomplish that goal and bring people together to have conversations about what exactly are the challenges in their lives and what's gonna ensure that the state is a better place for the people who live here and the people who wanna live here.

- Along those lines, we've had offline conversations, and I've shared with you that we are doing in-depth, producing in-depth interviews with both candidates for governor, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, former state legislator, Jack Ciattarelli.

The top two or three policy issues that you believe the new governor, whomever that is, Brandon, will face in January of 2026 as it relates to The Fund for New Jersey's priorities.

What are those two or three top issues and why?

- Well, I think, you know, housing affordability is always gonna be one, no matter what, because, you know, we're a state that, you know, relative to the rest of the country, is, you know, modestly wealthy.

But the cost of a house is very expensive, the cost of renting is very expensive.

And we have a lot of people, we're a small state, but we got over 9 million, almost 10 million people.

So building more affordable housing is crucial.

Obviously, the cost of education.

And when I say education, I actually include, you know, childcare in that, 'cause you know, we're starting, you know, the first days of a new life.

And so, all the way through college and making sure that, you know, Rutgers remains an affordable option and a high-quality option, that's vital.

And then, transportation, you know?

I mean, for a state, that is where we are, our location.

Making it easier for folks to get around, get to work, get to New York, get to Philly, and do so in an affordable fashion is crucial.

And that is just vital for our economy.

And so, these are our sort of challenges that have been around for a while.

They change, you know, as we advance, you know, through the years.

And depending on what's happening at the federal level and as we see cuts in federal funding, that's gonna create more challenges here at home.

- Yeah, let's talk about federal policies, because it's interesting.

While The Fund for New Jersey is based in New Jersey, we are a New Jersey-based independent media organization affiliated with public broadcasting.

What happens in Washington impacts our lives.

And so, let me be more specific.

The issue of immigration, quote, mass deportation policies coming out of Washington, the Trump administration, and the people in New Jersey, particularly, those who are most vulnerable in the immigrant community.

- I mean, New Jersey's a state where one out of four residents is foreign born, right?

And I mean, that's super high.

Only New York and California, I believe, would be higher.

So this is vital, not just for our communities, but our economy, who's able to be here, who's able to, you know, work here, who's able to, you know, create a family and grow here.

And I think when you have a scenario where it's not clear exactly on who is, quote unquote, allowed to be here now, that creates chaos and instability.

And that's gonna be very, very bad for communities, all the way from High Point down to Cape May, right?

And so, for a state that has as much immigration and that has benefited as much from immigration as we have, and for a state that I like to remind New York, you know, the Statue of Liberty is actually in New Jersey waters, thank you very much, right?

- It is.

- Immigration is a vital topic and a vital issue for us all, and we need to make sure that we're doing our best to ensure that, you know, our immigrants who are neighbors and our community members and our family members are able to be here and thrive.

- You know, Brandon, along those lines, you talk about the population and one out of four New Jerseyans have an immigrant background, if you will, including my family a couple of generations back from Italy.

But along those lines, the population of New Jersey in and of itself, counting the population in the state of New Jersey is important.

More specifically, the state census, the census counting people in the state.

Explain to folks why that's not simply a question of math.

- Even if it was math, I might still enjoy it.

- Exactly.

- You know, the census is vital, because it actually tells us who is where, from the standpoint of, "Hey, what communities have what challenges?

What is the poverty rate in this community?

What is the employment rate of this community?"

And that is vital for deciding where resources go, right?

And it's not just about state resources, it's about federal resources.

In New Jersey, we rank last, consistently, on how much money we send to the federal government and how much we get back.

That can be improved if we have a complete and accurate census count that really helps us understand where everybody is and what their needs are.

And, you know, having a complete and accurate census count really requires a gargantuan effort, it requires the state getting involved, and, you know, funding a lot of that work.

And people sort of say, "Oh, 2030 census, that's five years away."

We have to start now, we have to start sort of getting ready for that, updating addresses, you know, helping people have the funding necessary to have the census workers go out and do what they do.

And I'll add on top of that, this is more vital than ever, because right now, as we've seen across lots of federal government, you know, the Census Bureau itself is also receiving cuts.

- That's right.

- And so, if the Census Bureau is not gonna be able to provide the support that they did in the 2020 census to states, then we have that much more to do.

But having a a full and accurate census count is really important, because last time we thought we were gonna lose a congressional seat in New Jersey, not only are we not losing the congressional seat, we actually added 500,000 in population going against, and everyone was saying, "Oh, everyone's leaving New Jersey."

No, we had a half a million people, and I bet we'll another half a million if we have a complete and accurate census count in 2030.

- Let me do this.

Again, we've also had offline conversations about media, the role of media, the role of local independent media.

And we have a series that we were doing for several years called "Democracy and Danger," graphic comes up.

But then, there's a sister mini series called "Media Leadership."

What does media leadership look like to you?

Meaning, what is our, if we're really to be leaders in the world of local independent media, what should we be doing, particularly, in dealing with so many complex public policy issues, Brandon?

- Yeah, I think it's really, you know, especially a state like New Jersey, you know, I don't have to tell you, you know, North Jersey.

So much of the media focuses around New York, South Jersey, so much of that focuses is on Philadelphia.

That can be frustrating to be a resident in the state and have most of the topics and the stories you hear not even be about your state, right?

And so, as much as possible, focusing on the communities of this state, providing a platform for community leaders and those who are really putting in the work to talk about what they see and what they know are the needs of their communities.

And I think being willing to highlight, not just what's going wrong, but what's going right.

And, you know, a lot of folks who are frustrated with things in New Jersey, there was a poll, I believe the Eagleton Poll showed that almost half of the residents think that we're, you know, on the wrong track.

But there's also a lot of things that are going right.

And if we only focus on the wrong, we're gonna lose what's going right.

And so, I think, you know, for media, especially in a state like this where there is such a difficult media market and media landscape, really doing as much as possible to focus on the communities that are here, on the leaders that are here, and figuring out, "Hey, what are the New Jersey issues?"

You know, we have this series this year called "Crossroads 2025," where we have events where people can come together.

- Hold on, Brandon, go back again.

"Crossroads 2025," let's put up the graphic again for The Fund, the website for people to find out more.

What is that?

I'm sorry for interrupting, Brandon.

What is that, please?

- Yeah, so every time that we have a gubernatorial election, The Fund for New Jersey sort of has this series of events to bring together community members and advocates and experts to talk about, "Hey, what are the issues that are really affecting you on a day-to-day basis?"

You know, we're at a crossroads, right?

The election is a big deal.

The governor of New Jersey is one of the most powerful governors in the country.

You know, they have all sorts of veto power, they actually name the attorney general, most other states, you know, vote - - Take out your red pen and take something out of the budget, right?

- Yep, you know, take things out of the budget.

In 43 states, voters directly pick the attorney general.

In New Jersey, the governor just picks the attorney general, right?

So the governor has a lot of power and a lot of influence, obviously.

And so, okay, if this person's gonna be coming in, what are the major issues that they need to be aware of?

Not just hearing from, you know, special interest and, you know, well-funded corporations, but from the people who live here.

so we would love for people to come out and be involved and engaged in this process, 'cause we're trying to make sure that we're capturing all the needs and the challenges that people are facing, so that this next governor really understands what's going on.

- This is Brandon McKoy, President of The Fund for New Jersey.

Brandon, thank you so much for joining us, we appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato, we thank you for joining us.

Stay engaged, democracy is not a spectator sport.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Lincoln Tech.

Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

New Jersey Children’s Foundation.

PSE&G.

Valley Bank.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

And by The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

Promotional support provided by NJBIA.

And by New Jersey Globe.

- I'm Tim Sullivan, CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Since joining the NJEDA, I've been struck by the incredible assets and resources that New Jersey has to offer.

The NJEDA is working every day to grow New Jersey's economy in a way that maximizes the values of those assets to benefit every single New Jersey resident.

This includes more support for small businesses and a focus on reclaiming New Jersey's position as a leader in the innovation economy.

Visit njeda.com to learn more about how NJEDA is building a stronger and fairer New Jersey economy.