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(upbeat music playing) - Hello and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, September 23rd, and I'm Robin Minter Smyers, a partner at Thompson Hine and Immediate Past President of the City Club Board of Directors.

I'm very pleased to introduce today's forum, which is the Rajanee and Ashok Shendure Forum in partnership with G2G Consulting.

The announcement of a $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility in suburban Columbus sent a shockwave across the state and this region.

It's the largest single economic development investment in the state's history and it's poised to change the state's economy in lasting ways.

The construction project alone is creating thousands of jobs, as well as growth for firms who steel and other products will be used to build the plant.

Long term, this manufacturing presence in central Ohio can be a foundation for growth for companies both upstream and downstream in the supply chain.

Nationally, the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act that was signed by President Biden last month will provide billions of dollars in new funding to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the United States.

How can Ohio leverage this unique moment, these historic investments, and existing industrial and commercial assets to create as much economic growth as possible?

That's the kind of question we want to get answered today.

If you have a question for our panelists, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet your question @TheCityClub and City Club staff will try to work it into the second half of the program.

Our moderator today is the great Bill Koehler.

He is the Chief Executive Officer of Team Neo, the region's economic and business development partner.

He will lead a conversation that plots out this next phase of Ohio's economic growth with our panelists.

Joining us here on stage at the City Club is Dr. Marcia Ballinger, President of Lorain County Community College.

Michael Cantor, Managing Director and Principal at Allegro Realty.

And Matthew Joyce, Vice President of Corporate New Business Development at the Lubrizol Corporation.

We are also honored to be joined virtually by the 19th Deputy Secretary of Commerce of the United States of America, Don Graves.

We will start first with some brief remarks by Deputy Secretary Graves, and then move into our panel discussion.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming our esteemed guests and the honorable Don Graves.

- Well, thank you.

Thank you so much, Robin, for that wonderful introduction.

Good to see everyone.

Thank you, City Club and and the whole team, Dan and team, for hosting today's event.

I really wish that I could have been home there in Cleveland to join you in person.

Unfortunately, I'm getting ready to head out of the country to Romania.

So apologies that I can't be there in person.

But know that I take Cleveland with me wherever I go.

Now, throughout our history and especially since the end of World War II, we've recognized that the foundations of a prosperous, inclusive, and stable world economic order, and frankly, for the success of our economy, is our free and democratic societies that value the rule of law and foster inclusion, engage in fair and mutually beneficial trade, offer choice, affordability, and the availability of goods and services for consumers, ensure opportunities and protections for the middle class and those that are seeking to enter the middle class and enable and protect innovation and entrepreneurship with creative and inclusive capital markets.

And I think it's especially that last piece that we're focused on today.

But this reflects not only our highest ideals.

But when we've adhered to those principles, it's been the source of our economic competitiveness, our geo-strategic advantage, and our global leadership.

Yet when President Biden and this administration took office here at home, and this is certainly the case for Cleveland and northeast Ohio, we were grappling with decades of underinvestment in our infrastructure, our workers, our businesses, especially our small businesses and our communities of color.

Supply chain vulnerabilities we've seen, especially through the pandemic, and labor shortages have undermined our competitiveness.

It's exacerbated our in inequality.

It's threatened our long-term innovation and productivity.

And foreign competitors have continued to use unfair subsidies and dumping, harming all of our producers.

Our non-democratic adversaries and our competitors are aggressive in their efforts to control the supply chains that we rely on.

They expropriate our critical technologies.

They steal our intellectual property while exporting authoritarianism and conflict and undermining the rules-based international order.

So that is just the throat clearing.

In recent years, we haven't stood up in a meaningful way to our adversaries and engaged meaningfully with our allies.

That's allowed our adversaries to make significant ground.

But thanks to the leadership of the president and the bipartisan support on the hill, we've had a number of meaningful pieces of legislation, including the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and most recently, the Inflation Reduction Act that we have passed.

And we're making once in a generation investments that are building a much more inclusive economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out.

Not only are these investments crucial to our ability to compete globally in the decades to come, but they're also gonna be transformative for communities like Cleveland.

We're bringing affordable high speed internet to homes and businesses in the country.

We're rebuilding our infrastructure to make our transportation systems more efficient and reliable and investing in resiliency to combat the effects of climate change.

And thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, we're also lowering energy and healthcare costs for all Americans.

Thanks to the the CHIPS and Science Act, we're going to unleash the next generation of American innovation.

The CHIPS for America program will represent an historic investment in our domestic manufacturing industry, and it's absolutely critical for our economic and national security going forward.

We're already seeing the market reacting to that.

And Robin, as you mentioned, the $20 billion Intel semiconductor plant near Columbus is just one of those types of market reactions.

We expect that that alone will create at least 7,000 construction jobs, along with 3,000 well-paying, full-time, family-sustaining jobs, just at that facility alone.

But that investment we expect will grow significantly, perhaps to a hundred billion dollars or more.

And it'll spur economic development and regional growth, not just in Columbus, not just in that region, central Ohio, but all across Ohio for decades to come.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we released our implementation strategy for the $50 billion CHIPS Act funds that are directed to the Commerce Department.

And in that strategy, we identified four primary objectives.

But I want to focus on one particular objective here, and that's to grow a diverse semiconductor workforce and to build strong communities that can participate in the prosperity of the semiconductor industry.

That would include regional collaboration, coordination amongst communities and states.

Our goal isn't just to build more semiconductors, whether it's in Columbus or any other parts of the country.

But it's to also build the ecosystem that's necessary to sustain our lead in technological innovation and manufacturing, and to grow the type of economy that is, as I said earlier, inclusive, that is broadly based, that reaches every part of the state, and across the country.

And that's why we're also gonna make historic investments to strengthen America's research and innovation leadership.

$11 billion will go to several research and development programs, a significant portion of which will be used for the creation of a national semiconductor technology center.

With that funding, we're gonna make sure that the U.S. is never in a position where its national security interests are compromised, or key industries are immobilized due to our inability to produce essential semiconductors here at home.

We'll be able to jumpstart the high tech manufacturing that will drive economic growth for decades, and we're gonna invest in the kind of innovation that will power cities just like Cleveland into the 21st century economy.

So thank you again for having me here today, and I'm excited to get to work.

So with that, let me turn it over to Bill, my good friend.

- Deputy Secretary, it's great to see you again and hear your very thoughtful words.

Allow me to ask a follow up question or two, if you would.

While much of today is about semiconductor opportunity here, you broadened it to talk about technology adoption, and in many ways supply chain resiliency.

Are there other technologies that you think are very relevant here that we ought to be thinking about in the broader picture?

As you described, the national security and economic interests here.

- Thanks for that question, Bill.

I don't know that I'd want to single out any one, but there's so many technologies, so many industries in northeast Ohio that could be a part of this technological evolution, the transformation in our local economy and our national economy.

So we start obviously with the ecosystem around semiconductors.

That includes design, research, and development.

It includes equipment tool making.

It would include the logistics components of this work.

And you also broaden that, though, to a range of other industries including biotechnology, healthcare, and the like.

We are going to lead the world in the digital economy.

We're going to lead the world certainly in the provision of different types of healthcare.

So the key for us, I think, certainly in northeast Ohio, but around the country, is for us to work in a way that allows for regional economic development that doesn't have us put in a position where we're pitting one community against another community.

That's the the great thing that we do at times in northeast Ohio, maybe not as much as some would like.

And I think that the more that we can position our region and other regions in the country to work together, I think we'll be successful.

And I can't think of a more productive part of the country than the corridor that goes from Detroit through Toledo, over to Cleveland, to Youngstown and Pittsburgh, and then also down to Columbus and to southern parts of Ohio.

That is a region that I think has the potential to be the world's leader in advanced manufacturing and several other technologies.

But we have to do that in a cooperative, collaborative way.

We can't do this with one city or one community pitted against another.

- If I could ask one other question as a follow up.

You talked about R&D capabilities.

What we have learned through a lot of our work around semiconductors, it's not just about the the four year and the two year research capabilities.

It's about the technical manufacturing jobs which need to be developed.

We need to develop that workforce.

Dr. Ballinger's here from Lorain County Community College.

Could you provide a perspective on that part of the higher education spectrum?

- Well I think you are exactly right.

We need to make sure that, certainly in the Cleveland area, that we have the workforce for the jobs that are here and that are coming.

The CHIPS Act isn't just about the PhD caliber jobs, the types of jobs that you get after many years of university training.

You can also, as I mentioned, these are jobs that include construction related fields.

It includes technical jobs, where all you need is a certification.

It's a whole range of opportunities for folks throughout the community.

But it requires coordination between our universities, our community colleges, our technical training programs, certainly the labor programs that are in place, the apprenticeship types of programs.

All of these things need to be coordinated so that we're building that pipeline of talent.

And I think that's what the Intel-type programs that we've seen can do.

I know that they've been working with many of our state universities, but it needs to be coordinated with the city, with the state, and certainly with the leading organizations in northeast Ohio.

- Deputy Secretary Graves, thank you so much for investing your time with us, for your passion for our community.

I think we've used as much as our time as we bargained for.

And thank you so much for being a part of this.

- Thank you.

Take care everybody.

- Okay, so now we have the opportunity to pivot a bit and talk about some of the work we're doing here in northeast Ohio with the economic development community, the higher ed community, the business community, the real estate community to respond.

If there was, let's say, four things that I would ask you all to take away, I hope it comes out, and if not, maybe I'll remind you later on.

But this is a huge opportunity for us.

Even though Intel is not here, this is a huge opportunity in the supply chain for Northeast Ohio.

Number two, we do have the assets here to take advantage of this opportunity.

They're somewhat fragmented.

We gotta invest in them and so forth, but we have the assets here to do it.

It will require collective effort.

We have to position ourselves collectively to highlight those assets, to continue to invest, and to compete for the supply chain opportunities that are here.

And then, this is a long-term game.

We have an opportunity to reposition in many ways what has always been a highly resilient economy that is the envy of the world, honestly.

That's what we hear from people outside of northeast Ohio who are looking at opportunities here.

We can reposition it to be better, stronger, faster, sharper in the new economy.

So with that, I'm gonna ask you, Matt, to start us off, if you will.

How do you see this opportunity for Lubrizol and industry as a general matter through the work you do at Lubrizol, through the work you were doing with supply chain companies, and frankly with the economic development community, and the work that you've been part of?

- Sure.

Well, thanks for allowing me to be a part of the conversation.

Yeah.

From a Lubrizol perspective, Bill, and we've been really excited about this for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, anytime that you can get critical mass that allows for innovation, engineering, chemistry, science related activities.

That will allow for the tide to rise for all those within that water.

And that plays, you heard from the Deputy Secretary about the ecosystem.

We firmly believe that the knock on effect of this type of investment being in the greater Columbus area has far-reaching capabilities of coming up into the northeast area, northeast Ohio area.

And we have to take a part of that.

We have to be active in that activity.

It's going to allow for us to utilize all those tremendous academic institutions that I'm sure Marcia will talk about.

But also those resources we want to keep in Ohio after we educate them and attract those folks to come to Ohio as and when those jobs become available.

So you're right.

I have a teammate at our company now who we hired in from Microsoft, and he's based in Redmond.

And he was sharing with me.

He said, "Matt, the rule of thumb was for every one job that Microsoft created, seven new jobs followed alongside of it."

And that goes far and wide.

And that goes beyond the restaurateurs and the folks who will be supplying the food and so on and so forth.

This is far reaching.

So when Lubrizol looks at this now, we look at where can we attract great, great talent.

How do we do that?

Is when there's more critical mass associated with jobs related to technology, to innovation, to science, chemistry.

And we can attract those folks to come to areas like Cleveland, like the greater Cleveland area, Akron, and all of course throughout the entire northeast Ohio area.

- So, perfect pivot then to Marcia and your work with others in the higher ed community.

Why were you so excited originally and how is that building now that, share with the group the kind of work you're doing.

- Sure.

So we like to say at Lorain County Community College, we've been building for this moment for a decade and working in collaboration with our other higher education partners throughout northeast Ohio.

I think, to the Deputy Secretary's point, this is about coming together for the entire continuum.

And so we firmly believe that that ripple effect and that follow on which will happen inevitably in northeast Ohio.

We are already working with dozens and dozens of suppliers to Intel and have been doing that throughout northeast Ohio.

So we're at Lorain County Community College, just as an example.

We were selected by Intel as they announced at their groundbreaking a couple of weeks ago, that we are one of the collaborations.

So a consortium has been created in northeast Ohio that brings together our community colleges through our partner universities.

I see Case Western Reserve here.

We have a partnership with Case Western Reserve as a part of this.

We are looking at growing talent from K through 12 all the way through the PhD level.

And as the Deputy Secretary said, we are looking at technician level.

We know just in the Intel example, they have 70% of those jobs will require a two year associates degree.

But we also know that those industry recognized certifications are so critical and all the way through the research.

And then working with our corporate partners is critical.

We know that the curriculum that is needed for these types of jobs.

Not only does it impact semiconductors and chips, but we're looking at automation and robotics.

And part of the consortium that we have created is focused on educating the K through 12 educators, as well as those at our colleges.

And then creating learn and earn models because we want to ensure that our students are working in industry as a part of that.

One of the examples that I think is a tremendous example of looking at the future and reaching down into K-12, because we often hear about, "Well, how are we starting that pipeline early?"

Because we have to look at who is needed in the next few years.

But what are we aiming for in 2030 and beyond?

So reaching K-12 is a critical aspect of this.

One of our local school districts in Lorain county, Midview School District, just announced that through a grant from Ridge Tool Company, and joined here today by the retired chairman of Ridge Tool, Fred Pond, they've invested in that school district to create clean rooms so that we can take our micro electro mechanical systems program out at the high school level to start that pipeline.

And I would love to see that kind of infrastructure, if you will, happen throughout northeast Ohio.

- So you were talking about being more strategic in how we develop talent across, up and down the full spectrum.

Michael, we can have the talent, we can chase the supply chain opportunities, but if we don't have a site, it's academic, right?

- It is.

It's important now for northeast Ohio to be proactive about creating sites to attract suppliers of Intel, as well as other industries, like the electric vehicle battery industry, as a big opportunity for northeast Ohio.

But I often talk about the area that Deputy Secretary Graves referred to, Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Detroit, as the Silicon Valley of the industrial age.

And now with Intel investing in Columbus, we have the opportunity to be the Silicon Heartland.

When Detroit was the largest manufacturer of automotive vehicles, Cleveland, northeast Ohio, we had a substantial role in that industry.

When Pittsburgh was known as the steel city, Cleveland had a substantial role in that industry.

And now with Intel making the investment in Columbus, northeast Ohio has this opportunity to get the spillover effect of the supply job, the supplier jobs for that industry, as well.

- So let's stay on that though for a second, because what I've learned is that there's a general under-appreciation for the standard that the business community has for readily marketable sites.

What is a well-prepared site that would meet the expectations of business?

So we're talking about ratcheting up our game in that regard, right?

- Yes, actually, my firm Allegro is working with Team Neo and it's partners on creating an inventory of sites to be able to attract businesses to northeast Ohio.

It is important that we have sites that are shuttle ready, that have the necessary utility capacity, access to the infrastructure system to respond to the demand that we're likely to see coming from this major change in Ohio's economy.

In addition to that, I think that we, as a community, need to be prepared about the way that we process these projects.

The speed to market is an important aspect for corporations when they're looking to open a new facility.

They don't have a lot of time, they don't want a lot of risk, and they're gonna be concerned about money.

One thing that I think Columbus and central Ohio is focused on, is a great problem they have.

They've attracted this monster investment in central Ohio, but they need 7,000 workers from the construction industry to build this plant and the surrounding suppliers.

They're gonna have an in intense increase in demand for residential, for retail, supportive retail, for all kinds of development that needs to happen in central Ohio.

And they're, at some point, the capacity's going to be at the brink, and that's when the demand for sites two hours away in northeast Ohio, two hours away in southwest Ohio, that's when we'll see that ripple effect.

- So Matt, you have been kind enough with many of your colleagues in our local businesses, to share some insights about supply chain expectations and so forth.

What we've learned through this is depending on the nature of the product, nature of the component we're providing, you need to be onsite, maybe share some perspectives that we're hearing around that.

- Yeah, it's been great.

For those of you who aren't aware, Team Neo and Jobs Ohio have created a task force that has been really a tremendous opportunity to get that gathering of the minds of all these interested parties to get together and better understand what is required to be successful in this endeavor.

And one of the things that we've looked at is if you look at the supply chain piece and the aspect of where we can play and participate, those folks that are on the phone, you get this collective group together and then you start brainstorming these ideas and realize that there are folks that are already supplying particular components or services and solutions into the Intel food chain, as we speak today.

So then it's like, "Okay, how do you take that and blow that up and make it bigger and make our piece of the pie that much more relevant and allow for that growth to occur?"

And I think it's been a tremendous effort on a part of so many different companies from around the city and the region and universities and other interested, value added stakeholders to take part in this.

I think if we were to look at the key insight, and I had the chance, coincidentally.

Lubrizol has been working in collaboration with Intel for the past two years on a separate activity, enabling their chips to be able to perform at higher temperatures for the future, due to the power densities of compute power for the future.

And so I had the opportunity to speak with and be with the chief of HR for the company more recently, and she was sharing some of her insights as to why they selected Ohio specifically and this region.

It was based on the availability of power, water, the human resource, the academics.

It's all those things that we actually tend to take for granted, but it's a real wealth and a treasure trove and we shouldn't underestimate it.

So if I look forward, the team that has been assembled and what we're doing now to better understand the value chain and the different markets within these spaces, we can learn where and how we can participate even further, incubating businesses, spurring on that development that we're all eager to see.

- And I would add, in addition to our business partners and some members from higher ed as well, we've had leaders from Greater Akron Chamber, Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber, Stark Economic Development, GCP Magnet, as well.

So we are thinking about this on a holistic basis to see how we collectively can take advantage of the opportunities.

Marcia, you're seeing a lot of collaboration, as well, across the state and the region.

Maybe share some of the things you're learning about, how it's working, why it's working, where the gaps might be that we need to focus on going forward.

- So I'll start from a community college perspective.

Ohio has 23 community colleges that connect together to address workforce and economic development.

And we do that through an entity called Ohio TechNet.

And this is a great example of how a federal investment, which started from a Department of Labor grant to Lorain County Community College, called Attack Grant back in 2013, helped build this infrastructure for TechNet.

And today, all 23 community colleges, 11 universities, and nine career and technical centers work together throughout the entire state to be able to leverage the curriculum that we have, the models that we have.

One is called Train Ohio, which is an apprenticeship based model, so that we are able to take what is working or what needs developed and very quickly deploy, accelerate, and roll that out throughout our region and throughout our state.

And so when we first started meeting with Intel, when they made the decision to locate in Ohio, this infrastructure for Ohio TechNet was critical.

And one of the reasons why we were able to secure for northeast Ohio one of the major grants from Intel to create the consortium.

But in addition to that, all 23 community colleges are working together through the Ohio Association of Community Colleges for additional training and education.

Again, reaching down with K-12, as well as then our university partners.

Several years ago, the state of Ohio gave authorization to community colleges to develop our own applied bachelor's degree programs in areas that were not currently being offered.

Again, applied at that more technical level.

And so it's as if Lorain had a crystal ball, but it was because of listening and learning from the suppliers, our employers, from Mansfield, north as far west as Toledo, and as far east as Youngstown, to learn what was needed.

And so that led to the development of this MEMS program, and now a new program that just started this fall in automation and robotics for Industry 4.0 that is also connected to the semiconductor industry.

But it is that collaboration and I think one of the unique aspects that we have in northeast Ohio, we have a strong history.

It is in the DNA of northeast Ohio for our higher education institutions and our employers to design together to build that workforce to specification.

- So a common theme here is it's about strategies, about readiness, readiness of the workforce, readiness of marketable sites that meet the increasingly stringent demands of the business community, and readiness in the sense of understanding different ways to navigate our supply chains and the relationships there to help us over the long term, build the supply chains here and increase resiliency.

So that's, at the highest level, some of the common themes that we're definitely seeing.

We're gonna pivot here and invite the audience to play a part, as well.

And we're about to begin the audience Q and A.

And for those of you, I'll remind you, I'm Bill Koehler, Chief Executive Officer at Team Neo, and I'm moderating a conversation on the next phase of Ohio's economic growth with Dr. Ballinger, who is the President of Lorain County Community College, Michael Cantor, who is the Managing Director and Principal at Allegro Realty, and Matt Joyce, Vice President of Corporate New Business Development at the Lubrizol Corporation.

At the top of the hour, we were blessed to be joined by the 19th Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Don Graves.

And we welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, students, and those joining via our livestream at CityClub.org or radio broadcast at 89.7 Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to tweet a question for our panelists, please tweet it @TheCityClub.

And you can also text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794 and the City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

So with that, whoever would like to start with the first question, please do so.

- Thank you.

Sounds like there's a lot of great collaboration going on, but these workers that we develop have to be able to get to work.

This is to any of you.

How are all your efforts coordinating with public transportation, which is very weak in this area right now, to make sure workers can actually get to school, get to work, get to their jobs?

Thank you.

- I will get us started and then we can share some.

We are working with a number of members of the economic development community public sector to look at various options.

One of the great opportunities on sites, and maybe, Michael, you talk about is the job hub focus we've had strategically in terms of identifying sites where they have a lot of attractive transportation and mobility options, as well as by definition, a job hub is situated in a highly dense area.

- Yeah.

So when we're working to identify sites to attract jobs, there are multiple overlays that we look at.

We're looking, like I mentioned earlier, we're gonna look at high capacity utilities and transportation infrastructure.

But we're also gonna look at public transit access.

And as Bill said, the job hubs are areas where we already have densified labor pools and employment opportunities.

And there will be prioritization based on the ability to tap into those existing clusters.

- And I would just add to that.

In Lorain County, it is a major issue for us because we don't have a comprehensive public transportation system.

I'm happy to be joined here today by Tony Gallo, who is the president of our Lorain County Chamber of Commerce, as well as Nick Turner from the North Family Foundation.

And they are two partners that we're working to look at new creative innovations because we know that is one of the greatest challenges and opportunities that we have to revision, what that transportation system does look like.

- Do we have any other questions?

Please?

- Yes, we have a question that came in through text.

Deputy Secretary Grave said regional collaboration is critically important.

It was central to northeast Ohio's BBB bid, but we still lost.

What more do we need to be different to win CHIPS Act and other opportunities?

- So I'll just get started.

Collaboration in and of itself is an enabler to success.

We will get feedback on the BBB.

Sorry, Build Back Better grant and what we could have done differently.

But what I would just say is this, just because we didn't succeed didn't mean that we didn't win.

We didn't achieve our ultimate objective.

But I can tell you, and I see some of the faces here, that we're working with in economic development.

A lot of the work we did with Build Back Better is being used in other work we're doing.

And I am very encouraged by the opportunity we will have to work with many of the partners in the room here to find opportunities to leverage it and then meet our ultimate objective in other opportunities.

- I would add to that.

That going through the process with Build Back Better, it builds that muscle memory that we will be able to leverage and take to that next opportunity.

And some of the types of grant opportunities, for example, that we have been successful with, focus on some of the priorities that were in Build Back Better.

So I think that it really has helped build capacity and we will be able to leverage that going into the future.

- And I would even observe, Matt, you speak to your perspective, but the business community isn't always collaborating on some of these strategic things.

I've seen a new focus on this particular opportunity in a way that I think is really interesting and exciting.

You might.

- Yeah, I was actually gonna add, building on the thoughts and the thread of the muscle memory.

When we look at what insights we gain from participating in these different opportunities, we can take away so many learnings and we have to just apply them and I think the success of the Intel investment is something that we need to have that sit down and that proper understanding and really fully understand and take on board all the things that worked for us.

How do we make that happen again?

How do we make that replicated in other perhaps smaller or bigger grants that come along the way?

And I'll tell you one of the things that was provided to us, some insights.

And I can't speak on behalf of Intel, but I can share with you the insights that we learned is that it was the connectivity between the Jobs Ohio and Team Neo with the Intel organization itself.

Jobs Ohio got a lot of props because what they did is they came up with that turnkey solution.

It was the ease of the story.

It was the fact that they came prepared with dollars up front and they addressed a lot of those issues.

And I think that boils down to listening, learning, taking that on board, and then applying it.

We aren't gonna win them all, but you gotta start somewhere.

And I think the cooperative effort that we've seen amongst the different industry stakeholders is something uniquely different.

And I think that's gonna be a real opportunity for all of us to take this to the next level.

- Hi, my name is Juan Pena.

I work at Team Neo.

My question to the panelists is what strategies can we develop so that we're not only thinking of the short term, but we're also retaining Intel in the longer term, keeping those jobs in Ohio?

- I'm not allowed to answer this.

I talk to him about this every day.

Michael, do you wanna talk about it?

A little bit about sites?

- Sure.

I think that the work that we're doing with Team Neo, and Allegro is doing with Team Neo, is intended to position us to attract the suppliers of Intel, but it also is creating sites for all of our broader opportunities as a region.

So the idea is that we have this unique opportunity in Intel that we need to be prepared for and we need to be proactive in providing an inventory of sites.

But that inventory of sites will then be applicable to continued opportunities to attract businesses to northeast Ohio.

- If I can just offer some thoughts on that.

If we look at this, we talk about speed.

This is from our experience working with them, speed in this market to provide that solution.

To be involved, to move at the pace at which they move is probably uniquely different to something that we've tried or have participated in.

And the other piece of this is, remember, a big part of their manufacturing business has been offshore for the past many decades.

So you're on-shoring a lot of new companies.

And when you're on-shoring those companies, all of them are not from the Midwest or the United States.

They're often from Asia Pacific and the far east.

And so how do you integrate?

How do you make those people feel a part of the success?

A part of the equation?

How do you get involved with those businesses early enough?

And when you attract them, and you help ease that entire adjustment, and get them into a position where they want to invest in Ohio and northeast Ohio, in the area, in general, you're gonna retain and attract that talent for the long term.

You're not gonna lose them because you're gonna make them feel like this is home.

But you gotta be a part of that storytelling.

And you have to be a part of that equation early on.

And the time is now.

- And Matt, how do we lift it up and think it's scale, right?

- Yeah, for sure.

It's all about scaling with these folks.

And you, I think Bill, may have even shared with the team that's been on these taskforce calls.

It was something like 140 different companies.

And apologies if I quote you incorrectly, but it's in that vicinity, that reached out after the first two weeks of the announcement of Intel in the state of Ohio.

Folks, let's prepare for that.

How do we get on?

How do we get ready for that?

And then how do we make them feel a part of the communities that they're gonna move to?

All these pieces.

And that's where that diverse and inclusive aspect of this also comes into play.

Because you're gonna be bringing in talent from every part of the world to the state of Ohio.

You gotta make this home.

- I would just add, we're at a transformational stage in Ohio's history.

This is very analogous to when the steel industry, the automotive industry.

This isn't just about Intel coming to Ohio, right?

This is a whole new industry coming to Ohio.

So we like to think about it as a new day one and this being that launchpad.

But this is for generations to come.

- Hundred percent.

- Good afternoon.

I understand the CHIPS Act, the purpose of it, it was to boost or is to boost research and manufacturing in semiconductors.

This is a pretty basic question that underlies this conversation today.

Can you explain the application and use of semiconductors?

Why it's so important and what the future is for the use of semiconductors?

- I can give you a go.

I have a Lubrizol table behind you that's really much better versed at that than I am.

But I'll give it a go and they'll correct me afterwards.

Effectively, these chips are, when we look at what industry of the future looks like, whether you're driving a car, whether that car drives for you, whether you're in a manufacturing environment and there's robotics involved, everything is going to be based around the ability to have sufficient computing power and the cloud and the storage of all that data that we take for granted when we take a picture on our iPhones or our smartphones.

That is all going into a place that's going to require computing power and it's gonna need to be dense and it's gonna need to be powerful.

And that's what Intel creates and others in their market, AMD and Nvidia others, create those types of technologies that allow for the world to function as we know it and continue to advance.

And that is gonna be underwriting pretty much everything that we do in the future.

So how quickly they can develop it, how powerful those can be, how efficient and effective they can be, how sustainable they can be.

That's another big question out of this is the sustainability of all these materials.

Those are all gonna be critical elements in the development of technology for the future.

But it underlies pretty much everything.

- And if I could just add to that.

When we talk about it and we try to talk to students in K through 12, as well, we talk about "it makes everything smarter."

And they get that.

And so your point, though, I think is really enlightening.

Because how do we communicate that to the masses about why the CHIPS Act is important and why semiconductors are important, not only to our economy, but to defense.

And so one of the programs that we're focused on that came out of the National Network for Manufacturing Initiatives out of the Department of Defense started out in San Jose and it's called Flex Factor.

And it's a program that teaches kids how to take sensors and apply them to real world problems.

Because you start talking about things called micro electro mechanical systems and you lose someone.

But when we start talking about, "Well, how can you take that sensor and what problem are you trying to solve?"

Because everything is smart today.

And so I think continuing that conversation is critically important.

- Thank you.

So the question refers to Intel's really put our region in the spotlight.

You mentioned people are gonna be coming from all over the country, internationally, to set up their supply chains here.

But for anyone in this room who's tried to travel from northeast Ohio to somewhere else, we don't have a lot of flights.

Other cities like Atlanta and Charlotte have really doubled down on their airports.

Can we actually leverage this investment to become a travel hub and make it easy to have this region be accessed by other parts of the world?

- You travel a lot.

- Yeah.

Hey, I can relate.

I just got off a flight from Amsterdam yesterday and it was a long way home, right?

But I'll say this.

We've had some conversations and actually I think there's a move afoot that you do need to have proximity and availability to international airports.

That is something that I think everybody in the room can appreciate.

When we were de-hubbed and United moved to Chicago and we became a secondary airport, that was painful.

What I'd say is that there are efforts afoot to introduce more direct flights abroad.

But it's a chicken and egg, right?

And so part of this is how do we create that demand so that the airports and the airplanes and the airlines, it's an obvious step that we move to add additional flights in this area.

And I think that we're still, I would consider it a work in progress, for certain.

I wish I had a better answer.

- Thank you.

- This has been such a great conversation.

I guess my question is, how are we engaging the K through 12 education system in this conversation and preparing students for the future?

- Thank you for the question.

I should have said earlier.

So through Team Neo, we have something called the Talent Development Council that is working across Team Neo's entire footprint that brings to the table education, as well as employers, and it's focused on the high demand jobs and then how we're working with the intermediaries, as well as, I'll use our Lorain County example, and we have an Educational Service Center that connects all of the school districts together.

I personally meet with, along with our entire team, the superintendents, the curriculum directors, and the teachers are on our campus and we are out at those high school sites, as well as working at lower levels within K-12.

But taking to them what is the future and what are those future opportunities.

So when I shared the example a bit earlier about Midview Schools in Lorain County.

The reason they were poised to go ask Ridge Tool for a grant was because of conversations we've been having with them for two years and bringing kids out and going through clean rooms to understand what is something in the future about semiconductors that might appeal to them.

But I think there's an opportunity to be much more proactive, strategic, and holistic about that throughout northeast Ohio as we build that workforce to spec.

Because it's not just the employees who are gonna get hired by Intel and other suppliers in the next couple of years.

It really is looking out to grow that.

- My own observation would be, whether it's Team Neo or GCP or the Cleveland Foundation or Jumpstart or, and many other organizations throughout the community that are focused on this very issue.

This has put a huge, huge spotlight again on the need for STEM education.

To have young people embrace STEM disciplines early on in their life.

I tell everybody that I talk to about this topic that if I would've learned baseball statistics, or sorry, computing technology or statistics based on the lens of baseball, I might not be sitting here.

I might be doing something else.

I just didn't get it at that time.

And I think we have to make it more inviting for our young people to look at and learn chemistry and physics and those kinds of disciplines so that we're able to take advantage of not just the semiconductor, the EV opportunity, the polymer opportunity that we have in this community.

A lot of people are working on it.

- I know we're almost out of time, but I just wanna follow up on that.

I represent the Girl Scouts.

We have 18,000 girls in Northeast Ohio.

And don't forget about the nonprofits that are in this space.

We're building a STEM Center of Excellence at one of our camps.

We have 144 STEM badges, everything from cybersecurity to robotics.

There's a lot of corporations in this room that help us, but make sure that we're networked in because we're a very powerful resource for all of you.

So thank you.

- That's great.

Well great.

Thank you for your work.

Great.

- Thank you, Bill Koehler, for moderating this important conversation today.

And also to Dr. Marcia Ballinger, Michael Cantor, Matthew Joyce, and the Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Don Graves.

Today's forum was in partnership with G2G Consulting and is also the Rajanee and Ashok Shendure Endowed Forum.

The Shendures have been a very valuable part of Greater Cleveland and our business and civic communities for the past three decades, dedicating much of their time to promoting social and economic equity and civic empowerment.

We are grateful for the support of the Shendure family, who have made this annual forum possible and we are delighted that they are here with us today.

Thank you.

We would also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic Philanthropy Institute, Cuyahoga Community College, G2G Consulting, Lorain County Community College Foundation, the Lubrizol Corporation, Ohio Technologies, Inc. Swagelok, and Team Neo.

Thank you all for being here today.

Next week on Wednesday, September 28th, the City Club will host a conversation led by William Tarter Jr. with the Center for Community Solutions to reflect on Cuyahoga county's government reform and discuss what lies ahead.

And then on Friday, September 30th, we will welcome Kevin F. Crane, head of Retirement Research and Insights at the Bank of America.

He will lead a conversation with Kelly Hancock with the Cleveland Clinic, Ethan Carp at Magnet, and Tony Malone at Nestle on employee financial wellness and how to prepare for the changing needs of our workforce.

Tickets are still available for these forums and you can find out more about these forums and others at our website, CityClub.org.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you once again to Bill Koehler and to each of our panelists.

Thank you to the members and friends of the City Club.

This forum is now adjourned.

- For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to CityClub.org.

- Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.