Where the business community and Blue Mother intersect is Yale's Morand
Michael J. Morand is associate vice president for New Haven and state affairs at Yale University and last month completed a two-year term as chairman of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. How did you react when you were first asked to chair the chamber? I've been on the board of the chamber for more than a decade, and I've come to know it well and its importance. The role of the chair one deal in accepting the nomination, which was that I said to [chamber President] Tony [Rescigno], 'I'll do it as long as you promise not to leave during those two years.' So I met that objective.How is the chamber doing in this challenging environment?
Our membership renewals have been strong. Our events consistently sell out. We have a long list of people who want to be on the board. Having been involved in a number of associations and nonprofits, oftentimes we have to scrape and beg to get people to serve as volunteers. At the chamber at the board level and the committee level, we have a farm team of people eager to join.
Twenty years ago there was a greater sense of a business community, and a coherent business agenda, articulated by people like the Downtown Council and Ben DiLieto's 'kitchen cabinet.' That doesn't seem to exist any more.
There are fewer local[ly] headquartered organizations; that's true everywhere. We benefit, actually, by having a robust set of large nonprofits that are based here, nonprofits and some public-sector institutions. So the colleges and universities and two hospitals I think provide some stability. There is, I think, a shared agenda among the corporate leadership, institutional leadership and local public-sector leadership.
Transportation is one of the key items on that agenda. That's a key thing with our heritage, because [the New Haven chamber] was founded to appeal to the federal government for assistance during a British blockade of the harbor. Maritime travel remains an ingredient in our local economy, but over time that's obviously changed. Tweed-New Haven Airport has been one [success], finally, thanks to the mayor's success and leadership and [East Haven] Mayor Capone-Almon's willingness - and some other people in front and behind the scenes on the elected side and the government side. I think if you ask the mayor, he will say that the chamber and the local business and institutional leadership has been there consistently and helped create the context to allow the elected officials to do their work and get Tweed to a point where there are men and women at work on the runway safety areas. Likewise, rail improvements have been a key, consistent agenda. The public sector is the one that needs to do that, but it's one where business and institutional leadership plays an important role in encouraging them, keeping them focused on the priorities in that area. Transportation infrastructure is not an area where you can snap your fingers and things are done the next day. But we are at a point now where rail improvements are real in terms of rolling stock to break through again between the city and the state to move forward on a garage at Union Station and then state's activity in terms of the West Haven rail station, which will be a catalyst for the continued renaissance of West Haven and supporting institutions there, including the University of New Haven and [Yale,] now that we have a greater presence in West Haven.
What caused the mayor of East Haven to change her position on Tweed?
There was a recognition that there are mutual interests [between New Haven and East Haven] in terms of economic development, and that there are ways to manage it. In terms of taking care of the particular interests of some of the homeowners and to agree that there will be responsible growth at the airport, that this is not going to turn into JFK or O'Hare. Then good, old-fashioned common sense: I think there's actually a couple things going on in our community now that prove that when people talk to each other - rather than about each other or at each other - we can move forward.
When we ask business owners what they need from government, the most common answer is 'better public schools.' Why hasn't the New Haven chamber been a more insistent advocate for change in the leadership of New Haven public schools?
It is a regional chamber, so it's not only the New Haven public schools. The primary role of an organization like the chamber is to support its membership. In things like public education and workforce development, we are a supporter, and we try to find out strategically where we have some points of leverage. One of the areas where the chamber has taken a role is in the New Haven Science Fair and providing the institutional support for that program to continue and to grow. That was one that made sense to us, that we had a sense of strategic leverage in rallying the business and institutional community to maintain and grow support for that. Actual governance of the public schools is not a place where we have expertise or a point to strategic leverage. Supporting the health and growth of Gateway Community College is another area where the chamber and other organizations are never going to be the primary forces in that, but can play important secondary and supportive roles in backing the growth and development and improvement in Gateway.
Many business owners wonder why the major regional chambers don't push back harder and more publicly in Hartford against legislation that makes it harder and more expensive to do business in Connecticut.
We have, I think, actually been active in that arena. Connecticut is not a huge state, so we're fortunate to have the [Connecticut Business & Industry Association]. CBIA rightly is the one that takes the lead on those and has the capability. They aid regional chambers and the executives and presidents of those talk regularly and play a supportive role in informing CBIA's agenda, and also helping get the word out about what CBIA is doing. There has been communication in front of the scenes through a joint editorial signed by all of the regional chambers trying to inform the executive branch and the legislature, which was very clear on tax measures on businesses. It was in February in newspapers throughout the state.
The political landscape in Connecticut is what it is. That's not new. I think we've tried to inform local elected officials and have economic development and wealth creation be the primary goal and recognize that the public sector can't raise the resources it needs unless the economy is growing. That's fairly simple.
Last year Rick Levin said Yale was New Haven's only remaining corporate citizen. What does that mean for the institution and the community?
There are around 250,000 people who work in our region. Yale accounts for 12,000 of those [employees], so we're certainly the largest employer. We're going to stay here, and we generate a lot of economic activity because we raise resources from far beyond the region in the form of government grants for research, alumni donation and student tuition, which then stays here; so it's not re-circulating local money, it's importing capital from far away that stays here and has important spin-off effects. So that's a good thing. The university is a critical player and is blessed by having had extraordinary alumni support and amazing investment return. So we're blessed to be in a place where we are able to be a supportive, institutional citizen, but we're far from the only one. I think there's actually a good mix. Covidien's growth in North Haven is one of the least heralded but most important economic stories in the last couple of years. Yale is key but far from alone.
Who runs New Haven today? Some people would say that it's your boss, Bruce Alexander.
[Yale], as an old and ongoing institution, [is] able to think and act for the long term, which is good for the growth and stability of our region. Rather than say there's one magic solution [to] build a giant mall, build a giant sports stadium - the 'grand slam' theory of community revitalization - the approach of Rick Levin and Bruce Alexander has been to do an ongoing and consistent set of incremental things that together add up to more than a grand slam, if you look at how far New Haven's come. The role that the university plays is one of trying to convene people, listen to what the priorities are and figure out where it is that we can have some kind of strategic leverage in moving the agenda forward. Sometimes the university is at the head of the parade, sometimes we're in the middle and sometimes we're on the sidelines cheering loudly
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