People are attracted to good opportunities, and repulsed by bad ones.
At the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, there’s no better sign of a failed organization than that the agency has become a building that needs a revolving door:
Since WEDC’s creation in July 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers as a quasi-public replacement to the state Department of Commerce, WEDC has already had two chief executive officers and three chief operating officers…
Who’s next for this group of self-professed development specialists? Someone now working for a school in Texas:
WEDC has struggled with turnover as it tries to stick to its mission of boosting the state’s economy. The state’s flagship jobs agency is hiring its fifth chief financial officer in four years.
Brandon Duck will start later this month as the latest CFO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., replacing Stephanie Walker, who left that position in mid-January because her spouse took a job on the East Coast.
Duck serves as the CFO of a preparatory school in Dallas, Texas, and previously worked as the enterprise risk and compliance director of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.
Now a few men in Whitewater, more acquainted with their own circle than the needs of this city, think that taxpayer grants for white-collar startups, in a taxpayer built-location, with cheap labor from a publicly-funded university, are the answer to Whitewater’s problems.
I’ll borrow from Gov. Reagan from among his questions for Pres. Carter in their only debate, but about how these millions in grants have affected residents our town: because of them, “are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Only a few in the city could credibly answer affirmatively. They’ve headlines for their scrapbooks.
For thousands of workers, families, students, and retired residents, the WEDC has been ineffectual (and wildly wasteful).
Honest to goodness, only the most scheming or ignorant men would think that – of all possible needs of our city – money for software startups was worthwhile for Whitewater.
The great oddity is that either (1) insight among a few town notables is so poor that they can’t see their headlines don’t move most people, or worse that (2) they are indifferent to anyone except those among their own small number.
There will never be a time – never – when these sort of selfish projects will serve our city’s genuine needs, or that anyone hawking them will gain the approbation of more than a few.