October 20, 1999
Contact: Cheri Woolsey, Institute for Public Policy and Business Research, (785) 864-3124; or Todd Cohen, University Relations, (785) 864-8858.
LAWRENCE -- Gov. Bill Graves will welcome the CEOs of eight major Kansas corporations, including Sprint, to the first annual Governor's Economic Innovation Summit on Friday in the Kansas Union at the University of Kansas.
The media are invited to attend. Please register upon arrival at the Kansas Union. If you need parking passes, please call (785) 864-3256.
FRIDAY MORNING SCHEDULE
7:45 a.m. - Registration
8:15 a.m. - Welcome by David E. Shulenburger, KU provost.
8:30 a.m. - Economists roundtable discussion on "Forecast for the 2000
Economy: A Global, National and State Perspective."
SPEAKERS:
DAVID M. JONES, chief economist and vice chairman, Aubrey G. Lanston & Co. Inc.
NORMAN CLIFFORD, director of forecasting, KU Institute for Public Policy
and Business Research.
Moderator: Charles Krider, KU professor of business.
10:15 a.m. - Presentation on "Expanding Opportunities in Export Markets:"
Bill Redway, group vice president for small and new business, Export-Import
Bank of the United States.
10:45 a.m. - Executive's Export Roundtable on "Global Export Opportunities:
The Emergence of New Markets For Kansas."
SPEAKERS:
BILL REDWAY, group vice president for small and new business, Export-Import
Bank of the United States;
JIM IMBLER, president, Koch Petroleum Group.
CHARLES B. JOHNSON, president and chief operating officer, Cessna Aircraft Co.
JACK PIERSON, chairman and CEO, Preco Industries Inc.
PACK ST. CLAIR, chairman and CEO, Cobalt Boats.
Noon - Luncheon and keynote address on "The New Challenge for America's
Perspective" by John N. Yochelson, president of the Council on
Competitiveness.
1:30 p.m. - Governor's Roundtable on "The Innovation Economy for Kansas:
Strengthening the Kansas Strategy."
SPEAKERS:
GOV. BILL GRAVES (introduced by KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway)
JAMES M. BARTON, CEO, Cyagra, LLC.
RONALD T. LEMAY, president and chief operating officer, Sprint
DOUG MAHIN, vice president, Strategic Planning and New Business
Development, Raytheon Aircraft Co.
JOHN ROBINSON JR., vice chairman and chief development officer of Black &
Veatch;
JON WEFALD, president, Kansas State University.
BACKGROUND ON THE COUNCIL ON COMPETITIVENESS:
The Washington, D.C.-based council promotes a national debate on
competitiveness by concentrating on a few critical issues, including
technological innovation, workforce development and the benchmarking of
U.S. economic performance against other countries. Members and council
staff work together to assemble data, develop consensus-based
recommendations and implement follow-up strategies in every region of the
country. A 30-member executive committee guides the council. Chief
executives from 50 of the country's most prominent nonprofit research
organizations, professional societies and trade associations contribute
their expertise as national affiliates of the council. For more
information, see its Web site at http://www.compete.org/.
BACKGROUND ON JOHN N. YOCHELSON, KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
John N. Yochelson has been president of the Council on Competitiveness, a
non-partisan forum of chief executives from the business, university and
labor communities working to sustain U.S. economic leadership since
December 1995. Previously, he was president of the Edmond de Rothschild
Foundation and a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS). Before his work at CSIS, he spent three years
at the Department of State.
He was a research fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and at the Brookings Institution. He has been a consultant to the Joint Economic Committee of the U. S. Congress and a collaborator of the late Jean Monnet. President Bush appointed Yochelson to the President's Export Council, and he also served as a member of the Department of State's Advisory Committee on International Investment. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a master's of public administration degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a bachelor's degree from Yale University.
BACKGROUND ON THE INNOVATION INDEX:
The Innovation Index uses a new set of quantitative measures as an
objective benchmark of a nation's potential to sustain productivity; growth
and competitiveness for the long term. The measures employed in the index
are:
-- Total research and development personnel;
-- Total R&D investment;
-- The percentage of R&D funded by private industry;
-- The percentage of R&D performed by universities;
-- Spending on higher education;
-- The strength of intellectual property protection;
-- Openness to international competition and the nation's per capita gross domestic product.
The council's "The New Challenge to America's Prosperity: Findings from the Innovation Index Report" concludes that the United States is not laying the foundation for long-term success. The report was written by the council with Michael Porter, C. Roland Christensen professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School and Scott Stern of the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
BACKGROUND ON THE KANSAS INNOVATION INDEX:
The 56-page Kansas Innovation Index was published in December 1998. It
identifies the Kansas "innovation economy" and assesses how well the state
is positioned compared to the rest of the nation and the region. Innovation
economy refers to the state's ability to generate new ideas through
research and the ability to use those ideas to create new products and
improved production processes. The report concludes that while Kansas is
"not the leading state with respect to innovation, Kansas has a base of
industries that can become the foundation for growth.
"The state's universities have an important research base and the Kansas state government is providing more support per capita for research and development than any other state," the report said.
However, the report said business and university spending on research is too low for the state to be a national leader in innovation. Other weaknesses are in the area of obtaining patents, competing for federal research and development, and the lack of enough venture capital to support turning research into commercial products at the necessary rate.