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Friday, December 17, 1999
Priorities 2000: A Wyoming View
By Jim Geringer
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Wyoming's economic outlook for the new millennium is for steady growth and measured optimism. Recent economic indicators show that personal income and employment growth are strong and will continue to be so. The greatest challenge we face as a State, both for government services and for business success, is the growing shortage of qualified workers. The largest age group in the workforce today, the Baby Boomer population, is fast approaching retirement age.
With strong economic growth in our Rocky Mountain region we must recognize the trends, anticipate the shortages and focus our efforts in and out of government toward increasing our competitiveness to attract and keep quality employees and business owners. This is the age of the "new economy".
The new economy is characterized by a shift from traditional manufacturing to knowledge-based businesses. Access to cutting edge research, venture capital, sophisticated communications networks and to pools of highly skilled workers will be standard requirements to sustain and grow businesses throughout the State. Technology will be used not only to leverage the production of products and services, but also to sell, market and distribute these outputs.
While our national economy will continue to need Wyoming's ample supply of energy and raw materials, our goals for real wage growth and economic development in Wyoming will require a heavy investment in human resources, particularly in our youth.
Health
The State's Health Department will concentrate on prevention of disease and delivery of community-based services, designed to promote lower cost care and to minimize the need to have our citizens in high cost institutional health care. Wyoming's share of the tobacco settlement will help us achieve those goals.
Education
The challenge for K-12 schools, the community colleges and the University of Wyoming is to increase the expectations for, and the performance of, Wyoming students. We want our graduates to be competitive with, if not superior to, their counterparts throughout the United States and the world. The cost to achieve the expectations we've set is quite high. To achieve the goal of preparing Wyoming's students to participate fully in the new economy, we must invest in our future. I continue to work on the National Education Goals Panel, John Glenn's Math and Science Teaching for the 21st Century Commission, and as the Chairman of the Education Commission of the States for solutions to problems we see in education across the country.
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