Strengthening Regional Innovation: A Perspective from Northeast Texas

Opening Statement By Chairman Bart Gordon

Good morning, and thank you again Mr. Hall for inviting me to your district today to learn more about regional innovation in Northeast Texas.

As we all know, we live in an increasingly competitive world, where manufacturing jobs are rapidly being outsourced and we are importing more high-tech products than we are exporting.  Our country increasingly needs to compete with better skills and higher productivity.  To maintain our nation’s high standard of living, we will need to sustain our world-class science and technology enterprise that creates innovative new products and high-paying jobs.

In order to sustain this science and technology enterprise, we need a workforce that is prepared in a world-class math and science educational system.  The day our universities are no longer the most sought after in the world, the day we see a brain drain because our best and brightest young scientists and entrepreneurs can’t get the funding to do their research and development here at home, is the day our innovation is outsourced.  To help address this, last August the President signed into law the America Competes Act, which is comprehensive legislation developed by our Committee that seeks to ensure U.S. students, teachers, businesses, and workers will continue leading the world in science, innovation, research, and technology. 

Regional innovation clusters are also a key component of our national competitiveness.  Through collaborations and partnerships between industry, regional and local government, community colleges and Universities, this region and others have been able to make the most of their resources and build a vibrant local culture of innovation that creates good jobs and boosts economic development.  Today, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses the ways in which Northeast Texas has leveraged its resources to create a regional center of innovation. I also look forward to hearing testimony about how the federal government can best encourage and support such efforts across the Nation. 

I thank all of the witnesses for being here today and I look forward to your testimony. 

Witnesses

Panel

0 - Dr. Cary Israel
President Collin County Community College Collin County Community College
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0 - Dr. Dan Jones
President Texas A&M-Commerce Texas A&M-Commerce
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0 - Mr. Patrick Humm
President Hie Electronics Hie Electronics
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0 - Dr. Martin Izzard
Vice President and Director Digital Signal Processing Solutions R&D Center Texas Instruments Digital Signal Processing Solutions R&D Center Texas Instruments
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0 - Mr. Bill Sproull
Member Texas Emerging Technology Fund Advisory Committee Texas Emerging Technology Fund Advisory Committee
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0 - Mr. Tom Luce
Chief Executive Officer National Math and Science Initiative National Math and Science Initiative
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