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Economic Development in Kentucky (And Elsewhere)

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

On June 12, William Brundage, Ph.D., the Commissioner of Kentucky’s Office For The New Economy, spoke in Louisville about the work that is being done to promote high tech business growth in Kentucky.  The details are available at http://www.one-ky.com and include turning Kentucky universities into research powerhouses, developing a federal laboratory in Kentucky (Kentucky being one of the only two states that do not have a federal laboratory), and identifying technology clusters in which Kentucky already has strengths on which it can build, such as life sciences (i.e. artificial heart development and using tobacco plants to produce drugs for treating non-Hodgkins lymphoma and other diseases). 

Brundage said the proposed legislation to prevent stem cell research in Kentucky would have been devastating to the growth of high tech industry here, such as work that uses genes to develop cures for many diseases, and he was very glad that legislation did not pass.  He also stressed the importance of introducing students to careers in science, engineering, business, and entrepreneurship and encouraging them to pursue these fields.  In particular, he suggested that it is very important to introduce young people to role models who have already achieved in these fields as a way of inspiring them. 

During the lunch preceding his talk, there was an informal discussion of today’s culture and how it punishes successful people – sending exactly the opposite message of what we should be sending if we want to inspire young people to strive to achieve.  Unfortunately, there is a large segment of our population that seems to delight in attacking and tearing down successful people.  From those who applaud the legal attacks on successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Martha Stewart, to those who promote class warfare (tax cuts for the rich), to those who rewrite history in order to convert real heroes into villains, we are evolving into a culture of envy and destruction rather than a culture that inspires hard work, creativity, growth, and entrepreneurship. 

If we want strong economic development and a healthy, thriving world for our children and grandchildren, we have to change that culture.  Instead of envying successful people and searching for their flaws in order to try to attack them or tear them down, we ought to be studying them and learning from them.  Instead of despising successful people and using laws, regulations, and red tape to restrict their ability to succeed or to steal the fruits of their labor, we ought to appreciate the ways these successful people have enriched the world through their creativity and hard work. 

We often speak of the Islamic terrorists who planned and carried out the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as being haters and destroyers, and that is true.  It is very easy to be jealous of others’ success, to hate, and to destroy.  Unfortunately, there are many home-grown Americans who take the same approach.  But the more difficult, more challenging, and much more rewarding task is to be constructive and creative – to build rather than to destroy.  If we want to build a better world for future generations, we must develop a culture in which people who make efforts to be constructive and creative, and people who are productive and achieve success, are valued and esteemed, not attacked and vilified. 

Maybe the following poem by Mother Teresa will inspire us:

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

Give the world your best and it may never be enough;

Give the world your best anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God:

It was never between you and them anyway.

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