Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri was hosted by a joint SENEDIA/NCMA Lunch on April 9, 2009.
The Governor joined us for lunch and talked about the value of the Defense industry to the Rhode Island Economy. He emphasized the need to bring more engineers and scientists intothe work force by creating interest inthe sciences at the grade school level. The RI Economic Development Corporation has a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiative to help generate that interest. It includes a teacher externship program that brings school teachers into the workplace during their summer break to experience, first hand, what engineers and scientists do so they can bring that "hands-on" knowlesdge back to the classroom.
The Governor also talked about the RI economy and how he hoped that it had bottomed out and was sarting to recover. He said that the stimulus money from the National Resource and Recovery Act was very important to turning the RI economy around.