Washington Business Winter 2016 | Page 27

washington business Pollster and bestselling author John Zogby discusses the 2016 election and insights about the millennial generation. “The United States was walking away from manufacturing,” Mulally said. “Seventy percent of all the research and development in the world and in the United States is associated with manufacturing. No country has ever been prosperous for a long time if they didn’t have a really strong innovation and research and development manufacturing economy.” a full schedule T h e Po l i c y S u m m i t k i c ke d o f f Tu e s d a y with the traditional The three-day Policy Summit agenda includes time outdoors at the beautiful Suncadia Resort. golf tournament to benefit Washington Business Week. Afterward, attendees mingled and tasted Washington-made hard cider at the evening welcoming reception. Wednesday’s main event began with a talk by Gov. Jay Inslee, who discussed AWB’s collaboration with many other bipartisan groups who worked successfully to help the state pass its first transportation package in 10 years. Longtime Seattle sportscaster Tony Ventrella spoke about the power of teamwork — and answered a few football questions in his current capacity as digital media host for the Seattle Seahawks. Morning panel discussions featured business and leadership i n s i g h t s f ro m p r i va t e - s e c t o r e m p l o ye r s, i n c l u d i n g yo u n g pharmaceutical innovator Leen Kawas, CEO of M3 Biotechnology. Born in Jordan and educated at Washington State University, she is now part of the flourishing life sciences field in Washington. “It’s a very important industry,” Kawas said, “because we are truly solving problems that people face today.” Salina Savage, a founder and co-owner of Savage Logistics, discussed how she inspected transportation companies for the Department of Energy at Hanford, then decided that instead of at a glance For the first time ever, the Policy Summit featured two separate discussion tracks. While senators, representatives and mayors talked public policy in one room, employers talked high-tech manufacturing, cybersecurity and education in another. (Short video highlights from each of the breakout sessions are online at www.bit.ly/PS15-breakouts) The Policy Summit was a return to Washington for keynote speaker Alan Mulally, who spent 37 years at Boeing before being called to serve as CEO and president of the Ford Motor Co. Gov. Jay Inslee opened his talk with praise for Washington’s newly passed $16 billion transportation investment and reform package, which has been a key AWB legislative priority. winter 2016 27