Detroit Free Press Tom Walsh Column: Granholm Must Redouble Job Efforts
By Tom Walsh, Detroit Free Press
Jan. 23–At 4:47 p.m. Friday, an ominous entry appeared on Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s calendar.
Jeffrey Kindler, chairman and chief executive officer of Pfizer Inc., wanted to schedule a phone call with her Monday morning. It was set for 10:30.
Granholm surmised that it would not be good news. She was aware that the pharmaceutical giant had whacked 20% of its U.S. sales force two months ago and was trying to cut costs by $2 billion a year. She assumed that Michigan, with a big research complex in Ann Arbor and a cluster of research and manufacturing workers in Kalamazoo, would feel some pain.
But she was stunned by the blow that Kindler delivered.
The entire Ann Arbor research complex would be shut down and all 2,100 employees dismissed or moved to Pfizer locations outside Michigan. Also, 250 jobs would be cut in Kalamazoo and 60 more in Plymouth Township.
These are the crème de la crème so-called jobs of the future that all states covet — scientists and technologists who earn $100,000 a year and more. They are exactly the kind of jobs that Granholm has tried — indeed, promised — to grow in Michigan to diversify the state’s auto-centric economy.
Granholm did what came naturally when dumped upon with dreadful news first thing Monday morning.
She asked why. What did we do? What didn’t we do that we should have done? What can we do to change this decision?
Kindler, Granholm reported, said there was nothing Michigan could have done to change the outcome of Pfizer’s six-month review of global operations and the decision to consolidate U.S. drug research largely in Groton, Conn.
“He was very clear,” Granholm told me. “This had nothing to do with Michigan’s taxes or business climate. He said we were tremendous partners.
“He stated repeatedly, ‘There is nothing Michigan could have done,’ because I kept asking him, ‘What can we do?’ “
So, what should Granholm and Michigan do now?
Should they chalk up Pfizer’s exodus as just another bit of bad luck for the Mitten State, to be tossed in the bin along with massive job losses from the shrinkage of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., the auto supplier bankruptcies, the moving of 3,000 Electrolux jobs to Mexico, the vaporization of Kmart Corp. and the failure of the Detroit Lions to win a meaningful football game in the last 50 years?
Even taking Kindler’s comments at face value, a shrug and a curse about bad luck won’t suffice.
Winners make their own luck, Granholm conceded, adding, “We’re a resilient people. We have a lot of talent now in Ann Arbor,” a base from which to build new life-science companies.
Michigan need not change everything it has been doing to change its economic luck.
In the case of Pfizer, the state has been very proactive, engaging the company at every turn, including having David Canter, Pfizer senior vice president of global research and development, chair the board that selected companies to receive the first $137 million in awards from Michigan’s 21st Century Jobs Fund last fall.
Granholm has met Kindler and spoken with him several times since he became CEO last summer. Kindler succeeded Hank McKinnell, who had invested $800 million in an Ann Arbor expansion project but also sparred with former Gov. John Engler over Michigan’s effort to pressure drugmakers to cut prices for Medicaid patients.
The state should forge ahead with efforts to boost the education level of its residents and grow new businesses in life sciences, alternative energy and other emerging sectors, even if the number of new jobs seems small compared with the losses from the restructuring of global giants like GM, Ford and Pfizer.
But Granholm and the Legislature must also tread very carefully with tax policy as they address a yawning budget deficit. For a state in a slump as long and severe as Michigan’s, we can’t afford to send any signals that job-creating businesses perceive as a turnoff.
Editor’s note: Tom Walsh’s son Brian, a Michigan State University microbiology major, is completing his degree by working in a one-year program as a researcher for Pfizer in Kalamazoo. Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, Detroit Free Press
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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