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<br />APPROVED MEETING MINUTES OF THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT <br />ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR JUNE 16, 2022 <br /> <br /> <br />June 16, 2022 <br /> <br />Economic Development Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes of June 16, 2022 <br /> <br />The Economic Development Advisory Committee [EDAC] met by remote participation for Thursday, June <br />16, at 8:00 a.m. via Zoom. This meeting was held remotely pursuant to Governor Baker’s March 12, <br />2020 order suspending certain provisions of G.L. c. 30A, section 18 and subsequent orders imposing <br />strict limitations on the number of people who may gather in one place. <br />EDAC Members present: Rick DeAngelis (Chair), Bridger McGaw (Vice Chair), Larry Smith, Charles Minasian, David <br />Pronchick, Bridger McGaw, Lisa Murray, Adrienne Ortyl <br />Liaisons and Town Staff: Joe Pato (Select Board), Mark Sandeen (Select Board), Carol Kowalski (Assistant Town <br />Manager), Charles Hornig (Planning Board), Sandhya Iyer (Economic Development Director), and Mike Kennealy <br />(Secretary of Economic Development). <br />Larry Smith moved the approval of the May 19th meeting minutes and was seconded by Bridger McGaw. <br />The meeting minutes were approved unanimously 6-0. <br /> <br />Secretary Kennealy was welcomed by the Chair and shared remarks on a wide variety of topics. He <br />shared initial actions by his office when the pandemic started. He stressed the economic impact is still <br />very real on the “Main Streets” across the Commonwealth. State focus on Competitiveness <br />1. Workforce: the focus is on skill gaps in workforce to build up or augment programming – <br />160,000 unemployed and 250,000 job openings. There is a skill gap and we want to focus on <br />career path training <br />2. Global Leadership: we are leading in multiple sectors such as cyber security, life sciences, health <br />care, education. There is a tri-sector partnership between higher education, private sector and <br />government to focus on growing out our leadership in these growth industries. We want to also <br />be a state that Manufactures products, not just designs innovations. The supply chain <br />disruptions showed <br />3. Investing in our communities and downtowns. We have a strategy around this and a legislative <br />initiative. There are a lot of programs and complexities to them. We looked at way to combine <br />13 programs into 1 grant making one-stop delivery channel – if legislation passes.