The game plan: a reorganization and revised mission at the Indiana Department of Commerce. More changes?

• Author: Beck, Bill
• Position: Economic Development

JOBS IN THE HOOSIER state--and whether they're disappearing, increasing or holding their oval--figure to be a major fixture of the 2004 Indiana gubernatorial election. Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan and his opponent, Republican Mitch Darnels, are echoing a national campaign issue that has already spotlighted the drop in manufacturing employment in the Midwest battleground states as well as fears that increasing numbers of jobs are moving overseas.

In at least some particulars, the Indiana gubernatorial candidates sound more like the presidential candidates from the opposing party Kernan wouldn't necessarily disagree with incumbent Republican Pres. George W. Bush that the economy was never as weak as the media portrayed it, and is getting stronger by the day Republican Mitch Daniels, on the other hand, has to nod his head when Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry of Massachusetts charges that the economy is in the midst of a jobless recovery that is in fact eroding the middle class.

Much of the argument over the economy on the local level concerns the performance of the state and its lead agency in economic-development affairs, the Indiana Department of Commerce. Kernan, who served as lieutenant governor from 1996 to last September, presided over a major 2002 reorganization of the Department of Commerce in his capacity as the No. 2 man in state government. Not surprisingly, Kernan has maintained a key interest in the Indiana Department of Commerce and economic development since being sworn in as governor last September in the wake of the stroke that killed his predecessor, Frank O'Bannon.

"Indiana was ninth in the nation in manufacturing jobs before this latest recession hit," Kernan points out. "We're still ninth. We've always made things in Indiana. Now, the process has evolved to make products with new technologies. We need to encourage the state's manufacturers to look at those new technologies and help provide the manufacturing sector with a workforce that utilizes and implements that new technology."

Daniels believes equally passionately that Indiana is being left behind in the race to develop a 21st century knowledge economy. A former executive for Eli Lilly & Co., the state's largest employer, Daniels has gone on record to urge that state governments' major role in economic development is to get out of the way of entrepreneurs and make business expansion as painless as possible. If elected, Daniels has pledged to appoint Fort Wayne businesswoman Patricia Miller, CEO and cofounder of Vera Bradley Designs, to the newly created position of secretary of commerce. The cabinet-level position would incorporate many of the duties of...