Guest Speaker: Bruce Kendall

I think Bruce Kendall has to be one of the most interesting presentation out of the ones we had. I think it's because I also have so much pride to be in Washington. Great business like Boeing, Amazon, and of course Microsoft all came from Washington. Before the presentation I knew that economic development is an ongoing processes for United States in general and it has become more have a hassle to keep U.S companies in the U.S, now that were facing globalism since outsourcing is such a breeze. 

I did I study way be in my freshman year of high school about outsourcing. I remembered my opinion about outsourcing was very negative, just like what I think Bruce Kendall implied. However, I still think outsourcing would be furthest thing I would what to do for my company -I understand that it's not a black and white decision. Like everything else, there's pros and cons. What Kendall is trying to do is to keep companies that are already here to stay here and persuading them and finding resources for these companies to stay and help our economy instead of giving it to China and Taiwan to name a couple of big players. Especially in Shenzhen, China. It was like a ghost city and now in a matter of years, maybe even months, all those factories because of cheap materials and labor. 

What I found to be most interesting is Kendall wasn't talking about outsourcing to different counties. No, he was talking about Washington state in general. He touched based about economic clusters especially in Seattle. Just like I mention earlier, all those company like Microsoft and Amazon they're all in the King County. What about Pierce County? I admit, I never thought about having my business or heard of anything well known business that originated or is still in Pierce County. Even statistically speaking, crime rates and poverty shows that Tacoma was the highest rate compared to Seattle. That's what Kendall wants to stop investors and business owners to see past all of the "statistics". I never thought that Tacoma is in competition with Seattle in placing companies, but now I understand that there is a cluster and by spreading it out to Tacoma helps Tacoma, economically.