As Wyoming’s historic cash cow, mineral wealth, continues to lose market value, Wyoming’s larger entities, both public and private, are investing in innovation and ways to keep our human resources in Wyoming.
“Currently we’re only employing about 30 percent of our college engineering graduates in state,” University of Wyoming Dean of Engineering Michael Pishko said. “The focus on everything right now is how do we continue to attract outside companies and more importantly how do we seize the opportunity to build our own companies and entrepreneurial successes from the bottom up with our own residents.”
There’s no doubt amongst most students that they will have to search for meaningful employment outside Wyoming despite any wishes to stay in the state and work.
“We’re putting a lot of emphasis on fostering innovation and removing the old barriers of ‘silo’ or compartmentalized thinking,” Pishko said. “This is really a huge system re-boot that David [Chicoine] and I came up with to give UW and Wyoming a one-stop shop for making meaningful ideas into pragmatic realities.”
The process of keeping both the Governor’s project, ENDOW, and the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UW growing depends heavily on forethought by UW’s Board of Trustees and state legislative funding to both programs. The cost of ignoring this pivotal moment in Wyoming’s economic process is nothing short of dire.
“We consider what UW is doing to be an integral part of igniting this economic engine,” Wyoming Director of Economic Diversification Strategy and Initiatives Jeremiah Rieman said. “I’ve met with high school superintendents about how we’re preparing our young adults through high school curriculum for the future, so this is foundational.”
ENDOW is not directing the university, travel industry or tourism industry to make any specific investments or changes. ENDOW does not work as any sort of governmental oversight and is entirely state funded.
“ENDOW is really here to provide the tent for all these different entities – industry, education, financing, etcetera to meet under one roof and to make changes in how this state supports itself and its people,” Rieman said. “Now we’re all counting on the legislature to appropriate the funds.”
The path to economic security for students at UW, their families, their communities, lies ultimately in an organic shift and cooperation between state government, local commerce and working intellectuals raised in Wyoming’s own public school system and colleges.
“The UW Colleges of Business and Engineering are working through new technologies and really brainstorming on how to bring the glimmer in the eye, the true inception of successful business, into a working and marketable reality,” UW College of Business Chair and Stroock Professor of Natural Resource Conservation and Management Jason Shogren said. “The UW Board of Trustees and the president have signed off on it so as we come into this next Wyoming legislative session we’re looking forward to fruition and funding.”
The proposed institute is in its beginning stages, but as with any opportunity the ground floor is where you want to get in. Resources are more than just mineral wealth; it is also being a resourceful human, of which UW produces some of the best.
“As Department Chair I’m more of a matchmaker trying to put people in the right places to get the most out of our whole community,” Shogren said. “When ENDOW started their process UW wasn’t necessarily or officially part of that process but it makes logistical sense that the two would intersect some point since UW is the most readily available pool of human resources.”
