By Councilmember Rochelle Swanson
April 16, 2012 (Washington DC) – Today was the longest of the days we have experienced so far. Some of us had appointments starting at 8 am, which means we had to be at the Capitol and congressional office buildings by 7 am to ensure we could get through security. And security was most certainly heightened at all of the DC office buildings due to the tragic events in Boston yesterday, making for long security lines and lots of waiting.
The Davis/Yolo group was again split up to be on several different Sacramento Metro Chamber Cap-to-Cap teams, including Innovation, Transportation, Flood Control, Water Resources, Food & Agriculture, and Job & Business. Most of my time was spent on select appointments with either the Metro Chamber Leadership or the Innovation Team.
One of the highlights of the day was a Leadership Luncheon for the full delegation in the Cannon Caucus Room where we heard inspiring statements and insider peaks at the current state of affairs in DC. Speakers included Senator Barbara Boxer, Deputy Secretary of HUD Maurice Jones, and the President’s Economic Advisor Gene Sperling. Representatives Doris Matsui and Ami Bera were also in attendance.
Teams met with many different representatives at the congressional and senatorial offices throughout the day. The Innovation team had great meetings with staff from Reps. Gutierrez, Udall, Garamendi, LaMalfa, Smith, and Speier. These representatives are working on a variety of important legislation that will benefit the innovation and knowledge-based economy in the Sacramento region, including topics about entrepreneurs, direct foreign investment, basic and applied research, and funding for STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math).
To round out the day, we had a fantastic meeting with Doug Rand, the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The team for this meeting included our Mayor and representatives from our city, UC Davis, SARTA (the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance), and Sacramento-based business leaders. We discussed the current focus of the administration and explored which existing policies and programs might benefit UC Davis, the City of Davis, and the greater innovation/technology sector. He also asked our opinion about new proposals that the administration might consider and asked for examples of successes that our region has already experienced. We spent a bit of time discussing the recent i6 Challenge Grant awarded by the US EDA to UC Davis and SARTA and how that success could be replicated.
Our day was capped off with an evening spent at an all-delegation wrap-up and networking event that didn’t end until very late. The wrap-up was a chance to thank the program chair (Babs Sadeen) the honorary co-chairs (Michael Picker of SMUD and I) and coordinators of the program, as well as highlight the sponsors that make the effort possible.
Tomorrow, we have more appointments in the morning and then we travel back home for the remainder of the day. I will write one more short blog/email on Wednesday and then plan to do a post-trip wrap-up on Friday, after I have had a chance to look through my notes and get a bit of rest. This has been an eventful and rewarding trip, but the schedule is quite packed and I am looking forward to being back home.
I hope you are following us on twitter at #DavisinDC as well as the Cap-to-Cap official hashtag of #cap2cap13. There have been many great pictures of the teams at their appointments and travelling around DC.
