As a part of our continued efforts to be strong advocates of our industry and partner with policy makers, we had two meetings with Governor Inslee last month.  First we had a diverse representation of our membership road trip for a luncheon with the Governor at the Governor’s Mansion.  Representatives from MSFT, Verizon, Synapse, Liquid Planner, Big Fish, EMC/Isilon, TechStars, Madrona, Comcast, and Tech Alliance joined our CEO Michael Schutzler in an engaging conversation with Governor Inslee. The following week we were able to meet with the Governor along with members that had not been able to attend the meeting in Olympia including Amazon and Google.

In both of these meetings, it was clear that the Governor appreciates the contributions of our industry and is interested in working with our membership to develop creative solutions to the revenue challenges we face as a state.  He understands the importance of incorporating computer science and programming into early education and wants to hear from industry on how to make that happen. He also clearly understood the need to increase the capacity of our university computer science programs to help us develop rather than simply import talent.

The Governor is sincerely interested in engaging with the tech industry and wants to attend product launches, IPO celebrations, and other major events to help bring national media attention to the successes we have in Washington.  In fact, he was just at Google in Kirkland this week to celebrate their ten-year anniversary. He also heard our case about the importance of Research & Development to our industry and acknowledged it is critical to send a message that we welcome R&D investments here through tax preferences. We were encouraged by the passion the Governor has for our industry and we look forward to working with his team to solving problems together.

Please contact our CEO Michael Schutzler if you want to participate in any future WTIA advocacy efforts!