Latest / The Wilmac Wire / Joseph Stefko | Leading OneROC, Building Rochester's Economy, & the NY SMART I-Corridor

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Joseph Stefko | Leading OneROC, Building Rochester's Economy, & the NY SMART I-Corridor · The Wilmac Wire

• Emily Miller: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome back to the Will MacWire. Thank you for tuning in. Before I get into it, whether it's now, during the podcast, later, if you haven't already, go to check out onerock.com, O-N-E-R-O-C.com. One thing that we talk about in today's episode is awareness of what One Rock is doing. And I'll get into that a little bit in today's intro, but there's a lot happening, a lot of great initiatives that they're a part of. and it'll give you great context into who and what we're discussing today. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that we talk a lot about what's being built in our headquarters city of Rochester, New York, in our industry with AI and 911 centers and contact centers and trading floors. We discuss the innovation, the growth and the potential within each of those with our different guests. And today's guest is one of the people most responsible for actually making that happen at a strategic level in Rochester, New York. Today, we're talking with Joe Stefko, President and CEO of One Rock, which is Greater Rochester's regional economic alliance. Joe is also a familiar face to us through the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce, where he and Steve both serve on the board and the advocacy committee. Here's what you can expect out of today's conversation. Of course, we started things off with Joe's career journey from managing a $1 billion emergency fiscal control board for the city of Buffalo to leading economic development for the greater Rochester region. And personally, I am also from Buffalo like Joe is and now work in Rochester. So I had to throw a Buffalo versus Rochester icebreaker in our intros. So you'll know when you hear it. We took a look at what OneRock actually does in the role it plays coordinating growth across this region and the different organizations it works with. We took a deep dive into the New York smart eye corridor tech hub, what it is, how it came together, where Joe and OneRock played a part in that and why it could be a genuine turning point for Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse. And last but certainly not least, we had a nice honest conversation about Rochester's potential. What's going on, what we can do better. and the different initiatives that OneRock is prioritizing and that you can learn more about on their website, OneRock.com and encourage, be a part of. This one is jam-packed. Thank you to Joe for joining us on the podcast in person at Rock Fox Studios and to his colleague Angela for helping coordinate the logistics. Joe, hopefully I'll see you at Acorn Exchange. If you're from Rochester, if you know, you know, head over there. All right, thank you for tuning in. Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Will MacWire. I'm Emily Miller, joined by my co-host, Steve McDonald. On this show, we talk the drivers, the leaders, innovators, and decision makers pushing customer interaction technology and AI forward. And because we're proud to call Western New York home, we also spotlight the drivers in our own community, the people and organizations shaping growth and innovation right here. Let's get into it. Originally from Buffalo, but now coming to us from Rochester, New York, He holds a PhD in public policy from the University of Buffalo. He started his career in government fiscal management at the city of Buffalo, spending nearly 20 years at the Center for Governmental Research, eventually becoming president and CEO. In 2019, he took the helm of what was then ROC 2025 and is now OneRock, Greater Rochester's regional economic alliance. He played a lead role in the New York Smart iCorridor Tech Hub designation and is now the regional innovation officer for the Tech Hub. He was named to the RBJ Power 100 for the past four years. Welcome to the Will MacWire, Joe Stefko. Thanks for joining us. Great to be here. Impressive list of things for me to mention there. Thank you. All right, Joe, thanks for joining us in person at Rockbox Studios today. It's a pleasure to sit down with you face to face. We'll get things started with a really quick icebreaker for our listeners to get to know you a little bit better. call this one This or That. I'm going to pose three questions to you, give you two options, and then you'll tell us what you choose and why. ⁓ So we're starting off with Buffalo wings or Rochester garbage plate. Wow, I'm getting alienated from folks here. Look, I'm born and bred Buffalonian. I have to go with the wings. I would say the same. to go with the wings. You got to do it. I love garbage plates, but I'll go with wings on this. Steve, do you have any hard of You hot wings? I do like hot wings. OK. What's your go-to in Buffalo? You know, it's tough. are so many. This is like trying to pick great chowder in Boston, right? ⁓ boy, ⁓ you know, I used to like Anchor Bar early on. ⁓ It had just the proliferation of wings in Buffalo like Elmos, 9-Eleven. ⁓ There's no shortage of great places. Very true, very true. Yeah, I always think it's funny because I'm also from Buffalo. ⁓ I can never find as good of a Buffalo wing in Rochester and I can never find a garbage plate in That's exactly right. It's not transferable and it's amazing because it's only like 75 miles away. If you have to get wings in Rochester, where would you go? See, I don't even know. Like don't have a go-to wings place. I go home to Buffalo and bring it back. So stand by like, know, Mark's Peasery and Mason makes a great wing. They're our go-to here in Rochester. There's a peated place in Fairport, TK's. Okay, that's good. Okay. I done that one. I'll check that Oh, yeah. I'll just write that one down. All right. Next question. Downtown Rochester or the Finger Lakes? Boy, that is a really, really tough one. ⁓ That's like picking your favorite child. mean, I love them both. There's some really, really exciting things that are going on in downtown Rochester. And obviously we're partnering on a bunch of those. am a huge fanatic of our Finger Lakes and our Finger Lakes wineries. We love spending time on Seneca Lake. So I'm probably going to go like 60-40. me on the lake. Yeah. Love it. Okay, and last one, attending a One Rock event or brainstorming about the future of in the boardroom? Wow, these are great. This should be this and this. Look, I ⁓ love ⁓ celebrating our work, our progress, lifting up our partners and being in the room with all those folks that make this work possible. ⁓ But at the end of the day, I really I'm somebody that likes nerding out, rolling up my sleeves and trying to think of creative, innovative ways and collaborative ways to drive the community, drive the region forward. So I'm going to say, you know, be in the boardroom working with our partners and trying to figure out how we can make this a more competitive and thriving regional economy. Yeah, strategy piece. love it. Let me ask Joe, are you guys based, where are you based in downtown Rochester? So we are in Clinton Square building. Yes. Okay. So we're actually, yeah, so we're actually, and this actually, you know, this in fact speaks to kind of the, one rock structure. As you said at the outset, we serve as the regional economic alliance and we're deeply invested in the partner organizations that make up that alliance. The Chamber, Greater Rochester Enterprise, Downtown Development Corporation, Visit Rochester, all of our public sector economic development partners. So from day one of what was Rock 2025 almost seven years ago, we have been embedded in the office of our partner organization. So for our first five plus years, we were co-located with Greater Rochester Enterprise and the Downtown Development Corporation. And over the last couple of years, we have taken up space with Greater Rochester Chamber in their newly renovated space in Clinton Square. So we're just really, really excited to be co-located with those partners. It really is the kind of the work in action. Yeah, love that. We're in the five star bank building, just a few floors below the GRI and our DDC. So I always head up there and I'm like, you guys have such a nice office. That's a great, it's a great space. Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. The chamber is a great space. The chamber space. Acorn exchange. Acorn exchange is great. They've gotten many of my dollars in the last couple of years. And also, you know, talk about some of the momentum we're seeing in downtown Rochester. The vision that is now being implemented by, by a Reedman for what will be the revitalized, redeveloped Clinton square building. It's going to be absolutely spectacular. And that's a, that's a perfect proof point for the transition that we're seeing downtown, something to be really excited about. I don't think Emily knows that the Acorn Exchange is getting some vast improvements. What? Expansion, yes. Live on the bottom, figuring out about this? Sounds like we've all collectively bankrolled a chunk of that expansion. Acorn Exchange, do ladies lunches every so often at Will Mac, and I think that's always like, can we go to Acorn Exchange? Can we go to Acorn Exchange? And then I bring it home to my fiance for dinner so I don't have to cook that So it's awesome. Love that bill. All right, Joe, we'll start off by talking about your career journey a little bit. So I'd like you to tell us a little bit more about your background and kind of how you got to One Rock. So my, as you mentioned at the outset, immediately before coming to this role, I was with CGR here in Rock. Rochester, nonprofit management consultancy that was actually founded by George Eastman over a century ago. And much of the work that I was contributing to there was in the government management space, the public finance, economic analysis space. We would work with, you know, state and local governments, work with foundations on issues around community competitiveness and how to maximize their investments in the local government space, frankly, in my last probably eight or ten years there, it was a lot of work on questions of how can we be more efficient and effective as local governments. ⁓ In many cases that involved questions of consolidating services, service departments, merging governments entirely, village dissolution. So was really, you know, through this lens of how can we creatively better serve our constituents or taxpayers in the communities that we represent. My last, spent, I started there in 1998, what began as a summer internship, pretty quickly turned into a full-time gig and took over as president and CEO in 2012 and stayed until 2019 when I stepped into this role. There was a five-year period in the middle there from 03 to 08 when I had an opportunity to go home to Buffalo when the city was on the verge of insolvency. and the state of New York imposed the fiscal control board ⁓ legally known as the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority. So that was a really amazing experience to be on the front line of some really challenging service delivery questions and financial sustainability questions and to be able to play a small role in sort of helping build the foundation that the ⁓ fiscal stability foundation for a lot of the progress that Buffalo and Western New York has seen is something that I'm really gratified to have had that opportunity. Very cool. Yeah, I mean, that's very unique and obviously Buffalo's came out looking great, the city itself. Yeah. Do you take a lot of what you learned there and you're trying to bring it to here or is it a little different because it was kind of an emergency situation? You know, think every, you know, even thinking to the work that I did over the years at CGR, every community is different, know, different history, different level of conversation. And I think a different willingness to ⁓ think outside the box and be creative. I think what I learned ⁓ most in my experience in Buffalo, which has really followed me for the rest of my career, ⁓ is the importance of working kind of cross-sector and cross-organizationally to try to build consensus. know, change is tough enough in the public sector or, you know, at the community level. ⁓ Change can be scary. And I think that's one of the reasons why change is, we don't see change at the scale as you might see it in say a private organization. It just takes longer ⁓ at the community level. And so those lessons have really followed me throughout my career and I think, I hope, are serving me well in my current role where we are really working cross-organizationally and multidimensionally. Steve kind of called it out a little bit and you called it out too, but you made a pretty significant shift from government fiscal management to regional economic development. What drove that transition? Well, during my time at CGR, I'd had an opportunity to, again, work on these issues of community competitiveness. Whether we were working with communities across New York State or communities in Massachusetts, we had major engagement with ⁓ a group of communities, ⁓ a dozen or so counties in Northeast Ohio, right? They all kind of fundamentally came down to this question of how can we better compete? How can we better ⁓ allocate our resources and make capital and programmatic investments so that we can compete with ⁓ the Sun Belt, the Southwest communities that have been for a generation or more kind of eating our lunch on investment and job growth. so, like, thematically, that similarity was there. One of the things that also taught me was a lot of the questions that, you know, we've asked for a long time. you know, in this part of the country are not unique to communities like Rochester or Buffalo or Sacramento. These are, or Cleveland or Pittsburgh, these are real thematic similarities and it's an opportunity for us to learn from one another. So I think again, a lot of those projects, a lot of that work kind of revolved around this space of community competitiveness and investments that can help. help us thrive economically in the future. I think that that has me well since I stepped into this role. Going back even further, we like to give kind of our audience ⁓ an idea of the steps that even got you to that first job. Did you know when you went to UB, you're like, is what I want to do for the rest of my life? Or you ended up getting, I'm assuming, your master's and PhD all from? you really have bachelor's master's and doctorate all from uv no actually not and i stepped on ⁓ on campus that you be as a freshman in the fall of ninety three ⁓ as a pre-law track student right now the science was really a means to an end i was gonna i was going to do my four-year undergraduate and they go to law school hopefully you be but maybe somewhere else it was really ⁓ probably by the end of that freshman year beginning of my sophomore year that high ⁓ i really began to gravitate toward the public policy issues that I was learning about in my coursework. Got to know a number of the political science and public policy ⁓ faculty there. ⁓ a series of opportunities to work on some really interesting ⁓ research projects. And so that was the first step that took me away from ⁓ the law school track and began to put me on a track where I thought, boy, I could see myself teaching at the collegiate university level, right? So now all of a sudden, the doctorate became an intriguing pathway for me. And as I mentioned before, started my wife and I, we met as undergrads at UB, got engaged after we graduated. I stayed at Buffalo for graduate school. a Rochester native, she came to U of R for graduate school. So we spent the first year of our engagement apart, and I said after that first year, I said, let me get an internship in Rochester. I'll come into town for the summer, we can be together, and then I'll go back to UB in the fall for the start of my second year of grad school. And that internship turned into a full-time gig pretty quickly, and the rest is kind of history. That was the beginning of my connection to Rochester, and really what took me from what I was thinking I would do to a much more applied policy role ⁓ that I've been in for the last couple of decades. Interesting. Okay. So what keeps you motivated in a role like this? Like you talked about, have to build consensus a lot and work with different groups and organizations and stakeholders. Like what keeps you motivated and tuned into it? Well, I just I find the work fascinating. ⁓ You know, I find the whole ⁓ first of all, we've got incredible people and first rate leaders in this economic development ecosystem. ⁓ Very motivated leaders. This this community, this region should be really proud of the people that are fighting every day to create jobs and investment and recruit and retain talent here in our region. ⁓ You know, but if I was going to boil it down, what keeps me motivated is just the simple fact that this is home. Yeah. is home, right? And, you know, I'm a firm believer that whether it's Rochester or Buffalo or you talk about upstate New York generally, you know, we have the, I think that the perception of these places isn't on par with the assets that we bring to the table. ⁓ And the work that we all do is an opportunity for us to reclaim and reassert the narrative about what these communities, what these regions can actually achieve, especially if they work together, especially if we work cross-organizationally, and that we can compete with any part of the country and any region in the world. And so it's a little bit of the, maybe this is just being a native Western New Yorker too. It's a little bit of the chip on the shoulder that we want to lock arms and fight for this place and build a better future. Yeah, I love it. So for listeners who aren't familiar, we touched on One Rock and what you guys do a little bit. But how would you describe what One Rock does and the role it plays in the region? And then second follow up question to that, like, have you been exposed to other organizations like One Rock in other cities? Sure, so One Rock, as you said before, serves as the regional economic alliance and when it was created in 2019 as Rock 2025. It really had two core responsibilities. One was to serve as a coordinating vehicle to help within the context of an aligned strategic plan, strategic vision, align the work of all of those economic development partner organizations that are part of the alliance that make up One Rock. Secondly, at least as importantly, was to significantly increase the level at which our business and philanthropic community are investing in that economic development infrastructure, that organizational infrastructure. So the creation of ROC 2025 was ⁓ predated by a major engagement that Boston Consulting Group had done late 2018, early 2019, in which they benchmarked Greater Rochester's regional economic performance against about 50 peer metros nationally, and then looked with a critical eye at how we were structured and resourced to do the work of job creation. talent, attraction, or retention, regional branding and marketing. And coming out of that engagement, we had real alignment among ⁓ the organizations and the boards that comprises the economic development ecosystem. So, ROC 2025, now One Rock was really created to serve as the steward of that aligned plan. And initially, the call to action was generate 20 million in net new resources to invest in not new organizations, but to invest in the organizations that are doing, know, in GRE's case, business attraction and business expansion. In the Chamber's case, regional talent attraction and retention. Support our DDC's activities downtown and launch this regional branding and marketing initiative, which is our Greater Rock campaign. Since then, and we'll probably get into this in the course of the conversation, ⁓ our role in addition to those core responsibilities, we have, we've stepped into some... some strategic leadership roles for key regional economic opportunities, one of which is the semiconductor regional tech hub, the Smart Eye corridor tech hub. One is the regional revitalization partnership, which we serve as the intermediary and implementation lead on. And another is a relatively new partnership with the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation that's focused on deepening the capacity of the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Yeah. So since you mentioned that now, I know we talked about including it in there. Let's let's dig into that. I know you mentioned kind of before we started involved start Can you speak to that a little bit more? Yeah, so we are extremely fortunate to have, as the lead partner on this Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, they have over the last two to three years been helping to facilitate the creation of a grassroots informed and ecosystem informed assessment of our entrepreneurship community. geographic focus is bigger than just Rochester, right? So their grant making footprint is Rochester, Buffalo, and sort of that Western Southern tier south of Buffalo. And so what they launched a couple of years ago ⁓ were a series of what they called Springboard Rapid Prize Awards. They wanted to get dollars out to entrepreneur support organizations that were interested in doing some innovative pilot things, right? To advance the ecosystem. Phase two of their of their vision is what OneRock is serving as the intermediary, the implementation lead on, and that is something called the ecosystem accelerator. So essentially, that model that I shared with you a couple of minutes ago about the original Rock 2025 helping to better coordinate and more deeply resource economic development activities here in Rochester, if you slap that model onto the entrepreneurship ecosystem across this three market. community. So they're investing to deepen the capacity of the ecosystem. They want a better support. They want entrepreneur support organizations to be better equipped to support entrepreneurs, right? So how can we support those that are supporting entrepreneurs? And to better connect that broader three community ecosystem. ⁓ Fast forwarding a year from now, the third and final phase of that vision, which would be sustained, is to ⁓ really begin to directly address the capital gap, the VC gap, that too often hamstrings startups here in our region. And so the vision is a three phase fund to funds, which at full build out would be north of $120 million. Again, to invest capital in the most promising startups and to bring... ⁓ VCs from across the country in to become part of that right it's all about how can we put more gasoline in the tank of our entrepreneurial support our entrepreneurial ecosystem here in upstate New York Yeah, this is great. I think I've heard of it Through the grapevine a bit. We've talked to the incubator in Rochester next next course We talked to them a couple times and he same sort of thing. We're missing the VCs We're missing the capital obviously when you say support the entrepreneur the people who are supporting the entrepreneur support system? Who are people like that? Not the actual entrepreneurs, but So those are organizations like NextCore. Okay. Those are organizations like RIT's Q, which is downtown. Yeah. Again, this is the infrastructure that supports entrepreneurs, right? And I think this is an innovative way of thinking about it. Interesting. That you can support entrepreneurs by... you directly funding an entrepreneur. You can also, and I would argue in a more sustained way, support entrepreneurs long term by investing in the vehicles, the infrastructure that supports them. Right? Because if I invest in that ESO, well not only can it support you as an entrepreneur, but it can support all three of us as entrepreneurs, right? And it really has more staying power. And that's how you strengthen an ecosystem. So think Wilson, you know, the process that Wilson facilitated. with all of those ecosystem partners over the last few years to inform this, deserves all of the credit for this. And we just have an opportunity at One Rock to play part in helping bring it to life. So I love how you're using the word ecosystem, because I think kind of the startup community, innovation needs an ecosystem to survive. If you look at the big places across the United States, it's a huge ecosystem. One thing that I feel like Rochester, and now you're talking Buffalo with Ralph Wilson combined, both of them have Rochester definitely, is the university systems. And then we do, even for being smaller cities, have flagship companies and flagship hospitals. I would look at them as part of the ecosystem. If you're going to build a startup, getting that first, second, third customer is the hardest thing to do. and where this world is going now with AI and vertical AI specializing in certain industries. If you could get them on board to be like, listen, if we like an idea, we'll partner with them. invest in them, maybe not invest, but be their first customer, be a use case. Is that something that you guys think about or is that down the road? Absolutely. No, absolutely. And I love your ⁓ sort of taking this broad definition to ecosystem, right? ⁓ Yeah. Without a doubt, our large employers, colleges and universities in this region are major ⁓ pillars of that ecosystem, whether it's the ecosystem that OneRock is helping to deepen the capacity and whether it's the entrepreneurial ecosystem. know, Steve, what you mentioned reminds me of some of the work that we are involved in with ⁓ through the Smarti Cord or Tech Hub activities where it is, you you think about the massive investment that Micron is in the process of making in Onondaga County, which creates a major demand driver for all of us across upstate New York and New York State broadly. ⁓ But we've got major, not just other fabs in New York State, we've major tier one suppliers there, right? all of whom are buying significant amounts of things, right? So what we're trying to do through our supply chain project as part of the SmartEye corridor tech hub is make those marriages. if you're, you know, you know, ⁓ tier one company X, right, has to buy a certain supply and we've got available supply here in region. that's an opportunity for us to anchor that spend right here in the corridor and really get those dollars circulating. So whether it's in the entrepreneurship space, whether it's in the tech hub or the broader economic development ecosystem, where we can create those marriages and have buyers and suppliers existing in our midst, that's how we get real impact. How do you figure out where to put the time in when you have so many different? balls in the air. They're all great. They all need attention, but it's what, how do you figure what priority? Yeah, you know, it's, it's an interesting question. It's one of the reasons why at One Rock we are just in the first couple of months of, of revisiting and likely refreshing our own strategic and capacity building plan. Right. So, um, the, the, the original plan, as I mentioned, was the product of the work that BCG did back in 2018 and 2019. as as detailed as that original ⁓ portfolio of activities was in capacity building and generating new investment, it never contemplated things like a Smart Eye Corridor or Tech Hub focused on semiconductors. It never contemplated an entrepreneurial accelerator or an $80 million regional revitalization partnership. So what we've tried to do is be smart and allow our work to evolve as a capacity builder, as an ecosystem builder and connecting entity. But, you know, I think as with any organization, we've got to step back every few years and just reassess where we are and reassess what our own capacity needs are. I will say that when ROC 2025, OneROC were originally created, you know, there was a lot of intentionality that this not be another organization. So one of the things BCG said in their original analysis was, you have organizations in the ecosystem, right? We can layer on better coordination. We can certainly drive more resources to those organizations. And I remember when my former board chair, Rob Sands, had first approached me and said, hey, we'd like to talk to you about stepping into this role. And I said, respectfully, Rob, if this is about creating another organization, I'm happy doing what I'm doing, right? But if there's an interest in doing something innovative, just really keeping the Alliance infrastructure as lean as possible so that a company or a foundation invests in us, invests the capacity building plan, we're not taking those dollars and paying our own finance office, paying for our own real estate, right? We're driving those dollars overwhelmingly to grow the capacity of the ecosystem and its competitiveness. Like if that's what we're talking about, then I'm interested. And that is exactly where the leadership team around that table post BCG study ⁓ was. And it's the primary reason why I was excited to step into this role. But to your point, Steve, like it's tough to balance these because they're all amazing opportunities, some cases generational opportunities for our community. And we want to make sure that we're best positioned to capitalize. Yeah, I definitely see that through line a little bit more because when you were talking about CGR, you talked about being. as effective and efficient as possible. And it sounds like you're taking that very same mindset into what you guys do at One Rock. very cool. So in six years at One Rock, you've secured nearly $30 million in capacity building investments and seen Rochester improve its peer rankings across job growth, income and GDP. Do you think there are like ⁓ specific examples of what has driven that process, what has driven that progress or has it been compounding? Like, can you speak more to that? ⁓ Yeah, this is, you know, it's a tough question to answer because this is not in all of this kind of work. This isn't a scientific experiment. This isn't a lab experiment. So I think about when we started this work in 2019. ⁓ that peer group that we benchmark against every month has 53 MSAs including Rochester, 53 total. We were 43rd in year over year job growth on a 53, right? ⁓ As of December, we were 32nd, right? So we're seeing that kind of directional improvement in pretty much all the metrics that we track is that... Is that exclusively because of One Rock's role? No, absolutely not, right? ⁓ Is it just because we've driven more resources into this ecosystem? No, absolutely. There's a lot of macro factors that are driving, you know, economic, you know, the broader economy regionally and nationally and globally, right? What we're trying to stay focused on is controlling what we can control. And, ⁓ you know, for our work that is making sure that the alliance partner organizations have the resources they need to service those, know, in Jerry's case, service those companies that are considering moving into and investing in our region. The chambers case, making sure that talent that's here, the 75,000 enrolled college students in our region, that they've got employer connectivity, that they've experienced the community, the region off campus, so that when they walk across stage and grab that diploma, we've made this place stickier than it would have been otherwise, right? That we're recruiting talent in from outside of the region, that we're piloting some things and trying to drive downtown activation, right, in the core of the region. And then again, with the regional branding and marketing initiative, the Greater Rock Campaign, unapologetically telling that story here in region and with paid media nationally. So it's not exclusively our work. But, you know, I think we're, I'm really proud that the investments that we and the partner organizations have made over the last seven years have coincided with these improvements in peer rank that we've seen almost across the board. ⁓ A specific example. Like, let's take the Chamber and how they work with the college students, you're right, there's 75,000, you hard how many students are in Rochester, and we lose a decent amount of them. They all come back too. So how would you guys play a role with Bob and his team in helping Rochester look great to a cop? college kids. So there's a program that we have funded for about five years, five and a half years, called Campus Rock. It is modeled on Campus Philly, which is in Metro Philadelphia. That one was founded probably 14 or 15 years ago and bringing resources and real intentionality to engaging those students, building that college student community within the broader community, hosting events. that get those students off campus, right, ⁓ to experience the community that goes beyond just the boundaries of their campus or their classroom. ⁓ employer connectivity is a big part of that as well. We want to make sure that students are aware of the, you know, the... wide range of career options here in their fields that, you know, given our cost advantages in this region, right, are a real no-brainer to start your career, right? ⁓ And I think as is the case we were talking about kind of regional reputations a little earlier, I think one of the things that we need to continue taking head on is the perception that, there aren't opportunities. There are opportunities here, right? ⁓ And in the case of those 70 plus thousand enrolled college students in our region, ⁓ they have self-selected into our community for two, three, four, five years, whatever it is. ⁓ Whether they were a Greater Rochester, high schooler that decided to stay here or they're coming in from Buffalo or Boise or Beijing to spend time here, right? It's an opportunity for us to make sure that they don't simply walk across stage after four years or two years or five years and grab that diploma and go to the airport. And so I think the Campus Rock Initiative has really helped to better coordinate that work with all of our college and university partners and really give our graduating college students something to think about, right? And also to your point, Steve, There's not a region in the country that keeps 100 % of their enrolled college students, right? But when you get two, three, four, five years out from that degree and you're looking to take the next step in your career or your family, we want to make sure that those graduates who have chosen to leave here have left here knowing, boy, I can get a house at a relatively low price point. the commuting is great. Or boy, I really love the seasons. Or boy, there's a great art and culture and food scene, right? So just that intentionality makes this place. think a stronger draw. Yeah, love it. All right. ⁓ We love Campus Rock. We've gone to a couple of their talent fests over the past few years. So I always hear the mechanical ball. That's the big thing that they always want to bring back. But yeah, all right. So we'll move now more into the New York Smart Eye Corridor. So One Rock played a lead role in securing that, ⁓ which is a federal tech hub designation. And it brought in $50 million in total investment to the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse region. So can you walk us through what that designation means and how it came together and how One Rock played a role? Certainly. So the regional tech hub program is a component of the Federal Chips and Science Act, which was passed in 2022. That legislation, of course, was focused on providing ⁓ dollars to onshore semiconductor chips, as well as to invest in communities that in the federal governments, from the federal government's perspective, had the assets and the potential to grow over the next decade into world leaders in one of a series of key technology focus areas, one of which was semiconductors. just before the Chips and Science Act was passed, so this probably would have been in late 21, very early 22, we began to pull Buffalo and Rochester leadership together. Economic development, higher ed, labor, public sector, industry partners, to talk about what a joint proposal could look like and begin to assess our complementary assets, right? Let's figure out a way to compete together rather than against one another. which is, I think, another paradigm shift that we're seeing over the last few years, which is really, really exciting in this kind of work. We were one of 387 applicants to the regional tech hub phase one process, 387 communities, regions across the country that put in a bid. Of those 387, 31 were designated as tech hubs. Those that were invited to apply for implementation funding. So we were one of the 12 to receive that first in the nation implementation funding, the only one in the full value chain semiconductor space. What does that mean? Well, our proposal, our programs are really based on ⁓ accelerating the workforce, the development of the workforce, both in that microelectronics technician space, but also in the trades, right? Think about what the ⁓ capital construction that's going to be required at Micron, the capital construction that is concluding in Genesee County for Edwards Vacuum, right? So we've got to build these facilities and we've got to make sure that we have a trades worker pipeline and then a technician pipeline to fill those facilities. So workforce is one. Commercialization is second. Commercialization is really focused on making sure that we're doing everything we can to to ensure that innovations in the semiconductor and microelectronics space are happening here in the corridor. And that really is anchored around our one and our two research universities, where we've got, you know, from UB to U of R, RIT, Syracuse University, Cornell, we've got an embarrassment of riches in this space, and we've got incredible world-leading expertise ⁓ that can advance the microelectronics industry. ⁓ So we're connecting companies to that. ⁓ And then the third component project is focused on supply chain. And Steve, this kind of gets back to what we were talking about before, that we are ⁓ doing everything we can to connect suppliers that are in this region that can plug into that semiconductor supply chain to make those marriages with those large institutional buyers. This is really about anchoring as much of that spend in our region as possible. Well, that doesn't mean that we're going to be able to compete for every part of that semiconductor. ⁓ supply chain. There are specific chemicals, gases, and pieces of equipment, know, five, six hundred million dollars of pieces of equipment that, you Micron and others will only purchase from a single company in the Netherlands, right? So we're not going to compete there, but where we can compete, we want to make sure that A, companies here that can provide that service, provide those supplies, are aware of it. and B, that we're actually making the formal connection between the buyers and the suppliers. each of those three projects, workforce commercialization and supply chain, are about 18 months into their initial activation here. we're probably at about 340, 350 companies already engaged across those three projects. OK. Go ahead. No, no, no. I was going to ask how the universities. kind of the commercial commercialization of it. What does that entail? Like Micron, Intel, all like those types of companies? are starting to work with our local universities while you're a guy you're a single i'm not a perfect example right so they're already working with universities across the corridor and and not just not just syracuse university but involved with our university here in rochester and and in buffalo ⁓ as well as an alphab space at cornell ⁓ did the commercialization work though is is fundamentally it's more focused on those ⁓ those ⁓ smaller mid-sized companies that are and that are looking to accelerate their go-to-market strategy, right? So we've got, for example, in the commercialization project, we've got funding to essentially buy those companies that are looking to take their innovation to the next level, to essentially buy them time on university prototyping equipment, access to those specialized facilities. So it's a way for us to unlock the door to this network of innovation assets that we have across the corridor. And one of the, in the, interest of regional, super regional collaboration here. One of the really cool things that we've seen over the last couple of years is sort of a systems approach to thinking about those assets, those complementary assets across our university network. So for example, if you are an innovating company and you're in Buffalo and you approach the, we have an innovation concierge position at each of these universities, you approach your innovation concierge at UB and you say, I need access to a clean room that has this equipment. I'm gonna need, you know, a hundred hours on it so that we can be ready for our go-to-market final steps. UB is positioned to say, we don't have that, but our IT does. Right? So again, kind of building this integrated system where there's A, no wrong door and B, these seamless handoffs so that from the end user perspective, from the company or customer perspective, when they tap into the tech hub, they're tapping into this integrated array of assets across market. Right. That's great. How do you, so Micron's obviously the huge one. Everyone's talking about it. Do you see those growth stage startup, whatever you want to call them, starting to pop up and take advantage of these universities? And I would assume either be trying to work with Micron eventually. Do you see that stuff starting to happen? We do, and in fact, I think in some cases, ⁓ that activity predated the tech hub was one of the reasons why we were, you we were well positioned and had a really compelling case to make to the feds that we weren't starting de novo on this work, but you just look at the work that, you know, NextCore and Luminate do, attracting world leading startups in that optics and photonic space, which is, which is essential. It's fundamental to advances in microelectronics and semiconductors, right? ⁓ We just, through the commercialization project, announced about a month ago the first six innovation vouchers to those small and mid-sized companies that are now going to tap into those university resources. have 15 or 17 that are immediately behind them in the pipeline. So you're going to start to see more of these pop. But in thinking about not just the sort of blocking and tackling work of this, but telling the story, like we've got to lift those companies up and really shine a light on them because they become part of the brand. They become part of telling Telling a global audience, but maybe also telling some of the naysayers in our midst in our midst like this is possible And it's happening here. Yeah Wonderful, and I know the corridor has some pretty ambitious like 10-year goals and to name a few 9,000 plus new jobs 18 billion dollars in additional GDP growth and producing 25 % of American-made chips by 2034 you've hit on it a lot with the collaboration aspect between Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse Like where do you see Rochester fitting specifically into that sort of vision, those goals? Well, Rochester is ⁓ extraordinarily relevant here, ⁓ both for our geography being the, what I call the buckle on the belt here between Buffalo and Syracuse, ⁓ also because of our pedigree and optics, photonics, imaging. laser technology. The University of Rochester has a major ⁓ National Science Foundation bid, their stellar laser bid that is pending right now that would layer on top of this. You know, we have ⁓ really unmatched expertise in that space and we've got a burgeoning optics sector here that I think is off of, you know, it's off of the average Greater Rochesterians radar screen. I think they'd be really, really impressed to know that industry base that we have here. So, I think that the table is really set for us to be able to achieve those goals. I think one of the other really interesting things about, even beyond those immediate goals for the Tech Hub work, one of the really interesting and exciting things that I'm seeing is this ⁓ consortium that we've developed across Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse is now starting to ⁓ produce ⁓ fruit in other areas, right? So we're talking about ways that we can work together and secure national funding, national philanthropy to invest in our respective small business ecosystems. Right? So, you know, the partnership itself is really powerful beyond just what we're seeing in the collaboration around semiconductor and microelectronics. And I do want to just lift up that statistic that you mentioned, Emily, for your listeners. on planned investments alone. ten years from now one in four domestically produced semiconductor chips will be manufactured within three hundred fifty miles where we're all sitting so this is like detroit and panayak you know at the beginning of the auto industry like the the the table is set for us the opportunity for us to to really create ⁓ generational transformational economic ⁓ opportunity ⁓ in in our communities is is in front of us and really the tech hub work is all about making sure that we fully capitalize on that opportunity I think you're right. think the general public doesn't realize that or know that. All right, Joe, before we start to wrap up, you and Steve both serve on the Greater Rochester Chambers Advocacy Committee. ⁓ Where in our economy do you see those conversations leaning towards? I know you guys have a meeting tomorrow. We just talked with Vince a little bit about it. I didn't know you were popping a question on this. But where does AI investment fit into that? question. You want to take this one? I think we're pretty early in the conversation with the committee on any of this. We are, but I think that the, I don't know about AI specifically. would just say more broadly though, I'm really, I'm excited about using that table to inform a regional economic strategy. we have, you know, could say, well, One Rock has strategies. Our strategy to this point has been really focused on, again, coordination, capacity building, and leading on some strategic, regional strategic economic opportunities. But what does that North Star for us as a region? If we are, you know, I think we've certainly seen success in some other regions of the country in aligning that that business philanthropic public sector voice into a unified chorus behind one or two or three specific priorities ⁓ in a way that informs what we're all doing across multiple organizations. And I think, you know, not unlike what we did with the Tech Hub, not unlike what we've been able to do with the regional revitalization partnership, this is about how we align ⁓ what each of us is doing in our own organizations to strengthen the broader regional competitiveness. And I think that table is going to be critical in helping get to that point. Yeah, yeah, it's exciting again. Tomorrow is only the second day, so more to come on that. to your point with AI, the Micron chip, mean, that's how do you think AI is being powered? Why do think it's so important? So it's just a layer in the AI tech stack. People don't think of it like that, but the reality is it's... the core base layer of an AI tech stack, which is exciting that is here in Western or Central New York. right, right. All right, Joe, as I start to wrap us up, are there any initiatives or programs at OneRock that we didn't talk about? I'm sure there's a long list, but that you'd like to share about with our listeners. So the only other one that ⁓ I would lift up, and I alluded to this a little while ago, is the RRP, the Regional Revitalization Partnership. So this is another another partnership that involves ralph c wilson junior foundation ⁓ but is anchored by new york state ⁓ and it has a variety of funders here in rochester on philanthropic funders ⁓ yes l kona are ⁓ ferrish foundation and t and bt e five star and and and includes the city and county it is a co-investment strategy to to really create more powerful capital stacks by having funders align their investments in three buckets, as workforce, commercial corridor revitalization, and placemaking. And here in Rochester, it's placemaking with an emphasis on the Genesee River. ⁓ But one significant project that is in its early stages but is being funded by ROP is the newly launched West Main Gateway Corridor Revitalization Project that will start in Bulls Head. ⁓ near where ESL's investment is and move into downtown from there. And it is providing dollars for small businesses, for property owners there, and really ⁓ trying to ⁓ create space and resources to revitalize that historically important corridor, strategic corridor, and gateway into downtown. So that's the type of project. that our piece helping to support another one is harpers corner right in the in clinton for how long was that uh... uh... you know blighted property right and our he was able to provide for that last mile funding to make that project a reality so really excited to see these these are p funded projects and i'll come to life wonderful thanks for sharing joe steven unless question all thanks joe appreciate this was insightful uh... i think a lot of information A lot of stuff that you guys are doing needs to get out into the public more. I know you guys are kind of behind the scenes with GRE and the chamber, but you guys are doing a great job and getting it out is great. Thank you very much. Yeah. So for our listeners, if you'd like to connect with Joe or One Rock, can find Joseph on LinkedIn under Joseph Stefko. ⁓ The website is OneRock.com and you can also find One Rock on LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram. And last but certainly not least, Joe is also a podcaster and has a podcast you can listen to called Accelerate Greater through One Rock. So Joe, thanks for joining us on the Will MacWire today. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the WillMac Wire. If you liked today's conversation, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. You can also learn more about WillMac technologies and our work in customer interaction technology at WillMacTech.com. We'll be back soon with more conversations with the drivers, those shaping our industry and those building right here in Western New York. See you next time.