Robert McDonnell speaks to the DC chapter of The Innovative Entrepreneur

Yesterday the new Governor-Elect of VA, Robert McDonnell, came and spoke to the Charter Members at The Innovative Entrepreneur DC (TiE-DC) Chapter. (TiE is a great organization for local entrepreneurs and businesses. It was formerly known as The Indus Entrepreneur until last year. More about TiE in a future post).

A couple of quick take-aways from the meeting:

– A formal new position of the Chief Jobs Creation Officer for the state. I know various states have a Labor Secretary but this is the first time that I have heard of a Governor pushing Chief Jobs Officer. Virginia is not particularly hit hard – it has the 8th lowest unemployment rate in the nation but this approach is timely.

– Key learning for the Governor-Elect in winning this competitive race was being focused on solving dinner table topics. “We focused on solving people’s problem like getting stuck in traffic on the way back from soccer game, jobs, and education.”

– Appointment of a fairly well known technology executive, Jim Duffy, to CTO of VA. Duffy is well known here in the DC/VA region as Vice Chairman of the Northern Virginia Tech Council (NVTC). See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/06/AR2010010604472.htmls

– One concrete agenda item addressed – last mile solutions for the rural counties.

Let’s see what the Governor-Elect does when he begins office in a week. So far he is speaking about the right things