Mercer can help u-system

To many in Montana’s university community, the new chairman of the Board of Regents might seem a threat to the traditional distance between the quiet halls of academe and the commercial hurly-burly world of business.

By The Helena IR

http://helenair.com/articles/2004/01/25/opinions_top/a04012504_01.txt

And it’s true that John Mercer, a mover and a shaker during 16 years in the state House of Representatives, has blown into the regents’ world with an equal presence.

But Mercer’s agenda, already well under way, has the potential to do the university system — and the state — a world of good.

Under Mercer’s prodding, the board is spearheading a coalition of university, government and business leaders to join in new efforts to turn the state’s economy around — with major coordination and expertise coming from the university system for the first time.

Speaking from his Polson law office Friday, Mercer said the university system’s role need not be limited strictly to economic development, but it can lend its skills to evaluating many problems facing the state — problems in areas such as health care or corrections whose solutions could indirectly help the economy. Rather than showing up asking for money, the system could arrive offering real help.

We’d called Mercer wondering what specific economic development programs he had in mind, given that so many efforts over the years have yielded far more talk than actual development, but he wasn’t about to get too far ahead of what, after all, needs to be a collaborative process.

Generally, however, he said it is important to focus on the economic returns of programs, rather than just their cost. For instance, he said, attempts to attract more out-of-state students are best sold by stressing the millions of dollars those students will bring to the state’s economy. Similarly, workforce development — say, a new program to train workers at Helena’s College of Technology — will bring real and important economic benefits to the state down the line.

"Expand the process to look at things that can make money for the state and for state government in the grand, overall economic scheme," he said. Research grants and technology transfers, for instance, can ultimately spur development of new businesses that can stimulate the economy for years to come.

Mercer thinks prior economic development efforts may have had little effect simply because of a lack of long-term follow-through involving as many people as possible — the kind of thing that the university system can provide. "There’s so much room for improvement, for relationships," he said — "and for long-term plans, and sticking with them."

Mercer is indeed interested in shaking up the academe, making it a bigger and more active part of the Montana scene. But if it works, and university system involvement does help get Montana’s economy moving, one of the biggest beneficiaries will be the university system itself.