Editor’s Note: This post is part of Village14’s ongoing series allowing 1 column from each candidate for Congress in the 4th District. It is being released late because of an email mixup. – Bryan

For me, one of the best experiences of this campaign has been biking through every city and town in the district to talk with residents and small business owners.  As people struggle with the COVID-19 and the economic destruction it has unleashed, I’ve been amazed at how they have come together to help one another. 

It has also deepened the conviction that my ability to bring people together and understanding of how to create jobs make me the best choice among the nine candidates to be the next representative of Massachusetts 4^th Congressional District.

Biking through Taunton, I discovered the owner of the Pearl Restaurant, Odette Costa, who not only opened her business to people who were sewing masks for those who couldn’t afford them, but even allowed a catering company to sell its own food in the alley next to the restaurant, even though it was competing with the Pearl.

I learned that nearly half of the small business owners I talked to were unable to access federal paycheck protection loans because they didn’t have the right banking relationships or the businesses didn’t have a long enough history of tax returns.

We can work together to solve these and other problems that plague the district, and I’m the only candidate in this race who has done just that.  Having run a cybersecurity company for many years, I know there are 9,000 jobs that are chronically unfilled in the field just in Massachusetts.  To address the problem, I started STEMatchMA, which has brought 15 technology companies with six Boston Public Schools – and now one in Fall River – to bring experiential learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) to more than 700 students.   

With the pandemic leaving the U.S. with the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression, and Massachusetts facing among the highest rates in the country, the 4th district needs a leader who knows how to create and protect jobs.  There are only six members of the current Congress with a background in the technology that is driving the 21^st century economy.

But we must not settle for just restoring the economy we had in February.  Instead, we must take this opportunity to create real prosperity, the kind that offers opportunity to all who are willing to work hard, not just those fortunate enough to live in a few select zip codes.  

At this time of record unemployment, more than 425,000 U.S. jobs that require software development skills go unfilled.  The centerpiece of my agenda is to invest in the creation of “New Collar Jobs” that would eliminate the imbalance between the skills we have and what we need.  Today, companies look to fill those software development jobs, and the 9,000 available cybersecurity jobs in Massachusetts, with four-year college graduates.  A better approach is to invest in creating jobs in these areas, plus others such as analytics and environmental science, that can be filled by candidates with one-to-two years of specialized post-secondary training at institutions such as community colleges. 

These positions pay $50,000-to-$75,000 a year or more, offer financial stability, real opportunities for advancement, and come without plunging students into massive college debt.  At the same time, they support work like fighting climate change, which benefits all of us.

Developing individuals with the right skills for these jobs will require expanding vocational-technical schools and one-or-two-year post-secondary programs such as community colleges.  In addition, incentives should be created for businesses to partner with educational institutions to provide apprentice and internship opportunities that would grow programs like STEMatchMA into a scalable classroom-to-work pipeline.

As a lifelong Democrat, I was proud to intern for Senator Edward M. Kennedy.  One of the things I learned from Senator Kennedy is that advocating fiercely for policies that reflect your values doesn’t preclude building common ground with those who have different views to benefit the public at large.   By applying lessons learned over a career of bringing people together and creating jobs, I believe I can provide leadership that will benefit all the 4^th congressional district’s residents.