The city of Midland recently saw a visit from Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., as the first-term senator toured The Dow Chemical Co., sat down with the Midland Area Chamber of Commerce and followed those visits up with a stop at the Daily News.
“It was incredible what they are doing there and the products they are devising,” Peters said of Dow Chemical. “If you are looking to reduce the amount of energy consumption in America, or dependence on foreign oil, or making buildings more insulated, Dow is right in the sweet spot when it comes to that.”
The tour was mostly a meet-and-greet for Peters. However, as the merger of Dow and DuPont along with Dow’s acquisition of Dow Corning leaves a lot of unanswered questions for residents of the Great Lakes Bay Region and Wilmington, Del., Peters tried to get some answers.
“I had questions about the merger and acquisition and what that it will mean for jobs and their presence here in Michigan. They are obviously important for Midland, but also for the whole state,” Peters said. “It sounds as if there will be a net positive in jobs as a result of that. As they reorganize. They will probably bring more jobs to Midland.”
But, those jobs will probably mostly be in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM — fields.
“I say STEAM because I put art in there too. Art is part of the creative thinking process. It is not just the math and science,” said Peters, who serves on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Peters has been working to help those entering STEM fields by looking at ways to lower student debt while expanding dual enrollment and concurrent enrollment.
Dual enrollment allows high school students to possibly earn college credit while taking classes at a local college. Concurrent enrollment high school students may take college credit classes that are taught by college-approved high school teachers.
“(The legislation) will create federal grants for curriculum development, for professional training for teachers so they can get their certifications they need to teach college courses,” Peters said.
Hopefully by lowering debt, programs like dual enrollment and concurrent enrollment will become more attractive, he said.
“Only 7 percent of the students in Michigan are in those programs. We can do a lot better than 7 percent,” Peters said.
By taking 35-40 credits before leaving high school, students can reduce college tuition by 25 percent. And those entering college with 40 or more credits are much more likely to graduate, Peters said.
“That is significant for debt,” he said. “What is worse for student debt is if you have student debt and you didn’t graduate. That is really tough.”
At the Midland Area Chamber of Commerce, Peters, who serves on Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, discussed three key issues: An increasing number of government regulations on businesses; reduction in the number of new business start-ups along with an increase in new businesses that are failing; and big businesses taking over small businesses.
“They are concerned about regulations especially for small businesses and how can we streamline the day to day items they have to deal with?” Peters said. “Small businesses aren’t being created like they used to and we’re seeing more and more concentration of big companies as they dominate the economy.”
It’s the small companies where innovations are occurring and patents are being filed, Peters said.
“If you compare innovations and patents from big companies and small companies, the big company line is slowly heading down and the small business is going the opposite way,” he said.
The resulting outcome is that big businesses will purchase small companies, acquiring their patents and innovation and effectively eliminating the competition.
“That may not be the best for the economy,” he said. “It is a great business model for the big company, but not a great business model for the country or small business.”