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Speaker Jensen, President Risser, Members of the Legislature, Constitutional Officers, Honorable Justices of the Supreme Court, tribal leaders, members of the Cabinet, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Throughout my career, I have worn the title of counselor, representative, minority leader, chairman and governor. Tonight, I come before you with a new title – one far more meaningful to me than any other: Grandpa.
When I look into the eyes of my dear little granddaughter Sophie, I see the Face of the Future of Wisconsin, the hopes and dreams of a new generation with endless potential.
As we begin our journey into a new millennium, Wisconsin steps forward with eager anticipation, confident that our greatest adventures and achievements lie ahead. For this new century offers deeper valleys to explore, wider rivers to swim and taller mountains to climb.
Wisconsin is prepared to conquer them all.
Ladies and gentlemen, I say to you tonight, at the dawn of a glorious new century, the state of the state is revolutionary.
As the foremost laboratory of democracy, Wisconsin is revolutionizing America with the most innovative and cutting-edge social policy in the last 50 years. Bold programs that Washington is adopting for the benefit of the entire nation.
We taught America how to end welfare with compassion through W-2; opened the door to work for the disabled with Pathways to Independence; provided working families with affordable health coverage through Badger Care; sparked an education reform movement by giving parents choice; and developed the blueprint to care for the babyboom generation with Family Care.
Wisconsin is revolutionizing its economy as well. We enter the new century with the highest standard of living in our history. We enjoy record low unemployment of 2.9 percent; a record 2.8 million people working; nearly 800,000 new jobs; record low health uninsured rate of 4 percent; remarkably low poverty rates; and the highest level of homeownership in our state's history – 70 percent.
Tonight, we ignite a new revolution for a new century. And we go forward with inspiration from Gladys Bronson and Olivia Krumrai. Gladys was born in 1900 and Olivia was born in 2000. Please welcome them here tonight, along with Olivia's parents: Becky and Andy. These beautiful ladies unite two centuries and remind us of our responsibilities to past and future generations.
My friends, Wisconsin is where the future begins. Together, let us start boldly carving in stone Wisconsin's Face of the Future.
In the next 50 years, the face of Wisconsin will look distinctively different. It will be older, healthier and more diverse.
Just think about these remarkable changes in demographics and lifestyle.
By the time our nation celebrates its 250 th birthday in 2026, we will be experiencing the most dramatic age shift in American history.
The number of senior citizens will more than double by then. And by 2017, the number of people turning 65 will exceed the number of births in Wisconsin for the first time. We'll be issuing more social security checks than birth certificates.
When Wisconsin celebrates her bicentennial in 2048, minorities will comprise one quarter of our population, rising dramatically from 11 percent today.
To our land of opportunity, Miss Forward will welcome new families and workers from other states and nations who are searching for economic prosperity and the high quality of life we value in Wisconsin.
The way we live, work and play will change as rapidly as our look.
Along with futuristic visions of flying cars and vacations to the Moon, Wisconsin will be more mobile than ever.
A commute to work anywhere in the state will be as long as the seconds it takes to go online. In more populated areas, you'll have a variety of mass transit options to choose from while your electric-powered car is plugged in at home getting recharged.
But if you missed the high-speed Amtrak to work, you can still check your e-mails and voicemails before joining a morning video teleconference, all by using your personal pocket-sized communication center. Today's palm pilot will be tomorrow's office.
Alternative energy supplies such as hydrogen fuel cells will power our homes, businesses and schools. And less fossil fuel consumption means a cleaner environment.
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Finally, our population will be healthier than ever.
Vitamin enriched foods grown here in America's breadbasket will carry more powerful, disease fighting nutrients. Our produce will be easier to grow and more resistant to disease, drought and infestations.
University of Wisconsin-Madison research will decode the human genome and allow for your personal genetic profile to be traced, encoded on a chip and downloaded by a doctor so your illness can be diagnosed and treated. This research will help us solve the mysteries of cystic fibrosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
New medical advancements may push the average life expectancy in Wisconsin to more than 100 years by 2048.
And that's certainly good news for me. For Wisconsin will celebrate its bicentennial in the middle of my 16 th term as governor of this great state. I can't wait to throw that party.
And I certainly hope my friends Scott McCallum and Scott Jensen are still here with me. Sen. Risser, I'm not worried about you, I know you'll still be here.
While the four of us might stay the same, Wisconsin is certainly about to embark on its most dramatic era of change.
The rapidly changing face of Wisconsin that we just painted will create tough new challenges:
How will we create the jobs of tomorrow?
How will we fill the gap created by a shrinking workforce?
How will we educate our youth to prepare them for these challenges?
How will we care for a decidedly older population?
And what will the role of government be?
The Face of our Future – and the answers to these important questions – will be determined by the actions we take today, in these hallowed halls and in our cherished communities across Wisconsin.
Our work starts in the same place as at the dawn of the last century, with the economy.
Without a strong economy, we cannot improve education, provide better health care, help the poor and disadvantaged, enhance our environment or protect our citizens from crime.
Ladies and gentlemen, the face of our future economy lies in this little tube and many others like it in laboratories across Wisconsin.
Unlocking the mysteries to this small strand of DNA is just one way we will ignite a New Industrial Revolution through the unlimited potential of the bioscience and high technology industries.
New discoveries in science and technology will create high-skill, high-paying jobs in Wisconsin. These jobs will provide a higher quality of life for our families and a brain gain for our state.
A driving force behind this new economy will be the New Wisconsin Idea, a bold new partnership between the University of Wisconsin and the private sector.
In the early 1900s, scientific pioneers at the University of Wisconsin revolutionized the state's agriculture industry by developing ways to measure milk quality, reduce feed spoilage and eliminate disease in dairy herds.
Today, the science being developed in our university laboratories is literally spawning new companies that make the technology and products to bring new discoveries to the marketplace.
Now, all the average person really knows about these high-tech companies is to buy lots of stock. So let's take a moment to move beyond the hype and literally put a Face on our Future economy.
With the help of today's technology and Ameritech, we have joining us from the University of Wisconsin Biotechnology Center David Schwartz, a world-renowned genetics and chemistry professor who we recruited from New York University as part of our recent $1.5 million investment in star faculty. And from Third Wave Technologies here in Madison is company CEO Lance Fors.
(Biotechnology Demonstration)
Thank you Lance and David and keep up the great work.
The economic potential for biotechnology and high technology companies is incredible. For example, UW professor Michael Sussman and his partners used research at the UW to create a company called Nimblegen that will make DNA chips.
Brokerage houses assess the market for these DNA chips at $1 billion immediately– with room to expand to $40 billion in the next decade.
Imagine the next Microsoft being developed right here in Wisconsin. Already, the race is on to see which state will create the Silicon Valley of 2000 and put its people out front with exciting and lucrative new career opportunities. As one of the top 10 technology states in America, Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to lead the pack.
But to win this race, we must make the right investments to fully grow these industries and make Wisconsin more competitive. Make no mistake: Our economy is soaring today, but that can all change if we don't aggressively prepare for tomorrow.
We should begin by strengthening our position as the nation's leader in biotechnology research. I present to you tonight a new $317 million BioStar initiative to build a series of state-of-the-art research centers on the University of Wisconsin campus.
BioStar would round out a $909 million investment in our science and research infrastructure that includes WISTAR, HealthStar, the Biotech faculty initiative and our venture capital funding. This will give Wisconsin a distinct competitive advantage over our closest competitors: California, Colorado, Washington and the Northeast.
With your support, we can begin planning a new addition to the Biotechnology Center this year, followed by construction of a new Microbial Sciences Building, a new Biochemistry Building and a new Interdisciplinary Biology Building.
These facilities will allow us to hire 100 new faculty members and strengthen our world-renowned team of scientists. Two shining members of this team are with us tonight, UW researchers Laura Kiessling and Jill Banfield – recent winners of the prestigious McArthur Foundation Genius Awards.
Most importantly, BioStar will allow us to educate and train the scientists and researchers for the workforce of tomorrow. With 30 percent of our incoming freshmen at the UW majoring in the biosciences, let's expand their opportunities by developing a Masters Degree in Biotechnology.
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Next, we must create a new High Tech Corporation to aggressively attract and develop the companies of the new economy -- letting these entrepreneurs know Wisconsin is the place to be for opportunity and prosperity. The director of this new endeavor will be Dick Leazer, who is with us tonight.
Our high-tech corporation will build rural Wisconsin as well.
Let's not lose sight that while some of the most far-reaching discoveries may be taking place in our labs, some of their biggest benefactors will be on the farm. Genome mapping of corn, rice and soybeans are plowing new fields of profitability for farmers.
These technologies will allow farmers to produce new value-added crops and milk -- and give our dairy farmers new opportunities to overcome egregious federal dairy policies that are driving milk prices too low.
Two great examples of the future are Gala Design and Vienna Pharms. They're both raising cows that produce milk fortified with biopharmaceuticals. They are literally turning milk into medicine.
Please welcome Bob Bremel of Gala Design, Mark Clark of Vienna Pharms and Joel and Jeff Henschel, two Green Bay dairy farmers. They represent the face of the future in Wisconsin agriculture.
The new economy will not only give us new products to buy, but it will change how we buy them.
Imagine the day in the not-too-distant future when we will accomplish all our daily tasks with one standard appliance. We'll pay our bills, buy our groceries, manage our household and get our entertainment all through our TV set. And we'll only need one clicker.
E-commerce is so simple even a Governor can use it. Let me show you.
I have a new, good friend in the Governor of California, Gray Davis. But poor Gray is in a tough spot. He leads a state that can't play football and can't make good cheese.
He owes me 86 pounds of that fishbait they call California cheese because the Badgers whipped his alma mater Stanford in the Rose Bowl. But to be fair to my new friend, I want to send him the equivalent to 86 pounds of his cheese – 1 pound of our world championship Wisconsin cheese.
Gray needs to know what real cheese tastes like. He's living a deprived life out there.
So I'm going on-line to our great Wisconsin company, Swiss Colony, and with the simple click of a mouse, I'm going to make Gray's day. This is a great example of how a partnership between two Wisconsin companies, Swiss Colony and TDS, is helping them both succeed through E-Commerce.
Main Street businesses and corporations built today's strong economy. Now, we need to help these companies use E-Commerce to better compete and increase their profits.
To do so, our Department of Commerce will create a new focus on turning existing business incubators into e-business stimulators. And Dr. Raj Veeramani of UW-Madison is leading a new consortium of higher education, business and state government to makesure we take the greatest advantage of our newest tool of commerce. Companies like Lands End are leading Wisconsin into the future of E-Commerce.
Once online, businesses must have the certainty and the security that transactions are binding.
By passing an Electronic Transfer Act, Wisconsin will surpass other states by ensuring electronic purchases, contracts and signatures are completely legal – drastically reducing overhead and improving the bottom line.
And finally, we must make sure consumers have access to the Cyber Marketplace. So pass Speaker Jensen and Representative Hutchison's tax exemption for Internet access.
Growing our economy and changing the face of industry in Wisconsin will pose an incredible challenge for our workforce. Where will the workers of the future come from? And how will they learn the skills to succeed?
In just 16 short years, the number of people leaving the workforce will outstrip the number of people entering the job market. This will greatly exacerbate the worker shortage we have today in Wisconsin.
Rising to this challenge will require us to change the Face of the Future for the Wisconsin worker.
More seniors will be needed in our classrooms, science factories and service industries -- changing the very definition of "retirement." People may retire in their mid-50s to enjoy five to seven years of rest and relaxation before beginning a new "twilight" career. Or seniors may go directly into that new career as technology makes it easier to work without sacrificing health or time with their grandchildren.
The new economy will need the talents of the disabled as well as dynamic women entrepreneurs like Shirley Lanier, who founded Legacy Bank in Milwaukee.
And W-2 will need to build upon its remarkable success at helping former welfare mothers thrive in the workforce.
Next month, I will be unveiling a new study that shows just how incredibly successful W-2 is at moving families from welfare to work. The results will underscore why Harvard University hails W-2 as one of the most innovative programs in America.
To help working families meet their child care needs, we should develop the marketplace for second- and third-shift child care centers. The jobs of tomorrow certainly won't be 9-to-5. A $1 million investment now will pay big dividends for our families and businesses.
And finally, meeting our workforce demands will force us to look at the sensitive issue of crime-and-punishment in a different light. We have the lowest crime rate in 30 years because we're keeping the bad guys off the street. But we need to turn these bad guys back into good guys – because we need them to fill jobs and support their families.
An inmate can't leave prison, get a job and succeed if he can't read. Therefore, I am instructing the Department of Corrections to target the necessary resources for basic reading skills and GED studies so that no inmate will leave prison without being able to read and fill out a job application.
Instead of hitting the sack, inmates will be hitting the books.
An inmate also can't get a job if addicted to drugs or alcohol. So let's build upon our recent $40 million investment in prison rehabilitation programs by creating an alternative treatment program for felony drug offenders. Judges would be able to sentence criminals with no prior record or weapon offenses to this special program, where inmates will get treatment, attend class, and learn job and parenting skills.
I want to give credit for this concept to a strong partnership between Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher, Milwaukee County Chief Judge Michael Skwierawski and District Attorney E. Michael McCann.
