When we started this four years ago, people would look at me and ask: don’t you know about the state’s fiscal condition? What have you been smoking?

My answer was simple: It is precisely during troubled times that we must clearly see where we need to end up if we are to be in a leading position as things turn around.

Our region has a fairly narrow window in which we must succeed. Indeed, if we do not use troubled times to plan the turn around, that turnaround just might not happen.

A turnaround, then, is not something we should be waiting to have happen; we share responsibility to make it happen.
And, the best quote I have ever encountered on planning. In planning, do the research, worry the details, make sure the strategic objectives are clear and known to every person. A changing environment will lead to the irrelevance of particular tactical plans. But, “so what” if the planning has been thorough and strategic: if, come D-Day, fearless, innovative, creative, opportunistic “troops” are fully committed to, fully equipped to, and fully enabled to pursue clear and clearly understood strategic objectives.