Column: Steve Roberts

Cisco Chief Offers Good Ideas For State's Future

The Charleston Gazette, April 11, 2005

The Charleston Area Alliance had the pleasure to host Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers at the organization’s annual meeting at the Clay Center . Chambers, who is a native of Charleston , is well recognized as a tech titan, not only in the United States but also worldwide.

While many people are well aware of this accomplishment, few people are aware of the impact Chambers has been having on issues involving technology development and education, particularly in rural areas. The company’s commitment to be a model corporate citizen is evident in the company’s accolades and honors. The company also promotes an active community involvement wherever it has operations and employees.

When it comes to education, Cisco Systems is a standout thanks to its highly successful community-based technology education efforts. Key among its educational success stories is the Cisco Networking Academy program. The Cisco Networking Academy program works through local schools and teaches students networking and other information technology-related skills, preparing them for jobs as well as for higher education in engineering, computer science and related fields. Today, the program includes 10,000 academies in every state and more than 150 countries with a curriculum taught in nine languages. More than 400,000 students participate in academies operating in high schools, colleges and universities, technical schools, community-based organizations, and other educational programs around the world.

Here in West Virginia , there are more than 1,400 graduates of the Cisco Networking Academy program, and another 1,000 students who are participants.

Chambers truly is one of the most progressive business leaders of our day, and one of the most influential and extraordinary West Virginians of our time. During his tenure at the helm, Chambers has built Cisco Systems into one of the world’s leading technology companies and has helped to advance the phenomenal growth of the Internet across our globe. Today, Cisco Systems is a $22 billion enterprise and employs 44,000 around the world.

While the Charleston Area Alliance was incredibly fortunate to line up Chambers to be the event’s speaker, it also provided an opportunity for John Chambers to share his first-hand views on the “global” business environment and to outline what challenges this presents to the continued economic competitiveness of this nation and our state.

Almost in a passionate, evangelical style, Chambers provided a very comprehensive, straightforward and pragmatic outline of an economic development strategy for the state of West Virginia and its many distinct regions/communities. His presentation covered several key points that West Virginia and its leaders — state and local — need to embrace. Among these are:

1) Spend more, not less on education ... but produce a quality educational system and outcomes (at all levels) that focus on jobs of the future, not jobs of the past.

2) Create and invest in an extensive and modern infrastructure, with high-speed Internet/broadband (wired and wireless) at the core.

3) Provide for a business and entrepreneurial climate that nurtures and spurs innovation and risk-taking, and remains supportive even when there is failure.

4) Foster supportive government at all levels that aims to work with good corporate citizens.

Chambers’ presentation and comments contained much data and analyses to support each of these points. Bottom line, Chambers indicated that the world is changing rapidly and businesses (and government) need to be flexible in order to respond and compete. He noted that innovation, which has advanced rapidly over the past five years, will advance even more in the coming five years. Chambers also noted that the “human equation” is the chief one when trying to drive increases in productivity and outcomes, and that investments in technology, when mapped to restructured processes (business, government, health care), can produce substantial returns on investment. But, deploying technology on old processes is a formula for failure.

While many of these concepts have already been incorporated as part of the state’s current economic development focus and strategies, Chambers’ remarks showed just how important it is for our state to redouble our efforts, modernize the state’s infrastructure and improve West Virginia ’s education systems and outcomes.

John Chambers ’ comments go a long way to bolstering the state’s current efforts and should drive our state and region to focus even more intently on these core areas. Like the rest of the world, West Virginia is facing dynamic times, but its challenges are not unique.

All leaders in West Virginia — government, business, education, labor, philanthropy, community, etc. — should heed Chambers’ message and join together to ensure that West Virginia is working toward achieving the key points he outlined.

Thank goodness we have loyal West Virginians throughout our nation and world who, like John Chambers , continue to have an interest in helping to make West Virginia a great place to live and work.

Roberts is president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce.