WATCH: Gov. Moore goes long on Maryland’s economic assets and challenges

Anybody who catches Annapolis’ most famous political figure at one of the many industry-focused events he speaks at immediately understands how much private sector vitality matters to him.

They’ll also know he’s bullish on Maryland’s position for that success.

“We have better assets than anywhere else in the country,” said Gov. Wes Moore at the Maryland Economic Development Association’s 2023 annual conference in the Eastern Shore city of Cambridge.

A prominent figure in Baltimore’s business community before his election victory in 2022, the governor is fluent in corporate lingo.

“The challenge is: We are asset-rich and we are strategy-poor,” Moore added. “We have all these assets and we don’t coordinate. We have all these assets and we’re not leveraging.”

That statement came barely three months into his tenure, during a fireside conversation with Tammi Thomas, the chief development and marketing officer of State of Maryland-founded, Columbia-based investment agency TEDCO.

Last week, after over a year’s worth of state-developed initiatives to support Maryland’s tech workforce, entrepreneurial diversity and innovation funding — including, crucially, through TEDCO — TEDCO made Thomas and Gov. Moore’s conversation available in full on YouTube.

TEDCO followed this interview by dropping another of Thomas’ conversations, this time with Baltimore Development Corporation CEO and President Colin Tarbert.

Speaking as part of a collaboration with the business-related content producer and aggregator citybiz, the leader of the city’s quasi-public economic boosterism agency addressed similar topics as the governor did last year.

Tarbert also talked about his recent Certified Economic Developer designation, a certification that the DC-based International Economic Development Association developed to recognize and elevate the careers of leaders in commercial boosterism.

“This is an opportunity for professionals like me to earn the reputation, the credential, but also to make sure we have a wide range of understanding of economic development,” Tarbert said, “because economic development in large cities like Baltimore, versus rural areas — other parts of Maryland, for example — are very different in terms of what they need.”

Thomas’ conversation comes about a month after Tarbert’s interview with TEDCO CEO Troy LeMaile-Stovall as part of the recurring TEDCO Talks series.

Check out the latest video below:

This article mentions TEDCO, a Technical.ly client. That relationship has no impact on this report.