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|  | | | From Unemployed to Employer
I benefited from public education in another state and came to
Minnesota because it offered a better quality of life and more
opportunity to do the work I wanted. But I arrived in the workforce
just as President Nixon imposed wage and price controls. The economy
stank.
I spent several years living paycheck-to-paycheck and day labor-to-day labor. I had one brief stretch of unemployment, and that's the only time Minnesota taxpayers wrote me check. But that's not the investment I want to talk about.
Minnesota's real investment wasn't in me specifically. It was in creating a state culture and a business environment that attracted people like me, that encouraged risk and a certain amount of selflessness, because you could see it being repaid. It gave you hope, even when you didn't have the money for dinner.
This didn't just happen because Minnesota has lakes and Scandinavians. It was the product of what George Lakoff has called the "empowerment infrastructure" — the mostly invisible investment needed for business and everyday life.
At several points in my life, I had to consider whether to pursue opportunities away from here. Minnesota always won, and the experiences I gained by working in an outstanding multinational company based here gave me the skills and contacts that enabled me to start a business serving similar companies.
I created good jobs and paid plenty of taxes, and I did it here because other people before me invested in Minnesota. In its schools, good government, the infrastructure and institutions that fostered great corporations. In cultural life and a reasonably open, safe and tolerant society.
Minnesota invested in itself and that made a difference to me.
C.R.
Business owner
Minneapolis
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