Mike Krajovic, Economic Development Professional, on the Importance of Public Protections

Mike Krajovic
Uniontown, Pennsylvania

I’m president and chief executive officer of the Fay-Penn Economic Development Council. We’re located in southwestern Pennsylvania, in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. I’ve been working in economic development now for 25 years.

I’ve worked with hundreds of businesses, big, small companies, and in all the projects that I’ve worked on in assisting companies of all types, I’ve never heard one company complain about regulation as being the problem with making a decision, a financial investment.

In Pittsburgh, in fact, regulation has been a key part to our revitalization effort.

If you recall, Pittsburgh was the capital of the steel industry and it was referred to at one time you know 50, 100 years ago as hell with the lid off – where pollution, environmental contamination, dirty rivers, were really the result of the massive coal and steel industry going as hard as it possibly could up until World War II. Then the bottom fell out with the collapse of the steel industry and we lost over 200,000 jobs.

Regulations, however, played a role in the revitalization of the Erie River, cleaning up the environment and improving the public health.

Today when you visit Pittsburgh, people don’t even recognize it, it’s unbelievable, and the amount of attention that we’re getting around the world, because we have been able to revitalize and clean up the environment, to improve to a high quality life, is a story that needs to be heard.

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Thanks to the American Sustainable Business Council for connecting us with Mike.