welcome to Pennsylvania in Focus I'm Kristen Smith a new law designed to boost high value manufacturing through engineering firms and universities took center stage on Tuesday now it just needs State funding with that investment leaders think Pittsburgh could become the modern Silicon Valley joining me today is the center squares Pennsylvania reporter Anthony hennon Anthony take us deeper into what this Max manufacturing program is yeah so this is basically a uh way to boost public private Partnerships um sending out grants and Loans basically between companies and different businesses and um primarily universities it seems this act was introduced um by a republican but also gained bipartisan support and Governor Shapiro uh signed this into law back in June basically it's a goal to bring in more advanced manufacturing and kind of high value manufacturing to help the state grow but also a way to keep professors and keep academic Talent that's working on these issues Pennsylvania has long been described as a place where Innovation is hyper local and almost entirely focused around uh Philadelphia Pittsburgh and State College but there's been complaints that it's been difficult to translate um you know academic research or innovation into viable businesses um so it seems like we have a lot of State officials and uh state momentum behind trying to put some money into this and see if this can actually help grow the manufacturing sector create more jobs and create more wealth in the Commonwealth so why do they think that Pittsburgh in particular and not you know say Philadelphia is the key to this yeah it seems like uh this is kind of playing to some existing strengths um you know Pittsburgh is developing a reputation here for some tech focused um Innovations and business growth you know robotics is another big one um because you have Carnegie melon out there you have the University of Pittsburgh you have a number of colleges that are really putting a lot of research money and um still getting a good bit of federal funds as well um so I think it seems like this is one of those things where they're trying to build out the strengths um Philadelphia is getting more and more well known for life sciences and um Information Technology both cities have a lot of energy behind the medical field mining extraction manufacturing is still very heavy out around Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania um so that seems to be the angle that we're seeing a lot of leaders take you mentioned that in your reporting that there's no money for the program yet but it sounds like leaders are pretty optimistic that there will be soon right yeah I mean I honestly I would be surprised if people were not optimistic this tends to be what politicians say um you know even if they're bill has no no chance of passing they always say they think there's going to be a good good result in the legislature you know this is I I think this will come down to where Democrats stand on the issue what governor Shapiro is thinking and of course how much money is actually in the budget how much tax revenues we're actually bringing in so you know there there's always that kind of optimism but I I think the easy the easy part is passing a program with no funding the hard part is then getting funding into that program but you we we have a lot of on the uh on the Private Industry side um David Taylor who's president of the Pennsylvania manufacturers Association said that uh this is a glorious day um but he's also you kind of wagging his finger at the legislature and the governor because of the pre-existing issues we have along either permitting along slow growth in the state um he said we need folks in Harrisburg to have a look to the Horizon to be mindful of that factor of the competitiveness of the other 49 states the world is not standing still it is critically important for Pennsylvania to stay in the mix for jobs investment and economic growth you know one one bill one law it seems is not enough to really um change the state's economic competitiveness this is going to be a marathon not just a Sprint um so as much as you know Business Leaders welcome things like this you know there there's also there's a lot of headaches throughout the state that they complain about again and again and really Lobby legislators to do something about it'll be interesting to see how this develops given governor Shapiro's very manufacturing first PR campaign that he's been on basically since he came into office so we'll have to pay attention to where this program fits in if at all Anthony thanks for joining us today listeners can keep up with this story and more at the center square.com