Taking the Lead
Aaron Vega
As Aaron Vega was reading last spring’s announcement that Rick Sullivan would be leaving his post as president of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council (EDC) at the end of this year, he was already thinking that his various skill sets and this high-profile job were a good match — and that this was his next logical career challenge.
“The path that I’m on in economic development and municipal work … there are only a few higher-level jobs in this area — if you want to stay in Western Mass. and care about Western Mass. — and this one of them,” he explained. “And they don’t come along very often, so I decided early on that I should throw my hat in the ring.”
And he wasn’t alone in that thinking.
“I saw Mayor [Joshua] Garcia not long after, and he said, ‘you’re applying for this job, right?’” recalled Vega, referring to Holyoke’s chief executive, beside whom he’s been working for the past several years as director of Planning and Economic Development for the city. “He knew that this was a good fit.”
“The EDC is a connector and a convener.”
Vega did go for it, and, eventually, several teams of interviewers agreed that there was indeed a good match between this job’s demands and Vega’s diverse résumé, which also includes everything from entrepreneurship — he was a freelance film editor and then a yoga studio owner — to two terms as a Holyoke city councilor and then four terms as a state representative.
Thus, he ultimately prevailed in a lengthy, national search, and will take the helm on Jan. 2. Before then, and even moreso after, he said he’ll doing a lot of listening — to EDC board members, mayors, business owners, property owners, developers, and area economic development leaders.
The plan is to take what he’s heard and use his vast experience to blueprint what will be the next chapter for the EDC, a membership-based organization formed roughly 30 years ago with a broad charge of making the 413 more competitive, taking a more regional approach to economic development, and creating a stronger voice for this area statewide.
While Vega will develop a more formal set of goals and priorities in the months and years to come, he told BusinessWest he has some initial thoughts.
“We have not done a good job of marketing Western Mass.”
They include everything from creating regular, industry-based roundtables — similar to the ones he staged in Holyoke and that many attendees, including Sullivan, thought should be regional in nature — to more aggressive efforts to tell the region’s story and market the 413.
Not with newspaper and television ads, necessarily, he said, although that might be part of the equation, but through a multi-dimensional strategy that includes having a stronger presence in regional and even national gatherings, such as the Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference, which he attended several times as a Holyoke official.
“The last one was in St. Louis, and the one before that was in Chicago,” he said, adding that communities across the country gather to hear strategies about addressing vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties. “You hear these presentations from Chicago, Detroit, big cities and small towns, on how to reactivate these spaces. I’ve been to these conferences on vacant buildings and transportation — there’s so much networking going on at these events, and we need to be out there.”
Aaron Vega (right), seen here with Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia, says the region needs to do a better job of promoting itself and its many assets.
Meanwhile, he said another priority is to work with area cities and towns to create more of the shovel-ready land that developers are increasingly demanding.
Still another priority is to increase awareness within the local business community of what the EDC is, how it functions, and what role it can play, if any, with the many pressing issues in this region.
“The EDC is a connector and a convener,” he said, settling on those two words to describe the agency, adding that he wants to put even more emphasis on regional collaboration on issues such as housing and east-west rail.
Pulling on the Same Rope
As noted near the top, Vega spent several years doing freelance film editing work for creators that included Ken Burns and his eight-part series on the history of jazz.
One project Vega worked on was “Race to the Moon,” an American Experience episode that told the story of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, in late 1968. He referenced it as he talked about his approach to his new job, problem solving in general, and one question during one of his final interviews (concerning policies relating to airports) that he didn’t have an answer to.
“Every single challenge they had putting together those Apollo missions … when they would encounter a new obstacle or challenge, they would bring in a person who could fix it — they kept expanding their team,” he explained. “If I don’t know how to do something, let’s bring in the person who does.
“If we do our job in Western Mass. of bringing in these companies that are coming out of UMass and elsewhere and they grow here and we create new housing opportunities … people are going to take the train to come out here to work.”
“If a group of people can come together and put us on the moon, a group of people in Western Mass. who are smart and have all these abilities can come together and figure out what we need to get done,” he went on, adding that this will be the organization’s mindset moving forward.
Overall, Vega has a broad, diverse background working in many different settings to call on as he approaches his next challenge.
Indeed, while editing films, he also opened his own small business, Vega Yoga & Movement Arts, operating it for more than 15 years. And in 2010 (the year he became one of BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty honorees), the Holyoke native won an at-large seat on the Holyoke City Council, eventually serving two terms.
He then moved from City Hall to the State House, capturing the first of four two-year terms in 2013, before returning to Holyoke to become director of the Planning and Economic Development Office.
Vega told BusinessWest that, while each career stop provided invaluable experience that will help him with his latest career challenge, that is especially true of his time in Holyoke.
Indeed, over the past five years, he’s been part of several key initiatives, from the growth, and subsequent decline, of a cannabis cluster in the city to the emergence of new clean energy and food-tech companies, such as Sublime Systems and Clean Crop Technologies; from the designation of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center as state’s hub for artificial intelligence and quantum computing to the years-long effort to convert the long-vacant Farr Alpaca complex into 88 units of mixed-income housing for adults 55 and over.
“I understand how these things happen — how do businesses locate? How do housing developments happen? How do you put together a $40 million financial stack to make 88 units of housing together?” he said, adding that his experience on the ground, and the relationships he’s forged — with those in the State House, regionally, and locally — will also be assets in his new role with the EDC.
Returning to those thoughts about the EDC being a connector and convener, Vega said issues such as the housing crisis and the 413’s declining population require a regional approach and a high level of collaboration among area cities and towns. And that’s one example of how the EDC might be able to help identify key issues for the region, set goals, and develop strategies to meet them.
“If we want to think about Western Mass. as a hub, we need a population goal for Western Mass. because this region is bleeding population, especially among younger people, ages 24 to 45,” he said. “If we say we have a population goal for the region — 20,000, 30,000, whatever the number is — over the next 10 to 15 years, then every municipality is going to have a role in that.
“Our small towns are going to have to bring on four to 10 units of housing, while our Holyokes and Westfields are going to have to bring on hundreds of units of housing,” he continued. “How do we work together to make sure we’re pulling on the same rope? A lot of people say, ‘pull in the same direction.’ I’m saying that we need to pull on the same rope together.”
Selling the Region
And while getting communities to pull on that same rope, the EDC should also be continuing to stress a regional approach to economic development, Vega said, while spearheading better efforts to promote the region and its assets.
“We have not done a good job of marketing Western Mass.” he said. “We should be talking about the health systems we have and the education systems we have, and the idea that you can live in a farmhouse if you want and be in downtown Springfield or downtown Holyoke in 20 minutes, even without public transportation. I think we should talk about the fact that Western Mass. believes in science, believes in education, believes in opportunities.
“Maybe that story isn’t being told, but we need to make sure that, if the EDC is out there telling the story, the chambers are telling the story, the mayors are telling the story — everyone is telling the same story,” he said, citing the example of Lowell, which he acknowledged is a city and not a region, where there was a solid, consistent message about the ‘Lowell plan.’ “The message in Lowell was so strong that the barbershops were talking about it, as well as the mayor.”
He noted that, under Sullivan, the EDC has done a solid job of creating a strong voice for the region on a statewide level and making sure Western Mass. is part of statewide initiatives, and these efforts must continue as part of those broader efforts to promote the area and prompt businesses to look this way when considering expansion or additional locations.
“When those Boston-based firms are looking for R&D or prototyping, they don’t need to look any further than Western Mass.,” he said. “If they need a second location or warehouse space or their manufacturing done, it’s way too costly to manufacture inside the 495 belt. These firms should be creating partnerships and doing that manufacturing out here; we have great manufacturers and companies that can help with research and development. These connections need to be made stronger.
“People in Boston don’t know what we make out here,” he continued. “So when they look for service or they look for something, they look at the West Virginias; they look out of state before they look in-state. We need to change that.”
Summing up the challenge — and opportunity — for the EDC and the region, as well as perhaps his own job description, to some extent, Vega returned to the subject of east-west rail and what would be the best-case scenario.
“A lot of people talk about east-west rail coming and how that will be a benefit for people in Western Mass. to get on the train and go to Boston or Worcester and go to work,” he said. “But if we do our job in Western Mass. of bringing in these companies that are coming out of UMass and elsewhere and they grow here and we create new housing opportunities … people are going to take the train to come out here to work.
“That’s a shift in mindset that needs to happen,” he went on, adding that this just one of his goals as he takes on his next career challenge.
