Vice Mayor Linda Budge, City of Rancho Cordova & Council Member Jeff Harris, City of Sacramento to serve as Honorary Chairs
SACRAMENTO, CA – Tomorrow, the Sacramento Metro Chamber will lead 134 regional business, civic and elected officials to Austin, Texas for the 19th annual Metro Chamber Study Mission program.
Local public officials Vice Mayor Linda Budge, City of Rancho Cordova & Council Member Jeff Harris, City of Sacramento will serve as Honorary Chairs of the annual program this year, taking the largest group of attendees in the program’s history.
“As the state capital, the Live Music Capital of the World, and one of the country’s fastest-growing economies, Austin thinks big but holds true to their authenticity,” said Jim Alves, 2017 Study Mission Chair and Economic Development & Partnerships, SMUD. “Austin has positioned themselves not only as a great place to live, but to do business. We will be exploring their successes and even some of their struggles in hopes of bringing some best practices back to our Capital Region.”
Over the course of four days, attendees will explore a wide variety of topics and immersion experiences on issues relevant to our region to include:
- embracing the creative class and intentional use of art in public spaces as economic drivers,
- Austin’s comprehensive innovation ecosystem and start-up culture,
- how Austin used food, festivals, their airport and a race track to position them as a hot destination,
- urban and suburban development and how Austin has addressed their housing shortage and increased cost of living, and
- Austin’s collaborative approach to addressing whole health and homeless solutions.
For 19 years, the Metro Chamber has organized Study Mission’s across the country to places like Nashville, Denver, Seattle and the Twin Cities to spark dialogue among attendees and stimulate action back at home. Previous Study Missions have resulted in a number of successful outcomes including the annual young professional day-long program, EMERGE Summit, mirrored after a model in Denver and the Glue Factory, a start-up incubator inspired from the Philadelphia Study Mission.
“Bringing leaders with varied backgrounds together to explore how we can improve our quality of life is transformative for the Capital Region, said Peter Tateishi, President & CEO, Sacramento Metro Chamber. “For nearly 20 years now, Study Mission delegations have tackled issues, solved problems, built relationships and returned home with great ideas. We can’t wait to see what we will learn in Austin.”
Follow all the action on Facebook and Twitter via #StudyMission17.