In 1992, Bill Clinton famously told his campaign staff that really just one issue mattered, “it’s the economy, stupid.”<\/p>\n
The results of this year’s election, even with all the other issues – immigration, cyber security, taxes, racism, sexism – that were discussed over and over and over again, boiled down to the same issue.<\/p>\n
Voters in manufacturing-heavy communities that have mostly been left behind as world economies became more automated and linked turned out heavily for Donald Trump.<\/a> Voters in areas where job and wage growth has been more robust went for Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n Politics aside, the overall trends driving job growth in STEM professions (science, technology, engineering and math) versus manufacturing will not change greatly no matter who is in the White House. Robots and machines will continue to take over jobs that used to be done by human hands. The jobs for people\u00a0who create the machines or processes to take over those tasks will continue to grow.<\/p>\n Thinker Ventures is based in Rockford, Illinois, a manufacturing-heavy metropolitan area that still makes things, such as the Jeep Wrangler and all kinds of components for airplanes. One of Thinker’s clients is Littlestar Plastics<\/a>, a very innovative company that can engineer all kinds of solutions for companies looking to make super strong parts out of plastic that historically have been made out of metal.<\/p>\n Rockford has had its share of tech companies launch, grow and thrive. Thinker Ventures is working with a couple of firms, NonProfitTHRIVE.com<\/a> and Fishwithme.net<\/a> that are looking to grow their platforms from coast to coast. But by and large, creating\u00a0a robust tech sector has never been a focus of city leaders.<\/p>\n