GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
White House Economic Recovery Task Force By Tony Centonze
Bill Hagerty has achieved business success locally, nationally, and internationally. Success that led him to economic advisory positions with former Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, and current U.S. President, Donald Trump, as well as an Ambassadorship to Japan. Certainly, a long way from where he began, on a small farm in Sumner County. Hagerty’s family had cattle and pigs. His father worked road construction. Hagerty actually worked on a road crew when he got older. A job that helped him pay his way at Vanderbilt University. “I was lucky to get to do that,” Hagerty said. “My dad didn’t graduate from college, but he worked hard, so I could have that opportunity. It was challenging. I was a public school kid, but I worked really hard and wound up graduating Phi Beta Kappa. That allowed me to go to work for a firm I would have never imagined. I counted; I had been to all of 7 states at that time. I went to work for Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a big international firm. With them, I ended up working on five continents.” “Sometimes, getting the government out of the way is the best thing you can do for the economy,” Hagerty
said. “I was good at math and had a business background. I started working on putting cost benefit analyses to regulations. Many regulations don’t stand up to that scrutiny, so we didn’t let them go through. The White House can do that. That was a great learning experience.” From there, Hagerty went into venture capital and private equity, He invested in a number of companies that you might have heard of, some of the big movers in the early internet age.“I was fortunate to have a successful business career, and that was the foundation for me in 2011, when Gov. Haslam called on me and a couple of others to come in and help out,” Hagerty said. “In January of 2011 I got called to run Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development.” When Hagerty took the job, Tennessee’s unemployment rate was above the national average, and there was a significant budget deficit, over $1,000,000,000. “Gov. Haslam asked everyone running a department or agency to take a hard look at their budgets, and see where we could find ways to save money. I went first, because of my business
background. A small team helped me. We went through everything in about 30 days, and on day 45 we implemented a reduction of staff by about 40%. It wasn’t that people were doing anything wrong, or not adding value, we were just at a point where we couldn’t justify those staffing levels, and activities. We cut it down significantly, and saved millions of dollars on a recurring basis.” “I just did what any business person would do. I looked at the organization and said, we have to get more effective. So, we went to a regional structure and put people in the field in nine different regions. We wanted them working more closely with local officials, and local companies. That’s how we need to grow the economy, by getting closer to the real economy.” “So, we ended the concentration of staff in the Tennessee Tower, and moved to a regional structure. Then we started recruiting. During my tenure as Commissioner, Tennessee became the #1 state in the nation for creating jobs through foreign investment, and we were named State of the Year for Economic Development, twice.” Hagerty and his team proved that leaders can come in, restructure, save millions of dollars and get 3RD QUARTER • 47
