Economic director Driskill reflects on decade in state cabinet

By Mark Powers

Southeast Missouri News Service

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- If his life had taken a different turn, Joe Driskill today might be preparing for the final year of a long career as a state senator. As it happened, he is ending a nearly 11-year run as member of the governor's cabinet.

Although Driskill had greatly desired a Senate seat, his experience as director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development has been even more fulfilling.

"It's the best job in state government because you get to touch so many different people in so many different parts of the state and so many aspects of life and business," Driskill said. "It allows you to know the state very well."

Driskill, one of the longest-serving department heads in state history, is stepping down at the end of the year to become executive director of the Missouri Technology Corp., a quasi-governmental agency that promotes technological research and its commercial uses.

Driskill was a state representative from Doniphan in 1990 when he was narrowly passed over for the Democratic nomination to run in a special election for a vacant Senate seat in the Bootheel. Although he remained in the House of Representatives, winning a sixth term in 1992, he was ready for a change.

"I though there was a bigger role," Driskill said. "What I was most interested in, coming from one of the poorest areas of the state, was trying to do what I could to raise the levels of economic opportunity."

With Gov. Mel Carnahan putting together his new administration, Driskill got his chance and was named economic development director in April 1993. Driskill had been a longtime friend and supporter of the governor's and had lived at his home while working on Carnahan's successful bid for state treasurer in 1980.

"Mel was my mentor and a person who helped me a great deal," Driskill said. "I certainly identified with his views."

Driskill was asked to stay on when Gov. Bob Holden, also a Democrat, took office in 2001.

During Driskill's long tenure, he's experienced the boom times of the 1990s as well as the lean years with which the state has recently had to contend. As he departs, he said the state is starting to turn the corner.

"I like to think that both in the '90s and in the last three years we've done a good job of trying to attract jobs to the state and trying to retain companies we have and really build Missouri as a quality business environment in the long term," Driskill said. "We're starting to see some of that job growth now."

Even in light of the recent economic downturn, Missouri added 22,000 businesses, a 16 percent increase, and 260,000 jobs, an 11 percent boost, during Driskill's watch.

In his new job, Driskill will remain involved with job creation efforts and will continue to work closely with the economic development department.

The Missouri Technology Corp. was chartered by state law and is funded by government grants. Driskill will become its first director.

The agency's chief goals are to help Missouri universities land research money and to develop commercial applications for technology that research produces.

"When a researcher at one of our universities develops some new idea, we need a good process to transfer that technology out into the private sector so a company can be formed, people hired and money spent in our state," Driskill said.

Also key is trying to meet the technology needs of small and medium-size businesses.

"If you are Boeing, you are already a technological giant," Driskill said. "But if you're the XYZ manufacturing company in Stoddard County, for example, you many not have access to the technologies and expertise that you need."

With the Senate seat he once eyed coming open next year, there have been rumors in Southeast Missouri that Driskill, 48, might finally have his opportunity to run.

While Driskill said a number of friends and supporters urged him to do so, he didn't wish to uproot his two teenage children from their lives in Jefferson City.

"Primarily for that reason I chose not to get back into politics, but I did consider it," Driskill said. "I do consider Southeast Missouri my home and ultimately want to end up there. For now, this is a better opportunity for me and something that I'd like to do."