By CHET
BAUMGARTNER
When David Roberts turned his tassel at his Norwell High School graduation, he didn’t expect to one day travel to Taiwan with Indiana’s governor.
And he didn’t intend to travel there weeks after another visit inspired Chinese military drills.
But on Aug. 21, the 46-year-old Wells County native and about a dozen others landed in the country to start an eight-day trip.
And Roberts said he believes this trip will create “huge opportunities” for Wells’ students set to turn their own tassels one day.
“I think this is a huge opportunity for Wells County to retain some of the best and brightest students,” Roberts, the son of Bluffton Resident Carolyn Roberts and the late Dave Roberts, said. “This is an exciting new era of no longer having brain drain, but having brain gain.”
As the chief innovation officer for Indiana’s equivalent to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Roberts traveled with Gov. Eric Holcomb to help field technical questions during meetings with government officials and business leaders in Taiwan and South Korea.
Essentially, he said, he wanted to help convince them that Indiana can provide the resources and workforce to produce their computer chips, electric vehicles and their batteries.
Taiwan in particular dominates the computer chip industry, which Roberts said will only expand as more products demand more advanced technology.
For instance, Roberts said, automobiles that use gas generally operate on about 200 to 300 chips, but electric vehicles generally operate on more than 1,000.
Furthermore, by enticing foreign businesses to build in Indiana, other businesses won’t need to depend on foreign sources for their chips. This dependence, Roberts said, has already shut down multiple businesses, including Fort Wayne’s GM pickup plant. It shut down twice since the start of the pandemic.
“There’s just going to be more and more computer chips that are needed,” Roberts said.
And even if these new businesses don’t locate in Wells County, the technology they’ll create will help students here work anywhere without leaving, Roberts said.
“Technology is really allowing places like Bluffton and Wells County to retain really smart, talented folks that are interested in having jobs literally around the world,” he said. “Geography is no longer as tied to the work you do … so why not live in a great place to raise a family … and live in a community that reflects your priorities and morals.
“I really am hopeful for the next generation of folks staying in Wells County.”
Still, that technology can’t replace the blessings already here, Roberts said, blessings that helped him secure his current position.
“The things I learned growing up in Wells County have equipped me and made the foundation to serve others,” he said.
Admittedly, he said, “it was not a career path you could have charted when I was in high school,” particularly because he intended to only study engineering after graduating in 1994.
From 1998 to 2000, Roberts worked at the former Lookheed Martin plant in Fort Wayne, but even then, he enjoyed “pursuing curious things,” he said, and he wanted to learn not just how gadgets worked, but also how the legal and business world that produced the gadgets worked.
“I think we’re created to be curious, and we’re created to be creators,” he said.
Eventually, Roberts said, he “felt led” to pursue law school, and after completing it, he worked on patent law for a St. Louis firm. He then moved to Illinois to work for Caterpillar, which introduced him to the device that would start to shape his future:
The battery.
Because of the experience he gained at Caterpillar, he started working for a nonprofit focusing on battery technology in 2011, and in 2012, he became its CEO.
In 2014, an investment bank led a sale of that nonprofit, but by then, Roberts had made connections with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, which eventually sought him for his current position in July, 2017.
As the chief innovation officer, Roberts said, he helps the state ensure it can be competitive and attract employees not just now, but for decades to come.
“It’s no longer Wells County fighting against some other local places for kids,” he said. “You’re competing globally.”
But just because Roberts needs to prepare for the future doesn’t mean he can neglect his past, he said.
“I look back, and I see teachers who cared about kids … who taught people the core fundamentals to be competitive globally. That all happened in Wells County.”
These teachers, he said, equipped “us to do whatever we wanted to do … and how to be thoughtful and curious and investigate.”
Roberts also credited community leaders whose examples taught him to work hard, not cut corners, delay satisfaction, resist peer pressure and “take a little bit of a risk.”
Essentially, he said, these leaders taught him to work based on principles, and Indiana is partnering with Taiwan not only for potential profit, but on principle—despite China’s warnings.
Before going, for instance, China condemned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-California, for visiting Taiwan earlier in the month.
Her visit inspired even the communist country to fire missiles over the island, the Associated Press reports.
The Indiana group, however, didn’t intend to connect their trip with Pelosi’s and the tensions it possibly stirred.
Instead, “it was coincidental,” Roberts said. “The planning for this trip was months in the making. You can’t really set up meaningful meetings with companies like we did in only a week or two.”
The governor’s official releases never referred to the international tensions and instead focused on the economic opportunities.
Roberts, though, referred to Taiwan as a “democratic beacon” and “strong partner,” and he said he and others will continue to study all the political variables “month to month” and “day to day.”
baumofchet@outlook.com
