MANCHESTER, N.H. – U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo led a roundtable of New Hampshire business and political leaders discussing the importance of federal funding and local infrastructure in Millyard’s nascent biofabrication industry.
Following a tour of the adjacent Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) in Manchester, Raimundo praised the efforts of U.S. Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in their advocacy for Manchester in obtaining a $44 million Build Back Better Regional Grant last year.
“I hope you realize how extraordinary your two senators are,” she said. “Small states can often be overlooked, but you have two people in the ring fighting for you every day.”
That funding came after ARMI received funding from the Department of Defense to help develop new technologies to help wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but Shaheen and Raimondo said the technologies being developed at ARMI are part of a larger effort to keep America technologically ahead of global adversaries.
It was not certain that the $44 million grant would come to Manchester after the Department of Defense funding, but Hassan noted that the Millyard was once the largest textile manufacturing site in the world and through that legacy of hard work as well as through collaboration from local, educational, federal and non-profit organizations, the transition into making the Millyard into a place where human organs can be manufactured is underway.
“(New Hampshire) is not a place where we wait for other people to solve problems,” said Hassan. “We roll up our sleeves and work together, that is the secret sauce for New Hampshire.”
Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig built on those statements, saying that the various forces built upon the efforts of ARMI founder Dean Kamen, working together to win the grant which she said will eventually bring 7,000 new high-paying jobs to New Hampshire as well as significant secondary economic development through the need for additional housing and services for those new employees.