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Amy in the News

Innovation Tour Stops in Rochester

(KAAL)

February 27, 2011

(ABC 6 NEWS) – Senator Amy Klobuchar traveled across southeast Minnesota today as a part of her "innovation tour."

 

She made six stops today, the first being at Rochester's Gauthier Industries.

 

Senator Amy Klobuchar toured Gauthier Industries in Rochester Saturday.

 

A place Klobuchar says is a small sample of what she envisions the rest of the country can be.

 

"I believe the future is in innovation and it's in manufacturing. We've got to be a country that makes stuff again, that exports to the world instead of just importing things. We want the ships to go the other way so products like this, made right here in Rochester are going to other countries," says U.S. Senator, Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota).

 

This tour is also a part of Klobuchar's push for a bipartisan bill she has presented alongside Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts called the "Innovate America Bill."

 

"The idea is to ramp up our efforts to train kids and workers who've lost their jobs, train them in technology, train them in science, engineering, and math. We'd like to be a country again that thinks innovati in things and a lot of it's going to have to do with technology," says Klobuchar.

 

Klobuchar says jobs in America are unfilled because we don't have the skills.

 

However, Gauthier Industries has added 17 jobs in just the last year.

 

"We've been in a growth for the last 15 months and we feel that legislation like this will help our own company. Her motivation inspires us to continue on a growth mode and be able to keep things on an upward pattern here in manufacturing," says Gauthier Industries president, Mike Jensen.

 

Klobuchar is hoping that this legislation along with great innovative places like Gauthier can lead the U.S. out of tough times.

 

"Minnesota has actually made its way back because of innovation. we brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the post-it note and that is why our unemployment, while still not where we want it to be, is significantly below the national average," says Klobuchar.

 

Klobuchar also says that in the last few decades, the United States has not kept its position as number one in innovation.

 

Now we find ourselves something like 6th out of 40 industrialized countries.