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Nevada has always been the logical place for investments in world-class resorts and tourism.
These industries will continue to play a vital role in Nevada, but the Silver State has gained strength in recent years to become an epicenter for clean-energy jobs and economic growth in industries such as advanced manufacturing technologies and IT data centers.
Part of this success has been the ability of the National Clean Energy Summit to bring together the nation’s top minds from business, academia and government to show them everything Nevada has to offer the clean-energy industry. For instance, past speakers have included leaders in the private sector such as Elon Musk and Fred Smith, and American leaders such as President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden.
The tradition will continue this year in Las Vegas when executives from Tesla and Panasonic take the stage Aug. 24 to speak about the gigafactory. This will be the first opportunity for Nevadans to hear directly from these two companies about this game-changing investment in Nevada’s and the nation’s clean-energy future.
With the construction of the gigafactory underway, Nevadans are rightly excited about the positive ripple effect the gigafactory could have on Nevada’s path toward fostering entrepreneurship, building economic diversity and creating jobs. To fully capitalize on those goals, though, Nevada’s workforce must be prepared to match the needs of our growing clean-energy economy.
While Nevada ultimately won the competition to land the gigafactory, states and nations around the world continue to compete against each other for investment in clean energy. We are committed to helping Nevada meet this challenge because the benefits that high-tech and advanced-manufacturing jobs can bring to our economy are too valuable to lose.
Nevada’s four community colleges, state college, two universities and environmental research institute continue to develop a locally grown high-tech workforce, as well as cutting-edge clean-energy research. We believe Nevada’s economic future will be much brighter if we work together and attract these types of industries and develop our human resources and capacity for innovation.
The National Clean Energy Summit is the perfect place for a conversation about the cooperation needed between the public and private sectors to prepare Nevada’s workforce to match the needs of a growing clean-energy economy.
We hope every Nevadan will be interested in hearing about these topics and invite them to visit cleanenergysummit.org to learn more about this year’s event.
Harry Reid is a U.S. senator from Nevada. Dan Klaich is chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
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