"Governor-elect Raimondo is focused on attracting and growing businesses in Rhode Island with the goal of making this state stronger for everyone."
Stefan Pryor
Rhode Island's governor-elect Gina Raimondo has picked Connecticut Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor, a fellow Yale alum with experience leading economic-development efforts in New York and New Jersey, as her choice to be Rhode Island's first commerce secretary.
"Stefan Pryor has the depth of experience and the drive to help me lead Rhode Island's comeback," Raimondo said in a statement. "Stefan's economic development successes in Newark and in Lower Manhattan are a testament to his ability to lead the Department of Commerce in Rhode Island."
Lawmakers reshaped the Commerce Corporation under the aegis of a secretariat starting in 2015, following the state's disastrous investment in video-game maker 38 Studios. The precursor agency, the former state Economic Development Corporation, was marked by frequent turnover in its top leadership.
Pryor served as deputy mayor and director of Economic and Housing Development for Newark Mayor -- now U.S. Senator -- Cory Booker from 2006 to 2011. According to Raimondo's transition team, Pryor recruited new tenants to the city, including the North American headquarters of Panasonic, and played a key role in the development of Newark's first downtown hotel in 40 years and the city's first new office tower in 20 years.
Before that, Pryor was the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which was created to coordinate economic growth following 9/11.
Pryor has generated controversy as Connecticut's education commissioner. Pryor announced in August that he would be leaving if Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy won re-election. From a report in The Connecticut Mirror:
Teachers were dissatisfied with Pryor because of proposals he made to link teacher evaluations to standardized test results and for the state to intervene in the state's lowest performing schools and possibly reassign teachers to another school. The commissioner has also generated praise for the changes to law he championed, including the expansion of state-funded preschool seats, directing more state funding to the lowest-achieving schools, increasing the number of seats in magnet and charter schools and having school accountability measures focus on more than just test scores.
When Pryor, then 39, was named Connecticut's top education official in 2011, The New York Times said he had been one of the closest aides of former Newark Mayor Booker, a former Yale classmate of Raimondo. From the article:
He is widely seen as an ambitious and skilled consensus-builder with a deep interest in education. He was a co-founder of Amistad Academy, a New Haven charter school that has become a model for schools in other cities. He has longstanding ties to Connecticut, where he attended Yale University and Yale Law School in the 1990s. He was elected to the New Haven Board of Aldermen, and worked in the mid-1990s as a policy analyst on youth and education issues for Mayor John DeStefano Jr. of New Haven.
Raimondo made revitalizing Rhode Island's economy the cornerstone of her winning campaign for governor. Her transition team announced Pryor's selection on the afternoon of a day when the governor-elect is convening a three-hour economic policy summit with about 80 business people and "thought leaders."
Pryor faces state Senate confirmation. Raimondo's transition didn't immediately respond to a request for how much he will earn as commerce secretary.
If confirmed, Pryor will chart economic development efforts in a state bedeviled by one of the nation's highest unemployment rates and prolonged failure in generating a post-industrial economic identity.
Pryor received undergraduate and law degrees from Yale. His tweets are protected.
"I am looking forward to joining the Raimondo administration," Pryor said in a statement. "Governor-elect Raimondo is focused on attracting and growing businesses in Rhode Island with the goal of making this state stronger for everyone. I will work every day with that goal in mind and will aim to deliver results for Rhode Island."
This report was originally published by Rhode Island Public Radio.
