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The WESTRENDS board is comprised of one legislator from each of the 13 western states. It provides a forum and an opportunity to evaluate the direction and velocity of trends that affect the quality of life in the West through conversations with futurists and demographers. In a region that is increasingly defined by rapid change, WESTRENDS focuses on the implications for policy makers of the demographic, economic and cultural trends that are shaping the western states. |
2009 Highlights: Gerald O’Donnell, a veteran demographer for the U.S. Census Bureau in Denver, confirmed that the West is easily the most dynamic region of the United States. Six of the ten fastest growing states are in the West, as well as states with the highest rate of growth both from natural population increases and migration. Mary Jo Waits, director of social and economic workforce programs at the National Governors’ Association in Washington, D.C., pointed out that it is not just how many people a state attracts but who those people are that is important. She noted that the 21st Century will be driven by innovation and many of the circumstances that provide states and regions with an innovative edge are created, not inherited. Futurist John Petersen, the founder of the Arlington Institute in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, introduced the possibility of counter trends or “Wild Cards” that are almost always completely unanticipated. The rate of change in the 21st Century will be so rapid that fundamental political, economic and cultural shifts will be virtually undetected before they occur, according to Petersen. | 2008 Highlights: The WESTRENDS Board heard a presentation by John Peterson, founder and president of the Arlington Institute, a public, non-profit research center in the Washington, D.C. area. He is a futurist who specializes in global futures and emerging technologies. Peterson says that technological change will provide an international network of futurists the ability to predict the social behavior of people when confronted by certain types of events. This new think tank model will be devoted to tracking and even predicting “Wild Cards,” which he defines as “low probability but very high impact events” that confound our expectations and experience. Peterson is convinced that nothing less than a profound shift in priorities will be required in order to cope with the changes that will confront the United States and governments world-wide. He agrees with other futurists who see 2005-2015 as a time when the confluence of social, economic, cultural and technological disruptions create in his words “the beginning of epochal change” that will require a global mobilization. Peterson offered a framework for intervention on four of the major disruptions that have occurred or will occur in the 21st century: oil shock, rapid climate change, financial collapse and global pandemic. | 2007 Highlights: The WESTRENDS Board at their session in Wyoming heard and discussed presentations on climate change and the consequences of a warming West, such as the drought, floods and fire that ravaged the region in 2007. | 2006 Highlights: Beginning in September 2005 in Portland, Oregon, the WESTRENDS Board began exploring the challenges facing the West as technology rapidly transforms our economies. WESTRENDS is focusing on the importance of establishing networks with people beyond the region’s political borders in recognition that changes are required in the way we conduct business in order to succeed in manufacturing, marketing and professional services in a global economy. | 2005 Highlights: The WESTRENDS Board heard two presentations that were consistent with the Board’s interest in the demographic, economic and cultural trends shaping the West. Members were briefed and discussed a work in progress by a consortium of think tanks on how the West can best achieve a sustainable future. Consistent with the theme of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, the Board was also challenged by the remarks of the author of a new book whose central argument is that in the new century, America and the West’s focus will shift from Europe to the Pacific Rim. | 2004 Highlights: The WESTRENDS forum discussed the impacts of globalization on the Western and national economies. Internationally syndicated business columnist for the Los Angeles Times, James Flanigan, led a conversation on the myths and realities of globalization, providing a better understanding of the phenomenon and strategies to respond to it in an ever increasingly interdependent world. |
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