Originally published: September 14, 2012 5:15 PM
Updated: September 14, 2012 7:26 PM
The job shouldn’t be tough: Build a new economic ecosystem for Long Island, to compete with Silicon Valley, Boston’s Route 128, and the emerging Tech Valley cluster in Albany. How long could it take? Six months? A year?
Only kidding. Actually, growing and keeping enough high-tech firms in our region to match the success of a Silicon Valley will take a generation. But the effort is vital for the solid middle-class jobs and economic strength it can produce for the region and the state.
That’s the task that the new leadership team of the Accelerate Long Island initiative will begin to tackle, starting this week. Former Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko will be executive director. His deputy will be Stacey Epifane Sikes, his deputy chief of staff in Brookhaven.