Oz Griebel helped bring Israeli tech companies to Connecticut

By Judie Jacboson

HARTFORD – When you step up to the voting booth on Tuesday, Nov. 6, you will find at the very bottom of the column listing this year’s gubernatorial candidates the name Richard Nelson Griebel. Along with Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowksi, Griebel – aka “Oz” – is running for governor of Connecticut. But of course you knew that.

What you may not know is that, in 2011, in the Connecticut Jewish Ledger’s end-of-the-year issue, Griebel was selected to the newspaper’s list of “Movers & Shakers.” First published in 2005, the annual list includes Connecticut residents who have taken a leadership role in advancing and promoting the interests of the Jewish community, locally and in Israel. Typically, Movers & Shakers are of the Jewish faith, but every now and then a non-Jewish person has so clearly stepped up to the plate on behalf of the Jewish people and/or the state of Israel, that he or she earns a spot on the list.

Oz Griebel is the first gubernatorial candidate to make the list.

Griebel first came to the attention of Jewish communal leaders in 2010 when the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford was seeking a way to promote more positive Israel awareness. The organization’s leadership turned for help to MetroHartford Alliance, the Hartford region’s largest organization of business leaders, and its then-director Oz Griebel.

“Israel advocacy and education are part of our mission and we wanted to get people thinking beyond war and politics,” JCRC executive director Laura Zimmerman told the Ledger in a 2011 interview (“Movers & Shakers,” Dec. 30, 2011, Jewish Ledger). “We decided to focus on technology.”

Griebel proved to be an enthusiastic and invaluable partner.

At the 2016 Connecticut-Israel Innovations Showcase: (l to r) Oz Griebel, president/CEO, MetroHartford Alliance; Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin; CT Dept. of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Catherine Smith; Howard Sovronsky, president/CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford; and Robert Santy, CEO, CT Economic Resource Center, Inc.

“I was invited to some early conversations with Laura Zimmerman, Brad Mondschein [a Hartford-based attorney and a Jewish Federation board member who played a leading role in the development of the Connecticut-Israel Technology Summit], Michael and Shari Cantor [now mayor of West Hartford], and others, about how we promote Connecticut as a base for Israeli companies looking to get a foothold in the United States,” Griebel recently told the Ledger. “And we began to lay the groundwork [for the CT-Israel Tech Summit]. It was a natural way for us to promote Connecticut as a very attractive and competitive alternative for Israeli companies.”

In May of 2010, the JCRC and MetroHartford Alliance International Business Council organized the first-ever Connecticut-Israel Technology Summit. Meeting at Goodwin College in downtown Hartford, representatives from hundreds of regional businesses met with visiting entrepreneurs from Israeli start-up companies specializing in life science, security, and defense.

“This is a unique collaboration, and it wouldn’t have been as successful without MetroHartford’s business connections,” Zimmerman told the Ledger in the 2011 interview. “MetroHartford Alliance’s mission is business development and ours addresses cultural, civic, and social justice issues, as well as Israel advocacy. “

In that same interview, Zimmerman described the Summit’s impact as having already “expanded economic development in greater Hartford and changed people’s interpretations of Israel.

“It’s already producing a lot of vitality and growth in both areas,” she said.

As a result of the summit, in 2013, Griebel, who led the MetroHartford Alliance for 17 years, took part in a business mission to Israel led by Catherine Smith, Commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD). It was Griebel’s second trip to the Jewish state, having participated in a national mission to Israel in 2009.

In 2011, a year after it was first introduced, the CT-Israel Tech Summit grew to more than 150 people attending the event held at Rentschler Field. The June 2013 Summit at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford attracted 200 leaders and investors from across the public and private sectors.

By 2015, the highly successful partnership between the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford and MetroHartford Alliance  expanded to include the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, Inc., and the Summit had morphed into the Connecticut-Israel Innovations Showcase, which drew healthcare industry leaders from across the state to meet with Israeli medical and health information technology entrepreneurs. This 2016 Innovations Showcase was part of the 2016 Israel Festival, a weeklong celebration of the 68th birthday of the Jewish state.

“Technological collaboration and foreign direct investment through global partnerships are critical in ensuring a bright future for the Hartford Region and the entire state,” says Griebel. “We’ve had several introductions with companies that were in everything from aqua farming to cyber security to health-related industries. Several put their roots down here. And, though I can’t recall the specific number of employees or what the exact capital investments were, I can tell you they were not insignificant.”

Of the Connecticut-Israel business connection, Griebel told the Ledger, “This is the kind of thing that exemplifies the very type of targeted recruitment that I see being part of our administration. The primary criteria that every decision that [my running mate] Monte Frank and I make will be to strengthen Connecticut’s ability to attract 200,000 new private sector jobs over the next 10 years.

“I don’t believe you need to go to California to do that. The first thing we will do is retain the jobs that are here and then target companies in Boston and New York, and a country like Israel. We would offer Israeli companies much more competitive breaks in terms of our commercial real estate, our residential real estate, our easy proximity to Boston and New York, without having to pay those costs.

“Monte and I are running as an Independent ticket because we believe that only an Independent ticket can bring members of both parties, Republicans and Democrats, together, along with the private sector. And what I mean by the private sector is not just businesses, not just higher education, it’s not just research institutes or hospitals or not-for-profits. The faith community is very rich in this state, whether that is the Jewish community or others.

“How do you tap into the better angels of our nature without engaging the faith community? I would say it isn’t going to happen. And so we have said that the whole spirit of respect of the individual, the spirit of genuine collaboration, the spirit of civility and very vigorous debate – the debate about issues, not about which party’s in charge – to me, that is at the heart of how we will not only strengthen the state’s considerable assets, but also how we’re going to challenge collaboratively the very significant fiscal impediments we have.

“Our goal is to work together to restore, not only job growth but also restore CT to national preeminence on all levels – whether it be in areas of transportation investment, education, or the treatment of those who have significant mental health issues, or the very serious issues of substance abuse. [Our goal is] to put Connecticut back where it has been for most of its 400-year-old-history – a place the rest of the country looks to.”