State asks how it can help local businesses

By PAMELA JANSSON

[email protected]

IRONWOOD — A business roundtable at Gogebic Community College on Aug. 16 centered around a single question posed by the state official leading it:

“How can the state help local business and industry?”

Jonathan Smith, senior chief deputy director of the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, asked the question as a means of explaining his presence.

“We cannot do our job at the state level without looking at local communities,” he said of his department, also known by its acronym of LEO.

He also positioned his question in relation to the state...