Holcomb Is Trippin’: Governor And Team Head To Europe For Economic Meetings

Gov. Eric Holcomb and Brad Chambers, Indiana Economic Development Corporation secretary of commerce, will travel to Europe next week to meet with business partners and motorsports industry giants alongside Indiana First Lady Janet Holcomb and other IEDC representatives.

In an IEDC press release, Holcomb said he wants the state to be part of the future of industry leadership. He and Chambers will visit Sweden, the United Kingdom and Monaco during a week abroad.

Holcomb said the trip is valuable because it’s always better to maintain “strategic relationships” by engaging with others in person, rather than digitally.

There are more than 550 European-owned businesses in Indiana, so the trip can highlight only a few.

Hopping Around Europe

The trip will start with two days in Sweden, where the two will meet with representatives from Saab, a Swedish aerospace engineering company that builds Air Force fighter jets in West Lafayette.

They will then venture to the United Kingdom for two days, where they will meet with food and beverage ingredient producer Tate and Lyle, which employs more than 500 people in the Lafayette area.

Indiana hosts over 100 other U.K.-owned businesses, making the U.K. Indiana’s third-largest investor globally. Another example is Rolls-Royce, which employs about 3,300 at its factory in Indianapolis.

Finally, it’s off to the tiny state of Monaco. Boasting a landmass smaller than a square mile, Monaco is surrounded by France on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Its population is about 40,000, but it is one of the richest places in the world per capita. And, like Indiana, it has a race.

Indiana recently announced it will partner with the global racing team Avalanche Andretti Formula E to pursue sustainability initiatives in the automobile and motorsports industries. In honor of this alliance, the trip will conclude with the Formula E World Championship race in Monaco. The Indiana duo will meet His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco before the race and join the crowd alongside the luxurious racetrack for the spectacle.

The camaraderie between Indiana and Monaco is no coincidence: Indianapolis was already home to Andretti Autosport, a global racing enterprise, before the recently announced clean energy partnership. So Indiana and Monaco have bonded over the motorsports industry, and clean energy will be a focal point of their relationship moving forward. Formula E was the first sport to be net zero in its carbon emissions from Day 1.

This will be Holcomb’s 11th international economic trip, his third with Chambers. The two visited Slovakia and Israel earlier this month to discuss trade possibilities.

The timing of the upcoming trip is convenient for Indiana. The European excursion comes a month before the Indiana Global Economic Summit slated for May 26-29, the same weekend as the Indianapolis 500 race.

That will be a busy week for Indiana business advocates. The Monaco Grand Prixis scheduled for the same weekend.