Bad bridges to nowhere
Call it prescience, or fortuitous timing. Just hours after President Obama proposed corporate tax reform in exchange for congressional support of a $302 billion transportation bill to pay for badly needed repairs to the nation’s decaying highways, roads, and bridges, power brokers from business, academia, and the federal government gathered at Harvard Business School (HBS) Wednesday evening to begin a private, two-day summit, “America on the Move: Transportation and Infrastructure for the 21st Century.” The conference was convened to apply strategic thinking to key challenges facing the United States in the global marketplace in fundamental areas that drive and support the economy, such as energy, information technology, and the transportation of goods and people. The session brought together for the first time an array of business executives, including General Electric chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, and Verizon chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam, with HBS faculty like Jan Rivkin,...