Thread: NAU’s Haeger joins governor to meet with Mexico president

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NAU’s Haeger joins governor to meet with Mexico president



NAU President John Haeger will be a member of Gov. Janet Napolitano’s delegation that will meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon this week in Mexico City.

Haeger will travel to Mexico City Feb. 8, 9 and 10 to participate in discussions about university relations and student exchanges. The delegation also will discuss how Mexico and Arizona can work together to benefit both economies and the region, especially in the areas of trade, commerce, tourism, investment, innovation, development and border security.

"This is a great opportunity for Northern Arizona University and the entire state to exchange ideas and discuss issues with our neighbor," Haeger said. "I’m looking forward to tangible results coming from this visit."

While in Mexico City, the governor and the delegation also will meet with Mexico Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora; Mexican secretaries for Foreign Relations, Public Safety, Transportation and Agriculture, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza, AeroMexico CEO Andrés Conesa Labastida, and other private sector leaders.

The Governor’s Office, through the Arizona-Mexico Commission, asked Arizona leaders to accompany the governor to promote Arizona's trade relationship and policy development with Mexico.

In addition to Napolitano and Haeger, the Arizona delegation includes Ben Campbell, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase Arizona; Robert Cashdollar, CEO of Apache Nitrogen Products Inc.; Robert Codney, vice president of Armor Works; George Diaz, APS senior public affairs representative; Tim R. Lines, managing vice president of Santec; Glenn McGinnis, CEO of Arizona Clean Fuels; Jerry Moyes, owner of Swift Aviation; Patrick Quinn, president of Qwest; David Rousseau, vice president of Salt River Project; Jorge de los Santos, director and special advisor to ASU President Michael Crow; Robert Shelton, president of the University of Arizona; Wendi Vittori, corporate vice president and general manager of Embedded Communication Computing, Motorola; and John Zidich, president and publisher of The Arizona Republic.

The Arizona-Mexico Commission is a nonprofit organization in the Arizona governor’s office. It is dedicated to advocating Arizona’s relationship with the Americas and serving as the southwestern region’s American ambassadors to Mexico.

-NAU-

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... o0208.html

Napolitano off to Mexico City as Ariz. booster
Chris Hawley and Matthew Benson
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 8, 2007 12:00 AM

MEXICO CITY - Feliciano Martínez's framing shop in Mexico City is called Arizona Glass. But, he is quick to add, it's not because of the U.S. state.

"It's named after the street it's on," he said. "Whenever people think of Arizona the state, they think of migration. I'd rather have them think about my business."

It's the same problem faced by Gov. Janet Napolitano as she arrives in the Mexican capital today on a two-day visit aimed at downplaying border friction and cultivating trade.


"Trade is about developing markets and facilitating relationships," she said. "We're talking literally billions of dollars in trade and thousands of jobs."

Arizona has an image problem here in Mexico City, the country's financial and political center. When Arizona is in the news, it usually involves border fences, desert deaths or the Minutemen. Bad press has continued as the Mexican government fumes over the shooting of a migrant by a Border Patrol agent in Arizona on Jan. 12.

Amid all the arguments over illegal immigration, experts say Arizona may be missing out on opportunities to cash in on Mexico's growing economy. The number of big-spending tourists flying into Arizona has dropped in recent years. Mexico's flourishing multinational companies, known as grupos, have mostly passed over Arizona as they set up headquarters in the United States. And although Arizona exports over $4 billion annually to Mexico, 80 percent of that trade is concentrated in one Mexican state, neighboring Sonora.

"Arizona has to diversify, that's for certain," said Miguel Angel Vázquez Ruiz, an economist at the University of Sonora who studies cross-border trade.

The governor is taking a group of high-ranking Arizona executives with her, along with Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours. They'll meet with new President Felipe Calderón and several Cabinet members. Officials don't expect any major agreements to be struck but say it is an important opportunity to forge relationships with the new Calderón administration.

In a sign of the importance to well-heeled Mexicans, Napolitano will also meet with officials at Aeromexico, the Mexican airline that recently began daily non-stop flights to Phoenix. Aeromexico is Mexico's biggest seller of vacation packages, and tourism officials hope the airline will help funnel rich Mexican tourists to Arizona.

The trip will be Napolitano's third official visit to the Mexican capital since taking office in January 2003 but her first meeting with Calderón.

Napolitano said she hopes to stress to the president the cooperative efforts that Sonora and Arizona have taken for border security. She also hopes to sell Calderón on the need for improved and expanded ports of entry, with better technology to track stolen vehicles and detect smuggling.

The governor also wants to make sure that Mexico's efforts to fight drug traffickers in Tijuana and along the Texas border don't push violence toward Arizona, said Marco López, the governor's adviser on international affairs.

Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa will also compare notes with the governor on efforts to push U.S. immigration reform in Washington.

Much of the discussions in Mexico City are expected to focus on infrastructure, with Napolitano urging Calderón to fund new projects on the Mexican side of the border.

Existing roads and ports of entry along the border "haven't kept up with the traffic we have," Napolitano said, and hamper efforts to inspect traffic coming in and out of the United States. Mexico is Arizona's largest trading partner and is responsible for 50,000 to 60,000 non-retail Arizona jobs, according to the state Department of Commerce.

Napolitano's delegation will include representatives from some of Arizona's largest corporations, including The Arizona Republic. Among them will be Pat Quinn, president of Qwest's Arizona operations.

"In these days of the communications world," he said, "borders have disappeared."

Qwest has been trying to get Latinos in the United States to sign up for its international calling plan and a Spanish-language television package, both launched last year.

Certainly any of the international discussions could be done by teleconference. But Ben Campbell, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Arizona, said that there is no substitute for one-on-one time.

"The stronger our relationship can be ... that bond is so important," he said.

JPMorgan Chase was recently hired to handle a $750 million bond offering by Cemex SAB, a Mexican grupo that is the world's third-biggest cementmaker.