“Voters approved millages to support these cultural icons, and these bills guarantee that the voice of the voters in southeast Michigan is not only heard, but followed,” Calley said.

In 2008 and 2010, legislation was enacted to assist the state in preserving the Detroit Zoo and the Detroit Institute of Arts by creating new county taxing authorities with the power to levy taxes in support of the institutions. Voters in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties later approved millages to support these institutions.

House Bill 4458, sponsored by state Rep. Eileen Kowall, prohibits a Tax Increment Finance Authority from capturing regional property taxes meant to subsidize the Detroit Zoo and the Detroit Institute for the Arts. It is now Public Act 61 of 2013.

HB 4461, sponsored by state Rep. Harold Haugh, prohibits a Local Development Financing Authority from capturing regional property taxes imposed to subsidize the Detroit Zoo and the Detroit Institute for the Arts. It is now PA 62.

HB 4463, sponsored by state Rep. John Walsh, prohibits a tax increment financing plan used to subsidize a local “street railway system” from capturing regional property taxes imposed to subsidize the Detroit Zoo and the Detroit Institute for the Arts. It is now PA 63.

HB 4464, sponsored by state Rep. Gail Haines, prohibits a tax increment financing plan used to pay for public facilities from capturing regional property taxes imposed to subsidize the Detroit Zoo and the Detroit Institute for the Arts. It is now PA 64.

Calley said the three remaining bills in the package will also be signed once they reach the governor’s desk. They are HB 4459, 4460, and 4462.

Gov. Rick Snyder is on a trade mission to Israel this week. Article V, Section 26 of the Michigan Constitution gives authority to the lieutenant governor when the governor is outside the state.

Visit michiganlegislature.org for more information on the bills.

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The Medical First Responders course was conducted with the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and Idaho National Guard Soldiers during Angkor Sentinel 2013, May 18-27, 2013. Pictured here, heart rates escalated as a fellow Royal Cambodian Armed Forces comrade had suffered a simulated gunshot wound to the chest, fractured femur, lower leg amputation, and second-degree burns on both arms during the practical exam of the Medical First Responder Course, held is Kampong Speu Province, Cambodia.

KAMPONG SPEU PROVINCE, Cambodia (May, 2013) — The Medical First Responders course was conducted with the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and Idaho National Guard Soldiers during Angkor Sentinel 2013, May 18-27.

The Medical First Responders course, or MFR, is designed to teach students basic life-saving skills to help their fellow Soldiers should they become injured. Topics covered included patient assessment, hemorrhage control, wound care, mild traumatic brain injuries, basic CPR, and medical evacuation procedures.

As part of Angkor Sentinel 2013, or AS 13, one of the main exercise objectives is to improve lifesaving medical skills and public health capabilities. The MFR consisted of academics, practical instruction, and evaluation.

“I was so impressed with how quickly the RCAF (Royal Cambodian Armed Forces) soldiers picked it up, especially with having no prior medical training,” said Master Sgt. Alice Randolph, the Medical First Responders course non-commissioned officer in charge. “RCAF put the knowledge they had learned in the classroom to test when they exceeded my expectations during the practical exams, that’s for sure. They are efficient and skilled.”

The course culminated with a practical exercise in which the students treated and evacuated simulated casualties.

The MFR course taught 52 RCAF personnel, with the help of medical interpreters from the Kingdom of Cambodia.

During AS13, the Soldiers of the Idaho Army National Guard taught two iterations of the MFR course. Each iteration involved four days of classroom instruction, hands on practical exams, and finished with a day of instruction focusing on Field Sanitation.

In an effort to promote RCAF formations of deployable medical platoons, the MFR course assists to prepare RCAF troops for future United Nations missions.

“I like this training course very much,” stated Lt. Col. Nuth Rasy, RCAF platoon leader, “because it also provided us the skills to use on an actual mission to help each other. I would recommend this class to fellow RCAF soldiers, but you will need to study hard and pay attention in this class so you can apply the skill to save people’s lives while you are on missions. This training course was very important.”

Angkor Sentinel is an annual bilateral exercise sponsored by U.S. Army, Pacific and hosted by the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. AS 13 is the latest in a continuing series of rigorous, multi-faceted exercises designed to promote regional peace and security. This year marked the fourth iteration of the AS 13 exercise and the third year of participation from the Idaho Army National Guard.

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Sunset clauses “unrealist figment of the political imagination,” state director says.

LANSING, Mich.—Calling it the largest expansion of state government since the income tax, Americans for Prosperity-Michigan urged State Senators in a key vote alert to oppose expanding Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Click here to view the full letter.

“Do not be fooled by the so-called conservative reforms that serve to obfuscate the true intent of this bill,” noted Scott Hagerstrom, state director of AFP-Michigan. “This legislation helps further President Obama’s big-government agenda and will help implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

Thousands of AFP-Michigan activists have contacted their legislators in opposition to the bill via phone, email and social media channels. The group has noted that the vote will be included on its legislative scorecard.

“Please do not forget that this expansion will be implemented at the sole discretion and power of the federal Department of Health and Human Services,” Hagerstrom wrote. “So-called sunset clauses are an unrealistic figment of the political imagination that unfortunately do not represent the truth taxpayers will ultimately face.”

Hagerstrom concluded by writing that state legislators can demonstrate they are serious about Medicaid reform by requesting a block grant for existing Medicaid dollars.

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Lansing, MI – New research unveiled by Connect Michigan shows that the broadband availability gap in Michigan is shrinking, with 97.33% of Michigan residents now having access to fixed broadband speeds of 3 Mbps download/768 Kbps upload, compared to 96.45% last October.

“Michigan continues to see marked improvements in broadband access”, said Eric Frederick, Connect Michigan state program manager. “The proliferation of infrastructure coupled with energetic efforts to eliminate barriers to broadband adoption has produced positive results that are reflected in this study.”

Nonprofit Connect Michigan has been working since 2009 to ensure that Michigan residents have access to the economic, educational, and quality of life benefits derived from increased broadband access, adoption, and use. Part of that work includes maintaining detailed analysis of broadband availability across the state to support broadband planning efforts. Through its Connected Community Engagement Program, Connect Michigan is currently working with 25 communities across the state to support comprehensive community broadband planning efforts and provide technical assistance.

Among the findings of the new broadband availability research are:

• 97.33% of Michigan households can access broadband at advertised speeds of 3 Mbps download/768 Kbps upload (excluding mobile and satellite services).
• With the addition of several new fixed wireless provider participants, as well as the installation of additional towers by existing wireless providers, an additional 122,742 Michigan households can now receive fixed wireless broadband service.

Last year, Connect Michigan released an innovative new broadband mapping tool called My ConnectView^TM, offering unmatched views of Michigan’s technology landscape. Residents and businesses are encouraged to use the interactive map to find area providers and help validate the data. To report that broadband is not available in a given area, consumers can fill out a broadband inquiry.

Connect Michigan’s research was conducted as part of the State Broadband Initiative (SBI) grant program for Michigan, funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The data were gathered in accordance with the requirements of the NTIA. The process begins by contacting all known providers in the state and providing information about the broadband mapping project. Information on broadband service areas is collected from each provider through voluntary participation and is subject to confidentiality protections.

Connected Nation strives to maintain a flexible mapping process to be able to collect data from providers in a variety of formats based on providers’ technical capabilities and resources.

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Sgt. 1st Class Grady Hyatt, with U.S. Army Africa, leads an after-action review with soldiers of the Ghana Army. Hyatt was in Africa as part of the Army’s “regionally aligned forces” concept, meant to pair Army units with combatant commanders worldwide.

WASHINGTON (Army News Service) — Globally, and across the total force in fiscal year 2013, the Army could engage in nearly 6,000 different activities, in more than 160 countries, and involving as many as 60,000 Soldiers and Army civilians as part of its “regionally aligned forces” concept.

Brig. Gen. Kimberly C. Field, with Army G-3/5/7, spoke May 30, during a media roundtable at the Pentagon to provide an update on the Army’s regionally aligned forces, or RAF, concept.

The general said regionally aligned forces can include Army capabilities in direct support of combatant commanders, or COCOMs, every day. They also include personnel and units assigned to a theater, U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. European Command have the bulk of these.

Regionally aligned forces also include those units in an “allocated” status, given to a combatant commander for a specific mission for a specific period of time and under his direct control, Field said.

“Regionally aligned forces are also the other capabilities that support the combatant commander, but are Army-service retained,” Field said. “These are individuals and small teams providing reach-back support or on regular temporary duty missions to a region, or conducting contingency planning for the combatant commander.”

As the Army draws down from the Middle East, from Afghanistan, Field said the service will likely increase its efforts with RAF.

“We are working hard to respond to the increasing complexity of the global security environment,” she said. “By deliberately aligning forces regionally, the Army meets the enduring needs of COCOMs in a way that ensures responsiveness, consistent availability, and a higher level of training and expertise.”

In April, the Army provided regionally aligned forces to U.S. Africa Command to support the East Africa Response Force there. Stationed in Djibouti, 129 members of the 2-1 Infantry Division are ready to respond as needed to the security of U.S. facilities in Africa, Field said.

“It really was a directive from the Secretary of Defense to look forward, look at these areas that might have a Benghazi-like situation that could happen again, and to pre-position forces to do that,” Field said. “They arrived in April. They train and they stay ready to be able to respond to these crisis.”

The Army total force, including the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard, specifically the State Partnership Program, will provide some 4,500 personnel to the continent in order to conduct 660 activities in 34 countries in support of the combatant command in fiscal year 2013. Most of these forces are based in the continental U.S. until they are needed.

Field said aligned forces in Africa have already been involved in providing training support to Nigeriens who are part of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali, for instance.

“We’ve deployed trainers to Niger, and are working with the Department of State, and we did that on fairly short notice,” she said. “And then there are the smaller things. There are 37 smaller familiarization exercises, one of which, an example, is training Ugandan military police for route security. There are a range of activities.”

The Army is also discussing with the Department of State the idea of providing training support for the United Nations Mission in Darfur.

In fiscal year 2014, Field said, a brigade combat team from 1st Cavalry Division will provide “European Rotational Force” support to U.S. European Command, and will be dual-hatted as the NATO response force. Additionally, III Corps will be aligned with U.S. Central Command.

Right now 1st Corps is already aligned with U.S. Pacific Command, while the 18th Airborne Corps remains in “global” alignment as the Army’s global response force.

Also in fiscal year 2014, the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, with the National Guard, will be regionally with U.S. Southern Command. The unit is preparing now to send Soldiers to Guatemala to mentor and advise military forces there on command and control operations, logistics, communications, and small unit tactics. About 166 Soldiers will participate.

THE RAF PAYOFF

Field said the goal of RAF is to provide better support to COCOMs by providing them with forces prepared with cultural, language and specific mission capabilities that match up with a commander’s particular region of the world.

Those forces will help COCOMs address mutual threats and interests with partners; build capabilities of partners so they can handle things themselves; and increase influence and ability to have access if needed.

Regional alignment leverages the great strengths built in the past ten years of war, Field said.

“It is a fundamental orientation different from other drawdown periods,” She said. “We are staying externally focused, leveraging all we have learned about the human terrain and what strategic landpower means and we’re building on this.”

While the Army is looking in the future to “habitually align” both division and corps-level headquarters with a particular COCOM in order to provide each geographic combatant command a JTF-capable headquarters, Soldiers themselves will likely pass through several units during their Army careers, each unit aligned to a different COCOM.

Field dismissed the idea that the cultural and language training provided to a Soldier when he is aligned with one unit will be wasted when he moves on to another unit. Simply participating in that type of preparation is a payoff for the Army, she said.

“We will give Soldiers who are aligned for that year some culture, some language, some expertise,” she said. “We think the biggest benefit in regional alignment, to the cultural and language aspect of this, is that you now have a force that is much more culturally savvy. [A force] that can get on the ground in a foreign environment and can quickly get situational awareness, situational understanding, a better understanding of the problem they have to solve, and then come up with solutions.”

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Michigan Governor Rick Snyder stands near children in the Early Childhood Center for Israel’s Children at Risk in Netanya, Israel, June 18, 2013. The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit supports the program. PHOTO: DEBBIE HILL

JERUSALEM – After meeting with business executives in high-tech fields, Gov. Rick Snyder returned to Jerusalem on the third day of his Israel investment mission for the opening ceremonies of the country’s annual Presidential Conference, “Facing Tomorrow.”

“It is a tremendous honor to take part in this event and witness so many pay tribute to President Shimon Peres on his 90th birthday,” Snyder said. “We started our day making the case to business executives that Michigan offers tremendous opportunities to Israel’s many startup tech companies interested in bringing their products to market. It has been a memorable day on both fronts.”

The opening ceremonies served as the kickoff for the fifth Israeli Presidential Conference held under the auspices of President Shimon Peres. The conference looks at the central issues that will influence the future, including geopolitics, economics, society, environment, culture, identity, education, new media and more.

Highlights of the opening ceremonies included tributes to Peres and a keynote speech by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Speakers at the three-day conference include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong and Prince Albert of Monaco.

In addition to attending the President’s Conference, Snyder met with a group of emerging Israeli medical device and biotechnology companies to learn about their products and needs as they look to commercialize and move into markets outside of Israel.

The governor also toured the New Beginnings Program and Early Childhood Initiative in Netanya, a program started in part by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit to provide intervention and treatment services to Ethiopian-Israeli children. Later, he met with Israeli government officials to discuss cyber-security issues.

On Monday, Snyder met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss investment opportunities between Michigan and Israel. He and Israel’s Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett signed a letter of intent between the state of Michigan and the state of Israel to establish bilateral cooperation in industrial research and development. Snyder also visited General Motors Advanced Technical Center Israel in Herzliya and met with executives from several automotive companies with Michigan ties.

He and the delegation will spend the rest of the week traveling to Nazareth, Haifa and the Galilee region to continue meeting with government leaders, business executives and university officials.

The Israel mission is being conducted at the invitation of the Israeli government and hosted by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. The Michigan Israel Business Bridge facilitated the meetings with company executives.

After four missions to Asia, Europe and Canada, this is Snyder’s first as governor to the Middle East. The Israel mission is Snyder’s fifth since taking office. He opened the Michigan Trade Center and met with business leaders in Toronto and met with Canadian government officials in Ottawa in November 2012. He led a 10-day trade mission to China in September 2012, a seven-day mission to Italy and Germany in March 2012 and an eight-day trade mission to Japan, China and Korea in September 2011.

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Senate passes Farm Bill
Farm Bill Debate turns to House

Lyons, Nebraska - On Monday, June 10, the U.S. Senate passed their version of the 2013 Farm Bill by a vote of 66 to 27. The House of Representatives is now likely to take up the Farm Bill as early as next week.

“While there are a number of good provisions in the Senate Farm Bill worthy of note, the question of setting rural priorities that efficiently invest public dollars in farm and rural programs that have a positive impact on rural America is still in question,” said Traci Bruckner, Assistant Policy Director of the Center for Rural Affairs. “Continuing to provide unlimited crop insurance premium subsidies to megafarms while failing to increase our investments in things like conservation and rural development is not good public policy. We can do better than this.”

We applaud the Senate for passing a Farm Bill that for the first time in a generation closes the gaping loopholes that have made a mockery of farm program payment limitations, said Bruckner. And we thank Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) for their tireless advocacy for reducing the subsidies that mega-farms use to drive family farmers out of business.

According to Bruckner, the Farm Bill that passed the Senate Farm Bill does put back some funding for beginning farmer and rancher training, rural small business loans and assistance, grants and loans for small town water and sewer systems, renewable energy and value-added enterprise grants for family farmers and ranchers. These investments are vitally important steps forward for rural America.

Bruckner went on to praise the efforts of Senator John Thune (R-SD) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) for leading a bipartisan group of Senators that secured a sodsaver provision in the Senate Farm Bill that prohibits federal commodity payments on newly broken native sod, and reduces the federal subsidy for crop and revenue insurance by fifty percent on native grass and prairie lands. It also requires that newly broken sod be isolated from other crop acres when calculating insurable yields.

“The sodsaver provision is common-sense legislation that will preserve grazing lands, protect hunting opportunities and conserve vital soil resources,” said Bruckner.

Bruckner indicated that the Farm Bill could come to the floor for debate by the full House of Representatives soon, perhaps as early as next week.

“While timing is never certain, we are encouraged by several forward steps taken in the Senate Farm Bill. The bill isn’t perfect and we have a long row to hoe in the House, but we will continue to work to make greater strides as the Farm Bill moves toward conference committee,” continued Bruckner. “We also look forward to Representative Fortenberry (R-NE) offering an amendment similar to the farm program payment limitations provision offered by Senator Grassley for the Senate Farm Bill. And we hope there are opportunities to cap crop insurance premium subsidies as well as retain the Sodsaver and conservation compliance crop insurance reforms contained in the Senate Farm Bill.”

Regarding his introduction of farm payment limitation legislation, Rep. Fortenberry previously commented, “For the good of all Americans, it is critical that sound public policies create the conditions for continued agricultural prosperity and innovation. While respecting the federal government’s severe budgetary constraints, we need a new farm bill that provides our nation’s farmers adequate protection options, tightens payment limitations, promotes good conservation practices, embraces new domestic and international market opportunities, and helps young and beginning farmers set up agricultural businesses.”

Source: Press Release: Center for Rural Affairs

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Linking people around the globe, milBook, an internal military social media tool similar to Facebook and LinkedIn, recently became the choice site for 41 Army Professional Forums.

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (June, 2013) — Linking people around the globe, milBook, an internal military social media tool similar to Facebook and LinkedIn, recently became the choice site for 41 Army Professional Forums.

“On any particular day, there are about 40,000 people in the Army that log on to all of the forums collectively to find out information,” said Ron Pruyt, knowledge management officer for the Center for Army Lessons Learned, or CALL. “So thousands of people who were on the old Army Professional Forums, or APF, platform and the thousands of users already on the milBook platform can talk together now, [and exchange information] in a way that was not possible before,” he said.

MilBook is a component of milSuite, a DOD-wide, secure suite of four collaboration tools that mirror existing social media platforms, but are located behind the DOD firewall. MilBook, which currently comprises more than 300,000 users, is a central hub for networking professionals with similar interests or work responsibilities. Users create working groups or communities of practice to collaborate and share information.

In addition to milBook, milSuite also includes milWiki, a living military encyclopedia designed for DOD subject matter experts to share their knowledge; milWire, a micro blogging site to share and comment on internal news and events; and milTube, a video-sharing platform for the military workforce. MilSuite is provided by the Army’s Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical Military Technical Solutions Office, and it is accessible to most DOD military, civilian and contractor personnel through Common Access Card authentication at https://www.milsuite.mil.

The APF migration to milBook provides its members a much broader community with which to collaborate at no additional cost. Additionally, CALL will no longer need to purchase, manage and maintain costly servers or hardware to host the forums. The transition also eliminates costs for software licensing fees and the need for additional personnel to support the software and hardware. It is expected that the migration could save CALL an estimated $400,000 each year, one of the biggest factors driving the move to milBook, Pruyt said.

CALL uses the APF to help disseminate knowledge and lessons-learned for the Army. These forums are structured communities of practice that enable Soldiers and civilians across the services to share observations, insights and lessons-learned. CALL was instrumental in the APF migration to milBook and worked with the APF to ensure that all the information and discussions were properly migrated.

The APF itself, which was launched in 2004, was a way for members to share their knowledge and experience with peers throughout the Army to promote professional development. The original four forums had approximately 20,000 members, but current membership has since multiplied to nearly 15 times that, to more than 295,000 users.

While many of the APF concentrate on Army knowledge management concepts and doctrine, there are several staff function-related forums, as well as operationally-specific forums. One of the largest forums included in the milBook migration, referred to as S-1 Net, is an Army staff element that is responsible for all personnel-related actions within the Army. With 104,000 members, S-1 Net provides numerous resources including: the latest personnel guidance from the Army; unit-level best practices and lessons-learned; a forum for human resources questions and answers; and promotion letters and lists. The members of this forum will now be able to leverage the capabilities of milBook to collaborate and share this information.

The APF migration to milBook also provides a centralized location in which to retain information and a single tool for users to access. Because milBook is built around familiar Web 2.0 concepts, users can also control how they create, share and consume content.

Since milBook is accessible across the DOD, migrating the APF increases the Army’s visibility and gives other services an opportunity to learn and benefit from Army practices and lessons-learned.

“In our current operational environment, where joint operations are the norm, it is increasingly important for the Army to engage the other services, especially in questions of a joint nature,” said Tom Curran, milSuite project director. “MilBook was designed as a DOD-wide collaboration tool to enable users from all services to communicate across geographic boundaries.”

By reading a discussion thread on milBook recently, the Air Force Software Organizational Development Office discovered information about a government off-the-shelf product, the Rapid Online Content Creation Environment, or ROCCE. By using the ROCCE to deploy a web-based training and development application, the Air Force not only avoided paying licensing fees, which saved an average of $10,000, but also the usual review process required by the government for a new product, which would have taken a year.

As part of the larger milBook community, APF members now have access to other users and unlimited content from across the far corners of the DOD that otherwise would not have been available to them.

“We have people accessing the forums from Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq, all over the world,” Pruyt said. “Chances are, when a user has a question or a problem, someone else has experienced the same situation and the APF gives them the ability to share their best practices.”

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“Lagarde’s complaint that spending cuts lower GDP is simultaneously accurate and misleading, as government spending is proportionately included in the measure of the GDP. This is a bias of the first order in favor of government spending, because when government grows faster than the private sector, it appears to boost GDP and when spending is reduced, GDP appears to slow down. This is an illusion.

“The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports real growth annualized in the first quarter was 2.4 percent, but if government spending is excluded from the measure, the private sector grew by more like 4 percent. By that measure, the private sector is doing just fine even with sequestration.

“Moreover, it is only because of sequestration that S&P has been able to upgrade its outlook on the $16.7 trillion U.S. national debt from negative to stable. It is particularly insulting to taxpayers for the IMF to demand the sequester be repealed at the same time the Obama Administration has also asked for a $65 billion increase in the U.S. quota to the IMF. If anything, this is just one more reason the U.S. should defund the IMF in full.”

To view online: http://getliberty.org/international-monetary-fund-demands-u-s-repeal-the-sequester/

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Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder greets Israeli Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu in his office in Jerusalem, Israel, June 17, 2013. PHOTO: DEBBIE HILL

TEL AVIV, Israel – Gov. Rick Snyder began his investment mission in Israel with a full agenda of meetings with business executives and government leaders, including meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to discuss ways to increase trade and investment opportunities between Michigan and the state of Israel.

“Meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders were highly productive and will continue to foster and strengthen relationships between Michigan and Israel,” Snyder said. “We are working to create new opportunities that are mutually beneficial to our respective businesses and citizens.”

In addition to his meeting with Netanyahu, Snyder sat down with Naftali Bennet, Israel’s minister of economy. The meeting included the signing of letter of intent between the state of Michigan and the state of Israel to establish bilateral cooperation in industrial research and development that will create the framework for future cooperation between companies from Michigan and Israel. Snyder also met with high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss mutual areas of interest between the United States and Israel.

Snyder also visited General Motors Advanced Technical Center Israel in Herzliya. Established to create world-class research and development innovations in areas of strategic importance to the automotive industry, the center is part of GM’s global research and development network and one of three GM research centers around the globe. While at the center, Snyder met with several automotive companies with Michigan ties and attended an automotive reception sponsored by the Michigan Israeli Business Bridge.

Snyder arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday. On Sunday, he met with Nir Barkat, mayor of Jerusalem. He also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and Memorial and Hadassah Hospital, had several meetings with Israeli writers, and met with a group of Israeli water tehnology executives.

He and the delegation will spend the rest of the week traveling to Nazareth, Haifa and the Galilee region to meet with government leaders, business executives and university officials. The governor will also participate in the Israeli President’s Conference, “Facing Tomorrow 2013,” including a celebration of Israel President Shimon Peres’ 90th birthday.

The Israel mission is being conducted at the invitation of the Israeli government and hosted by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. The Michigan Israel Business Bridge facilitated the meetings with company executives.

After four missions to Asia, Europe and Canada, this will be Snyder’s first as governor to the Middle East. The Israel mission is Snyder’s fifth since taking office. He opened the Michigan Trade Center and met with business leaders in Toronto and met with Canadian government officials in Ottawa in November 2012. He led a 10-day trade mission to China in September 2012, a seven-day mission to Italy and Germany in March 2012 and an eight-day trade mission to Japan, China and Korea in September 2011.

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