It should come as no surprise that healthcare is the biggest employment sector in Massachusetts. After all, Boston’s hospitals are world famous. But how is it that the healthcare sector dominates a major tourist destination like Cape Cod?
According to data available at the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website, the three largest sectors by employment in Massachusetts are “Healthcare and social assistance,” “Retail Trade,” and “Professional, Scientific, and Technical Studies” (See Figure 1).
The healthcare sector employs 722,988 people, or about 19 percent of all employees in the State. It also has more than twice as many employees as any other sector except retail. Therefore, it is clear that healthcare dominates the Massachusetts economy from an employment perspective.
Figure 1: “Healthcare and social assistance” employs significantly more than any other sector in Massachusetts. This finding is not surprising because Boston is a major hub for the medical field and because of the high cost of healthcare. The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
Accommodation and food service is a major sector on Cape Cod, but surprisingly, not the largest. Instead, healthcare takes the top spot!
There are 27,564 people employed in the Cape’s healthcare sector, followed by 21,988 in accommodation and food services, and only 18,800 in retail trade (See Figure 2 below). The number of people employed in the Cape Cod healthcare sector is equal to 12 percent of the 228,996-person population of Cape Cod (US Census, The Cape Cod Commission).
The accommodation and food services sector encompasses many of the factors that contribute to a vacation on Cape Cod, including bars, restaurants, hotels, and traveler accommodations, among other industries. The largest employment industry within accommodation and food services is restaurants, which employ 15,313 people, 70 percent of the sector.
The healthcare sector is broken down into four sub-sectors: ambulatory care facilities, hospitals, social assistance, and nursing and residential care facilities. Sixty percent of the healthcare sector on Cape Cod is ambulatory services which includes primary care doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and optometrists among others.
Figure 2: A pie chart showing the relative size of employment sectors on Cape Cod. Sector definitions are standardized by the US Census Bureau through a classification system called the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
One town, Barnstable, houses over half the healthcare employees on Cape Cod, even though it only accounts for 31 percent of employment. In most towns on the Cape, healthcare is not the largest employment sector. It is only the largest sector in Barnstable and Falmouth (See Figure 3 below).
Cape Cod Hospital contributes to the size of the healthcare sector in Barnstable, being the largest medical facility in the region. Cape Cod Healthcare, the entity that operates Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital, employs over 5,300 people, according to its website.
Figure 3: A line graph showing the three largest sectors on Cape Cod by employment. The town of Gosnold does not appear on this graph because of incomplete data. The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
Cape Cod’s healthcare sector may seem surprisingly large and even eclipses its accommodation and food service sector. This may be a good thing for healthcare workers wanting to work on beautiful Cape Cod. It might also be good for people needing urgent medical care.
But is it a good sign for the future of the Cape? The median age in Barnstable County, which makes up Cape Cod, is 53.9 years, while the median age in Massachusetts is 39.4 years. An aging population helps to explain why there are so many people employed in healthcare on the Cape.
It is also worth wondering how Cape Cod’s healthcare sector fits into national trends in healthcare. The US has an aging population that has led the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to estimate that the healthcare industry will grow 16 percent during this decade (BLS.gov).
Cover Image Credit: Davee (OwlMonkey) uploaded from Wikipedia.
About the Author:
Joseph Staruski is a government transparency intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is currently a Master of Public Policy Student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was previously an opinions columnist with the Boston College student newspaper The Heights and an Intern with the Philadelphia Public School Notebook. He has a BA in Philosophy and the Growth and Structure of Cities from Haverford College. Feel free to reach out via email, linkedin, or write a letter to Pioneer’s Office in Boston.
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Daniel Perez, immigrant from Colombia and founder, president and CEO of DPV Transportation Worldwide, based in Everett, Massachusetts. Daniel shares what it meant to tap into his entrepreneurial spirit and become a success, pivoting into healthcare and community service when the transportation sector was impacted by the pandemic, and finding a way to use his fleet for good. He discusses his work to help communities like the one where he grew up, East Boston, long a gateway for immigrants. Not only is Daniel’s firm minority-owned, its staff of 200 is 80-percent minority, and he is focused on building opportunities for youth of color, including in entrepreneurship, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
Daniel Perez is a young entrepreneur who founded DPV Transportation. In 2006, Daniel started out driving athletic teams to win games across state lines. Now, his company drives the success of corporations across the country and executives around the world. Perez trained himself to pivot for success. He became an innovator, to be there for communities in need, as well as his own family. Daniel is a man of many trades, he is a CEO, podcaster, entrepreneur, father of two young boys and loves going on epic adventures.
Recent Episodes:
Program should be expanded, funding simplified
BOSTON – The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or METCO program, has successfully educated thousands of students for 56 years, but several minor changes could make it even better, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.
Under the program, about 3,200 mostly African-American and Hispanic students from Boston and Springfield attend public schools in about three dozen surrounding communities. METCO offers educational opportunity to families in Boston and Springfield and provides much-needed diversity to suburban school districts.
“Without METCO, diversity would be virtually nonexistent in some districts,” said Dr. Ken Ardon, the co-author of “METCO Funding: Understanding Massachusetts’ Voluntary School Desegregation Program” with Roger Hatch.
Despite accounting for just 2.5 percent of enrollment on average, METCO students account for about 40 percent of African-American students in receiving school districts. In some districts, more than two thirds of African-American students are in the METCO program.
METCO students are more likely to be African-American and to have special needs than their peers in the sending district, and less likely to be Hispanic, English language learners or economically disadvantaged.
Each year, districts decide how many students they will accept. The program is directly funded by a state grant appropriated by the legislature and indirectly funded through the state’s education funding system, known as Chapter 70.
The real value of METCO grant appropriations hasn’t fully recovered from cuts made during the Great Recession, but funding has increased in recent years. In fiscal 2021, the METCO grant was $25.6 million and averaged $7,200 per student.
METCO students are counted in receiving districts’ enrollment numbers, which means they generate more state funding for the suburban school districts. Most receive two or three thousand dollars per student above the METCO grant, but the amount varies by district due to intricacies of the Commonwealth’s education funding system.
The program has little financial impact on Boston because, as a community with greater revenue raising capacity, it gets less of its funding from the state. Since Springfield, which is less affluent, gets the bulk of its funding from the state, the city loses more state aid as a result of METCO.
Since METCO students take up unused seats in receiving districts, the marginal cost of educating them is relatively low. Nearly 60 percent of the Commonwealth’s 318 school districts participate in the state’s voluntary public school choice program. Average per-pupil funding in that program was $6,586, far less than the amount most receiving districts receive for each METCO student.
Ardon and Hatch urge simplifying the METCO grant formula by making it a straight per-pupil calculation. Currently, there are “hold harmless” provisions for districts that accept fewer METCO students. Enrollment numbers are based on a rolling three-year average and the last year taken into consideration is the previous one. These policies benefit districts with declining METCO enrollment and leave less for those that enroll more METCO students.
The authors suggest that districts could receive about 80 percent of their METCO funding before the school year, while 20 percent of it could be held back until actual enrollment numbers are determined in December.
Ardon and Hatch also call for additional state funding to support late afternoon buses that would allow METCO students to participate in extracurricular activities and cover special education costs of METCO students.
Finally, they recommend that the Commonwealth provide the additional funds needed to cover immediate costs of expanding METCO and adequate ongoing grant money to support a larger program.
“METCO has a long record of success,” Hatch said. “A relatively small investment would allow it to serve additional students and families.”
About the Authors
Ken Ardon received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1999, where he co-authored a book on school spending and student achievement. He taught economics at Pomona College before moving to Massachusetts, and from 2000 to 2004, Dr. Ardon worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Executive Office of Administration and Finance. He is a professor of economics at Salem State University, where he has taught since 2004. Dr. Ardon is a member of Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform Advisory Board.
Roger Hatch spent a long career working for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the areas of school and municipal finance. For 20 years he was the Administrator of School Finance at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In addition to supervising the school choice program, the office works with the Governor’s staff, the legislature, advocacy groups, local officials and the general public, to develop, calculate, and explain the Chapter 70 state aid formula.
Pioneer Institute’s mission is to develop and communicate dynamic ideas that advance prosperity and a vibrant civic life in Massachusetts and beyond. Pioneer’s vision of success is a state and nation where our people can prosper and our society thrive because we enjoy world-class options in education, healthcare, transportation and economic opportunity, and where our government is limited, accountable and transparent. Pioneer values an America where our citizenry is well-educated and willing to test our beliefs based on facts and the free exchange of ideas, and committed to liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise.
Related Posts:
“She’s a good girl. She helps me a lot. She has big, big dreams. I don’t have the money, but she has big dreams. I hope she’s going to get everything, but she works so hard. She works so hard in school.”
“Our family is needing to make some really big sacrifices because we believe this is important, and so, we’re basically going to do whatever it takes… Sometimes we look at each other and go ‘I don’t know if I can do it again another month…’”
“A lot of the families have to sacrifice and work multiple jobs… And just scraping together enough money to just make tuition, just the basics.”
“It is discriminatory, that parents who want to choose an alternative to public school for their children, would not in any way receive any compensation for that, whether it be tax credit, whether it be a voucher…”
In the 1840s, nativist movement leaders formed official political parties and local chapters of the national Native American Party (later the American Party), although they continued to be commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party. Politicians sought to insert provisions into state constitutions against Catholics who refused to renounce the pope. The Know-Nothing movement brought bigotry and hatred to a new level of violence and organization.
The party’s legacy endured in the post-Civil War era, with laws and constitutional amendments it supported, still today severely limiting parents’ educational choices. A federal constitutional amendment was proposed by Speaker of the House James Blaine prohibiting money raised by taxation in any State to be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations. These were then named the Blaine Amendments of 1875.
in recent decades, often in response to challenges to school choice programs, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated great interest in examining the issues of educational alternatives and attempts limit parental options. Massachusetts plays a key role in this debate. The Bay State was a key center of the Know-Nothing movement and has the oldest version of Anti-Aid Amendments in the nation, as well as a second such amendment approved in 1917. Two-fifths of Massachusetts residents are Catholic, and its Catholic schools outperform the state’s public schools, which are the best in the nation.
It should come as no surprise that healthcare is the biggest employment sector in Massachusetts. After all, Boston’s hospitals are world famous. But how is it that the healthcare sector dominates a major tourist destination like Cape Cod?
According to data available at the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website, the three largest sectors by employment in Massachusetts are “Healthcare and social assistance,” “Retail Trade,” and “Professional, Scientific, and Technical Studies” (See Figure 1).
The healthcare sector employs 722,988 people, or about 19 percent of all employees in the State. It also has more than twice as many employees as any other sector except retail. Therefore, it is clear that healthcare dominates the Massachusetts economy from an employment perspective.
Figure 1: “Healthcare and social assistance” employs significantly more than any other sector in Massachusetts. This finding is not surprising because Boston is a major hub for the medical field and because of the high cost of healthcare. The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
Accommodation and food service is a major sector on Cape Cod, but surprisingly, not the largest. Instead, healthcare takes the top spot!
There are 27,564 people employed in the Cape’s healthcare sector, followed by 21,988 in accommodation and food services, and only 18,800 in retail trade (See Figure 2 below). The number of people employed in the Cape Cod healthcare sector is equal to 12 percent of the 228,996-person population of Cape Cod (US Census, The Cape Cod Commission).
The accommodation and food services sector encompasses many of the factors that contribute to a vacation on Cape Cod, including bars, restaurants, hotels, and traveler accommodations, among other industries. The largest employment industry within accommodation and food services is restaurants, which employ 15,313 people, 70 percent of the sector.
The healthcare sector is broken down into four sub-sectors: ambulatory care facilities, hospitals, social assistance, and nursing and residential care facilities. Sixty percent of the healthcare sector on Cape Cod is ambulatory services which includes primary care doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and optometrists among others.
Figure 2: A pie chart showing the relative size of employment sectors on Cape Cod. Sector definitions are standardized by the US Census Bureau through a classification system called the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
One town, Barnstable, houses over half the healthcare employees on Cape Cod, even though it only accounts for 31 percent of employment. In most towns on the Cape, healthcare is not the largest employment sector. It is only the largest sector in Barnstable and Falmouth (See Figure 3 below).
Cape Cod Hospital contributes to the size of the healthcare sector in Barnstable, being the largest medical facility in the region. Cape Cod Healthcare, the entity that operates Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital, employs over 5,300 people, according to its website.
Figure 3: A line graph showing the three largest sectors on Cape Cod by employment. The town of Gosnold does not appear on this graph because of incomplete data. The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
Cape Cod’s healthcare sector may seem surprisingly large and even eclipses its accommodation and food service sector. This may be a good thing for healthcare workers wanting to work on beautiful Cape Cod. It might also be good for people needing urgent medical care.
But is it a good sign for the future of the Cape? The median age in Barnstable County, which makes up Cape Cod, is 53.9 years, while the median age in Massachusetts is 39.4 years. An aging population helps to explain why there are so many people employed in healthcare on the Cape.
It is also worth wondering how Cape Cod’s healthcare sector fits into national trends in healthcare. The US has an aging population that has led the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to estimate that the healthcare industry will grow 16 percent during this decade (BLS.gov).
Cover Image Credit: Davee (OwlMonkey) uploaded from Wikipedia.
About the Author:
Joseph Staruski is a government transparency intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is currently a Master of Public Policy Student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was previously an opinions columnist with the Boston College student newspaper The Heights and an Intern with the Philadelphia Public School Notebook. He has a BA in Philosophy and the Growth and Structure of Cities from Haverford College. Feel free to reach out via email, linkedin, or write a letter to Pioneer’s Office in Boston.
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Daniel Perez, immigrant from Colombia and founder, president and CEO of DPV Transportation Worldwide, based in Everett, Massachusetts. Daniel shares what it meant to tap into his entrepreneurial spirit and become a success, pivoting into healthcare and community service when the transportation sector was impacted by the pandemic, and finding a way to use his fleet for good. He discusses his work to help communities like the one where he grew up, East Boston, long a gateway for immigrants. Not only is Daniel’s firm minority-owned, its staff of 200 is 80-percent minority, and he is focused on building opportunities for youth of color, including in entrepreneurship, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
Daniel Perez is a young entrepreneur who founded DPV Transportation. In 2006, Daniel started out driving athletic teams to win games across state lines. Now, his company drives the success of corporations across the country and executives around the world. Perez trained himself to pivot for success. He became an innovator, to be there for communities in need, as well as his own family. Daniel is a man of many trades, he is a CEO, podcaster, entrepreneur, father of two young boys and loves going on epic adventures.
Recent Episodes:
Program should be expanded, funding simplified
BOSTON – The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or METCO program, has successfully educated thousands of students for 56 years, but several minor changes could make it even better, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.
Under the program, about 3,200 mostly African-American and Hispanic students from Boston and Springfield attend public schools in about three dozen surrounding communities. METCO offers educational opportunity to families in Boston and Springfield and provides much-needed diversity to suburban school districts.
“Without METCO, diversity would be virtually nonexistent in some districts,” said Dr. Ken Ardon, the co-author of “METCO Funding: Understanding Massachusetts’ Voluntary School Desegregation Program” with Roger Hatch.
Despite accounting for just 2.5 percent of enrollment on average, METCO students account for about 40 percent of African-American students in receiving school districts. In some districts, more than two thirds of African-American students are in the METCO program.
METCO students are more likely to be African-American and to have special needs than their peers in the sending district, and less likely to be Hispanic, English language learners or economically disadvantaged.
Each year, districts decide how many students they will accept. The program is directly funded by a state grant appropriated by the legislature and indirectly funded through the state’s education funding system, known as Chapter 70.
The real value of METCO grant appropriations hasn’t fully recovered from cuts made during the Great Recession, but funding has increased in recent years. In fiscal 2021, the METCO grant was $25.6 million and averaged $7,200 per student.
METCO students are counted in receiving districts’ enrollment numbers, which means they generate more state funding for the suburban school districts. Most receive two or three thousand dollars per student above the METCO grant, but the amount varies by district due to intricacies of the Commonwealth’s education funding system.
The program has little financial impact on Boston because, as a community with greater revenue raising capacity, it gets less of its funding from the state. Since Springfield, which is less affluent, gets the bulk of its funding from the state, the city loses more state aid as a result of METCO.
Since METCO students take up unused seats in receiving districts, the marginal cost of educating them is relatively low. Nearly 60 percent of the Commonwealth’s 318 school districts participate in the state’s voluntary public school choice program. Average per-pupil funding in that program was $6,586, far less than the amount most receiving districts receive for each METCO student.
Ardon and Hatch urge simplifying the METCO grant formula by making it a straight per-pupil calculation. Currently, there are “hold harmless” provisions for districts that accept fewer METCO students. Enrollment numbers are based on a rolling three-year average and the last year taken into consideration is the previous one. These policies benefit districts with declining METCO enrollment and leave less for those that enroll more METCO students.
The authors suggest that districts could receive about 80 percent of their METCO funding before the school year, while 20 percent of it could be held back until actual enrollment numbers are determined in December.
Ardon and Hatch also call for additional state funding to support late afternoon buses that would allow METCO students to participate in extracurricular activities and cover special education costs of METCO students.
Finally, they recommend that the Commonwealth provide the additional funds needed to cover immediate costs of expanding METCO and adequate ongoing grant money to support a larger program.
“METCO has a long record of success,” Hatch said. “A relatively small investment would allow it to serve additional students and families.”
About the Authors
Ken Ardon received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1999, where he co-authored a book on school spending and student achievement. He taught economics at Pomona College before moving to Massachusetts, and from 2000 to 2004, Dr. Ardon worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Executive Office of Administration and Finance. He is a professor of economics at Salem State University, where he has taught since 2004. Dr. Ardon is a member of Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform Advisory Board.
Roger Hatch spent a long career working for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the areas of school and municipal finance. For 20 years he was the Administrator of School Finance at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In addition to supervising the school choice program, the office works with the Governor’s staff, the legislature, advocacy groups, local officials and the general public, to develop, calculate, and explain the Chapter 70 state aid formula.
Pioneer Institute’s mission is to develop and communicate dynamic ideas that advance prosperity and a vibrant civic life in Massachusetts and beyond. Pioneer’s vision of success is a state and nation where our people can prosper and our society thrive because we enjoy world-class options in education, healthcare, transportation and economic opportunity, and where our government is limited, accountable and transparent. Pioneer values an America where our citizenry is well-educated and willing to test our beliefs based on facts and the free exchange of ideas, and committed to liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise.
Related Posts:
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. 
Healthcare Employs More on Cape Cod Than Any Other Sector
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: Economy, Blog: Healthcare, Blog: Healthcare Transparency, Blog: Transparency, Healthcare, Transparency /by Joseph StaruskiIt should come as no surprise that healthcare is the biggest employment sector in Massachusetts. After all, Boston’s hospitals are world famous. But how is it that the healthcare sector dominates a major tourist destination like Cape Cod?
Industry Sectors in Massachusetts
According to data available at the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website, the three largest sectors by employment in Massachusetts are “Healthcare and social assistance,” “Retail Trade,” and “Professional, Scientific, and Technical Studies” (See Figure 1).
The healthcare sector employs 722,988 people, or about 19 percent of all employees in the State. It also has more than twice as many employees as any other sector except retail. Therefore, it is clear that healthcare dominates the Massachusetts economy from an employment perspective.
Figure 1: “Healthcare and social assistance” employs significantly more than any other sector in Massachusetts. This finding is not surprising because Boston is a major hub for the medical field and because of the high cost of healthcare. The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
Highlighting Cape Cod
Accommodation and food service is a major sector on Cape Cod, but surprisingly, not the largest. Instead, healthcare takes the top spot!
There are 27,564 people employed in the Cape’s healthcare sector, followed by 21,988 in accommodation and food services, and only 18,800 in retail trade (See Figure 2 below). The number of people employed in the Cape Cod healthcare sector is equal to 12 percent of the 228,996-person population of Cape Cod (US Census, The Cape Cod Commission).
The accommodation and food services sector encompasses many of the factors that contribute to a vacation on Cape Cod, including bars, restaurants, hotels, and traveler accommodations, among other industries. The largest employment industry within accommodation and food services is restaurants, which employ 15,313 people, 70 percent of the sector.
The healthcare sector is broken down into four sub-sectors: ambulatory care facilities, hospitals, social assistance, and nursing and residential care facilities. Sixty percent of the healthcare sector on Cape Cod is ambulatory services which includes primary care doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and optometrists among others.
Figure 2: A pie chart showing the relative size of employment sectors on Cape Cod. Sector definitions are standardized by the US Census Bureau through a classification system called the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
One town, Barnstable, houses over half the healthcare employees on Cape Cod, even though it only accounts for 31 percent of employment. In most towns on the Cape, healthcare is not the largest employment sector. It is only the largest sector in Barnstable and Falmouth (See Figure 3 below).
Cape Cod Hospital contributes to the size of the healthcare sector in Barnstable, being the largest medical facility in the region. Cape Cod Healthcare, the entity that operates Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital, employs over 5,300 people, according to its website.
Figure 3: A line graph showing the three largest sectors on Cape Cod by employment. The town of Gosnold does not appear on this graph because of incomplete data. The author created this chart using data from 2020 available on the Pioneer Institute’s MassEconomix website.
Will the Healthcare Sector Grow Even More?
Cape Cod’s healthcare sector may seem surprisingly large and even eclipses its accommodation and food service sector. This may be a good thing for healthcare workers wanting to work on beautiful Cape Cod. It might also be good for people needing urgent medical care.
But is it a good sign for the future of the Cape? The median age in Barnstable County, which makes up Cape Cod, is 53.9 years, while the median age in Massachusetts is 39.4 years. An aging population helps to explain why there are so many people employed in healthcare on the Cape.
It is also worth wondering how Cape Cod’s healthcare sector fits into national trends in healthcare. The US has an aging population that has led the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to estimate that the healthcare industry will grow 16 percent during this decade (BLS.gov).
Cover Image Credit: Davee (OwlMonkey) uploaded from Wikipedia.
About the Author:
Joseph Staruski is a government transparency intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is currently a Master of Public Policy Student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was previously an opinions columnist with the Boston College student newspaper The Heights and an Intern with the Philadelphia Public School Notebook. He has a BA in Philosophy and the Growth and Structure of Cities from Haverford College. Feel free to reach out via email, linkedin, or write a letter to Pioneer’s Office in Boston.
Daniel Perez Takes Tenacity to Transport
/in Economic Opportunity, Featured, JobMakers /by Editorial StaffThis week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Daniel Perez, immigrant from Colombia and founder, president and CEO of DPV Transportation Worldwide, based in Everett, Massachusetts. Daniel shares what it meant to tap into his entrepreneurial spirit and become a success, pivoting into healthcare and community service when the transportation sector was impacted by the pandemic, and finding a way to use his fleet for good. He discusses his work to help communities like the one where he grew up, East Boston, long a gateway for immigrants. Not only is Daniel’s firm minority-owned, its staff of 200 is 80-percent minority, and he is focused on building opportunities for youth of color, including in entrepreneurship, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
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Read a Transcript of This Episode
Please excuse typos.
Denzil Mohammed:
I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to Jobmakers
Denzil Mohammed:
Of all the sector’s hardest hit by the pandemic. Transportation was one of the worst McKinsey and company predicted. It would take more than five years for muted recovery in the transportation sector. So how could a transportation business survive two years when people didn’t really have anywhere to go for Daniel Perez, immigrant from Columbia and founder and president and CEO of DPV transportation worldwide in Everett, Massachusetts. It meant tapping into that entrepreneurial spirit that made him a success in the first place. He pivoted to healthcare and community service and found a way to use his fleet for good and for survival Daniel’s agility and acumen served him well, but the place where he wants to have the most impact is in the communities like the one he grew up in east Boston, along a gateway for immigrants, not only is his firm minority owned it’s staff of 280% minority, and Daniel is focused on building opportunities for youth of color, including an entrepreneurship. As you learn in this week’s job makers, Daniel Perez, president and CEO of DPV transportation, worldwide immigrant from Columbia. Welcome to the Jobmakers podcast. How are you?
Daniel Perez:
Great, thank you for having me here, Denzil.
Denzil Mohammed:
So tell us a little bit about your business and why it’s special.
Daniel Perez:
Sure. So DPV transportation is a worldwide show for services specializing in providing ground transportation services for corporations and institutions that that are looking for a consistent and reliable service to go to the airport for client meetings and special events. We have two main divisions, one, which is our chauffeur services. Again, we it’s mainly a black car services where we service this corporation and, and sea level executives with a white glove service experience to go to the airport for meetings and other private events. And then we have our shuttle bus division, which pretty much is our, is our largest component of our business that focuses on fortune 1000 companies as well. And we transport their employees from their headquarters to train stations, train station, to headquarters, or within the, the main headquarters as well.
Denzil Mohammed:
And how did you get into this? I don’t think you had it in mind that you were gonna start a, a car business when you were growing up.
Daniel Perez:
Yeah. I always tell all my folks and friends and family and mentees that I started with a pure ignorance, not knowing what I was gonna get into. If I was to redo it all over again, I probably will not do it <laugh> but how I started is it was I was a wild teenager growing up and my dad highly recommend me to get a job where he was working and it was another transportation company, but they mistreated their employees. Their customer experience was horrible. And for some reason, I, I said to myself, Hey, let me create something better, something unique with a better experience to the customer and make the most out of it. And I started from my parents’ kitchen. I turned the, the, the phone, the, you know, like the, the home phone, I turned into an office. So when everyone used to call, I used to tell everybody to, to keep it down, cuz most likely it was a client. And I turned the kitchen into a whole office. It started, you know, working day and night from, from my parents’ kitchen. And from there, I was able to scale up the business working very hard at that point now working smart and I moved, I transitioned into a small office where I work day and night.
Denzil Mohammed:
Well, speaking of that, this white glove service that you talk about how were you able to position yourself in the market and how did you grow over the years?
Daniel Perez:
That is a great question. Thank you for asking. So what as a, what I was able to do is move from a younger entrepreneur of working hard, 24 7 to a more mature entrepreneur working smarter and hard, but more on the, with a, with a smart perspective. So smart was put in more systems and procedures in place being more strategic instead of tactical and really narrowing down who is, who was the ideal persona or client persona that will get us to where we wanna go, cuz when you’re lost, any bus will take you there. Right? So I decided to really narrow down the, the scope of where we wanted the business to be in in three years and five years. And we just laser focused and massive action.
Denzil Mohammed:
I recall you saying once that you, you got this business savvy from your father, is that correct?
Daniel Perez:
He gave me a really good nuggets at the beginning. I love my dad. I love my mom. My dad is, is he grew up with a different business methodology of, about working really hard. So I, you know, he, he, which served me very well, but nowadays the, the skills that he taught me you know, where we managing now about 220 employees as in served me as much as he used to serve me back then. But definitely I got his entrepreneurship, his spirit and dedication and tenacity to, you know, to not give up and, and pursue the dreams, you know? So I definitely got his, his nuggets out of that.
Denzil Mohammed:
And speaking of your dad, you grew up in Columbia what was life like back in Columbia when you were growing up? A lot of Americans don’t don’t know what life was like in south America.
Daniel Perez:
Sure. Appreciate you asking the question. So I, I grew, I was in Columbia. I was born in Columbia until I was 11 years old originally from managing Columbia. And then I moved from Meine to Boston, where we moved pursuing the American dream from Boston to New York, New York to North Carolina, North Carolina, to New Hampshire, and then New Hampshire back to Boston. So growing, you know, back to, to your original question, growing up in Columbia was fun because I didn’t have to worry a bunch about producing income and worrying about bills. And we were, you know, we, we were middle, middle high class family with all the amenities to live a, a good bringing as a, as a teenage boy. So it was, it was fun. But then when we came to the us, like everything changed, it was, we went from being a middle class to more of a, you know sort of a poor family where we were living on a 10 by 10 room. And there was like six of us or seven of us and the first year or two, which is horrible, you know, the change of weather not speaking the language, different cultures. But it was kind of who, who, it’s kind of what made me say it as an individual, you know, all those adversities that I could bring it into the business ecosystem and just embrace adversity cuz you know, if you are, once you start learn learning to get comfortable and the uncomfortable that’s when we grow the most
Denzil Mohammed:
Learning from adversity, I love that. So you said that first couple of years were hard and a lot of Americans don’t realize that when immigrants move here, they often take a step down in their careers, in their income their standard of living. So guide us through the, the way you grew your business. You went from, you know, home kitchen landline into something that is huge now. I mean, I, when I met you in 2017, you had 49 employees and now you have over 200, that’s pretty incredible. How did you grow the business?
Daniel Perez:
I, I would say, you know, there’s not, there’s not a secret formula. There’s not a secret recipe. I just wrote on, on a lot of waves of other people, other people’s waves of as far as wisdom and advice, I’m sort of a sponge. I, I analyze, I, I listen, I observe what other successful people in my industry and other industries are doing. And I’m always willing to see what is it that I’m not seeing and what is it that I could learn. And lately throughout the years that my brother was a huge asset to the business. He recently a year ago he pursued his own dream of opening a boutique business consultant which he also has a PhD in humanities. So he, he went on his own and we were fortunate to find a COO, which is pretty much my right hand at this point as well. Leading the organization forward.
Denzil Mohammed:
Now you pride yourself on being a minority owned business and according to your website, 80% minority employees, why is that important to you and why should that be important overall?
Daniel Perez:
And that is a great question. Thank you for asking. So overall I’m, I’m a, I am a minority, so I’m proud of creating more minority impact in our communities. And I guess the, the key element is to be mindful of the ritual effect that minority-owned communities have on our communities, right? The more success success that we get within our communities, the more that it will benefit our children, the, the younger generations where they’re able to get jobs at this sort of communities and benefit overall from, from the success cause otherwise the, the world cap continues to be massive, right? So we contribute in one way or another to try to minimize the gap, not only financially, but to support to the communities, right? Whether your black, Latino, you’re black, Latino, Asian, whatever it might be, where we could actually contribute in, in any aspect that we could to, to our communities.
Denzil Mohammed:
So it’s all about community impact, uplifting your communities, sort of putting money back into the communities righting,
Daniel Perez:
Correct? Yes. And, and again, nowadays, I, I get a, I love business. I love making money, but there’s the way that I define being rich is where I’m well rounded, where I am striving in my family and my relationships and my spirituality, but most importantly, contributing to society, especially to other com you know, other minority populations too, just like myself.
Denzil Mohammed:
Now I wanna bring it into the present need. Let’s just say your business was heavily impacted by the pandemic. I think you, you said that 95% of your business vanished how, how did you ride that wave
Daniel Perez:
<Laugh> oh, that’s a really good question. So Mike Tyson said of best everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. Right. And we got punched in the face and, and we didn’t get knocked down. We got knocked down, but we stood up and it was two years of working day and night with a lot of tenacity two years ago, when I was in the trenches in, in the storm, it was all about mindset, dedication, commitment, and just trust, trusting that this was happening for us. And once, once I, I accepted that we were either going to file for bankruptcy, or we were going to strive. I said, operating from a piece of mind and knowing that I given my, my oath, my, my a hundred percent.
Denzil Mohammed:
So you mentioned that quote from Mike Tyson, I guess I’m trying to think of some of the things you learned as a result of the pandemic that may prepare you in the future for when next you get punched in the face.
Daniel Perez:
One of them is, you know, we, obviously we become who we hang around with most of the time and, and the five people who, who we hang around with or surround ourselves with. And that’s, that helped me a lot, just positioning myself in the right environments with other savvy and experience entrepreneurs that have gone through other economy, recessions that provide me with a ton of support emotionally and, and intellectual and intellectually to, to get me out of those situations. So that was one of them to always keep surrounding myself with the right people, to also as a leader, to have the right mindset, because especially as an entrepreneur and as a leader, there’s so many emotions that we have to manage is where we, when we managing either a small or a larger organization, there’s too many components and a lot of human errors and emotions to deal with. But the more, the one that you have to for me personally, is, is to control my own emotions and my own state of mind. So a way when these adversities comes, you could actually embrace them, learn from them and keep moving forward, not idling or this on the size of where to go. Right.
Denzil Mohammed:
You mentioned spirituality a little bit, but a little while ago, I cannot imagine how much pressure was on you in twenty, twenty two hundred and fifty employees under you, you know, getting furloughed all this pressure. So yeah, I’m sure that’s, your spirituality is gonna help you out a lot in this role. You’re not just doing transportation though. You are in tech. So tell us a little bit about DPV mobile lab. What are you currently doing and what do you plan to do in the future?
Daniel Perez:
Yes, so pretty much when we, when, when the pandemic hit, we had about a hundred buses sitting in the parking lot and between my brother and I, we just started brainstorming, what do we do with all this equipment? And what we were able to do is pivot into the medical sector. So what we were able to do is transition our buses into mobile clinics. So about 50% of our buses, we transformed them into mobile clinics. And we were at the beginning, we started doing mobile sort of help support where we were delivering mask and you know, and anything to support with the pandemic, right. And we partner with several hospitals in, in the area to, to support them as well. And then we pen, we transition to deliver the vaccine. So we open several mobile vaccine clinics in New York, in Massachusetts, where residents will comment to the bus and we will get them vaccinated. And this was again through, through partnerships with several hospitals in, in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.
Denzil Mohammed:
And you also have apps that go along with your ride services, right?
Daniel Perez:
Correct. Yes. So we have apps that will show the riders exactly where the bus are located. How far is it how many riders in the bus are, are they hitting any traffic? For the most part, we, we deal with large organizations where we’re managing their, the transportation program. So that’s what allows the transparency from the rider to the, to the provider to see exactly how their transportation program is being run.
Denzil Mohammed:
How, what, how has that experience been going into the so sort of tech aspect of what you’re doing?
Daniel Perez:
It’s one of our key differentiators. It allows us to, to be more agile and, and to keep innovating in our, in, in our industry, we’re always looking for ways to innovate. That’s that was one of them. And now we’re looking to keep expanding into different markets. We recently started we go into more into the health sector, as well as other training sectors as well, where we training the workforce of how to obtain their CDO license. We’re doing that in a couple states, and then we’ll also transition into mobile health. How do we get into minority communities to support them with, with mobile health initiatives?
Denzil Mohammed:
Wow, that’s great. And you are, I mean, even pre pandemic healthcare transportation with two of the fastest growing industries. So you are very well positioned to embrace the future. Finally. you had your father to look up to as an entrepreneur growing up but not everyone has that privilege of having a mentor. What advice would you give young, but entrepreneurs of color?
Daniel Perez:
Yes. Well, thank you for asking the question, cuz honestly, this is a question that we gotta keep asking within our communities, not only to, to ask, which I’m a huge believer that the, the better, the questions, the better the answers. And this is one of the key questions that our, our younger crowd needs to really keep asking themselves because it’s such a great time to strive being a, being a minority, being a individual of color, to go out there and, and pursue your dreams when there’s so much support for minority-owned companies. And sometimes we use, you know, sometimes we believe and we create beliefs that this is a disadvantage when it’s actually an advantage for, for us to be companies of being a minority owned companies, especially if you’re able to partner with corporations that are looking to partner with minority own companies. And that’s one, one of, one of the big elements that we use. There’s a ton of corporation support minority young companies, and it will be dumb not to pursue those opportunities. And, and this is the, one of the errors when it has been the easiest to grow, especially as a minority young company,
Denzil Mohammed:
Capturing those opportunities, right. And just being aware of what opportunities are out there. And I imagine a lot of young people growing up, don’t, aren’t aware that there is support now, probably not 22 years ago, but certainly now I imagine there’s a lot more support now than when you started the business in 2006 Daniel Perez founder, CEO of DPV transportation worldwide. Thank you for joining us on the job makers podcast.
Daniel Perez:
Thank you for inviting me. Appreciate it.
Denzil Mohammed:
Jobmakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and the Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s powerful story of immigrant entrepreneurship and ingenuity. Remember, you can subscribe to job makers on apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a rating and a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another Jobmakers.
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METCO Works Well, Small Tweaks Could Make It Even Better, Study Says
/in Featured, Press Releases, Press Releases: Choice Programs, Press Releases: Education, Press Releases: METCO, School Choice /by Editorial StaffProgram should be expanded, funding simplified
BOSTON – The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or METCO program, has successfully educated thousands of students for 56 years, but several minor changes could make it even better, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.
Under the program, about 3,200 mostly African-American and Hispanic students from Boston and Springfield attend public schools in about three dozen surrounding communities. METCO offers educational opportunity to families in Boston and Springfield and provides much-needed diversity to suburban school districts.
“Without METCO, diversity would be virtually nonexistent in some districts,” said Dr. Ken Ardon, the co-author of “METCO Funding: Understanding Massachusetts’ Voluntary School Desegregation Program” with Roger Hatch.
Despite accounting for just 2.5 percent of enrollment on average, METCO students account for about 40 percent of African-American students in receiving school districts. In some districts, more than two thirds of African-American students are in the METCO program.
METCO students are more likely to be African-American and to have special needs than their peers in the sending district, and less likely to be Hispanic, English language learners or economically disadvantaged.
Each year, districts decide how many students they will accept. The program is directly funded by a state grant appropriated by the legislature and indirectly funded through the state’s education funding system, known as Chapter 70.
The real value of METCO grant appropriations hasn’t fully recovered from cuts made during the Great Recession, but funding has increased in recent years. In fiscal 2021, the METCO grant was $25.6 million and averaged $7,200 per student.
METCO students are counted in receiving districts’ enrollment numbers, which means they generate more state funding for the suburban school districts. Most receive two or three thousand dollars per student above the METCO grant, but the amount varies by district due to intricacies of the Commonwealth’s education funding system.
The program has little financial impact on Boston because, as a community with greater revenue raising capacity, it gets less of its funding from the state. Since Springfield, which is less affluent, gets the bulk of its funding from the state, the city loses more state aid as a result of METCO.
Since METCO students take up unused seats in receiving districts, the marginal cost of educating them is relatively low. Nearly 60 percent of the Commonwealth’s 318 school districts participate in the state’s voluntary public school choice program. Average per-pupil funding in that program was $6,586, far less than the amount most receiving districts receive for each METCO student.
Ardon and Hatch urge simplifying the METCO grant formula by making it a straight per-pupil calculation. Currently, there are “hold harmless” provisions for districts that accept fewer METCO students. Enrollment numbers are based on a rolling three-year average and the last year taken into consideration is the previous one. These policies benefit districts with declining METCO enrollment and leave less for those that enroll more METCO students.
The authors suggest that districts could receive about 80 percent of their METCO funding before the school year, while 20 percent of it could be held back until actual enrollment numbers are determined in December.
Ardon and Hatch also call for additional state funding to support late afternoon buses that would allow METCO students to participate in extracurricular activities and cover special education costs of METCO students.
Finally, they recommend that the Commonwealth provide the additional funds needed to cover immediate costs of expanding METCO and adequate ongoing grant money to support a larger program.
“METCO has a long record of success,” Hatch said. “A relatively small investment would allow it to serve additional students and families.”
About the Authors
Ken Ardon received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1999, where he co-authored a book on school spending and student achievement. He taught economics at Pomona College before moving to Massachusetts, and from 2000 to 2004, Dr. Ardon worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Executive Office of Administration and Finance. He is a professor of economics at Salem State University, where he has taught since 2004. Dr. Ardon is a member of Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform Advisory Board.
Roger Hatch spent a long career working for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the areas of school and municipal finance. For 20 years he was the Administrator of School Finance at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In addition to supervising the school choice program, the office works with the Governor’s staff, the legislature, advocacy groups, local officials and the general public, to develop, calculate, and explain the Chapter 70 state aid formula.
About Pioneer
Pioneer Institute’s mission is to develop and communicate dynamic ideas that advance prosperity and a vibrant civic life in Massachusetts and beyond. Pioneer’s vision of success is a state and nation where our people can prosper and our society thrive because we enjoy world-class options in education, healthcare, transportation and economic opportunity, and where our government is limited, accountable and transparent. Pioneer values an America where our citizenry is well-educated and willing to test our beliefs based on facts and the free exchange of ideas, and committed to liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise.
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