Former Lt. Governor Karyn Polito speaks at Nichols College

DUDLEY- If former Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito had one message for students at Nichols College, it was to live without regrets. That principle has guided her since she first entered politics, almost 28 years ago to the day, in her hometown of Shrewsbury.

“I have won, I have lost, I have fallen short, but I have no regrets,” declared Polito, speaking yesterday afternoon during the “Conversation with Karyn Polito” event in Daniels Auditorium. “I was never afraid of failure, but I was afraid of regrets. If I didn’t take this step forward, there would be some day on my journey when I would say to somebody or myself, 'I wish I’d done that.'”

Polito answered questions from Nichols College President Glenn Sulmasy and students in the audience about her challenges and accomplishments in office, women’s empowerment and redefining the relationship between state and municipal government.

Representing everyone

Municipal government plays the biggest role in everyday life, said Polito, ensuring streets are plowed, trash is picked up and kids get to school on time, but it is also the level of government in which people are least likely to participate. This was something she and former Charlie Baker, the former governor, understood coming into office.

“We were elected to represent everyone, not just the people who voted for us,” said Polito, and she made a point of holding a town hall meeting in every community in the state. "We're going to have to make it work 351 ways.”

The strong foundation of state and municipal cooperation would prove invaluable during COVID-19, what Sulmasy called the biggest mobilization of society in reaction to a problem since the second world war.

Polito was in charge of reopening the economy, and along with a small team of 15 people to advise her, designed the phased-reopening process, to accommodate the wide variety of businesses and institutions as Massachusetts slowly adjusted to a new normal. The phased reopening was largely deemed a success.

“Unlike other places in the country,” she said, “we never turned back into a closure mode.”

Part of this success she attributes to transparency.

“We knew as a leadership team, we needed to not just do what we felt was the right thing. We needed to prove it using data to ground our decisions,” she said. “We have heard over and over again that people appreciated that we explained why we were making certain decisions even if they didn’t like the decision.”

Triple threat 

She cited Worcester’s recent development as an example of state and municipal cooperation, along with private companies.

“Polar Park needed city, state and private working together,” said Polito. "People see that and decide that Worcester might be a good place to invest.”

That investment helped reimagine downtown and the canal district, she said, providing jobs, affordability and entertainment for young people, ensuring that talent attracted by the colleges and universities will stay in the city past graduation.

By the numbers

A sizable portion, about 40%, of the workforce in Massachusetts is tied to the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) industry, said Polito, but there is a lack of equitable opportunity to enter those fields in schools across the state. In her time as chair of the STEM Council, she worked to address this by increasing access to STEM education.

“In a lower income setting, these kids are not going to be able to access the kind of skills and education that they deserve so that they can see themselves in these great jobs and careers that Massachusetts has to offer,” she said.

In supporting STEM education all through school, she especially hopes to keep young girls engaged, through elementary to high school. Polito, who was the 72nd lieutenant governor in Massachusetts and the fourth woman to hold the office, praised the work of the Institute for Women's Leadership at Nichols in gathering and reporting important data regarding women in leadership roles.

“You’re in business school, so you know that numbers don’t lie,” she said, citing statistics saying that women made up 8% CEOs in the state, 33% of the Legislature and 28% of mayors at a municipal level. “And these numbers say that we need to do a lot more work.”

Next steps

When asked about what’s next, Polito said that “after a very full life of public service,” she’s ready to return to the private sector, taking what she has learned and “reinforce in boardrooms the kind of principles I believe make an organization stronger.”

In January, Polito joined the Firefly Advisory Council, where she said she will continue working to improve health care access, quality and affordability using experience from navigating the COVID crisis.

“There is absolutely no secret shortcut to success,” she said. “Opportunities will come if you focus relentlessly on what’s in front of you. Calls will come because people will take notice.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Live without regrets: Polito shares challenges, accomplishments at Nichols