Gov. Charlie Baker arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Friday, marking his first overseas trade mission since taking office.
The governor and some of his top economic personnel are visiting Israel with over 40 local business and education leaders, all with the goal of strengthening economic ties.
David Goodtree, global venture partner for crowdfunding firm OurCrowd and board member of the New England-Israel Business Council, is with Baker on the trip and told WGBH News Israeli that executives pay an inestimable amount of attention to American governors when they visit.
“We scheduled meetings around here, and there are about 30 meetings on the itinerary in total,” Goodtree said. “The doors are open when a governor comes.”
The trip will leverage Massachusetts’s “unique and innovative economic climate to welcome Israel’s global leadership in cybersecurity and digital health” to the state, Baker’s office said in a statement.
Baker’s administration partnered with the New England Israel Business Council and Combined Jewish Philanthropies to fund the tour. The governor’s office is not using taxpayer dollars for the trip, it said.
Last year, over 200 Israeli-founded businesses headquartered in Boston brought in over $9 billion in revenue, according to a study by the global consulting firm Stax. That’s almost four percent of the state’s total gross domestic product, the study found.
Most of the companies doing business here are in technology or Life Sciences. This trip will focus on cyber security and health innovation, Baker’s office said.
The governor is taking some of his health and economic development staff with him, including Health Connector director Louis Gutierrez, information technology director Mark Nunnelly, and tech and entrepreneurship chief Katie Stebbins.
Gov. Deval Patrick forged tight business connections with Israel while in office from 2007 to 2015 and traveled to the country twice, once in 2011 and again in 2014. Patrick took business trips much more often than Baker has — a practice that drew criticism from Patrick’s political opponents, who considered the the trips unnecessary.
That didn’t stop state Democrats from sounding the same alarm and attaching this week’s Israel mission to a political issue back home. State Democratic chair Gus Bickford fired off a press release Thursday after Baker made $98 million in budget cuts, mostly to health and social service programs he opposes, with very little explanation.
“Instead of jetting out of state, Governor Baker needs to stay home and explain to the people of Massachusetts how they’ll make up for his millions of dollars in cuts to programs and services that our state’s families and businesses depend on,” Bickford wrote in the email. “We need a governor that is willing to embrace and build up all of Massachusetts.”
At a press conference Thursday, Baker was unfazed by the criticism from Bickford.
“Partisan politics is a funny business, don’t you think?” Baker said, according to the State House News Service.
