While I am honored to have received sufficient votes to make it to a runoff, Saturday’s results clearly weren’t what I had hoped for.

I believe my campaign could have made a runoff election a robust competition, but I have concluded that going forward would not be in the best interests of Austin. It would have required an unprecedented fundraising effort that, in this economy, would have put an additional burden on my supporters. The cost of the election itself would have been expensive to taxpayers. And a runoff campaign likely would have become negative – which would have distracted the community from unifying around the ideas that formed the core of my campaign, and which ultimately became the consensus among the candidates in this election.

So, I’m writing to let my friends and supporters know that I have decided to withdraw from the runoff election for Austin mayor. We are coordinating an early afternoon press conference at City Hall in cooperation with Lee Leffingwell’s campaign team. I hope you can attend.

I offer my sincere congratulations to Lee and his team. I spoke with Lee this morning, wished him my best, and offered my assistance as he leads Austin through a difficult and historic period in our city’s history.

This campaign will end today, but my commitment to Austin’s future will not. My mentor and role model Pike Powers led Austin through the MCC and Sematech efforts that rebuilt our economy – and he did that after he had left elected politics. George Kozmetsky, whose vision and ideas deeply influenced my own, changed Austin’s future as a civically committed professor at the University of Texas.

I believe Austin has a unique generational opportunity to lead in tomorrow’s economy – in clean energy, biotech and the creative economy – and the examples set by Pike, Dr. Kozmetzsky and countless other Austinites remind me that there are many paths to making a difference in our community.

I’m also looking forward to the opportunities that emerge from disappointments – in particular to teaching my son how to play baseball and returning to writing fiction.

I am eternally grateful to the many supporters from across Austin who propelled this campaign. There are too many to list here, but I owe special words of thanks to Martha Smiley, my campaign treasurer, Heather Beckel, my campaign manager; my campaign staff – Colin Rowan, Celinda Provost, Jeff Brooks, Elise Flick, Sam McCabe, Jordon Hattery and Drew Johnston, my great council staff – Rossana Barrios, Rachel Proctor May and Mary Lou Rodriguez, as well as special friends like Austin Adams, JJ Baskin, Tim League and Jason Stanford. Together, we ran a campaign of ideas, and I’m proud of it regardless of the outcome.

And finally, and most importantly, thank you to my family. My son Ford is going to be very happy to have me home at normal hours for guitar playing and heated Chutes and Ladders and Go Fish battles. And I’m looking forward to quiet time my wife Sarah, who married me just months before this chaos began, who encouraged me throughout this journey and with whom I am looking forward to a lifetime of adventures.

In the weeks and months ahead, I urge everyone who supported my candidacy to push our ideas forward. Our ideas will be heard and addressed if we hold fast to what we believe Austin needs. And I truly believe our ideas will help Austin emerge from these tough times stronger than we were before.

Thanks again for your support,

Brewster

I have laid out the seven steps to securing Austin’s economic future. These are the steps that Austin used in the Sematech era and which we must use to achieve leadership in each of these emerging sectors.

The steps Austin should employ to grow the city’s economy include:

1. Recruit new companies and retain existing companies. This includes use of tax incentives and proactive recruitment of major employers.
2. Commercialize university technology. The city and UT jointly fund technology incubators in bioscience, clean energy and wireless. The companies that emerge from these incubators are statistically overwhelmingly likely to remain in Austin.
3. Create research and development consortia. Examples include Sematech and MCC. This is what Austin, UT, Sematech and the Environmental Defense Fund are currently doing in clean energy through the Pecan Street Project.
4. Create infrastructure for innovation – such as research and development labs, wet labs and research parks. Examples include Sematech and the potential Austin/UT/Sematech energy lab through the Pecan Street Project. National examples include Stanford Research Park and the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).
5. Build a local market. Economist Jon Hockenyos observes that creating a local market is increasingly important to building a successful economic sector. This is particularly true in clean energy, where cities, states and public utilities can promote job creation through purchases of solar, wind and energy storage. New Mexico has catapulted itself into a national solar energy leader by aggressively implementing such a strategy.
6. Empower people to achieve through job training - just as Austin did in the SEMATECH era with the Austin Project and that Temple, TX is doing now in biotech. Such initiatives are critical to ensuring that the entire community shares in the opportunities.
7. Practice unity and “intense cooperation.” Unity was a key factor in Austin winning MCC and SEMATECH against far more established rivals. The city’s business, university and political leadership pulled together in a display of “intense cooperation” (as a University of Texas analysis later described it).

For clean energy, specific steps include:

• Implement the Pecan Street Project’s recommendations (announced August 1) to make Austin a leader in clean energy innovation, to create thousands of jobs for people of all skill levels and to cost effectively install solar on 100,000 homes and businesses by the end of the next decade;
• Recruit major battery and energy storage employers to position Austin for leadership in energy storage;
• Create clean energy manufacturing jobs by forming a regional clean energy partnership with San Antonio that would leverage the two cities’ combined regional purchasing powers to bring new solar and battery manufacturing jobs and protect existing semiconductor manufacturing jobs (this is the approach New Mexico already uses – which helped it lure Solar Array Ventures away from Austin); and
• Pursue federal stimulus funding, as the city, UT and Sematech are currently pursuing, to implement the Pecan Street Project’s smart grid innovations.

For biotech, life sciences and healthcare, specific steps include:

• Recruiting major biotech, life sciences and medical devices employers, including offering tax incentives,
• Expanding the city’s partnership with UT to commercialize medical research at the jointly funded Bioscience Incubator,
• Repurposing semiconductor facilities through targeted tax incentives, federal research funding and business recruitment. Opportunities include facilities for microfluidics and nanomedicine production. Converting closed semiconductor fabs into biotech manufacturing facilities is critical to creating new opportunities for existing semiconductor employees;
• Creating infrastructure for success. Sematech’s biotech success shows how superior semiconductor research and development facilities can attract researchers and innovators. But Austin lacks other critical infrastructure needed to establish a world-class biotech sector. Local biotech companies are traveling outside of Austin to find wet lab space.  To attract research, companies and jobs, Austin will need wet labs and clean rooms. Our region will also need research parks similar to Stanford Research Park and the facilities along Boston’s Route 128. The envisioned TXAN State Lab would be an important asset to achieve this vision; and
• Positioning Austin as a major medical technology and manufacturing center through recruiting and branding. The Milken Institute already ranks Austin as the nation’s 12th largest biotech cluster, but few people locally or nationally realized this, which hinders recruiting.

For the creative economy sectors, specific steps include:

• Starting with a vision of independent film, independent music and 3-D animation leadership in digital media (Dell, Pixar and Dreamworks all identify 3-D as the greatest digital media opportunity, and U.T.’s Advanced Computing Center is a major research leader in 3-D graphics and computing);
• Creating infrastructure for innovation. The upgrades to Austin Studios are an important start. A Creative Economy Incubator modeled on the Sundance Institute’s incubators for independent filmmakers would build on these new cutting edge facilities to create a vibrant creative economy ecosystem. Finally, Austin filmmaker Zane Rutledge writes that Austin’s film sector needs more post-production facilities, which would make a big difference in having film production locate in Austin;
• Recruiting new jobs and retaining existing companies. The loss of our local film talent to Shreveport shows what happens when your existing jobs move away. We will need elected leaders to personally recruit creative economy employers.  We will need expanded incentives to recruit films and TV series. We will need to recruit video game and music publishers and firms with expertise in digital media distribution to empower local creative artists.
• Empowering people through job training. Austin filmmaker Juan Garcia writes, “Austin can create more opportunities in film/digital media by focusing funding efforts and research into new and emergent media technology in both the K-12 and college levels. A solid educational foundation in media literacy is the key to producing more creative/high tech jobs in Central Texas.”
• Creating performance, production and recording space for creative artists, through potential redevelopment of the city-owned surface parking lot where the Armadillo World Headquarters used to be located and through creation of performance and recording spaces in new city-owned parking garages built by the Austin Parking Enterprise.

From my real estate point of view, Brewster McCracken is the best for Mayor of Austin. He understands that attitude influences the market and market values more than anything. If Austin is not at the forefront of exciting things, then we will be like many other cities and suffer those consequences. I have checked out the facts about the vibrant city of 1904 St. Louis that Brewster has talked about to some notoriety. It is vital we use the ‘Austin Model’ to keep Austin being Austin and a destination for businesses and people.

We will benefit from a visionary leader like Brewster McCracken and I encourage all to support him in whatever way they can.

You can find out more for yourself at www.BrewsterMcCracken.com. Please vote if you are in Austin and tell your Austin friends to vote too.

Thank you,
John Rosshirt
Stanberry & Associates, Co-Owner
Texas Association of REALTORS, Director
Texas Foundation for Innovative Communities, (Texas Clean Energy Park), Advisory Director.

“All across the country, cities are competing to be the place where the next generation of clean energy innovations and job creation take hold,” McCracken said.  “I believe now is the time for Austin to pursue jobs and leadership in this important and promising industry. Austin is in a position to be the clean energy capital of the nation, but it will take leadership and vision for us to pursue this ambitious goal.”

“There’s a reason why virtually every clean energy leader who has endorsed in this election is supporting Brewster,” said Paul Ballentine, a former semiconductor employee, a Pecan Street Project team member and co-founder of the Solar Energy Entrepreneurs Network.  “We have worked with Brewster. We know he is innovative, proactive and effective. Brewster’s efforts have already opened up economic opportunities in a wide range of clean energy technologies and businesses, including renewable energy, storage, electric vehicles, and energy efficiency.”

“Standing still and filling potholes or shaking an angry fist at City Hall won’t turn Austin into a clean energy job creator,” McCracken said.  “Vision and leadership will. Austin’s clean energy community is supporting my campaign because they know me and what I have done to make Austin a clean energy leader. They also know Austin can’t afford a caretaker mayor at this critical juncture. Austin will fall behind other competing cities if we hunker down in a bunker for three years or simply long for the good old days.”

“None of my opponents have a single clean energy project on their resume,” McCracken said.  “None of them have been working with clean energy entrepreneurs or investors. None of them have won the support of the entrepreneurs that will create these jobs. And none of them believe that we actually have to go after this to make it happen.”

Less than a year ago, McCracken initiated the Pecan Street Project with colleagues from The University of Texas, the Chamber, Austin Energy and the city.  He recruited the Environmental Defense Fund to spearhead the project’s first phase, which is due for completion in August.  Since its launch, the Pecan Street Project has attracted cooperation from some of the country’s best energy and technology companies, including SEMATECH, Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Gridpoint, GE Energy, Applied Materials, Freescale and others and is now recognized as one of the country’s most advanced clean energy partnerships.

“The Pecan Street Project is the nation’s most significant clean energy research and development partnership,” said University of Texas professor Michael Webber. “It truly has the potential to make Austin the global center for innovation in clean energy, and we need to acknowledge that it’s happening because of Brewster McCracken’s leadership.”

“I was part of the original seven-person Pecan Street Project team that began work in the spring of 2008,” Webber continued. “Brewster brought us together, chaired each meeting, and led the development of the vision. He built consensus, sought advice, and he personally recruited the Environmental Defense Fund to lead the project. I think it’s important to recognize good political leadership when it happens, and that’s Brewster McCracken. He did it the right way. That’s why so many of us in the cleantech community are supporting Brewster.”

“The Pecan Street Project has already catapulted Austin to the forefront of cities working on smart grid projects,” McCracken said.  “We are working on complicated technology challenges that other cities haven’t even thought about yet.  We are competing for stimulus dollars other cities don’t know exist.  If Austin is to take advantage of this massive head start, its mayor needs to understand what’s at stake and what it will take to succeed.”

McCracken laid out a specific four-point plan to make Austin a national clean energy jobs and innovation leader:

·         Implement the Pecan Street Project’s recommendations (to be announced in August) to research and develop the nation’s most advanced smart grid Energy Internet and to implement this system to cost effectively install solar on 100,000 homes and businesses in Austin by 2020;

·         Recruit major battery and energy storage employers to position Austin for leadership in energy storage;

·         Create clean energy manufacturing jobs by forming a regional clean energy partnership with San Antonio that would leverage the two cities’ combined regional purchasing powers to bring new solar and battery manufacturing jobs and protect existing semiconductor manufacturing jobs (this is the approach New Mexico already uses – which helped it lure Solar Array Ventures away from Austin); and

·         Pursue federal stimulus funding, as the city, UT and SEMATECH are currently pursuing, to implement the Pecan Street Project’s smart grid innovations.

“My four-point clean energy plan will protect existing semiconductor jobs and create thousands of new clean energy jobs right here in Austin,” McCracken said. “It will also ensure that Austin’s famous innovation leads the way to providing cleaner, safer and reliable electricity for the entire country.”

Following is a partial list of clean energy advocates, entrepreneurs, investors and employees that have endorsed McCracken’s candidacy.

Lew Aldridge

Greg Anderson

Tarik Aossey

Paul Ballentine

Lucien Banton

Patrick Basinski

Michael Bates

James Beasley

Jose Beceiro

Mark Begert

Andrew Berry

Jay Boisseau

Andy Bowman

Meg Brown

Sam Brown

Michael Brozgul

Scott Burton

Steve Calkins

John Ross Chromer

Bob Cocke

Fred Cohagen

Jerry Converse

Cree Crawford

Charley Dean

Dick Deininger

Shalou Dhamija

Kelli Dillon

Clifton Dukes

Joyce Dugar

Drew Dutton

Nick Fox

Harvey Frye

Roland Galang

Al Garcia

Gustavo Garza

Michelle Greer

Jenice Gutierrez

Iga Hallberg

Linda Haas

Lenae Hart-Shirley

Chris Herbert

Heath Hignight

Dan Holladay

Chris Hughes

Godfrey Huguley

William Hulsey

Marcia Inger

Richard Jung

Steve Kanetzky

Dan Keelan

Susan Kelly

Loren Kirkpatrick

Bob King

Patrick Kronfli

Kevin Koym

Michael Kuhn

Kevin Lally

Jonas Lamis

Greg LeRoy

Patrick Lockerman

Blake Manson

Christi Marrufo

Casey Marshall

Nash Martinez

Barry Mayer

Frank McCamant

Rob McPherson

John Merritt

Jeremy Meyers

Mica Odom

Amanda Ogden

Thomas Ortman

Bill Ott

Jeff Otto

Craig Overmiller

Justin Pajer

Tuan Pham

John Pitts, Jr.

Pike Powers

Melissa Rabeaux

Mark Rangel

Shannon Ratliff

Alvin Richter

Eva Richter

John Rosshirt

Rebecca Sanders

Shanda Sansing

Tony Saxton

Victor Sauers

Chris Searles

Dave Shaw

Donna Cates Sphar

BJ Stanbery

Geoff Stasio

Joe Strathmann

Richard Stovall

Bill Stueve

Jay Taylor

Steve Taylor

Noralinda Ureste

Tom Vogt

Bert Wank

Michael Webber

Mike Weinning

Steve Wiese

Peter Zandan

McCracken is the best candidate to help Austin weather the current economic crisis. He is focused on finding new industries and new jobs to keep the city strong and moving forward. (Read Story)