Wisconsin Candidate For Governor David Crowley on His Vision for Tech and Innovation.
He believes tech starts somewhere other than where we tend to recognize.
NOTE: This article is not an endorsement for David Crowley. The purpose was to have a conversation about his vision for technology and innovation for the state. I have asked all eight Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates to join me on this platform for the same conversation and coverage. Five have responded.
The full audio of my conversation with David can be found at the end of this article.
David’s Quick Bio:
First elected office was as Wisconsin State Representative.
Has been Milwaukee County Executive since 2020.
Grew up in the 53206 neighborhood, attended Bay View High School, and earned his bachelor’s degree from UW–Milwaukee while serving in office.
“It is very difficult for people to buy into an idea or initiative when it’s just being thrown at them.”
The first time I met David Crowley was on a softball field. The game, part of the Healthy County Challenge for that year, brought together a number of notable Milwaukeeans who were assigned to one of two teams.
I was not on David’s team.
In fact, for my first at bat, David was pitching. He threw the ball. I smashed it. A blazing line drive right at him.
Without flinching, he raised his glove and calmly made the catch.
In my interview with him last week, I got a lot of that same calmness while I threw questions his way. As I kept asking about tech, David would bring the focus back to the basics: housing, public schools, childcare, healthcare, and transit.
Why do these basic things matter so much in a conversation about tech?
It’s not just important to the success of Wisconsin, it’s also personal for David, as you can listen to here.
For David, the conversation about tech and innovation starts much earlier than people like me see as clearly as people like him. It starts with whether people have the stability, support, and opportunity to imagine a future here at all.
“I’m an organizer at heart who happens to be an elected official.”
David went on to explain what he sees as his superpower: not having every answer himself, but bringing the right people together to help shape the roadmap.
He talked about ownership, collaboration, and the need to involve communities, institutions, and private-sector partners early, not just present them with decisions after the fact. It’s how he thinks governing should work.
It brought me back to that day on the baseball field.
Before the game started, David gathered everyone symbolically around home plate. He looked everyone in the eye and thanked us for our commitment to the community, why this day mattered to him, and his vision for making the community even stronger. It was real, honest, and vulnerable.
So what is David’s position on and vision for tech for Wisconsin?
David shared a lot. Through it all, it was clear that his view on tech is that it can’t be treated as a separate item from the rest of Wisconsin’s economy. He sees larger, legacy companies as anchors who have the capital, networks, supply chains, and ideas that can help launch the next generation of startups. Especially if the state gets better at helping these new ideas spin out of those businesses and connect to real opportunities.
David also said that, today, Wisconsin does not do enough to help young companies sustain themselves. That the need for more early-stage capital and more intentional support in the first few years of growth is real and something needing to be addressed. Though he and I didn’t dive deeper into the how, and I couldn’t find any details in his recently released Badger Basics plan, his passion for economic health was clearly felt.
Whatever you take from David’s vision, one thing is certain: he sees that the way to scale tech and innovation in the state is directly correlated to whether Wisconsin becomes a place where more people can afford to stay, build, and grow.
After all, what does something like tech matter in a city or state where people aren’t interested in sticking around?
For more on what David and I talked about, you can listen to the entire conversation here:
Experience Milwaukee is sponsored by Concurrency and Secure Compliance Solutions.