PhillyDeals: Adviser to Wolf: It's all about striking a balance

Dan Fitzpatrick, the Northeast Philly native who is Citizens Bank's president and senior business lender for the Mid-Atlantic states and a past chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, is one guy the politicians who run Pennsylvania government don't ignore.

Having advised Gov. Corbett on his transition team, Fitzpatrick has been playing the same role for Gov.-elect Tom Wolf.

"It's always an honor" to be asked for advice by elected officials, Fitzpatrick told me last week after jetting from a health-care investors' conference in San Francisco to Pittsburgh via Philadelphia.

Fitzpatrick knew Wolf from when he used to call on the future governor when Fitzpatrick was a bank business lender and Wolf was running his family's cabinetry business near York.

"He's the same Tom Wolf you saw on the stump, a very thoughtful person," Fitzpatrick said. "He had that academic, measured approach to trying to optimize his cabinetry business.

"He's going to take a very analytical approach as governor of Pennsylvania. It's interesting to see these attributes come through."

The state's business groups "are all hopeful for Gov.-elect Wolf, we're all about finding moderation, on middle grounds," Fitzpatrick said, sounding not at all like some of the partisan elected officials, many of them backed by business, who have forced changes in General Assembly leadership since the election.

"There will always be some differences in policies. But if we're not creating jobs in this state, that's not good for people's incomes, it's not good for anybody," Fitzpatrick said.

"Reasonable people find reasonable compromises. That's what we hope for from Gov. Wolf, from the Republican majorities in the state House and Senate, and from the Democratic [minority] conferences. Some of the best governing has come from coalitions."

Why hope Wolf will be more successful than his predecessor?

"[Wolf] cites the fact that he's a businessman. He understands private industry, and that we need private industry to create jobs," Fitzpatrick said, adding that that happens not by ending government regulation, but by making sure it offers clear rules and incentives.

For example? "[Wolf] is emphatic that the state capitalizes to its fullest on natural resources," Fitzpatrick said. "He talks about how Pennsylvania's timber went somewhere else to make furniture. And he says that now that we have natural gas, we need to make sure it will benefit manufacturing here in the commonwealth and benefit residents for heating costs.

"So he's committed to making sure the infrastructure benefits all citizens. Not just drill the gas and shoot it through a pipeline far away."

The banker is impressed that Wolf asked Drexel University president John Fry to lead his transition effort, noting that Fry had managed to grow his school by reaching beyond state borders for prospects and resources at a time when the supply of Pennsylvania high school seniors was flat. He said of Fry: "There's no better mover and shaker in our state."

As a business group, isn't the chamber a natural low-spending, low-taxes Republican ally?

"That's a little exaggerated," Fitzpatrick said. "When you think of the transportation needs of Pennsylvania, getting the bridges funded, that had to be a completely collaborative effort. You had to cross party lines." That's why business groups urged both parties to come together on a bill.

"It's all about striking a balance," Fitzpatrick said.

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