Gary Rabine, a Republican candidate for governor, says he wants to address the skills gap, calling it a “huge problem.”
Gary Rabine, a Republican candidate for governor, says he wants to address the skills gap, calling it a “huge problem.”
Gary Rabine feels it's time Illinois voters operated with a singular vision.
"Democrats and Republicans alike, we need to elect people that want to be servant-minded leaders," Rabine told Public Affairs. "The all-time statesmen that goes into office and says, 'well, I do it for a couple of terms. I'm going back to business; I'm going back to my family, whatever.'"
The Bull Valley businessman intends to run for governor as a Republican, challenging incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker, hoping his message will transcend party politics.
"You go over to the South Side or the West Side, and you're going to see some people say in certain areas 30, 40 percent black unemployment," he said. "It's a huge problem. It's one of our biggest problems in the state of Illinois. And when we abandon a community like we have in the urban environments of Chicago, it's a sin."
Rabine said there's no reason things have to be that way.
"We have an opportunity to be the biggest job creation state in the country," he said. "There's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be the leader in the country when it comes to job creation. Instead, we're dead last. We're losing more jobs than anybody else."
Rabine believes, to some extent, a skills gap exists across the state and the country; he places much of the blame for it on society.
"The skills gap is a huge problem in our state and our country," he said. "I believe that we're telling kids that if they don't go to college, they're losers, right? I mean, I'm a blessed guy. I didn't go to college. I barely made it through high school. But my blessing is that I jumped in the business early on. I became an entrepreneur at a young age and I learned from my mistakes and I learned all about economics."
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