There must be something in the water in Indiana – at Hanover College, to be exact. The state’s oldest private college may not roll off the tongue like its Ivy League peers, but over the span of two centuries, Hanover has been punching above its weight in terms of alumni and the influence they’ve wielded on the American political landscape.
“I wanted to take Indiana to the world and bring the world back to Indiana.”
For example, attendee Thomas A Hendricks served as the 21st United States Vice President in 1885, while the 48th incumbent of that office, Mike Pence, was President Trump’s right-hand man from 2017–2021. And then there’s Eric Holcomb himself, Governor of Indiana since 2017, who served under Pence before the White House came calling.
Yet his career arc wasn’t meticulously plotted and Holcomb – who served six years active duty in the United States Navy after college – admits he only ended up on the Republican ticket and then the statewide ballot after a fortuitous game of political musical chairs. The substance they’re all sipping at Hanover? The sweet taste of success, clearly.
A mission of change
“This was never a dream,” Holcomb confesses. “It’s a kind of joke in my family because no-one was in government, campaigns or politics of any kind. My parents wonder, where did you come from?”
Holcomb may have been the butt of lighthearted familial humor, but over the past eight years, the dyed-in-the-wool Hoosier has proven that he’s a man to be taken seriously in the political arena.
Armed with a mandate of 51.4 percent of the vote in 2016 – a figure extended to 56.5 percent at the 2020 election, the largest in state history – Holcomb embarked on a mission.
“I wanted to take Indiana to the world and bring the world back to Indiana,” he says.
And that is exactly what Holcomb did, luring unprecedented levels of investment from beyond America’s borders.
“Indiana is a place that goes for it, and has its act together on both sides of the ledger.”
He’s quick to reel off examples: a combined US$1 billion injection by British behemoth Rolls-Royce into an engine-testing facility and a manufacturing plant, both in Indianapolis; and a US$101.7 million contract to build fuselage systems in West Lafayette with Swedish defense and aerospace giant Saab. Significant capital has also flowed from South Korea via chipmaker SK Hynix (US$3.9 billion) and north of the border from Canadian Solar (US$800 million), among a long list of other investors.
Holcomb also paved the way for Indiana’s first-ever direct transatlantic flight from Indianapolis to France. There will be no gasps of surprise, then, that in 2023, Forbes recognized Indiana as the best American state in which to start a business.
“It’s because we were out hustling,” Holcomb says of his overseas wins. “We were out working. We were listening to what the private sector needed. Indiana is a place that goes for it and has its act together on both sides of the ledger.”
Building infrastructure
The Holcomb hustle also bore fruit domestically in the form of a new US$1.4 billion correctional facility; a new campus to co-locate the Indiana School for the Deaf and the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired; new state police posts and labs; and firefighting centers – all of it paid for with unborrowed cash.
And he remains proud of pre-existing infrastructure and private enterprises, notably the storied, three-hotel French Lick Resort, with its various golf, spa and casino draws.
The apple of his eye, though, remains the READI program, an initiative designed to accelerate development from a distinctly regional perspective, merging long-term strategies with short-term tactical steps to realize his vision.
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“Good money follows good money,” Holcomb says. “And so we started to think about everything that way. How do we get government, academia, the corporate sector and philanthropy at the same table, no matter where they are in the state, no matter what ecosystem we’re talking about – education, health, infrastructure. How are we going to get buy-in from all four? And that has tended to yield off-the-charts dividends.”
Indeed, the READI scheme leveraged US$1 billion in state dollars to create US$22 billion of additional investment. Given Holcomb’s stellar record, it’s almost tempting to feel sorry for his successor, Mike Braun, who officially took hold of the state tiller in January.
“It’s a beautiful state, people are welcoming and there’s a lot of innovation going on.”
But the outgoing Governor has left Indiana in good health – from a record-high labor force of around 3.45 million (as of December 2024) to sizable investments in education, including a US$1.47 billion increase in K–12 tuition support.
“There’s a huge opportunity to grow here,” Holcomb insists. “It’s a beautiful state, people are welcoming and there’s a lot of innovation going on. It’s an exciting time right now. The stars have aligned – fly over Indiana at your peril.”
And watch out for that water. It could lead to great things.
