The following short video of Marlon Brown, director of the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, was one of seven we filmed at the National Academy of Public Administration’s annual conference in Washington D.C. between November 2 and November 4. This year, Brown was among a select group of individuals who were elected to be NAPA fellows.

In this video, Brown provides commentary about three major issues that the state of Michigan is confronting (as are other states) and his thoughts about them.

• “The first,” he says, “is the changing nature of the regulatory environment” and the “general movement to look at ways that we can streamline and make it less challenging for individuals to become licensed in our various jurisdictions.”

  
  

• Second, he focuses on the potential of AI in regulatory professions as well as its potential negatives. He points to the risks of bad actors “spamming or scamming licensees and misrepresenting themselves as (a) government body.”

• Third, Brown highlights the “ongoing challenges of making sure that our public sector workforce reflects the needs of 21^st century governments.” 

This is the fifth of seven videos in this series. The first was with Robert Shea, CEO of GovNavigators and former associate director at the US Office of Management and Budget; the second was with Sue Schwartz, president of the American Planning Association; the third was with Matt Hart, executive director of the Capitol Region Council of Governments in Hartford, Connecticut, and the fourth (posted just before the holidays) was with Graham Knaus, CEO of the California Association of Counties, All of them can be found at the bottom of this page.