Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Lance Hastings

54. Lance Hastings

With 30,000 manufacturers, California has the largest manufacturing sector in the United States. For leadership, those companies and their countless employees look to Lance Hastings, the President and CEO of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, which directly represents 400 businesses from the manufacturing community while also advocating for policies to benefit the sector as a whole. Hastings has had a busy year, what with President Trump imposing tariffs and then not imposing tariffs and then changing tariffs and then saying a tariff deal is done and then a tariff deal not being done and yada, yada, yada. But look, if anyone can help guide the Golden State’s manufacturers through this kind of next-level chaos, it’s Hastings. Before joining CMTA he spent 15 years as Vice President of National Affairs for MillerCoors, and his other previous gigs include a decade as a consultant in the Capitol. So managing chaos is actually his strong suit.

Updated Aug. 26, 2025