News

Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Lance Hastings

Lance Hastings. Illustration by Chris Shary

47. Lance Hastings

There are over 35,000 manufacturing firms employing a total of 1.2 million people in California. Many of them look to the California Manufacturers & Technology Association and its CEO and President Lance Hastings to advocate for them in the Capitol, pushing an agenda that revolves around tax incentives, apprenticeship programs, and pro-growth proposals. That makes the CMTA popular with both Republicans and pro-business Dems, i.e. the so-called “Mods.” In recent years, Hastings has pivoted the CMTA to more visual and digital storytelling, sharing positive messaging about the role of manufacturing in a state that is trying to implement major changes in how it builds, well, everything. If California is going to meet its ambitious emissions goals, manufacturing is going to have to play a major role in getting there, which means Hastings will too. Before he went to CMTA, Hastings, a graduate of Sacramento State, was a vice president for national affairs for MillerCoors and worked in the U.K. for SABMiller.

Updated Aug. 15, 2023

Want to see more stories like this? Sign up for The Roundup, the free daily newsletter about California politics from the editors of Capitol Weekly. Stay up to date on the news you need to know.

Sign up below, then look for a confirmation email in your inbox.

 

Support for Capitol Weekly is Provided by: