Steven Costantino, left, meets with Al Lubrano and Paula Goldstein, of Technical Materials.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

LINCOLN — As the state grapples with staggering jobless numbers, the committee responsible for resolving the state’s budget crisis boarded a bus yesterday in search of solutions.

Members of the House Finance Committee spent the morning visiting five prospering manufacturing companies around Rhode Island. Their mission: listen to company executives to find out what the legislature can do to promote job creation.

Committee chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, led the whirlwind tour of plants from Meridian Printing, of East Greenwich, to ChemArt, the Lincoln company best known for making the White House Christmas tree ornaments.

The morning ended at Lincoln’s Technical Materials, with a lunchtime discussion of what needs to be done to make Rhode Island more attractive to businesses –– both those that are here and those that consider moving to the state.

“We need your help and you need our help,” Costantino told the executives who sat before him.

The ideas that emerged were as diverse as the companies themselves: create a better incubator environment for new businesses; mandate more efficient permitting processes at the state and local levels; create partnerships between universities and local businesses to cultivate a better job pool; and finally, get out there and recruit companies to come to Rhode Island

Costantino called the companies “secret gems” that have effectively retooled themselves to compete in the 21st-century economy. Technical Materials, for example, is a 40-year-old metals company that now makes computer chips, aircraft parts and even hardware for the Xbox video game systems.

Success stories such as these, Costantino said, must serve as a model for others. “They have to get involved in marketing, in bringing jobs to the state,” he said. “Who better to sell the state than the ones that are here?”

With reports from Journal Staff Writer Timothy C. Barmann

cneedham@projo.com