Rick MacDonald’s best description for 2025 is “The Year We All Guessed Wrong.”

The managing director and region manager for J.P. Morgan’s Commercial Banking business in New England told the AIM Economic Outlook that merger and acquisition activity has rebounded, the Fed just lowered interest rates, unemployment has been steady, and the financial markets have surged.

And though employers remain understandably concerned about tariffs, artificial intelligence and rapid changes in government policy, Mr. MacDonald remains optimistic.

“What we know for certain, is the trade paradigm is in flux, technology will continue to innovate, diligent management never goes out of style and healthy companies survive,” he said.

Optimism amid uncertainty was a recurring theme of the Outlook program, which included a discussion moderated by AIM President and CEO Brooke Thomson with MacDonald, state Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler, and Xiomara Albán DeLobato, Vice President and Chief of Staff for the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council (EDC).

AIM also presented the 2025 John Gould Education and Workforce Training Award to Wayne J. Griffin Electric, Inc., of Holliston, for investing in the next generation of skilled professionals – building careers and creating opportunities.

Mr. MacDonald said the J.P. Morgan research team is suggesting a 40 percent chance of recession, down from 60%, and the possibility of three additional rate reductions from the Fed.

The current debate about tariffs reflects a longstanding shift in US trade policy. Mr. MacDonald noted that Congress never ratified the Trans-Pacific Partnership while the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and EU never made it out of negotiations.

“Once a backdrop, GEO-Politics it is now a C-suite issue and front-line driver of the economy, market, and risk. From energy to tech to trade, the old assumptions about stability and predictability are breaking down and resilience is becoming the new premium,” he told the audience.

Secretary Tutwiler said public education faces the same sort of uncertainty that is making the business community cautious. Reductions in funding in personnel – actual, attempted and proposed – leave educators less willing than they would otherwise be to try new initiatives.

“I don’t want to start something with kids and families that I’m going to have to pull back in the middle of,” said Secretary Tutwiler, a former superintendent of the Lynn Public Schools.

He reported that the Healey-Driscoll Administration has convened a high-school graduation council to consider academic and other standards now that voters have decided to do away with the MCAS graduation requirement. The committee is seeking to address what it means to earn a high-school diploma, what students should know and how the commonwealth will know that every student has met the standards.

Ms. DeLobato said public policy chaos manifests itself as shrinking access to capital for the many small companies and manufacturing enterprises in Western Massachusetts. But she also outlined several innovative programs that are allowing people to refine their knowledge and skills without leaving their jobs and income.

“They allow people to really work on career mobility,” she said.